Rehumanizing Supervision and Evaluation recognizes a simple but urgent truth: in a profession built on relationships, educational supervision has too often become transactional, compliance-driven, and disconnected from the human elements of teaching and learning.
Through a storied and research-driven approach, this book proposes the foundation of educator love languages as a basis for evaluation, helping school leaders identify and speak each educator’s professional love language, transforming evaluation from a checklist into a conversation rooted in trust, dignity, and growth. Readers will uncover the five educator love languages, learn how educators interpret feedback differently, and discover how to communicate in ways that are intrinsically motivating. Reflection questions and dialogue starters make the framework immediately usable for practicing administrators while helping aspiring leaders develop a deeply human leadership philosophy.
Not another dull coaching text on how to give feedback or conduct evaluations, this is a love letter and roadmap for restoring the human aspects of school leadership, helping leaders support inspired and effective teaching and learning in their schools.
Table of Contents:
1. A school leadership metaphor: The little gold couch 2. The tender edges of theory: Making space for human connection through educator love languages 3. Witness: School leadership grounded in the evidence of seeing 4. Sanctuary: School leadership as a form of refuge 5. Presence: Leading with undivided attention in schools 6. Ignition: School leadership and the spark of professional passion 7. Kinship: Leading schools through the educator love language of “with” 8. Love in action: A leadership tribute 9. From intuition to inquiry: Identifying educator love languages 10. An invocation
About the Author :
Dr. Sonja M. Gedde is an educator, school leader, and affiliate professor committed to centering humanity in educational leadership. Drawing on her experience across K–graduate education, her work explores identity and pedagogy in learning contexts. She is an international speaker, TEDx presenter, and examines teaching and learning as lived, relational work at @theprincipledoffice and at www.theprincipledoffice.com.
Review :
"Every school leader needs this book! As an educator with over 30 years of experience and the principal of the number one ranked elementary school in Wisconsin, I was thrilled with every chapter. Dr. Gedde pushed me to reflect on my work and to reconnect with the most important part of being a principal--leading with my heart."
-Rita Platt, Principal, St. Croix Elementary School, St. Croix, Wisconsin, USA
"Dr. Gedde shifts the administrator’s role from systems manager to culture curator. Arguing that leadership is inherently relational, not transactional, it offers a framework to name, measure, and teach the relational skills necessary for flourishing. This book is a masterpiece treating school leadership as an art."
-Dr. Julie Chaplain, Assistant Superintendent, Poudre School District, Fort Collins, Colorda, USA
"This is a beautifully written and reflective work, reframing educational leadership as a profoundly human endeavor grounded in care and intentional relationship-building. It invites all school leaders to move beyond transactional supervision and instead lead with empathy, courage and love without sacrificing rigor or accountability."
-Erika Pierce, Principal, Stockdale High School, Bakersfield, California, USA
