Dr. Karen E. Bohlin is the director of the Practical Wisdom Project at the Abigail Adams Institute and a Research Affiliate with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.

With three decades of leadership and teaching experience at both the secondary and university level, Dr. Bohlin is a highly sought after speaker and consultant, who has worked with thousands of educational leaders from around the world.

Author and co-author of numerous publications Dr. Bohlin coaches school leaders and their teams. She offers tailored online and in person continuous professional development in education for flourishing as the schooling of desire; practical wisdom for agile leadership; courageous dialogue at work; and awakening the moral imagination through the arts.

A guest on numerous podcasts, including National Public Radio's Merrow Report and CBS's Early Show, Dr. Bohlin has also been interviewed for Parents Magazine, US News and World Report, Reader's Digest, New York Times, Boston Globe, Newsweek, and Ladies Home Journal.

Karen delivered the session live on 18th March 2025.

School leaders are confronted with stress tests daily: Fires to put out, unanticipated student, parent and staff needs, conflicts and problems to resolve, challenges to their mission. Do you know what to do, when you don’t know what to do? 

In the webinar, Karen introduced a proven leadership compass, a simple but powerful tool to help leaders navigate the inevitable stress tests with grace and purpose. She shared the Practical Wisdom Framework (PWF)™ - a shared approach to wise decision-making that activates three leadership dispositions key to prudential judgment and action. She went on to discuss the 4 Rs at the heart of the PWF, simple but powerful practices that bring out the best in leaders, teams, and the school communities they serve.  Finally she asked participants to explore one application of the PWF in their own work, to build more trust, inspire shared leadership and promote greater unity within their school communities.

If you attended the webinar, we can share with you the paper Karen referred to in her presentation and summary video - The Practical Wisdom Framework: A Compass for School Leaders. Please contact edspll@educationscotland.gov.scot using ‘Karen Bohlin’ in the subject line, and confirming that you were in attendance on 18th March.

You can use the short video to open a dialogue with a small group of colleagues about how we communicate with and engage each other, and learners, at work. This should connect to work already ongoing, or planned, about ‘practical wisdom’ at work; be clear on your purpose in sharing the video. What do you want to achieve by showing it and how will you agree actions, for example? You may want to explore some of Karen’s resources in the section above with colleagues first.

Before sharing this video with others as part of their professional learning, watch it yourself to ensure you know the key messages. You might also want wish to familiarise yourself with some of the additional resources listed below and perhaps pick out one or two that are useful to signpost.

It is important to consider how best to ensure a safe space for sharing and reflecting on the areas Karen covers in the video. You should agree ways of working with the group beforehand so everyone knows the behaviours that are expected, e.g., attentive listening, respectful comments, inclusive practice and language. These ‘ground rules’ should be generated by the group and recorded where they can be seen and referred to if needed.

It will be important to be able to signpost sources of local and national support for anyone who may be experiencing burnout at work, or who recognises it in others who are struggling. These could be helpline numbers, national organisations’ websites or local authority sources.

You could use a few of the following prompts to facilitate professional dialogue in pairs or small groups, or perhaps private reflections and note making where the questions feel more personal.

• What most resonated with you from Karen’s work? Why?
• What might it mean for you and your practice?
• What is /isn’t within your control at work? How might being more aware of this influence your interactions?
• What does ‘practical wisdom’ look like in your setting?
• What conditions exist in your setting that support the 4 Rs (recognise, recalibrate, reflect and respond)?
• Is there more we could do to strengthen those conditions?
• Are we all thriving at work? If yes, what is supporting that? If not, what can we do differently?
• Do we thank each other enough?
• Do we know where to go if we need help or recognise that one of our colleagues may need help?

Encourage the group to identify a small number of manageable, collective actions that will contribute to wellbeing at work. You might ask the group to note down an individual action that they will commit to, that you can revisit at a later date.

'Dear Colleagues,

For more context, tools, resources and impact reports on what I shared about navigating daily challenges with practical wisdom and specifically, the Practical Wisdom Framework™ (PWF), please see:

Journal of Moral Education article, The Practical Wisdom Framework: A Compass for School Leadership

The Four Rs Protocol of the Practical Wisdom Framework™ a tool to help you prepare for difficult meetings, conversations or challenges that require collective wisdom.

The Practical Wisdom for Agile Leadership Executive Education Program continuous professional development opportunity

How to Help Students Be the Best Version of Themselves a blogpost highlighting how to use the Practical Wisdom Framework™ with students

And a host of related publications and professional development and teaching resources that promote practical wisdom, resilience and character strengths within the classroom and across the curriculum, including The Courageous Dialogue Toolkit, Stress Tests of Character and Teaching Character Education Through Literature: Awakening the Moral Imagination in Secondary Classrooms.

If you have any questions, or you would like to explore a follow up engagement please reach out via my website https://www.karenbohlin.com/

All my best,

Karen.’

‘Inspiring and reassuring that kindness matters most’

‘It was a very informative session. It has inspired me to access the website to find further information’

‘Inspirational :)’

‘Very interesting, clear guidance and tools given which can support me, everything was relevant’

‘Opportunity to pause and reflect while considering my ability to recognise my first reactions and then responses to tricky situations’

‘I learned a great deal about Practical Wisdom, which I had not heard of until attending the webinar. I thought that the framework made absolute sense and supports the understanding and development of skills within the practice of Practical Wisdom’

‘Good communication, pace and content’

‘The tools given are very useful’

‘I will definitely look at this for my own practice and with my team to help in challenging situations’

Most valuable was ‘hearing Dr Bohlin speak with passion about her subject’