Working With Schools
Forward-leaning educators face three really big questions if they hope to maintain relevancy for their schools in the future; I help them ask and answer these questions:
- Why should schools change? For many, that train has left the station, but some school communities still need to make the case.
- What will that change look like? For many, it is a transformed, student-centered “deeper learning” system that replaces a very outdated, Industrial Age, teacher-centric system.
- How will we make the change? We know how good organizations make successful transformation. We have to adapt this knowledge and culture for the unique real-world conditions of schools.
When I work with school stakeholders, I tailor our work to a specific point on the innovation arc for each school or district, using a series of fast-paced, design thinking-based activities to help school teams:
- Imagine futures that may look very different than the past.
- Build a capacity and comfort with ongoing change
- Develop an inclusive vision that represents the unique dreams and aspirations of their entire school community.
- Align their precious resources—people, time, money, space, and knowledge—with their unique vision in a sustainable system of action plans.
- Question the legacy assumptions that drive strategic plans and budgets.
- Bust the silos that have separated us as educator-leaders in the past.
- Connect to the rapidly expanding global neural network of knowledge creation and sharing.
- Learn to embrace risk rather than fearing it
Here is what it looks like when I work with school teams:
Working With Schools
About Grant
Grant Lichtman is an internationally-recognized thought leader on the transformation of K-12 education. He works with school teams to develop a comfort and capacity for change in a rapidly changing world. For almost 15 years, Grant was a trustee and senior administrator at one of the largest independent schools in the United States. Since 2012, Grant has visited nearly 250 schools and districts, published four books, written numerous articles, and worked with thousands of school and community stakeholders to develop unique and powerful visions and strategies for transforming education away from the Industrial Age and towards future-focused models of deeper learning.
Grant is the author of four books: Thrive: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution; Moving the Rock: Seven Levers WE Can Press to Transform Education; #EdJourney: A Roadmap for the Future of Education; and The Falconer: What We Wish We Had Learned in School.
Before working in education, Grant directed business ventures in the oil and gas industry in the former Soviet Union, South America, and the U.S. Gulf Coast. Grant graduated from Stanford University with a BS and MS in geology in 1980 and studied the deep ocean basins of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Bering Sea. Grant and his wife, Julie, live in Poway, 20 miles north of downtown San Diego.
