Our schools are built around a quantum packet, a "box", formed with rigid sides that assume learning takes place in a confined physical space, during a defined period of time, along subject-based thought lines, via the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to a group of students. The boxes move along an assembly line calibrated [...]
How do you as an individual, your school as an organization, and the group of all schools and educators as a system increase the odds of successful innovation? Consider 100 pollywogs, each in 100 different small ponds; that is 10,000 pollywogs. Will they evolve? Probably, given enough time and a sustained ecosystem of resource supply, [...]
What is the future of libraries at schools? Does the word "library", rooted as it is in the concept of books as the primary transactional medium of knowledge, limit our imagination? Rather than a space where we store books and study quietly, might we evolve a place to imagine, dream, create, manage, and share knowledge across [...]
If I had to pick a single piece of advice for school leaders it would be this: if you keep asking questions rooted in your past you are never going to get to your future. Bless the hearts and minds of those who have come before, but so much advice given to schools rests on [...]
Schools are increasingly understanding the need to have an in-house innovation leader; leaving the job of promoting innovative practices up to the site CEO means innovation always gets stuck behind the daily obstacles of keeping the school lights on. Over the last year or so, I have had a number of calls, particularly from independent schools: [...]
The 1884 novella Flatland explores the perspective, movements, and relationships of human-like creatures who might inhabit worlds with different numbers of dimensions. It is the stuff of social satire and science fiction, what often provoke us to radical or disruptive thinking. What if the universe in which we live is actually very different from the one we perceive [...]
Have we crossed a tipping point towards the death of the American Dream? It is a sad, perhaps even horrifying thought to those whose historical window largely spans the last 75 years, or perhaps sees the genesis of that Dream in the almost miraculous prescience of the founding American generation of the late 18th century. The latest book [...]
Many schools are thinking about the function of a library. Some are focusing on changing the library to an innovation lab or makerspace or combination of those. Before rushing to this REALLY big, expensive decision, schools should think deeply about what purpose libraries have served in the past, and how those functions will manifest in [...]
Does your school mission challenge you to meet the needs of the individual child? Do you, like most educators in K-12, want to expand the degree to which students are allowed to make choices, to own a greater portion of their learning? Do you recognize that early start days, particularly for teenaged students are detrimental [...]
I recently received an RFP from an outstanding school that wants to truly engage their community in meaningful change. They are looking for a consultant to help on the work, and in discussing my thoughts with a colleague, she suggested I redact my response and post it for general interest. Here it is: First [...]