During my visits to sites this week, I heard many teachers talk to me about their ideas to innovate. Each conversation was driven by a passionate energy to maximize student-centered learning. Everyone buys in to continuous improvement. We all want to get a little bit better than we were the day before. But...true innovation, engaging in something completely different to help move achievement, move engagement, move the entire system forward, isn't always welcomed with open arms.
So what is the culture of your school? What is your assumed way of doing things and why?
Each of our students deserves innovative teaching and learning. Each student deserves to have choice and voice. Each teacher should feel empowered to design a learning platform that at the core drives personalized learning. As we begin to build our district data dashboard and become more comfortable with using data to drive our decisions, it is the reality that our achievement and growth data for all students is not where they need to be performing. Our achievement gaps will remain permanent until we individualize the learning experience for students.
To the innovators who come forward with ideas about how to "do school differently"... I would ask you, what are you waiting for?
Check out https://twitter.com/hashtag/whatisschool ( #whatisschool ) for their weekly Twitter chat (Thursday evenings). Always a good conversation.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as one person encouraged me to rethink school--the conversation now becomes about using LEARNING as the goal and what are the variables that one might include when innovating to get to LEARNING rather than the equation of #s to = School. Example: 150 students + 50 minute class periods + 5 days a week + 180 school days = School
Flip that to think x + x + x + x = LEARNING
What would those variables be in order to innovate, be creative, thoughtful and give students voice and choice to equate to LEARNING as the goal?