There are many times in our lives when we take risks. For some taking risks is an integral part of their daily lives. Racing car drivers, BASE jumpers are extreme examples; others might say the very act of driving a car or crossing a road presents a risk they face every day. Our perception of […]
For all that is being written about leadership today, it is probably not surprising that we often take for granted the responsibility that is attached to the role, or trivialise in much the same way the word ‘hero’ has become almost meaningless. Everyone may think they can be a ‘hero’, but everyone sure isn’t a
Leadership and Followship Read More »
How should we scale great schooling? If individualisation is the mother of innovation, then surely variability must be the enemy of equity, and addressing that enemy poses an interesting ideological dilemma. If, as in France for example, we believe in providing an ‘equal education’ for all students, then just how far are we prepared to
Finding the Right Balance: Autonomy and Variability Read More »
For all that we have written about the shifts we are starting to see in our schools, there are an increasing number of questions that need to be answered. Where do we start and what is the path or roadmap going to look like? There is plenty of discussion currently around ‘deep learning’, so is that
One Small Step…in Time Read More »
As the year draws closer, I’ve been reflecting on which are the words we use in education that we have managed to normalise, appropriate, or in some cases bastardize over the past twelve months. No doubt ‘narrative’ has to be a big contender for a top 3 spot and it would all be very funny
The Transformation Fantasy Read More »
Every now and then when I have some free time between basketball tournaments and conference presentations I actually do some reading using these things called “books.” Some of them I actually have to hold in my hand and manually turn paper pages. Shocking, I know. Some have been on my shelf for a long time,
Schools That Learn Read More »
Something’s happening. Call it a groundswell, a rumbling…whatever you like, but it seems to me that the call for educational change has suddenly gotten louder. No longer is this a cry from the wilderness for a simple ‘70’s renaissance, nor is it a belief in the miracle of technology, but rather this time it represents
Disruption, Delusion and Deep Learning Read More »
A few months ago I found myself in a room full of administrators having a conversation about how to change their schools. These were principals, assistant superintendents, and other leaders from a number of rural districts in the Midwest. “What I really need,” said one of those in attendance, “is for you to help my teachers
Is it me, or does it seem like much of what we’re doing in education these days is trying to fix what we ourselves break when it comes to kids and learning? I mean, what does it say that our kids come to us as creative, innovative thinkers when they’re five or six years old,
Fixing What We Broke Read More »
How many times have you been held to ransom by the bureaucratic silos that inhabit so many of our government and large corporate organisations? You usually find yourself wringing your hands and saying the ‘left hand doesn’t seem to know what the right hand is doing,’ and sadly it seems, that’s in fact exactly the
Who you gonna call? Silobusters! Read More »
If you don’t believe phonics is the answer to kids learning to read and spell, then ask anyone who was educated in the 1950s. It is no accident that we can all read and spell with little trouble, compared with the kids from the decades since ~The Australian, August 17, 2015 As hard as it
Who Owns Advocacy? Read More »
School starts for me tomorrow morning. Over the course of the day, 100 brand new sixth graders will roll through my classroom door. They will be quiet at first. Finding your way around a new building with new teachers and trying to figure out new sets of rules can make any eleven-year old more than
What I Need from My Principal to Make School Different Read More »
I was talking recently with a prominent Regional Director (aka Superintendent) who said currently her biggest challenge across her 85 schools (75k students) was variability. She said that while parents and the media focused on outputs such as test scores and ‘league tables’, her attention was on inputs, namely the consistency of the quality of
Variability and Inequity Read More »
The concept of “improvement” is an interesting one. It’s one of those words that gets thrown around when we talk about “school improvement,” “improving test scores” and the like, but it’s also a word that can carry many hidden meanings. Improving test scores inevitably means higher scores, but it can also be used in reference
In recent issues we’ve shared stories from writers who have talked at length about the unprecedented changes that are taking place in the world around us, and from last week we shared excerpts of posts that were focused on the impact those changes are likely have on the world of work that our young people
