Voice, Choice and Mastery with Rodney Bowler

In this episode, Will Richardson talks with Rodney Bowler and Aaryn Schmuhl from Henry County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia.  Rodney is District Superintendent for Henry County Schools, while Aaryn is Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Leadership.

Highlights of their conversation include:

• Why being intentional by being courageous at the same time are really important dispositions for the leadership of a change movement.
• Why we have to change our metrics of success and start thinking differently about what makes the kids life ready. How do you measure the immeasurable?
• Why sometimes a hard reboot is what a school or District really needs.
• What does giving students voice really mean, and what are the implications for their learning?
• Why it’s not about tailoring content to kids, but rather it’s about giving kids the power to learn how to tailor content to themselves. How do you do that?
• How do you get teachers to be authentic project based learners as well?
• The importance of moving away from the sit and get or the spray and pray models of professional learning and really challenging teachers to engage in ways that are meaningful to them and building out competency based kind of professional development expectations for teachers.
• Why the biggest pressure point right now in schools is relevance?
• Why its important to be very intentional and tell people that they have permission to stop doing things.
• How their community became a pressure point for change.
• Why the chocies in change are too often limited to moves that teachers make based on what they think they can do, instead of what they should do.
• Why a willingness to be transparent to engage them in broader community discussions requires parents to be a part of our redesigned teams at our schools.

[fusebox_transcript]