Celebrations, Part One

With the end of year fast approaching, we look forward to celebrating the success of our students, specifically through graduation ceremonies, and I will elaborate on these celebrations shortly, but first I'd like to discuss a different celebration.

Recently, we hosted our yearly celebration to recognize long service and pay tribute to retiring members of our organization. In a business where all of our energy is focused on kids, we do not always find the time to recognize the people who make the running of our business possible...who create and maintain the conditions and facilities within which learning becomes possible. Occasions such as this are one such opportunity to do just that. It is a chance to step back and formally say, THANK YOU! According to Muhammed Ali, "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." We have had some good tenants.

It is often said that any team or organization is only as strong as the sum of its parts. Clearly, we are losing a lot of strength this year.  Call it strength, call it corporate wisdom… their contributions will be missed.  We are fortunate, however, that other members of our organization have had the opportunity to see them work and, like any apprentice, learn their craft through the example and instruction of others. 

Again, thank you, and best wishes wherever your future may lead.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Innovation

Innovation, is a word being tossed around the educational world, along with personalized and 21st Century Learning, and it is leading to more questions.  What kind of innovation? What innovation will drive personalized or 21st Century Learning?  Some are looking for the silver bullet.  That is unlikely. As mentioned earlier, that would be far too neat.  Moreover, neat would suggest the cautionary note that Alma Harris raises in Distributed School Leadership, when noting, "the danger is that we will build “new” old schools that may be architecturally more interesting, brighter, technologically more up to date, but essentially schools as we would recognize them.” 


As indicated by our Leadership Groups, innovation is occurring on an ongoing basis in our, and many other, districts regularly.  Our innovation may be as simple as our commitment to support building capacity in our professionals, enabling them to identify with 21st Century Learning and making 21st Century Learning attainable for learners.  The simplicity of this innovative practice is reflected in an often articulated belief that some of the most innovative practice occurs in rural or remote areas.  We do these things because we have to. Perhaps distance makes us place greater value on collaboration and it is through collaboration that we  develop a learning organization where:

 people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. (Senge,1990)

We must create the conditions for innovation to occur, and as Charles Leadbeater states, “Capacity for innovation must be built up across the school, especially among teachers.”
For more thoughts on building capacity for innovation, check out Leadbeater's article "What Next" or his Ted Talk, shown below.

Building capacity, in education, matters.