Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

#40 of 60: Who are we listening to? 🤔

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I hope you have found the quotes this week thought provoking. Collectively, I hope they might stoke the fire for transformation of our schools. Today’s quote:

“Why are we letting someone else design our kids’ everyday lives? And I think we need to rethink ceding all of the power of what our kids do every day to a bureaucratic and unimaginative anxiety producing institution.” Jane McGonigal

While I imagine there are some rather personal negative experiences with school and her own kids, I see her point as honing in on the relative lack of kid agency and ownership in schools today. And parent agency for that matter. 

Most parents blindly accept the lack of agency because (1) they endured it, so their kids can as well; (2) institutional agency is so ingrained in the mental model of what kids and adults believe schooling/education/learning should be.

And if we in schools really want to transform the system and our mindsets, we need to face the reality of her words as a parent.

While “bureaucratic,” “unimaginative,” and “anxiety producing” are stinging, she’s spot on.

So, changing it… That’s the mission. That’s the challenge.

And it’s a big one because there are so many other large systems deeply intertwined with schooling…politics and economics to mention just two. And every person in a community is directly or indirectly part of the system. So change is hugely complex.

—–

âť“ Provocations:

What is the alternative to bureaucratic, un-imaginative and anxiety-producing? How do leaders use that vision of an alternative to help people change their mental models? How do we lead that in a way that doesn’t mirror the bureaucratic, unimaginative, anxiety-producing system we loath?

And how long will it take? Do we have that much time? Do we even have a choice?

(I think we have some answers that have emerged over the past 40 days, but always interested to hear where else you think we can take this….)

đź’Ž Resource:

The Knowledge Project – Episode #101 with Jane McGonigal

🧠 Mindsets:

Empathy

Inclusivity

đź’ˇ Areas:

Leadership

📣 Drop your thoughts in the comments, or in the Facebook group, and feel free to share resources. 🔥🔥🔥

Randy Ziegenfuss
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