Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

#57 of 60: Have you agreed to be inside the box? 🤔

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I teach a college course titled Teacher as Inquirer. Throughout the course we experience the conditions of being a better educational practitioner through inquiry into our own practice and the act of helping our learners be better inquirers.

One of our final activities together is to watch this 4 minute video: The life-changing act of saying hello. I’m always fascinated to hear the varying connections students make to inquiry, individuality, notions of success, etc. All kinds of components of being human-centered.

But here is the quote that speaks most to me:

If you’re in a corner, or in a box, it’s not necessarily because someone put you there. It’s because you’ve agreed to be in that box. Once you realize that no one put you there; that you’re responsible to come out of the box, everything starts to change.

As we’ve seen through weeks of various provocations, the current system of schooling is about compliance, up and down the system. And compliance is about putting the individual in a box and manipulating them to stay there. After all, the longer we can keep people in the box the longer the current system is sustained.

One way we can change the system–any system for that matter–is to help the people that make up the system understand they’ve been put inside the box (yes…many don’t even see that…they love the warmth and stability the box provides), and that they have the agency to push on the sides of the box—or even bust out of the box if they have the courage.

It’s always a powerful conversation as we explore the notion that inquiry is a powerful tool to bust out of any figurative box we may find ourselves inside of. It takes courage to ask the right questions and take action, but once you see that power, you can’t unsee it.

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âť“ Provocations:

Are you stuck in the box? Why do you think you are or aren’t? If you are inside the box, what can you do now to push on the box…make a ruckus (as Seth Godin says)? Who can you enlist as partners in your ruckus-making?

đź’Ž Resource:

Stop Stealing Dreams – Seth Godin TEDx talk

🧠 Mindsets:

Challenging the system

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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