Labels help us make meaning more easily across all parts of our lives, but what do we give up when we label kids in school? As we move toward a more human-centered model of learning, we need to be sensitive to education labels that lead to negative stereotypes, or what is termed in the research […]

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 […]

Is it time to break the narrative of success that we communicate to our young people and parents? Not that the old narrative of get good grades, get into a good college, get good grades, get a fine paying job, stay there for life won’t still work for some, but are we living in a […]

Yesterday’s provocation framed the work of transformation as a race with pretty high longterm stakes.  In today’s provocation, we zoom in on one part of the system…  High School. Nir Eyal, Stanford lecturer and author of Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, has suggested. There are only two places in society […]

This from H.G. Wells…. in 1922… Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. —– ❓ Provocations: What are the consequences if we do not transform our education system to one that is human-centered? What are the promises if we do? 💎 Resource: Survival depends on the race between education and catastrophe – Leon […]

In an earlier post, I mentioned an excellent book… The Art of Possibility by Ben and Rosamund Zander. This quote came up in a recent conversation I had with Chad Evans, one of our group members. It’s all invented anyway, so we might as well invent a story or a framework of meaning that enhances […]

In September 2018, I had the opportunity to attend a gathering in New York, WISE@NY.  An initiative of the Qatar Foundation, “WISE (World Innovation Summit on Education) is an international, multi-sectoral platform for creative thinking, debate and purposeful action. WISE has established itself as a global reference in new approaches to education. Through both the […]

After lockdowns, quarantine and virtual schooling, the focus of educators and communities has been returning to “normal.”  I’ve seen many conversations focused on “normal,” as I’m sure you have. And do we really want to return to a system with so many anomalies laid bare: equity, digital equity, agency in the wrong places, standardization, standardized […]

“Systems change is about shifting the conditions that are holding a problem in place.” Maybe I’m just more aware of it now, but systems thinking seems to come up quite a bit as I personally explore this idea of school transformation. One resource that has crossed my path is The Water of System Change published […]

Klaus Schwab coined the phrase Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2015 to describe the unique time period we are living in…a time where we see the convergence of the physical, digital and biological spheres.  Check out this 12 minute video (The Fourth Industrial Revolution) to learn more about what distinguishes the 4th Industrial Revolution from the […]