Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

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#40 of 60: Who are we listening to? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#40 of 60: Who are we listening to? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#39 of 60: Do we need a reframe of “success” for human-centered education? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#39 of 60: Do we need a reframe of “success” for human-centered education? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#38 of 60: What should stay? What should go? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#38 of 60: What should stay? What should go? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#37 of 60: Which will win the race? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#37 of 60: Which will win the race? 🤔

This from H.G. Wells…. in 1922… Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. —– âť“ 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? đź’Ž Resource: Survival depends on the race between education and catastrophe – Leon […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#36 of 60: Is it all made up? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#36 of 60: Is it all made up? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#35 of 60: What can we learn from global efforts to transform education systems? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#35 of 60: What can we learn from global efforts to transform education systems? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#34 of 60: Will we go back to “normal,” or will we “imagine another world”? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#34 of 60: Will we go back to “normal,” or will we “imagine another world”? 🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#33 of 60:Should we consider systems thinking as a core leadership competency? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#33 of 60:Should we consider systems thinking as a core leadership competency? 🤔

“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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#32 of 60: In a human-centered system of schooling, is there a “right balance” between job skills and well-being? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#32 of 60: In a human-centered system of schooling, is there a “right balance” between job skills and well-being?  🤔

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 […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

#31 of 60: What assumptions underlie “going to school” for a dozen years? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

#31 of 60: What assumptions underlie “going to school” for a dozen years? 🤔

In 1892, the Committee of Ten recommended, among other things, twelve years of education — 8 years of elementary and 4 years of high school. What was the life expectancy in 1892? According to this site, about 45 years. According to the same site, life expectancy today is around 79 years. The world and the […]

Filed Under: #60DayChallenge

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About Working At The Edge:

My name is Randy Ziegenfuss, and I'm a retired public school superintendent and a life-long educator with over 34 years experience developing a passion for teaching, learning, leadership and technology. <read more...>

I first came across the phrase working at the edge while learning about the work of Marzano, et al. School Leadership That Works: From Research to Results. In this work, the researchers define 21 responsibilities of the school leader, one being change agent. A change agent is defined as one who is, "...willing to challenge school practices that have been in place for a long time and promoting the value of working at the edge of one's competence."

Randy Ziegenfuss, Ed.D.

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