Working At The Edge

#41 of 60: Have you ever benefited from a label? 🤔

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 … [Continue reading]

#40 of 60: Who are we listening to? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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: … [Continue reading]

#37 of 60: Which will win the race? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

#36 of 60: Is it all made up? 🤔

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

“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 … [Continue reading]

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

By Randy Ziegenfuss

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 … [Continue reading]