My Change.School promise - to start blogging again

I just finished the Change.School professional learning session and I am in mourning that it is over. To have the opportunity to interact with brilliant individuals and exchange ideas every week, three times a week, for 8 weeks, was just amazing. As the weeks wore on I realized I had lots of things to share from my own leadership journey and the things I have learned about change and implementation.

The Modern Learners movement is perhaps one of the biggest potential changes we have ever seen in education and understanding how leadership and change theory will impact the success of the implementation is critical. I just sent two videos, made by two of my schools almost 4 years ago, to one of my cohorts in Change.School 1. After I had sent them I watched the videos and I realized just how much my thinking, and the thinking of my two Principals featured in the videos, has changed. I just sent both Principals the challenge to watch the videos again and tell me what they would add, change, or say differently. I think that is what makes this work so exciting and so scary to many people. Our thinking isn't static. As we work to implement our creative and innovative ideas, we learn and our paths change. An implementation evolves, it doesn't mean we have changed focus, rather it means our thinking has grown.

Finally I think the big challenge that I can also contribute some thoughts too is the fact that the Modern Learner movement is not about some students, it is about all students. One of my mentors, Will Richardson, has some concerns about the growth mindset idea but for me it is a critical piece. If teachers are not approaching their work with a growth mindset, with a belief that all students can be creative, innovative and add to the learning conversation, then we have a major problem. Learning is about hope, it is about questions, it is about ideas, and it is often about challenging the status quo. If all educators don't possess these critical attributes then how can they support their students in cultivating theirs.

So, I am back to blogging. Thank you Change.School for re-invigorating my voice.