Thoughts on Innovating Schools
Today I would like to present everyone, including myself, a challenge. It is a challenge that my high school teachers failed at with me. I graduated with honors from a very good high school from all measures. I easily passed all the state mandated testing. I took numerous AP courses...
They say you should always do things in threes, right? Well I just finished the third of what I would consider “business books”, Crucial Conversations. I think it was a great way to bring together my thinking as of late so let’s first start by reviewing my month. I won’t...
I continue to plow through my reading list this year (up to 40 books total thanks to inspiration from @msstewart). Most of the time I switch between an educational or business book and a fun one. I just started The Whistler as I am a sucker for Grisham books even...
One of the books I am reading to help with organizational change and specifically our Entrepreneur Track initiative is Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change by Joseph Grenny. This book, like many others on my reading list, are intended for the business world rather than the education world. This...
“There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment” (Cannon, 2009). This quote from Loris Malaguzzi expresses the importance of the learning environment as the “third teacher.” We have been transforming learning spaces at The Oakridge School for several years. We have totally revamped the look...
If you were at a formative age in 1997, you remember the Think Different campaign that coincided with Steve Jobs return to Apple. And you remember the advertisement that encouraged us to honor the “crazy ones.” Is our current educational system producing the Jim Hensons, the Richard Bransons, the Mohandas Ghandis, the...
We talked more and more often about the skills students will need to succeed in the future. Often times these surround technology, communication or collaboration skills. We don’t often think about the skills needed to be successful as a self-starter or freelancer. According to this Inc. post 27 million working-age Americans, almost...
As part of our school culture, our administration and Board of Regents collaborates to construct a long range plan. Last year we took a suggestion from Pat Bassett, former head of National Association of Independent Schools, and created teacher led Research and Design groups. These groups investigated different aspects of our long...
We know the business world our students are entering is different than the ones their parents entered. How should we be equipping our students to compete in a world that requires more entrepreneurial thinking? I believe we should consider an entrepreneurial track that would include an introductory class on the...
We often think of professional development and evaluations as something to be checked off. Evaluations mostly consist of a list of skills or competencies that are observed by an administrator once or twice a year. They are then evaluated on some type of scale that returns the summative assessment of...
