Aggregation of Individuals?
Senior leaders looking to effect organisational change can serve as champions of that change, provided that they go system-wide and motivate people to learn and change, create the conditions for them to apply what they’ve studied, foster immediate improvements in individual and organisational effectiveness, and put in place systems that help sustain the learning. To make it work correctly, we need to acknowledge that an organisation is not simply an aggregation of individuals.
Powering Ahead: Alternative School Models
The Alternative School Models that will be successful will be those that rely on network thinking as a core design principle. Like Tesla, who has built charging stations in order to provide the requisite power for their all-electric cars, ASMs that create and utilise platforms (from student information systems to learning software to other softwares not yet named) that enable all their schools (and parents and students…all ‘users’) to tap into them on a daily basis will gain ground quickly, scaling in ways that incumbent schools have not anticipated.
Measure the Treasure: Leadership Transition
Now begins the second, and arguably the most important, phase of the search process: schools and the newly-appointed head of school need to confront the realities of the appointment. Too many heads and boards consider the process as being ‘in the past,’ but, in reality, nothing could be less accurate…or less dangerous, as a perspective. Now is the crucial moment when boards and heads must chart the best way forward, relative to what we might term the FQ, the fit quotient.
Digital Lipstick
It's akin to stating that you've got a 1:1 (iPad, laptop, etc) programme, yet any visitor to any classroom would see students doing the same exercises as before, just on a computer instead of with pencil and paper. One of my personal favourites: "we have a learning management system." Look at how it is used. If teachers are required to post homework and/or a syllabus there, and share the odd announcement, what do we have? Lipstick on a legacy pig.
Our Bigger Dream
In Eastern philosophy, there is a great question posed: what is the nature of this age? What is the nature of our age? I submit that it is the globalisation of superficiality. Being ‘friends,’ for example, can mean one thing in a bricks-and-mortar school, whilst meaning something entirely different in the largest country on planet earth, Facebook. Lest you think I am joking, consider that Facebook has borders (virtual, bandwidth all around you), it has a population, it has rules of conduct (terms and conditions of use), it exhibits a certain ethos. I’m not providing a value judgement; I am only looking at it, as an entity. It should shock you, at least somewhat, that I would want to categorise Facebook as a nation. Yet, what is the nature of our age?