In a major new three-hour workshop that I will co-present with John Gulla of the EE Ford Foundation at the annual NAIS Conference (Wed., March 1, 1-4 PM; sign up for the workshop before it is full!), we will look at what is inevitable in the transformation of "schools" over the next 20+ years. One [...]
I apologize for largely ignoring by blogging duties for the last month or more. I have been nose-down in a semi-final draft of my new book, which is on schedule to be published by Jossey-Bass in September. Now that is turned in, I will try to be a more regular writer in this space! Next [...]
In October I was honored to participate in An Evening of Inquiry, Innovation, and Impact at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School in Atlanta. Thanks to Mt. Vernon Institute of Innovation for hosting this intimate conversation-in-the-round, and to my co-presenters on the evening, Kawai Lai, Glen Whitman, Kaleb Rashad, Tod Martin, and Joyelle Harris. Feel free to [...]
Like many others, I am deeply concerned with the rapid spread of quasi-factual and nonsensical information spread across social and "journalistic" media as truth. As educators, we simply must take on the challenge of learning and teaching how to separate truth from fiction and opinion. In a recent post, journalist and commentator Dan Rather noted [...]
If we can point to a moment when educators finally realized that the world was changing so dramatically that we had to take notice, it was within a year or so of the publication of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. Friedman has a remarkable ability to take something complex that many of us know to [...]
In the earliest phase of work with each school with which I engage, I ask the site leader (principal, head of school, superintendent) to come up with a set of "boundary conditions" that will guide and govern a process of expansive strategic design. Boundary conditions set out both the limits and expectations of a project. They [...]
Twenty years ago, "disruptive innovation" was introduced to educational lexicon by Clayton Christensen largely within the context of technology. Personal computers and rapid new technological inventions were going to fundamentally change the system of schools. A decade ago, flattened global economic relationships were going to fundamentally change schools as we shifted learning to prepare students [...]
Col. Francis Parker, a contemporary of John Dewey, said that the primary role of education was to instill in students the skills necessary for them to fulfill their roles as democratic citizens. If the events of the last year have taught us anything it is that these skills, and how they are exercised, are being [...]
Regardless of your politics, there is no question that the elections last week were revolutionary, and the potential impacts widespread. It is way too soon, with such volatility, to know for sure what those impacts will be for schools, communities, or individuals who comprise those communities. But if there ever was a time to make [...]
i have been fortunate to both design new learning spaces in a major school renovation, and to see dozens of examples of new and re-tooled learning spaces. A virtual meeting with a pioneering school group yesterday to talk about a new school building, gave me the chance to think about the boundary conditions I would [...]