I have written often in the last few months about the need to create a school Progress Culture. One of the issues that can paralyze discussions regarding how to move schools beyond the perceived safety of “what we have always done” and toward a progress culture, however, is the college selection process whose shadow stretches back […]
Preparing Our Students to be Community Leaders: An Initial Brainstorming
If we want to prepare students to be community leaders with qualities such as humility, decisiveness, passion, vision, and empathy, what should schools do to place their work developing those skills in greater relief? If successful leaders need skills such as the ability to take an unpopular stand, mobilize support for a shared goal, and […]
Bringing Students and Families into the School
Last weekend we had an Admissions Open House at Westminster, and I noted how often current students remarked to prospective families that the presence of a student buddy was helpful in making their own transitions into the school. Most interestingly, several students remarked how important that person had continued to be years after the adjustment […]
Thinking About Process Change (Part One): Contextualizing Technology Use in a Progress Culture
From Wednesday to Friday I attended, along with three other Westminster folks, the AASA Leadership Symposium in Boston, led by Alan November, and since we finished, I have been thinking about the cosmetic changes schools traditionally undertake versus the possibility of what November called process change. The conversation we had overlays my ongoing reflection on […]
School Transformation: Becoming a Progress Culture
When we talk about creating a transformative moment in a school, the goal is to move the curriculum and the culture to a new place. What is misleading about this kind of talk is that it sounds as if the place where the school lands will represent a new stationary normal. But in fact the goal is to transform the school into a progress-culture, in which normal will include the ongoing ability to reflect on and respond to a changing world.
A Thought for NAIS: An Emerging Practice Cohort Structure
I have a proposal for a structure that will sustain and support innovation and emerging practice in independent schools. As conversations are taking place across the country and indeed beyond our national boundaries about what our schools will need to become over the coming years and decades, our institutions and […]