Earlier today, I spent about an hour talking to a writer named Jeff Archer from Education Week about my blogging experience. From my point of view, it was a great conversation because it forced me to think about where I’ve been over the past nine months. As we talked, I thought about my purpose in writing. How it helps me to organize my thoughts about G-Town for the blog post and also allows me to try to influence or challenge some thinking.
What’s really most important about the blogging process though, is how it challenges and influences my own thinking which in turn guides my leadership, and well, influences teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members. As my thinking evolves, I still struggle with the entire School 2.0 discussion that I keep reading on many different blogs and in print. My struggle lies in my core belief that the majority of our constituency will be extremely reluctant to, and may never, consider an entire reinvention of school. While I can sit at my computer in the evening hours and dream about ideal, I often find it hard to reconcile what I’m learning on-line with what I live every day. And the people who I know don’t exactly embrace change, generally like things the way they are, and figure “if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them”.
So imagine my connection when I read Will Richardson’s post about reinvisioning schools where Will, who by the way is someone who greatly influences my thinking, says,
but what I’m realizing in this process is that for now, we have to work within the frame of what schools can become in the current environment, not necessarily some vague idea of what we think they should be.
Thank you Will, because that comment makes me feel as if we can actually get there in my professional lifetime. While I’m all in to embrace new ideas and approaches, certainly new ways to help our students find success, I need to find a way to make it happen within what we already live–our school walls.
I’m completely ready to view the plans for a remodel, just can’t imagine a demolition and rebuild.
I find it interesting that you responded that way to Will’s post–I also had responded that way to it on one of our campus blogs. It left me feeling very positive about our ability to bring this conversation into schools and effect some positive changes for our students.
I think it’s interesting how blogs –both reading and writing and the reflection involved — then come back to impact our own workplaces. That’s one reason I get so excited about them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this whole dilemma.