Change: Get Over It And Get On With It

Each school, public and private, contains and is surrounded by a unique set of assets that can become original and wonderful solutions for educating our children.  

So many schools are doing this work. And, some are pushing back. Probably the quickest way to get a sense of this riot of creativity and innovation is to read the work of Grant Lichtman. You should read his blogs and his books. 

Grant’s 2017 book, Moving the Rock: Seven Levers WE Can Press to Transform Education, provides a paradigm for thinking about change that applies to any school and pulls together many of the threads of educational change and opportunity.  

What I especially like about the book is the leading message: get over it and get on with it. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:  

My head hurts every time I see another article, vodcast, or TED Talk preaching that education must change. That train has already left the station! All of the arguments about why education must change can be summarized in less than a sentence, a simple paraphrase of the godfather of modern education, John Dewey, more than a century ago: The world is changing at an ever‐increasing rate and we have to prepare our students for that future, not for the past. We desperately need to move beyond the discussion of why education must change.  

Similarly, the question of what education must look like in the future, although not wholly formed, is increasingly coming into focus. In this book we will touch briefly on what great education looks like now and in the future, but many others have covered those topics with insight, examples, depth, and clarity. I have asked thousands of Americans—parents, students, teachers, and interested community members—what they think great learning looks like, what skills and abilities young people will need to lead happy and successful lives in a less knowable future, and the answers are in remarkable agreement: Deeper learning is better than shallow, student‐centric learning is better than teacher‐centric classrooms, questions and curiosity are more important than rote answers, understanding and wisdom are more important than mere knowledge. 

The bottom line is that if you and your school find this kind of thinking surprising or alarmist, that’s so 2005 and it’s time for some serious reflection. I’ll guarantee you that many of your faculty, parents, students, and young alumni understand what’s happening. 

The “why” and “what” horses are out of the barn. Schools need to look at their internal and community assets to find their powerful “how.”  

Let’s go!