Improvement or innovation? They are each necessary.

What is the purpose of innovation? I often get the sense when I listen to people talk about innovation that they believe it is simply about trying something new. That it is limited to doing things differently.

While innovation does involve doing things differently, there is a greater purpose to innovation than simply trying something new. Clayton Christenson, a professor at Harvard, coined the term disruptive innovation, and defines it as a process by which a product or service starts at the bottom of the market, eventually displacing established competitors. This disruptive innovation, "allows a whole new population of consumers at the bottom of a market access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill." You can read more about this here: http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

Tom Vander Ark, in a recent Education Week article -- http://t.co/WUAOhvZItr -- defined innovation more simply: "Improvement is doing things better. Innovation is doing things differently to dramatically improve outcomes."

We have a unique, and aspirational vision in the Spring Lake Park Schools - we want each of our students to be college-ready upon graduation.  We believe that this focus will prepare each and every student for the pursuit of whatever aspiration they may have, be that attending college or going directly into the workforce.

Yet, as Richard Elmore, a leading educator and professor at Harvard, asserts, "The biggest constraint to student learning is adult expectations of what students can actually do." This expectation gap is what our college-readiness initiative is all about - developing a collective commitment to the highest of expectations for each of the students in our district. 

However, changing expectations, without changing how we work with our students day to day, may only lead to incremental change and improvement. This is where innovation is important. As Vander Ark asserts, "Innovation is doing things differently to dramatically improve outcomes."

We need to consistently pursue innovative learning practices that capitalize on staff creativity. Innovations that are able to effectively adapt emerging change and technologies, and that result in flexible, customized learning environments. Why? Ultimately, it's about meeting the needs and interests of our students, while helping them to realize aspirations they may not even have yet so they see no limits to what they can accomplish.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, in this speech, provides what I have found to be the very best descriptor for why we need to have the highest of expectations for our students. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1512_XJEw

High expectations are essential for each learner. Seeing personal success and hope is a prerequisite to learning. However, again, expectations alone won't result in improved student learning. We need a combination of higher expectations -- our systemic, aligned focus on college-readiness -- combined with innovation that changes a system of education that is currently perfectly designed for our current results.

We are working to make this innovation happen in the Spring Lake Park Schools. It is my hope that you – no matter your role in the school district, relationship to the school community, or influence on young people anywhere  – are able to join me  in doing all you can to make the hopes and dreams of young people a reality.  Together we will make a difference.

Unreasonable? Maybe. Making a difference? Yes!

It’s Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend. As I look out at the rain coming down on the lake, I can’t help but think back on the past few years and our work in the Spring Lake Park Schools.

We have accomplished so much, and I am so proud of my colleagues and staff throughout the district. There are wonderful things happening for students within the walls of our schools. It is so gratifying to walk through classrooms across our district and see the personalized, engaging instruction that is taking place. We have a wonderful staff! It is exciting to think about how, with the planned expansion of technology beginning in the next school year, this learning will extend beyond the walls of our schools.

Yet, there is a tension that I feel. Why?

In addition to our digital learning initiative, we are expanding and deepening our efforts around what I believe is an even more significant initiative. Without the focus on this initiative, the expansion of digital learning means nothing. This second initiative will deepen efforts throughout our school district around creating personalized experiences that result in college-readiness, and the development of academic, life, and career skills, for each of our students.

This work is exciting, and at the same time daunting. However, there is not any work I would rather be doing. I spend each day working with colleagues throughout our system to make the dreams of over 5,000 students in the Spring Lake Park Schools a reality -- and helping many of them establish dreams for themselves that they may not even yet be able to imagine.

As I wrote in a previous blog, while we have made progress towards our vision of being a world-class learning community -- great progress -- we haven't arrived. Our students deserve a personalized learning experience each and every day; a learning experience that fosters self-direction and curiosity; that results in their seeing no limits to what they can accomplish.

I believe this quote from Robert Fritz captures the importance of our vision, as well as how I hope each of our students view their future, “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want.”

Is our vision unreasonable? Maybe. However, what’s the alternative? I cannot want less for any of our students than I want for my own two kids, Sam and Sydney. Each of our students has a first name and a dream for their future.

So, as I sit and look at the rain on a Memorial Day, nearing the end of another school year, I can’t help but be excited about the work we do for young people, and the opportunities we have to make a difference in the future.

All I ask of you – no matter your role in the school district or relationship to it – is to join me in doing all you can to make the hopes and dreams of the young people in your sphere of influence a reality.

As Seth Godin, in his online book Stop Stealing Dreams, wrote:

When we let our kids dream, encourage them to contribute, and push them to do work that matters, we open doors for them that will lead to places that are difficult for us to imagine. When we turn school into more than a finishing school…, we enable a new generation to achieve things that we were ill-prepared for.

When we teach a child to love to learn, the amount of learning will become limitless.

When we teach a child to deal with a changing world, she will never become obsolete.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend!

Jeff 

It Isn't About Being Perfect

The 2001-12 school year is here. The first day of school is upon us!

Each of the students who will come through the doors of the Spring Lake Park Schools on the morning of September 6 will bring a unique story, a unique dream. Many of these students simply need a guide on their side as they navigate their way through school. Many others need support seemingly each step of the way - their unique dream a bit tarnished, causing them to not even realize all they can become. 

We, educators and community members, collectively need to be the hope for each and every one of our students. We provide the expectations, a model of excellence, and a vision of their future they may not see in themselves. Providing this support does not require perfection. However, it does require innovation, courage, humility, and the ability to continually learn and grow in the work that we do.

Michael McKinney has captured the essence of our work in education so well. In his following piece, I have substituted "leader" with teacher and "lead" with teach. As you read this brief piece you may substitute "teacher" or "teach" with whatever role you hold -- parent, manager, principal -- and I believe you will find it personally relevant.

It Isn't About Being Perfect
by Michael McKinney

We need to get over the notion that a teacher is a perfect person with a set of qualities that are balanced and in perfect alignment. If that were the case we might as well forget about being a teacher. We’re just not up to it. And yet life goes on and people do teach — in spite of themselves. And their humanity gives us all hope that we too can teach, influence, have an impact, and create meaning.

A good teacher is a person that knows their weaknesses, makes (sometimes really stupid) mistakes, admits them, makes an effort to do better, and moves on. In spite of their own inadequacies they jump back in every day and work for a cause bigger than themselves. The challenge is not in avoiding mistakes; it is in knowing how to deal with them when they are made.

A good teacher knows they can’t do it on their own. They have limitations. They need the support and effort of those around them. In fact, they team [with others] specifically because they are lacking in one area or another. A teacher doesn’t let their weaknesses hold them back.

A good teacher understands that development is a life-long process of continual learning; continual improvement. Being a teacher isn’t a place you arrive at. It’s is something you grow into and grow with if you are going to be effective. Teaching without growth is not sustainable. If you are in it for the long-term, you have to be teachable, not perfect.

Perfection doesn’t qualify you as a teacher, but knowing what to do about your inadequacies, foibles, quirks, weaknesses, and blunders makes it possible. 

Wishing you all a great school year!!
Jeff

Link to McKinney blog: http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/followership/

Radical Learners

We are each experiencing the rapid change of the world in our personal and professional lives. This change is a part of the conversation everywhere we turn - on the radio, television, online bloggers, twitter, newspapers... This conversation, and the change we are experiencing, leads to numerous questions we each wrestle with. The list of these questions could go on and on...

How do we as a society balance the challenges of today while preparing our students for a world that we largely cannot predict? Many of the future jobs our students of today will fill, do not yet exist.

How do we position ourselves for the future while in the midst of the longest and deepest recession of over fifty years? A recession that the members of our community are living with each and every day.

One thing that is constant as we wrestle with questions such as these is the importance of education and learning. I think Jim Knight, a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, wrote an interesting blog on this topic. Here is an excerpt.

Radical Learners:

Radical learners... are people who are driven by learning, who get up in the morning fired up to try something new, to make a difference, to teach and learn.

Radical learners are everywhere. They are creating PLNs, grabbing good ideas off of Twitter, writing, reading and sharing good blogs, reading new thinkers like Godin, Gladwell, and Pink, and old thinkers like Friere, Dewey, and Mason. Radical Learners are loving people who will not let schools let kids down. They work the system to make it better, and kinder, more loving, more equitable, more challenging and supportive. They work really hard because they know how much learning matters.

Who are the radical learners?
Radical Learners:

■believe we are here on earth to learn, so they are turned on by every chance they get to discover something new
■use technology to learn, to teach, or lead (and because it’s cool)
■have hope because they know that to teach without hope is to damage, but to teach with hope can save the world
■love the members of their Personal Learning Network
■have mentors and coaches
■mentor and coach others
■are witnesses to the good
■are brutally honest about what is really happening in their classroom and would welcome any visitor who could help them improve
■don’t blame others but accept personal responsibility
■infect everybody with their love of learning, most importantly the children they teach
■make a difference

Are you a radical learner?

It is with full confidence that I can say our district is full of "radical learners". Each day I have the opportunity to learn with teachers, administrators, support staff, community members, etc. who are making a difference for kids.

Just the other day I spent an hour or so walking around Woodcrest Elementary School. As I left the school and went to my next meeting I could not stop thinking about, and talking about, what I had just observed in classrooms. The student engagement, as a result of the instruction, was at the highest level - that of a model school. Students were engaged in dialogue, were setting goals and monitoring their own learning, ...

How did it get that way? It got that way because the staff at Woodcrest are "radical learners" who have made learning a part of their work together, and they put their learning into practice. This kind of learning is happening among the adults in each of our schools. The students benefit as a result of this. Thanks staff - your efforts are appreciated!

Radical learning will be required of all of us as we collectively tackle the challenges we face in the short-term, as well as we position ourselves - our students, families, communities, and school district - for the future. I look forward to our learning through these challenges.

You can find Jim Knight's blog at http://www.radicallearners.com/

SLP grad overcoming the odds! Alex Schulte

Alex Schulte is a 2008 graduate of Spring Lake Park High School. He was involved in a terrible car accident shortly after graduation that resulted in numerous injuries, including a brain injury that Alex deals with each day. He is overcoming the odds though, and his story should be an inspiration to us all. Please take a moment to read his story as shared through a University of St. Thomas blog:

Alex Schulte: Teacher as well as student

Thanks to Jean Nolby, 3rd grade Northpoint teacher, for sharing this story.

It's a great start to what should be a great year!

The kick-off to the 2010-2011 school year is behind us, culminating in nearly 5,000 students who have entered the doors of our schools this week.

It's so great to have the kids back!

It has been a lot of fun these past few weeks, stopping in at the "Meet and Greets" at our elementary schools, attending the open houses at our secondary schools, witnessing the enthusiasm and commitment of staff during workshop week, and dropping into each of our schools during this first week of the school year.

The smiling faces, the excitement, the hopes, as well as the apprehension --students and staff!-- are all a part of the start of school.

I had the chance to have breakfast with a second and third grader (There they are above, courtesty of my phone's camera.) at Northpoint Elementary School on Tuesday morning. The second-grade student summed up the start of school well, stating: "I'm pumped - and kinda scared. I wanna read a lot better. I hope my teacher likes me."

In many ways what this student was pointing out is that students want to be successful, and they need to know that their teachers have the highest expectations for them, and that their teachers believe that they can meet those expectations.

It is so great to be able to tell parents that we have an outstanding staff who not only hold extremely high expectations for each of their children; they are working together to personalize learning and provide a system of supports to meet the varied needs of each of our students. At the same time, and most importantly, staff understand the importance of building meaningful relationships with and among students.

To see more photos of the first week of school and to read more about my thoughts of the past week, click here.

The biggest adventure of their lives

It's here - the first day of school is upon us! For many of our students it will be the first step on the biggest adventure of their lives.

This is a one-minute video - really, only a minute - that captures the first day perfectly, and ends with a question for each of us to ponder, as educators and/or parents.