An Alarming Realization About Innovation and Schools

As I type, I’m aboard a plane bound for the Boston area. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend The Innovator’s Journey, a workshop on innovation held at one of my favorite places, Olin College. During the sessions a few weeks ago, I heard stories from several highly-successful innovators and I collaborated with many others about innovation. Specifically, as those of us in attendance listened to the stories shared by the innovators, we endeavored to identify the events from and characteristics of each innovator’s childhood that most likely contributed to him or her being an innovative adult. While we made some progress, we have more work to do. Thus the reason for my journey back to Boston.

In reviewing my notes from The Innovator’s Journey sessions and replaying innovators’ stories in my mind, I have come to an alarming realization about innovation and the innovators I met a few weeks ago. I have discovered a rather conspicuous absence of the influence of schools, schooling and schoolwork on innovators based on the testimonies given a few weeks ago. Save one twenty-something innovator who had a positive school experience and who attributed some of his innovative nature to the training he received at a STEM magnet school, all the other innovators cited instead examples from their childhoods of parental support, free play, unstructured time, exposure to varied cultures and more, as factors that likely contributed to their innovative approach to life as adults.

In other words, at least for the innovators gathered at Olin, school played little to no role in fostering innovation. Granted, most of the innovators matriculated ten, twenty or more years ago from school systems for whom innovation almost certainly did not appear on the radar. Nevertheless, how sad that so many innovators in their formative years had to find opportunities for innovation outside classroom walls.

With all the talk of including innovation and creativity in 21^st century education, we have quite a challenge ahead of us to actually foster rather than hinder innovation in schools and promote the growth and development of innovators. What a tragedy it will be if, ten years from now, innovators gather in a room somewhere to discuss the factors that contributed to their journey toward becoming innovators and they generate a list from which school is missing.

How exactly do we foster innovation among today’s students? I have a few ideas based on my own reading, experience and the time I spent at Olin recently, but I hope to have a much clearer picture forty-eight hours from now after I reconvene with some brilliant innovators and educators who are determined to answer precisely that question.

Variations on "A good course changes what you know. A great course changes who you are."

I recently had the privilege of attending The Innovator's Journey, a collaborative effort of a number of innovators gathered at Olin College to identify qualities and characteristics of innovators' childhoods that might be infused into 21st century education. Perhaps I'll say more soon about that incredible experience, but here I'd like to focus on something I heard while I was there. If I knew who said this, I certainly would credit that person. Unfortunately, I don't, so I won't. Nevertheless, I want to share this powerful idea. "A good course changes what you know. A great course changes who you are." Simple. Powerful. True.

Since hearing this several days ago, I haven't been able to shake the idea. Furthermore, I've spent some time thinking about other iterations of this same idea. These multiple other iterations I share with you here. I hope these will be food for thought for you in the coming school year.

• "A good course changes what you know. A great course changes who you are."
• "A good teacher changes what you know. A great teacher changes who you are."
• "A good coach changes what you know. A great coach changes who you are."
• "A good school changes what you know. A great school changes who you are."
• "A good book changes what you know. A great book changes who you are."
• "A good mentor changes what you know. A great mentor changes who you are."
• "A good leader changes what you know. A great leader changes who you are."
• "A good principal changes what teachers know. A great principal changes how teachers teach."
• "A good principal changes what school does. A great principal changes what school is."

I could keep going. Instead, I challenge you to think about how you could adapt the idea of  "A good course changes what you know. A great course changes who you are." to make it meaningful for you and your teaching journey.

Creativity Killers: Checklists and Rubrics

Could checklists and rubrics be one of the most dangerous tools used in education today? I submit, yes. 

In a world growing more complex and more unpredictable by the day, imagination, innovation and creativity become more important by the minute. One of the most serious problems our students, teachers, schools and school systems face, though, is an out-of-date educational system inherently averse to imagination, innovation and creativity. If you think this is being overstated, don't take only my word for it. Consider the words of Sir Ken Robinson, who has written and spoken on creativity and imagination perhaps more than anyone else in the past several years. In a recent article in Entrepreneur magazine, Robinson said the global education system must change three things: "Its emphasis on conformity;" "Its emphasis on compliance;" "It's emphasis on a linear path."

When the federal government, state governments, school districts, schools, and even accrediting agencies rely solely on checklists and rubrics to assess and to make value judgments, Robinson's words suddenly ring eerily prophetic. By design, checklists and rubrics emphasize conformity, compliance and linear everything. Furthermore, checklists, by default, assign negative values to anything that fails to comply or fit the norm. The same is true, though to a slightly lesser degree, with rubrics. If this is the case, anything imaginative, innovative or creative can neither be measured nor affirmed by checklists and red-pen-wielding assessors with a checklist mentality. 

Until school systems, schools and teachers break free or become liberated from emphasis on conformity, compliance and linear thinking, education will continue down a dangerous path toward completely failing to equip the next generation of students for a future that simply cannot be predicted.