Pro-Innovation Bias in Education: Any Old Innovation Will Do and Adventures in Educational Fadsurfing

As wave after wave of educational reform has hit our educational shores, one thing becomes very clear: the field of educational leadership and education has what is often called an “pro-innovation bias.” While innovation can obviously be advantageous when it addresses specific problems, having this “pro-innovation bias” often only means there is a great deal of promoting of new programs or new technologies and little serious examination and critique of the possible side effects or unintended consequences of these. If you are the critic who starts asking difficult questions about these potential problems, you are most often accused by those promoting the innovation as anti-progress or pro-status quo. Critical examination of all these new-fangled innovations is stifled immediately by those who simply want their brand of innovation accepted—consequences and side-effects be damned.

In his book, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, critic Evgeny Morozov writes:

“Innovation might be one of the defining buzzwords of our times, but it has not received the critical attention it deserves, and we usually take its goodness for granted, oblivious of how obsession with innovation twists our accounts of the past.” (2013, p. 167)

Innovation is the educational buzzword of this decade. Everyone is talking of its inevitability and necessity, and have been crowing loudly since the advent of the great technological wonders of the personal computer and hand-held devices.

There were those Technological-Promo videos plastered all over YouTube warning educators to get on the “Tech-Express” or be left wallowing in irrelevance. There were the “tech-evangelists” pushing salvation through technological innovation. Everyone then and now talk of “innovation” as if any Old innovation will do, just do it. But there lies the problem: as history has pointed out to us, when educators adopt innovation uncritically, the unintended consequences usually take quite some time to overcome.

Morozov (2013) points to the difficult of innovation's problems by pointing out that most innovations and inventions don’t have consequences, but those that do require significant repairs, maintenance, and resources to keep working. For example, take the use of value-added measures, or VAMs, in education. To maintain VAMs as a viable educational tool, countless hours and resources must be spent on test development and testing. Administrators have to spend hours engaging in rituals of preparation required to make the value-added system function properly. Then there’s the money spent on VAMs themselves and for the use of a company’s algorithms. One of the consequences and side-effects of VAMs is a culture where a child’s test score matters the most. Other innovations like 1:1 schools also require a great deal of maintenance and resources to try to make them work. Budgets are busted in purchasing computers and in the creation of plans of technology-sustainability, as well as technical support systems. VAMs and One-to-One computer initiatives are only two current “innovations” being done to school systems, and both require an immense amount of resources that have grown scarcer since the Great Recession of 2008.

Even if one of willing to set aside the issues of the resource-intensive nature of innovations and their side-effects, as school systems jump from innovation to innovation, they are engaging in a type of “fadsurfing in the schoolhouse” that was described so aptly by Eileen Shapiro in her book Fadsurfing in the Boardroom: Managing in the Age of Instant Answers. In her book, Shapiro (1995) writes: “Fad surfing is the practice of riding the crest of one the latest management panacea and then paddling out again just in time to ride the next one; always absorbing for managers and lucrative for consultants; frequently disastrous for organizations” (p. xiii). Educational leaders engage in this practice of “riding the crest of the latest educational panacea.”

In my career, I’ve seen too many to count. Early in my career there was block-scheduling, multiple intelligences, CRISS, reading for learning, writing for learning, school-based decision making, tech-prep, Deming’s Total Quality Management, thinking maps, critical thinking, age of accountability and testing, NCLB, ESSA, Ruby Payne, Emotional Intelligence, SEL, Grit, Growth Mindset, Brain-based teaching and learning, inquiry-based teaching, thematic teaching, multiculturalism…and the list is endless just for my 29 years as an educator. Will the current buzzwords such as “coding” and “personalized learning” be added to this heap of innovations?

My problem isn’t with any of these, for many of them may have merits in a given school or classroom. My problem with this list is what it represents: a search for a panacea that will once and for all resolve our education problems. Shapiro’s (1995) advice to business is apropos here to educators seeking the golden fleece of educational innovation. She reminds leaders,

“The hard truth is that there are no panaceas. What is new is the sheer number of techniques, some new and some newly repackaged versions of older methods, that are now positioned as panaceas” (p. xvii).

There are no panaceas for all that ails us in education either, no matter how many salespeople knock on our doors trying to sell us their product or their program. Many of the new-fangled products and programs are just repackaged older "innovations." It's time to recognize that "Education is just damn hard work! That’s it." There are no easy paths. What works at one school does not necessarily mean it will work at all at another. There are no programs that will work accross all schools not matter what that consultant says. Our schools exists as complex entities in complex systems within a complex world. To think that if I apply this product, program or method to my school or school district and B will happen is simplistic thinking.

There are factors that affect education that are outside our control, because schools exist in a world system, a very complex world system. Before the pro-innovation crowd start accusing me of “excuse-making” which is where this conversation usually goes, let me make something clear: Recognizing reality is not excuse making. Recognizing that our schools in this country operate in a very unfair and unequal society where many get the advantages is not making an excuse; it is recognizing a fundamental social problem that impacts what we do no matter what program or innovation we implement. Our schools suffer from inadequate funding in a society that distributes advantage to those who often already have the means to be successful. There is no panacea or bootstrap mentality that is going to fix that problem.

To conclude, I would add that many educational leaders and educators suffer not only from an “pro-innovation bias,” but they also suffer from simplistic thinking and from wearing self-imposed blinders that prevent them from seeing the reality of an increasingly unequal and inequitable society.

Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything click here: The folly of technological solutionism. Public Affairs: New York, NY.

Shapiro, E. (1995). Fadsurfing in the boardroom: Managing in the age of instant answers. Perseus: Cambridge, MA.

How to Be an Educator When Thinking Has Become Dangerous

"Thinking has become dangerous in the United States and the symptoms are everywhere." Henry Giroux, Dangerous Thinking: In the Age of the New Authoritarianism

 For all the talk and blather about teaching students to think critically and creatively, we need to face the reality that much of our political and educational establishment is actually more interested in conformity, and teaching others to think in certain privileged ways. For example, with all the talk that comes with education as the engine of the economy, also comes the worship of greed, free-market fundamentalism, and simple form of idolatry that places the "businessman" as the salvation of all that is good and wonderful. Schools are seen as the producers of workers for industry. Art and music is irrelevant and unnecessary. Education is not about thinking critically; it is about making sure our students accept and conform to a culture that pursues economic interests, and selfish individual interests at the expense of everything else, with the belief, that in the end, all will be well in such a society.

The current predicament we face in this 21st century isn't just about jobs for our students; it is whether or not the world we are leaving them will even be inhabitable. Instead of educating students how to work the machines in the factory down the road, we need to be teaching them to be problem-solvers, creative thinkers, and dare I say, teaching them to be willing to be non-conformists?

Non-conformity is not always a negative. There are plenty of examples of constructive non-conformity in our history. Had the forefathers of our country chosen the path of conformity, we certainly would not have the country we have today. I realize that is a bit of tired thinking, but I think it illustrates a simple point that should be a part of our educational philosophy for 21st century thinking. You simply sometimes can't think outside the box when conformity matters most. You can't always expect different results when you insist on playing by the rules set by others. Sometimes you need to invent new rules, or simply refuse to play by the old ones, and invent an entirely new game.

As Giroux points out, "Thinking has become dangerous" and I would agree it has especially become dangerous in the United States in our current political climate. But, if we are going to push the limits and be "dangerous educational innovators," we are going to have to engage in the unsafe. We are going to have to be critical and creative thinkers, and question the official, and dare I say even resist. Ultimately, we can by example teach our students to be "dangerous thinkers" who can disturb the present by being willing to question and even think dangerously ourselves.

Want Innovation? Start with the Teachers in Your School Instead of Experts on the Outside

"The main lesson to draw from the birth of computers is that innovation is usually a group effort, involving collaboration between visionaries and engineers, and that creativity comes from drawing on many sources. Only in storybooks do inventions come like a thunderbolt, or a lightbulb popping out of the head of a lone individual in a basement or garret or garage" Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Besides the fact that there is little really innovative and new about them, the real problem with the heavy-handed reform strategies and tactics imposed from above, like the imposition of the Common Core, Merit Pay, or value-added teacher evaluations, is that their development and implementation failed and continues to fail to be collaborative endeavors. As Isaacson points out, the birth of an innovation is usually a group effort between those who have the vision and the engineers. In each of these examples, the true "teaching and learning engineers" in the individual schools are left out of the innovation loop. Sure, token teachers are often asked to serve on the committees, but there are also "experts," researchers, and politicians too, who often take so much control of the process, that the real engineers are left out.

I want to propose a new idea that follows more closely what Isaacson describes. I want to move innovation from meeting rooms, conference rooms, and think tanks totally outside the school. I want to move innovation back to the level of the school where the visionaries and teaching-learning engineers are. Engage in innovation at the school level, instead of searching for magic snake oil that might or might not exist out there somewhere. Engage staff at the school level in "innovation collaboration" and hackerism.

But I suspect the "experts" won't go away quietly. After all, too often their job is simply to sell their wares, which means marketing and creating a "need" where one did not exist before. In education, there's still this underlying belief that "experts" from the outside can walk into a school or district, conduct some professional development, provide some consulting services, and then collect their hefty professional fees, and "Presto!" innovation happens. They then move on to the next school district, like some medicine man, peddling their wares once again. In the end, this type of "imposition-of-innovation-from-above" (or outside) often leaves schools with mediocre results and a little less professional development money in their pockets. Politicians, school leaders, and teachers are guilty of taking on this medicine man role too, which is very often more about their own ambitions, prestige, and financial wealth than truly helping a school engage in innovation and ultimately help children.

Why do schools continue to engage in this "medicine man" style of professional development and innovation seeking? Besides the fact that is much easier seek innovation from without than try to engage your school or district in becoming innovative, I would also stress that the marketing of these medicine men, educating consultants, professional development experts is often more effective than their products or wares, but that is another blog post entirely.

Instead, if we truly want to innovate, I suggest we approach it the hacker and geek way. Let's involve the engineers a great deal more and the medicine men a little less. Let's engage in innovation at the school level with the teaching and learning "engineers" there. They are the ones who know everything about the "context" of that school. Very seldom will any neatly packaged product or "innovation" being sold by "experts" and educational entrepreneurs will work as advertised anyway. That's why many schools have these piles of educational materials sitting in their book rooms and media centers gathering dust. These all were "bottles of the latest elixir" promised to cure all that ailed that particular school at the time it was purchased.

Experts and professional development consultants can offer "sources of ideas," but their outside status places them in a position of not being able to fully understand that school's issues no matter how much "data" we feed to them. If they do claim to sell "research-based" wares, we should demand that they provide specific, independent, and valid research studies that examined the effectiveness of their product, not some vague or generic studies. If they can't provide them, send them packing. In education, we don't have a federal or state organization approving the effectiveness of these products, methods, or programs, so we have to take that on ourselves. Let's listen a little less to their very often unsubstantiated promises and engage our own teachers in our own schools with the task of solving the problems. Let's create cultures of innovation and hackerism in our schools that can make true and lasting innovation happen.

Welcoming Innovative Disruption: Embracing Those Who Ask the Tough Questions

"The people who ask questions that no one else is asking are the inventors and entrepreneurs and leaders who will create the next wave of innovative disruptions." Jensen, Bill. Disrupt! Think Epic. Be Epic.: 25 Successful Habits For An Extremely Disruptive World

Often, as we work within the education system, we are actually discouraged from asking tough questions. Questioning is often seen as disrespectful and not being a team-player. The teacher at the back of our staff meetings who begins to ask question after question on some new initiative the school is preparing to roll out, is seen as a "naysayer" and a "supporter of the status quo." These are sometimes apt labels for these individuals, but sometimes, the questions being asked need to be asked. They need to be listened to, and they need to be answered carefully.

Certainly, it is possible that the one asking the questions about our new initiative and project just want to sabotage our plans as school leaders. But can we really take that chance? Especially, if as Bill Jensen points out, that these are often the inventors, entrepreneurs, and leaders who create innovative disruptions that turn our schools and the educational system upside down?

As school leaders, those who ask tough questions might or might not have ulterior motives, but if we really want to be innovative, we perhaps need to listen rather than dismiss them. As Jensen points out, those who wish to be proactive "disrupters" of our organizations need to join in and "actively question every system, structure, and rule" placed before us. This is embracing the potential of "disruptive innovation in our schools."

Becoming a Competent 21st Century Leader of Innovation in Your School or District

“If a company is not nimble enough to rethink its strategy while it still has the assets and strength to change and adapt, it is doomed to wither or die.”  Working with Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

Blockbuster, Borders, and Circuit City are examples of companies that failed to be “nimble enough” to rethink how they do business in the face of change around them. Each of these companies withered and died because they did not change and adapt while they still had the resources and strength to do so. Now public schools are in similar circumstances, and they might not have what it takes to survive.

In the end, Blockbuster did not see and react fast enough to streaming video. It failed to see the revolution in a new way to deliver video to customers because its leaders were perhaps not open to new ideas and new approaches to video delivery. Borders failed to respond in a timely manner to the reality of e-readers and e-books brought on by Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Perhaps their leaders still saw a bookstore in a physical location as the primary way people can and will purchase books. Circuit City failed to see, first of all, the "electronics superstore” model brought forth by Best Buy, and secondly, the inroads of online electronic retailers such as Amazon in their retail business. Perhaps their leadership failed to be open to new ideas on how to sell electronics to customers. Each of these businesses failed, not because they couldn't do what they had been doing well, but because leadership was shortsighted. Their leaders were not open to new ideas and novel approaches to do business until it was too late. 

Today, I fear that too many school leaders and their schools are following the path these business leaders and their companies trod. These school leaders are not open to new ideas and new approaches to teaching and learning. They still see standardization, testing, textbooks, and traditional schooling as the only means to educate all students, so they spend inordinate amounts of time and effort perfecting and trying to make these work. They are not open to entirely new ideas and novel approaches to teaching and learning, unless those new ideas of teaching and learning only allow their schools to continue operate as they always have. Then, they scratch their heads because too many of our kids still fail, drop out, or graduate unable to be productive. What they need is a mind that is open to the new and novel that will allow them see the things that could revolutionize teaching and learning.

What can school leaders do right now to demonstrate what Goleman calls the competence of "innovation" or the ability to be open to the novel and new? How can they demonstrate they are open and actively seeking new ideas and novel approaches to education? Borrowing from Goleman, here's 4 things school leaders can do to open up to innovation.

• “Seek out fresh ideas from a wide variety of sources.” In the information age this should not be a problem for school leaders. Fresh ideas and new sources of information are just a “Tweet” away for those school leaders willing to wade into social media. RSS feeds and RSS readers can help with the gathering of potential resources and ideas, and web tools like Diigo, Evernote, and Pocket can help with archiving and sharing. Finally, there are explosions of print materials available too. Personally, for me, the Kindle and Nook apps on my iPad make it possible for me to carry around 20 to 50 books and resources at one time, so that I can engage in a quick read at a moment's notice. If 21st century school leaders want to be open to innovation, they must seek out new ideas and resources wherever they can find them.
• “Entertain original solutions to problems.” In public schools, there’s still too much of “We've gotta do it this way because we've always done it this way.” Try to change something radically, and you are immediately put in your place with, "You can't do that." As 21st century school leaders we need to look for original, out-of-the-box solutions to our problems, instead of doing the same old kinds of things and hoping things turn out different. We see so little innovation in schools or districts often because no one looks for original solutions; they revamp and tweak old solutions. They either do what they always have done, or they do what everyone else is doing, both of which do not work. If 21st century school leaders want to be open to innovation, they must be alert and willing to engage in original solutions to the problems their schools or districts face.
• “Generate new ideas.” Twenty-first century school leaders need to purposefully find ways to generate new ideas. They can turn their schools into incubators of innovation by engaging staff, and themselves, in techniques and tools that foster original thinking and ideas. They can create a culture where “no-idea-is-too-dumb" and original thinking is welcomed. If 21st century school leaders want to foster original thinking and new ideas, they need to demand and accept originality, unconventionality, and non-conformity as a rule.
• “Take fresh perspectives and risks in their thinking.” School leaders who want to be open to innovation have to stop seeing education through the eyes of bureaucrats and policymakers and see education through the eyes of teachers, students and their parents. They need to do whatever is necessary to see teaching, learning, and schooling with the eyes of those engaged in those activities. And to take risks in thinking, they need to be willing to try things that no one else is trying and need to stop being risk-averse. If 21st century school leaders want to be open to innovation, they must view teaching and learning through new perspectives and be willing to take risks, and encourage others to do so as well.

If our public schools are ever going to be nimble enough to survive the massive changes occurring around them, they are going to need both school leaders and teachers willing to be open to “novel ideas and approaches” instead of simply trying to preserve things the way they are. 

Crawling Out-of-the-Box: 5 New Skills for 21st Century School Leaders

I received an email from Best Buy today that is indicative of what happens when businesses and organizations are stuck with "inside-the-box thinking" instead of “out-of-the-Box Thinking.” The email from Best Buy offered me $25 if I would spend $500. My immediate reaction was, “That’s not a deal; that’s an insult.” You would think a company that is in Best Buy’s predicament could come up something better than that. Sadly though, I am sure that email is a product of inside-the-box thinking and not outside-the-box thinking. It is apparent from this offer why they are struggling as a retailer. I would say their “Marketing Department” suffers from a bad case of “Inability to get outside-the-box.”

When it comes to “getting out-of-the-box,” Paul Houston had this to say in an essay entitled “Out-of-the-Box Leadership.”

“It might be argued that finding ways to crawl out of the box has become a basic skill for leaders.”

I would argue that “Crawling Out-of-the-Box 101” would be an excellent course for 21st century leaders, but what would the course syllabus look like? What exactly does a school leader need to know to be able to master “crawling out-of-the-box” as a leadership skill? Here’s a few things that come to mind:

1. Bridge Building: To use a phrase Paul Houston uses, 21st century leaders need to be able “build a bridge and lead people across it, because it is only by crossing that bridge people can find a new place to stand.” Bridge construction requires knowing how to foster the development and creation of elements necessary for that bridge. Things like vision, mission, and core values are a part, but also courage and integrity are needed to lead people to new places. Without “bridge-building” skills in their leaders,  people stand in the same place, a recipe for doing the same old thing.

2. Pushing the limits and expanding personal perspectives, or engaging in lateral thinking: To crawl out the box, you have to change the lens with which everyone in your organization views the world, including your own. You have to entertain new perspectives and points of view that haven’t been entertained before. Once that is done, courageously pushing the limits of current practice is necessary. Engaging in practices that hover around author Milton Chen’s “edges of innovation” are a must. You can’t crawl out of the box without trying on new perspectives, engaging in lateral thinking, and pushing beyond current limitations.

3. Engage in the business of school leadership as a creative process: Too many school leaders still see their job as maintaining what is. Anyone who dares think differently or venture outside the parameters of declared thinking is, at worst, exiled from the leadership pack. At best, they are simply ignored. Being a 21st century school leader requires creativity, not just maintenance management skills. The issues and problems our schools are engaged in require a different kind of school leader: one willing to view leadership as a creative process of fundamentally finding new ways to engage in the business of education effectively for all students.

4. Barrier and Obstacle Reduction and Removal: Being able to effectively remove barriers and obstacles to innovation is a key 21st century school leadership skill. The world inside the box doesn't like the innovative, the new, so all manner of roadblocks appear in the way. It takes a 21st century school leaders skilled in barrier  and obstacle removal to lead the way through these and onward outside-the-box. Finding ways to innovate in a system resistant to innovation is a key 21st century school leadership skill.

5. Focus on the smallest “big-changers”: To crawl out-of-the-box doesn't necessarily mean blowing it up. Too many leaders try to change everything, when a focus on a few things can dramatically bring about the kinds of innovation we seek. This skill means 21st century school leaders need to focus on the fewest things that make the biggest difference. Choose to engage and focus on those strategies that will help you crawl out-of-the-box effectively without blowing it up at once.

Best Buy’s offer to me suffers enormously from “inside-the-box” thinking. There is absolutely nothing in that offer to entice me to spend more money, unless I was planning on spending $500 anyway. Education too often suffers from this same kind of “locked-in-the-box thinking” too. Evidence of this can be seen in many of the reforms being currently pushed by policy makers and politicians. The standards and testing movement is just one example. Another would be ideas about changing graduation requirements, which in North Carolina is redone every time we have changed governors over the past several years. None of these things fundamentally change education because they are not outside-the-box thinking; they are inside-the-box thinking. Crawling out of the box in which our education system finds itself will require more than any of these reforms which only continue to tweak the edges. Twenty-first century educational leaders desperately  need skills that will help education “crawl out-of-the-box.”

Six Practices of Schools and School Districts Marching to Obsolescence

In 2012, the powerful inertia to keep schools and school districts the same continues to dampen and  neutralize any efforts to innovate and change how schools operate. We are still on a march to obsolescence.

A recent example of this inertia in North Carolina, was when school districts tried to innovate with changing their school calendars. School districts shifted their calendars to better align their semester schedules with student needs. But it was the powerful tourism lobby, Save Our Summers,  that then pushed lawmakers to set legal limits when schools can start and end because, as their web site says, they “seek to establish, protect and maintain a more traditional school calendar.” Maintaining a “traditional” school calendar was not about helping schools do a better job teaching kids, it was mostly about preservation of the status quo, and preserving the school calendar they enjoyed while attending Industrial Age schools, not to mention profit.

These kind of efforts are simply attempts to keep the same Industrial Age schools of the previous century. These forces of inertia are making our schools obsolete simply because too many of them are made up of people who hold tightly to a nostalgic view of an ideal standard school that never really existed, except in the minds of the few of them for which schools worked. As Frank Kelly, Ted McCain and Ian Jukes write in their book, Teaching the Digital Generation: No More Cookie-Cutter High Schools,

“The most important issue facing schools today is the reluctance of those in control of education to let go of what they are used to, whatever their role in the system.”

The people and forces at work to preserve our education system as it is are powerful and strong. There are the politicians who see nothing wrong with the school systems that provided them with opportunities, so they continue to make laws that prop up the Industrial Age schools and districts they know. Policymakers are often beholden to politicians because they are left with trying to create policy that follows the letter of the law and regulations developed by politicians. Teachers, who very often excelled under a 20th century, standardized, Industrial Age education, are reluctant to change teaching methodology because, after all, “It worked for me.” School and district administrators and staff are more engaged in carrying the dictates of policy from on high, and often do not see their place as “One to question why.” Then there are parents, who very often had positive school experiences when they were in school, so they want the exact same schools for their children.

Is it any wonder with all these forces at work, that most reform occurs at the edges of our school system as Milton Chen describes in his book Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in Our Schools? Is it any wonder we spend most of our time tweaking schedules, lengthening school days, implementing new sets of standards and new testing, and trying to force technology to help us educate students as we always have done? And yet our drop out rates only improve marginally, student measures are down. Our schools are still on the road to obsolescence, because we are still engaged in practices that preserve 20th century Industrial age schooling.

Here’s a list of some of those practices that are really moving our schools to obsolescence:

• We still design and build schools structurally the way they always have been. While I certainly do not advocate building the open school buildings of the 60s and 70s and causing that fiasco, today, it seems little thought seems to go in the designs of our school buildings. We are still building structures containing distinct classrooms to house students in assembly-line manner to push them through the grades, like products. Perhaps we should be building schools with flexible learning spaces with walls easily removed and reconfigured to meet the needs of students, rather than fitting students to the needs of the building. Perhaps we shouldn’t even build high schools all with the same departmental classroom groupings. Maybe to meet the needs of students, classrooms are arranged by areas of interest or study, with core content teachers working within these instead of departments. Or, maybe one high school need only have art studios, music studios, or an acting theater rather than a football stadium and science labs. Such a school would be structured to meet the needs of art students, rather than STEM or athletics. In other words, we need to design school buildings to meet the needs of all 21st century students, rather than trying to fit students in predetermined school structures that have no flexibility

• In many of our schools, we still have teachers engaged in teaching the same ways they have always taught and were taught. The argument that lecture is a perfectly fine method of teaching because it worked for me is a step toward obsolescence. We need to stop trying to fit students to teaching and instruction, and instead, fit teaching and instruction to the needs of students. Students need to have the options of learning traditionally if they wish, but they also need to be able to learn through project-based or problem-based learning if that fits their needs. They need to be able to engage in online learning and internships if those fit their learning needs. They need to be able to engage in the kinds of learning that fits them, instead of schools trying to force students to learn in ways that do not work for them.

• We still are too often engaged in finding ways to get technology to help us educate as we always have instead of using technology to reinvent teaching and learning. Students typing 5 paragraph essays on computers hardly qualifies as technology integration. Having teachers use PowerPoint to enhance their lectures hardly makes for 21st century teaching. Using the Internet solely as an information source, instead of a tool to engage in global learning and connecting, hardly means using it for 21st century learning. Our schools still plod toward obsolescence because we still think of technology as a means to do the things we’ve always done better, rather than using it to reinvent what we are able to do.

• We still sacrifice kids to uphold policy and procedure rather than developing policy and procedures to meet the needs of kids. How many times do we prevent a student from taking a higher level course simply because they do not have the requisite “seat time” in another class, especially when we know that student is perfectly capable to being successful in that class? How many times do we keep students in our buildings all day simply because our regulations say they have to be in the building 7.5 hours, when it would be to their advantage to spend some time working at the animal shelter? How many times have we had to purchase “state adopted” textbooks and materials because the rules only allowed us to purchase those items, when other materials would work better for our kids? Our march toward obsolescence also includes a hard-headed unwillingness to enforce and abide by policy, procedures, and regulations even though they are not always in the best interest of kids.

• We are hard at work standardizing our schools, our curriculums, our tests, and even our instructional materials. In public education, there is a strong force that says anomalies and differences are bad. We push for schools that are same, from how they are arranged to even how their web pages are designed. Our government pushes for a standardized curriculum for all in spite of the fact that we know all students do not learn the same way, and don’t even have the same interests. We tell ourselves,  “We’re going to make scientists and mathematicians of them whether they like or not.” We give standardized tests, so that we can “measure” both students and educators and see if we have “added any value” to our students as they have progressed through our Industrial Age assembly line schools. We have policymakers pushing for e-textbooks and tablets that merely make books electronic and encourage the same kinds of learning we’ve always done. Never mind that some students do not learn best from text whether it is electronic or paper. Our efforts to standardize everything demonstrates that Industrial Age thinking still has a tenacious hold on our schools in the march toward obsolescence.

• We are still caught thinking of school as something “done to kids” between the hours of 8 AM and 3 PM. We force teenagers into classrooms at 7:30 AM when all the research in the world, and common sense, says their intelligent thinking capacities don’t really kick in until much later in the morning. We allows bus schedules and lunch schedules drive when teaching and learning occurs instead of fitting those things to teaching and learning. We allow sports practices to dictate when school ends for all high school students, when there are some who would excel under a class schedule that extends into the early evening. We march toward obsolescence because we refuse to fundamentally rethink the school day.

I do not advocate change for change’s sake. It is just as easy to get caught up in the thinking that we have to change something because it needs changing. Many of the tweaks and changes being made to our schools are the product of this kind of thinking. Yet, our schools continue to march toward obsolescence because we are not willing to fundamentally let got of our own nostalgic view of schools and school districts. The key to moving away from obsolescence to innovation and invention is perhaps in not holding anything sacred. We must be willing question everything about our schools and school districts. By trying to find ways to preserve and better what has clearly not worked for all students in the past is a sure way to continue our march to obsolescence.