Though it took a while to finish George Couros's The Innovator's Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity, I can now reflect on my takeaways. Before doing so, I must confess that this book made feel woefully inadequate, but in a way that will force me to better shape and craft the experience of students and teachers when I finally put into use my recently earned Connecticut Administrator Certification,
1. Take Risks That Seek to Improve Student Experiences Our business is to educate young people to discover the excellence inside of them and to discover the avenues to use that excellence for a common good--personally, locally, and globally. Couros confirms for me that by "[f]ocusing on the learner, not just the learning, shifts the focus to a larger moral imperative to embrace the opportunities to educate and empower the students in our schools and classrooms in a powerful way" (p. 141). When we put students first, we are forced to examine the policies, procedures, curriculum, and instruction to determine whether or not they are truly empowering those students. Of course risk is scary, especially in the current system of accountability. A monumental philosophical shift cannot happen over night. As I consider my own future as a leader, one in which I am very willing to challenge the status-quo, I appreciated Couros's continual return to that question, "what is best for students?". When I have the opportunity to get to the why for this shift, I will have to be both careful and bold in getting that philosophy out to parents, teachers, and students--though I think students would be much more open as a whole. 2. Focus on Strengths to Uplift Weaknesses Many years ago, and again just a couple of years ago, I examined my own strengths with Tom Rath's StrengthsFinder 2.0. Having spent considerable time educating in high needs schools, I can speak first-hand to that emotional conflict as people outside of the classroom focus on how the school is failing. It is demoralizing and unsatisfying. Teachers feel it; students feel it--and they all talk about it. Couros reminds us, or maybe teaches us, that "we need to make sure our educators and students have ample opportunity to explore and practice in areas which they thrive" (p.126). A practice I learned from Justin Baeder (@eduleadership) started my growth towards strengths based leadership. He suggests spending time visiting classrooms for the singular purpose of leaving the teacher a positive note on a strength of theirs. Couros opened my eyes to a host of other ways, as has my experience as an elected member on the Ellington Board of Education, where the leadership team has actively pursued avenues for teachers and students to discover their strengths and explore how to continue to build on them. 3. Innovation and Empowerment are Not Endpoints The title's key word is "Mindset." We can have 1:1 devices and 3D printers, but in time the world will change again. Innovation and empowerment are mindsets that can best be summed up when he writes, "we must commit to perpetually moving forward, for our own sakes and for the benefit of the schools and students we serve" (p. 217). We must be adaptable, and willing to adjust midcourse if that is what is needed. We must approach this craft of education with purposeful dedication to benefiting the students. That focus, and the connected belief that our students can be great, is what will help us to be truly innovative in how we educate students. Up next, I will be reading Role Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom by Mark Barnes.
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July 2018
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