Will Richardson

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To Transform Your School, Transform Your Beliefs First

June 2, 2016 By Will Richardson 3 Comments

According to the Harvard Business Review:

Digital transformation halts, or fails, for many reasons—but most often it’s because minor changes at the surface level do nothing to affect the fundamental operations of a company.

Very few people I speak with (or to) are ever shocked when I report that in most schools that I’ve visited, digital additions have not led to “transformation,” regardless of how high or low a bar you use to define that. And that’s because the digital is almost never added to support some fundamentally different vision of what learning and teaching needs to be given the potentials of access in the classroom.

Real digital transformation requires transformation at a deeper level—transformation of the leadership team’s core beliefs.

Right. As in what do you believe about how kids most deeply and powerfully in their lives? That’s the fundamental question.

And I would argue that it goes beyond the leadership team’s beliefs and extends to the larger school community. If leaders don’t take the time to build the capacity of parents and board members and community and teachers for real “transformation,” any change is bound to be reeled back in by the traditional, self-preserving narrative of schooling.

So, start here: What do you believe about how kids learn?

 

Filed Under: learning, On My Mind

Comments

  1. Tanya says

    June 2, 2016 at 11:45 am

    “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”

    Reply
  2. Joël McLean says

    June 2, 2016 at 11:57 am

    Change is intrinsic, and transformation comes down to choice: do I want to be the best principal/educator I can be for my students and school community ? Only then can we help and guide others (ie parents and students) in the change process.

    Reply
  3. Michel Page says

    June 7, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    Kids learn when they feel important. When they feel a connection to the subject, the context or the teacher (whether it be the adult in front of the classroom or not) they are motivated to learn and their minds and spirits are open to new thoughts and experiences.

    Reply

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