Innovation+and+the+21st+Century+Learner

Educators face increasingly stringent demands to standardize what used to be a profession and to try and make error-proof what is by definition an enterprise fraught with uncertainty. Unsurprisingly, as the recent MetLife survey results show, teacher job satisfaction is plummeting rapidly and educators’ willingness to leave the profession is 70% higher than it was just three years ago.

This is the environment in which school leaders must somehow find ways to create the elbow and head room that employees need to be adaptive and creative. We are not going to transition our schools and classrooms to technology-suffused, globally-interconnected learning environments that emphasise higher-order thinking skills without a great deal of risk taking and experimentation. And yet the policy and rhetorical climates right now emphasize exactly the opposite. I’m pretty sure that most teachers these days don’t feel that they are ‘drivers of their own destiny’ and ‘inventors of the [organization’s] future.’


 * //As school leaders, in an era of ever-tightening restrictions and expectations and mandates, how are we making room for innovation?//** [and, as parents, community members, citizens, and professors of educational leadership, how are we helping them do so?] (Dr. Scott McLeod)