Page 4 - LeaderShift 2020: Chapter One -Who Really Needs Another Leadership Book!

The theme of this book is reinventing our schools for extraordinary and uncertain times. But before we do that, we need to determine why we need to reinvent education. Why is there such a sense of urgency? What should education look like? And how, as educational leaders, can we begin to shift the paradigm of education from where we are now to where we need to be?
Reinventing education is clearly an important topic. There’s obviously a great sense of interest and urgency: a sense that we can no longer just talk about reinventing education--that we also need to act upon it.
The purpose of this book is to help educators come together to generate and share creative and innovative ideas in support of our efforts to reimagine teaching, learning, and assessment in our schools and respective organizations.
The starting point is to consider where we are right now? To do this, let’s start with a compass activity. Here’s what I want you and your leadership team to do. Stand up and close your eyes--keep them closed until I ask you to open them. Now, with your eyes still closed, start turning slowly clockwise on the spot. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. Now, with your eyes closed, point north. When you open your eyes, you’ll probably notice that you and your colleagues are pointing in different directions--you each have a different north.
We think the fact you’re all pointing in different directions is a great metaphor for where we are in education today. We all know something big is going on; we all understand that changes need to be made; and we all have the very best of intentions to do what’s right for our students, our teachers, and our communities; but many of us are pointing in different direction--we each seem to have a different north.
LeaderShift 2020
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