creativity

Another look at the future…

I remember a similar video from Microsoft that takes a look at the future – not too distant – to conjecture on the state of the world associated with products already in the pipeline.  I like to think of it as the nexus between StarTrek and reality.  We’ve seen many crossover and successful products emerge this way. On the backs of Roddenberry style imagination, the future is crafted.  Science fiction brought us cell phones and iPads.  This video suggests what is next in interactive environments.

So the question that emerges is what do we do about preparing students for a future like this? If they only used today’s computers, will they be ready to demonstrate proficiency in a world of this level of interactive demand?

Leadership requires that we move education closer to the leading edge of this kind of development. I have to prepare students for this in school, so that they can go on to dream the next level of accomplishment. The people that are crafting these new ideas were enabled at some point in their education to see beyond the limitations. Can we create another generation of unimagined innovation?

Happy First Day Everyone!!

I love the first day of school each year. This year, with dissertation work continuing, I again ushered my own two kids into school, but did not take the reins of a classroom or building. I miss it.

I love the rain beating down on my umbrella while watching buses safely deliver kids to my building.  I love the calls on the hand-held letting me know that Johnny isn’t sure to which classroom he is assigned.  I relish the parent handshakes, the unloading of supplies.  The wide-eyed enthusiasm is part of my biological clock and it refreshes me with each iteration of the cycle.  Like the children in this video, I’m floating toward the heavens in awe of the mystery that is yet to emerge.

May you all have a wonderful “blast off” whether you have started or will soon do so.  May this year be an exciting one where you accomplish all that you seek for yourself and for the children in your charge.

Dr. Kirpal Singh (Singapore Management University) laments in a movie featured at 21Foundation that we are focusing on preparing kids for today or yesterday, but that very few of us are preparing kids for tomorrow.  That needs to be our focus and we should recommit to reaching out further than we can comprehend to address the needs of these citizens of a new millennium.

Time Travel – Kids Explaining it – Can you see the motivation?

In this video, kids talk about time travel and use various resources to explain their concept.  Since I was recently in an 8th grade classroom talking about black holes, this was especially interesting and, thus, I’m sharing it with you.  This is consistent with the previous message about reaching higher in our expectations than we might otherwise consider.

Motivation – Again!?!?

Seems like the week to discuss motivation and as I consider various links and tracebacks, I’m found bringing together some ideas into a new framework of understanding many things I have written before and will likely ponder in the future.  This video brings this thinking to specific relief.

We have discussed previously how setting our sights on common denominators (e.g. high stakes tests, common core curriculum, etc.) seems somehow counter-intuitive.  Additionally, many others have offered insight into the dangers of these practices.  Any other approach seems just too challenging to discuss in the midst of political wrangling, decaying facilities, and budgetary degradation.  We seek the average because we have lost the incentive to reach for something that often seems beyond our grasp.  We have lost the pioneering spirit.

In this video from 1972, legendary psychiatrist Viktor Frankl offers an important message about our motivations and our expectations for each other.

Whether we are talking about advances in science, travels to Mars, or the development of new curriculum, this simple video may be the piece that helps us all get past our limitations and our struggle with mediocrity.

We must find a way to seek for children more than our perceptions of their limitations.  We have to provide for the true and honest development of their pioneering spirit.  As the video declares, we must seek point far “north” of mediocrity and find our destination somewhere between average and eminently closer to excellent.

Motivation & Daniel Pink

It seems fortuitous that I wrote last night on Mike Rowe and then found Daniel Pink shortly after to reflect on the nature of motivation.  These are two very nice videos back-to-back and tell us much about the new age of work and accomplishment.  Similar to the theories (dare I say facts) presented by Pink, I’m writing this instead of the paper that is due in my doctoral class – my incentive, “grade” based class where I do work for the carrot of a piece of paper that somehow distinguishes me from everyone else – hogwash!

In reality, much of what Pink describes is true for me – I select projects where I can be creative and add to the base of knowledge rather than looking for the position with the greatest pay potential.  Performance has always been a motivator and I read about Google’s 20% only to say “Yeah!” and “Right On!!” and “That Makes Sense!!!”

The fact that we have had it wrong for so long is what amazes me.  In schools especially, we seem all too caught up in a Pavlovian reality and stretching to a different kind of conceptual framework seems unreachable.  Could it be that our most difficult students are trying to tell us something that has nothing to do with their “condition?”  Maybe we have so tightly closed the lid on our children that they have no choice but to move constantly amongst realities – one after another in quick succession – to the point that we no longer understand them because of their divergence from our norms.

Pink may have the new age of motivation in his pocket, and his dialog on the topic has inspired some divergent thinking at the very least.

Which path to take…

Two Million Minutes

A debate continued to brew regarding the general focus of education and how to reconcile the differences between schools in three distinct cultures and two significantly different dichotomies.  It’s western vs. eastern philosophy about eduction and the case is being used to both deride American education and highlight the realities behind the 21st century brain drain that is emerging in the United states.  Robert Compton says we should fear India and China.  Michigan State Professor Yong Zhao says “Wait one minute.”  So what now?  Where do we begin to reconcile this and what next in the debate?  These two points of view will generate the next decade of debate while schools languish in static complacency with teachers feeling more confused and disheartened than at any time in history.  Where do we turn for leadership in an environment where we are still debating Nation At Risk 25 years later?

Robert Compton Makes His Pitch

Yong Zhao’s Response

Update to Microsoft Surface…

I stand corrected. It looks like Smart Tech (www.smarttech.com) has got one in the works. Would love to know how implementation is going. Anyone?

Click here – The SMART Table

Leadership from the Google Guru…

Evan Wittenberg discusses Google’s beliefs about leadership.  In the first statements, he captures the best of transformational leadership in articulating succinctly the Google vision.  The rest is about individual consideration and internal development of leadership values that reaches beyond the typical “push” model and looking more to “creating environments” where people can learn and develop their own personal leadership. (Advertisement precedes video.)

Leading Change

In the current world, change seems to be our greatest challenge. Creativity seems to be accepted as necessary to competitive competence, but the sustainability of change is something quite different. I’ve been party to many “new ideas” that have disappeared and reappeared in what seems to be associated to the whim and tide of perception.

I value comments about managers who lack willingness, but I would add that there seem to be many factors that impact the ability to institutionalize change. Daft (2008) offers us a systematic approach to change and includes a cyclical  process. Others, including Reeves (2009) offer pre-conditions that they refer to being similar to “weeding before planting.”

But I like my version of the analogy of the fish.

• If you give a fish to someone who is hungry they eat for a day.
• If you give them the parts of a fishing pole, they have a 50/50 chance of survival for more than a day.
• If you give them a fish and the parts for a fishing pole, they may be able to survive long enough to learn how to use the pole, but many will still fail in their attempt.
• If you give them a fish, parts for a fishing pole, and you sit down with them to share the fish and teach them how to assemble and use the fishing pole (with appropriate modeling and monitored independent practice), they’ll be able to feed themselves for a lifetime.

Self explanatory?

P.S. – Should we treat managers the same way when leadership is their hunger?

References

Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (Fourth Edition). Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.

Reeves, D. B. (2009). Leading Change in Your School. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.