My Message From The Future

I was having my morning tea, reading my feeds, and following my Twitter stream when @markwagner linked to a blog post he wrote in ’07 and asked what message we would send from the future to the principals of today . . . paused a moment and decided to give it a shot. I logged into the Google doc that @markwagner was using and shared:

School is no longer passive, learning and technology have converged allowing students the power to guide their learning. This has created a myriad of new degrees and avenues for creativity that weren’t even imagined when you were directing your student. Please imagine . . . the wild. Visualize . . . the unknown. Remember that vision is the art of seeing the invisible. Create new places of learning that don’t resemble the “tried and true.” But, rather, open the windows to the art of possibility. (With appreciations to both Emerson and Benjamin Zander for having vision.)

It felt fantastic to write that, to bring together the ideas floating around in my head and express them concisely. It was heartening to envision the possibility that educational leaders would exercise the potential of their positions, working together to design new learning environments that are not predicated upon the timeworn structures and ideas that pervade todays educational systems.

I may sound like a broken record, but what we need within the educational arena is a dedication to take only the essentials and leave the “old” behind and create something new – schools that are true learning ecosystems . . . living, fluid places were learning grows and spreads like the underground runners of the tiger lilies that grow wild here in Wisconsin. New ideas blossoming miles away from the original thought . . . but tied back to it via the network of underground roots that continue to venture out to new places.

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