After a few hectic weeks of work, life with kids, and a move
to a new house, I’m finally getting started with The Innovator’s Mindset MOOC
(#IMMOOC). As I
blogged about last week, I’ve followed George Couros for a while now and
I’ve had his book (The Innovator’s
Mindset) on my list of books to read, so I was excited to hear that he and
Katie Martin are facilitating a MOOC based on The Innovator’s Mindset.
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| Teach Like a Pirate - Dave Burgess Speaking. Digital image. Teach Like a Pirate: Dave Burgess. Dave Burgess, n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016. |
Each week #IMMOOC will feature a YouTube Live Hangout with a
special guest speaker followed by conversation and questions with George and
Katie. As I play catch up with #IMMOOC, I watched the recording of the first week’s YouTube Live session featuring
Dave Burgess (@burgessdave).
I first learned of Dave Burgess in 2009 when I attended a session he
facilitated at the NCSS Conference. “Outrageous Teaching: U.S. History
Edition” was unlike any conference session I had ever attended. Dave entered
the room dressed in pirate regalia and proceeded to teach/entertain the
audience with magic, props (including a woman’s bra - #tlap fans will recognize
this as the taboo or mystery bag hook), and audience involvement. Dave’s energy
and passion were infectious and very inspiring. I left this session feeling
like I had to find a way to increase the engagement of my students. I became
even more intrigued a few years later when I learned that Dave was publishing a
book, Teach Like a Pirate, and he was developing his own consulting and publishing company. Dave’s company has
gone on to publish excellent educational books, such as The Innovator’s Mindset.
Dave’s portion of this week’s YouTube Live Hangout focused
on doing whatever it takes to engage and teach kids. As educators we need to
embrace our purpose as life changers who raise human potential. To achieve this
end, we must be willing to think outside the box to engage students and create buzz for learning (and perhaps be innovative, hmm . . . does this relate to The Innovator’s Mindset??).
Listening to Dave is inspiring and his energy is infectious, but as strange as
it sounds, messages like Dave’s and George’s can be disheartening. We, as
educators, listen to and read these amazing messages, then go back to our
schools and see change perceived as an obstacle rather than an opportunity.
Dave addressed this reality and offered reassurances that change does not
happen all at once and cannot be a top-down directive, but rather must be a
grass-roots initiative that starts with a few committed individuals. I loved
Dave’s analogy that effective change is like a snowball, you must start small
and as momentum gains, it will grow. This is a great message; we need to focus
on those who want change and ignore the negativity from others. This builds a
base of support for trying new things and as others see the effectiveness of
these ideas, momentum will grow and the push for change will gain energy. Dave
closed his portion of the Hangout by encouraging educators to share their
journey. He stated that we have a moral imperative to let others know how we
are engaging in innovative practices. This helps the snowball gain momentum
and can help educators all around the world.
George and Katie followed Dave with a fast-paced discussion
of topics related to the Introduction of The
Innovator’s Mindset. Much of the conversation focused on adjusting our
educational practices to the current realities of the “real world” that schools
so often use to try and justify outdated methods. The “real world” involves
skills and achievement over aptitude and includes learning environments that
are comfortable and collaborative (picture Starbucks), rather than a factory
model of teacher-centered learning. We need to teach students to value learning
rather than jumping through hoops to achieve a grade. This also means that we
need to not only acknowledge, but incorporate “real world” tools such as
Google, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
As I watched this Hangout and read the Introduction to The Innovator’s Mindset, I was
continually struck with some of the same ideas. Change can open up a whole new
world for us and our students, but change is difficult. Many of my thoughts
on this topic can be illustrated by the “Be
More Dog” video from O2 that was referenced in the Introduction of The Innovator’s Mindset. Sometimes we fall into the trap of teaching like teachers have always taught, but by making the
decision to try something different we can open up a new world of
possibilities. Although this sounds good, it is not such an easy proposition.
This involves changing our paradigm of school and maybe even of what we
consider innovative.
If we continue to view the purpose of school as the
acquisition of knowledge, then change will not occur. We must ask ourselves what
do we care about in schools? This question determines the course we take as
educators. I loved the phrase in The
Innovator’s Mindset that we need to inspire students to be better people because
of their experiences in school. This is what I see as the purpose of education!
This can take many different forms, but it ultimately comes back to always
doing what is best for kids, even if it does not look like our experiences in school
(which it shouldn’t, the world has changed, so should school). In order to make
education relevant to our students we must embrace change and the opportunities
that are available in today’s connected world. Find a way to inspire your
students and to spark their curiosity for learning, wondering, exploring, and
becoming leaders. As George states, “If students leave school less curious than
when they started, we have failed them.”
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| Hogan, Aaron (@aaron_hogan). "'If students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them.' #InnovatorsMindset via @gcouros." 12 January 2016. Tweet. |
We must also consider that innovation is incremental. We do not have to scrap everything and start anew. Most educators are innovating on a daily basis, they just don’t view it that way. Every time you try something new to reach a student, you are innovating. Every time you try to connect students to a new resource, you are innovating. Now we all need to build on our existing innovations and keep pushing ourselves one step further and move from your point A to your point B. Start small by taking one or two measured risks in your classroom and build from there.
With this thought, I want to encourage teachers everywhere to be more dog. Don’t act the way teachers always have, do what you think is best, be adventurous, embrace change, and open up a new world for yourself and your students. As you seek the bone to motivate your students, connect with other dogs and spread your ideas, not just for adjacent possible, but for adjacent powerful! Start the snowball rolling!
