“Proposals for change in schools are often met with a thousand points of no“
Liz, Julie and I are at the NAIS annual conference in Denver. We were joined by Trace who gave a great presentation yesterday. (On that, more later). The theme of the conference is People, Planet, Purpose Leading the Way to a Sustainable Future. The speakers, presentations and workshops are linked to themes of sustainability along five dimensions. Jim Collins of Built to Last and Good to Great was the keynote speaker.
The context was set by Bruce Stewart who, in his introduction, referred to the startling information presented in the video Did You Know *(also called Shift Happens ) made by Colorado teacher, Karl Fisch. It’s been popping up in mailboxes as an email send-around for a while now. Two parents have already sent it to me so I am linking it below so that you can also view it.
It is Jim Collins’s contention that “good is the enemy of great”. Greatness , he says, is not a function of circumstances but rather the consequence of discipline and conscious choice. Adverse circumstances and an uncertain changing environment are not the cause of failure. Rather lack of focus and discipline are the causes of failure. For a society, a nation to be great, he contends, it needs not just a great economy but also great health care, symphony orchestras, social services. museums, not-for-profits and great schools. Collins believes that schools must reject the idea that they should become more like business. After all, he says, most businesses are mediocre.
One key for schools he says is to preserve core values while at the same time embracing and stimulating innovation and progress. And to do that it is necessary to distinguish between what is a core value and what is a mere barnacle of custom and practice.
*Here is Karl Fisch’s presentation, as edited by Scott Macleod. Choose from a variety of formats:
- QuickTime movie file (.mov)
- Windows Media streaming media file (.wmv)
- streaming Flash movie (online)
- downloadable Flash movie file (.swf)
- AVI video file (.avi)
- YouTube movie (online)
- PowerPoint (.ppt) and accompanying audio file (.mp3) [put these in the same folder on your hard drive]
Nice post.
If you remember what was said, I’m curious as to what information was an overlap between the Did You Know presentation and Jim Collins’ presentation (or the intro to his presentation, I wasn’t clear which you were referring to). It’s interesting to see which pieces of information other folks highlight when talking about these changes (particularly if those other folks are Jim Collins!).
If you’re interested, you can get the original context of the Did You Know presentation at this post
Hi Karl – The reference to you was made by Bruce Stewart in his introduction to Jim Collins. He was creating the context, setting the tone of necessity and urgency. Jim Collins focussed his remarks on the Good to Great research and hypothesis and their relevance to the social sector. The introduction painted the scenario of why it all mattered. The facts from your presentation (not the presentation itself) were used to some dramatic effect as a wake-up to the realities of the changing world.
Thanks for the link.
“Proposals for change in schools are often met with a 1000 points of no“ -#naisac07 People, Planet, Purpose. #naisac11 http://bit.ly/hkrgQF