In this month’s revisit post, I look back at an article I originally wrote in 2018, looking at the idea of “best practice” and how it is initially built on innovation. “Best Practice” didn’t just originally come out of nowhere; it was once an innovation. Someone said, “The thing I am doing is not working for my students, so I am going to create something else.” That “something else” then saw success, became widely adopted, and then known as “best practice.” I share the following in the article and believe it still today:

Not every new idea works.

But not every “best practice” works either for every child.

If you tell me, “But this best practice works for 90% of our students, my first question would be, “So, what are you doing for the other 10%?” I know that it is not feasible to have 100% of our students find success in our classrooms every single day. It still should be the goal.

One of my favorite questions from a teacher this past summer was this: how am I already innovative?

In all of my years working with groups, I had never had that question.

As we discussed the question, I found out that she was a grade one teacher and asked her, “Have you ever had a student struggle with reading in your class?”

“Of course!” 

Then I asked her, “When that happened, did you try things you already knew, and they didn’t work?”

“Yes!”

“Okay…so did you just say, ‘Well, I guess this kid is never reading!’ or did you figure out a new way to help that child find success?”

She responded, “I found a new way.”

And that is how she was innovative. 

She took what she knew, saw it didn’t work, and modified it, iterated, or invented a new pathway to help that student. That is the process of innovative teaching and learning. Finding “new and better” ways to help our students succeed and not being limited to only what we have learned in the past but what we are willing to create in the future. I  wrote about this idea in “The Innovator’s Mindset,” and her practice embodied it perfectly!

When someone tweeted out the original post I wrote in 2018,  it reminded me of that interaction I had with that teacher, and I wanted to share it with you all today! I hope it can help with some conversations in your own community!

Check it out below!

Every “Best Practice” in Education Was Once an Innovation

Adam Grant recently tweeted this article, focusing on the importance of theory and delving into the unknown for science. It is a fascinating read, and the end quote stuck out to me:

 

Some of the most interesting scientific work gets done when scientists develop bizarre theories in the face of something new or unexplained. Madcap ideas must find a way of relating to the world – but demanding falsifiability or observability, without any sort of subtlety, will hold science back. It’s impossible to develop successful new theories under such rigid restrictions.

 

In Grant’s original tweet regarding the article (read the replies; there is some interesting back and forth), he states:

 

Demanding proof stalls creativity. New ideas need room to breathe, and a good imagination will always be ahead of the best evidence.

So, what does this mean for education?

When I read this, I first thought of people always demanding that everything done in classrooms in schools has to be “best practice.”  Ultimately, that means nothing new can come into education because if it is unproven, then it can’t be best practice. Here’s the thing, though…

Everything we have ever deemed as “best practice” in education was once an innovation.

Someone saw things weren’t working the way they should, and they did something better.  I have shared what I believe this process continuously looks like in education.

But these ideas did not come out of thin air. People have based it on their own experience, understanding the students in front of them while looking at the future in front of them.  There is a balance of learning from what we know and how things could get better.  If we only did what we know, where does “learning” come into the fray?

Not every new idea works.

But not every “best practice” works either for every child.

The focus is not holding onto the past or focusing solely on the future. The focus is on learners and creating better schools and classrooms.

To do that, we will have to focus on continuous growth, not only what we know.