Having a conversation with an administrator, and talking about the notion of the “innovator’s mindset“, they asked me if I thought every educator should be an innovator. I answered with one word.
Yes.
When we went deeper into the conversation, and the comment was made that not every educator is good with technology. Innovation doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with technology as the two words are not necessarily synonymous, although technology allows us to accelerate and amplify the process if used in purposeful ways. It is about having a mindset towards continuously developing new and better ideas as outlined below.
This was obviously built on Carol Dweck‘s work regarding the “fixed and growth mindset”, but it goes further in the notion and is essential in our work with students every day.
For example, you are working with a student and you have learned several strategies that you use to help for reading, yet none of them work for the student. Do you give up, or do you take what you know (or find out things that you don’t know) and try to figure out a new way to help this student? If we simply go with what we know right now, a lot of students will be left behind since there is no one solution that helps every kid. If there was, we would all know it.
Or what about the administrator that may have budget constraints and work within a system that expects us to do more with less? If we do not think of new ways that we can do things, then how will we ever move forward? Innovation is not about “stuff” but more about a way of thinking. We live in a complex world that needs us to not do just what we have done, but to look for new and better ways to solve problems to help those we serve. These are the characteristics of the innovator’s mindset. This way of thinking is by far the biggest game changer in education; it will never be a technology.
This is not about embracing failure, but doing whatever we can to help our students today become successful. The other idea is that “innovation” is not something reserved for the select few in education, but is something that all levels of our organization, from students to superintendents, need to embrace.
When we look at ourselves in terms of having the “innovator’s mindset” and say “that’s not me”, not only do we sell ourselves short, but our kids. We need to constantly ask the question, “what is best for this learner?” This is a question we all need to continuously ask in education.
