Yup, that’s my catchy title. Did it work? If you are here, keep reading and then push back…

I’ve been following other educators on twitter for 3 years now, and I see so much chatter about innovation in education. I even got asked to sit on a group to discuss innovation at our school recently. So, that got me thinking. I threw out the question to a weekly independent school group known as #isedchat: “everybody is talking about innovation, but who is doing it?” That discussion happens every Thursday night at 9pm, and that particular topic was presented last night. You can find the archive here.

There was a lot of back and forth about innovative practices. In the end, I was not convinced we do anything innovative in education. And I mean innovation in the sense of implementing totally new practices (after they are invented)-not in the sense of doing something new at a particular school. With respect to new technologies and social media tools, so much of what we do seems to be doing old things with new tools. Many schools are encouraging teachers and students to adapt and change methods or employ new technologies, but I am not convinced that leads to innovation. I say that having run two 1:1 classes with iPad2 tablets over the last year. You can read about my first attempt here, and my second attempt here.

I DO think we can cultivate the conditions for teachers and students to be innovative. We can cultivate those conditions by encouraging teachers and students to take risk (without fear of failure), to tackle authentic tasks (problem based learning), and to be creative when problem solving. I think we have the responsibility as educators to foster innovative thinking, but I am not convinced that traditional schools are the environment in which innovations arise. Why?

One reason schools do not serve as hotbeds of innovation was made event by Josie Holford, Headmaster of Poughkeepsie Day School. Schools are conservative institutions- we tend to teach methods that have worked well in the past. I know some have written about the innovations delivered by “outliers,” those that are wildly successful despite not completing a traditional education.

A second reason is that schools issue grades. Can you imagine a school without grades? If grades are the reward, then teachers and students are reluctant to try methods (take risks) that may endanger grades.

In the end, schools that do NOT offer grades may offer the best chance at cultivating the conditions for innovation and producing innovators. Poughkeepsie Day School is one of those schools:

What do you think? It is unlike most schools will abandon grades like Poughkeepsie Day. Short of doing that, how do we create conditions for innovation?