Adopting New Mindsets

So much energy expended–
So much frustration and anger expelled–

In my humble opinion, there is something very wrong with this picture. A bit of a slow thinker, I’m mulling over and questioning hard do I raise my voice with encouragement to move forward from a different perspective when a Tweet from Chris Lehmann last night aligned with much of what I’d been thinking:

Yes, the words humility and listen totally resonate with me and both of those have been pretty much missing entirely in recent weeks. Chris expanded on that in a later blog post from which I’m quoting. He eloquently voiced what he hoped he’d hear in the conversations.

“We are thrilled that the nation is focusing on education. We welcome so many leaders from such a wide array of professions are now making education a focus. We look forward to working with anyone who is willing to come to the conversation with humility and a willingness to listen, question and change. The task in front of us is so hard, and we understand that teachers and schools must change with the changing times. All that we ask is that you understand that school reform is not something you do to students and teachers and parents, it is something to undertake with students and teachers and parents. That is how we will build the schools we need.” — Chris Lehmann

As we strive to build the schools we need for our children, what if each of us humbly brought our stories of the best that we’ve observed thus far in learning and teaching. And what if after we listened to those provocative stories of learning at its best, we collectively built a vision of the future. What if from these stories we generate

“new ideas, images, theories and models that liberate our collective aspirations, alter the social construction of reality and, in the process, make available decisions and actions that weren’t available or didn’t occur to us before”. —Gervasebushe

Naive on my part– maybe– But truly believing that together, if we adopt a new mindset, we can collectively create a design that enables possibilities we have not yet imagined. Just think– twitter streams, blog posts, news media reports and symposiums–all that energy generating possibilities. Possibilities that can fuel the difficult and hard work to follow.

image credit: By Cherice