Learning & Leading Through Technology - September_October

Thirty years ago, few educators agreed that teaching students how to ask questions was more important than memorizing answers. Now it is widely accepted as one of the skills essential to students’ future success. The ability to ask questions is perhaps the most accurate, incisive, and valuable arrow we have.

Let’s think of digital technology as one of our bows, a tool we use to launch our arrows of questions, problems, inquiry, passion, creativity, and introspection. Like the English longbow, which revolutionized warfare in the 14th century, new technologies can improve our aim and allow us to reach targets that we only dreamed of reaching in the past. Our job is not to help the students pull the bow—they are already better at that than most of us. Our job is to help them learn which bows and arrows to use, help them strengthen their arms, and know when to use their arrows and for what purpose.

Here is a final takeaway from my
many school visits and ongoing inter-
action with hundreds of school leaders
in the past few months: Leadership is
the single most important key to suc-
cessful innovation. I did not find a sin-
gle school moving forward with what
we would call an innovative educa-
tional program where it was not visibly
and intentionally supported by onsite
leadership. Libraries have been written
about leadership, and I won’t repeat it
all here but will instead reprise a very
short blog post I wrote last May:
Unlike NFL championships, de-
fense does not win in innovative
environments. It just does not.

Over time, offense wins. Educa-
tion is undergoing dramatic evolu-
tion via innovation, possibly even
mutation, in the words of Shosho-
na Zuboff and Jim Maxmin, where
mutation is an evolution well
outside the conventional frame.
Defense is not a strategy against
mutation. Defensive strategies may
work long enough for the leader to
move to another job or retire, but
they will not succeed for the orga-
nization in the long run.

Leaders who primarily ask what their organization is doing and how it can improve on that are largely playing defense. Leaders who ask what their organization could be doing and push their communities into that discussion are playing offense. Over time, offense is going to win.

Grant Lichtman is a senior
fellow with The Martin Insti-
tute for Teaching Excellence.
He writes, teaches, and speaks
about transformational learn-
ing in a post-industrial age.
He was a senior administrator
at a large independent school for 15 years.