Blockbuster Video

Innovation

It’s been awhile since I have blogged!  Things have gotten pretty busy this year at CW and lots of things have been going on.  Much of my focus outside of my life at CW has been on finishing up my dissertation proposal.  I am scheduled to defend it in the coming weeks so I hope I begin to have more time to blog.

I am reading the book, The Innovator’s Mindset, by George Couros.  I have been able to hear Mr. Couros speak a number of times and am always left with a feeling of inspiration every time!  I plan on having my next couple of blog posts focus on my reflections from this book.

Awhile back, over 30 staff members from FHPS visited Bemis Elementary to deepen our learning on the concepts of Visible Thinking.  We are in our 3^rd year of creating a culture of thinking at CW and other schools in Forest Hills have started as well.  One thing the principal of Bemis mentioned to our group was his belief that if schools did not begin to focus on the thinking of students, they would no longer do well as students would not prepared for both the new standardized tests, but more importantly for the demands of the world in which are students will enter.

Basically, he was saying schools needed to INNOVATE by focusing on thinking otherwise, previously successful schools would begin to lag behind in terms of student outcomes. 

The first part of The Innovator’s Mindset reminded me of this.  In the book, Couros makes reference to a satirical video produced by The Onion, in which they take a fictional look at a Blockbuster Video museum.  The video is actually pretty funny and can be found at https://youtu.be/3TrPwOrf4sM

Blockbuster Video was in business not too many years ago and I am sure many of us can remember going there.  What happened?  They failed to innovate and they became obsolete against the likes of Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu.  They were comfortable with the status quo.  They were content.  They felt like they were “good.” 

As often is said, good is the enemy of great.  At CW, we have always been a good school.  Our students and parents have been happy with the education received.  Our test scores on the traditional assessments were good.  We were a reward school.  We were “good.”

But at CW, there exists a group of teachers who did not want to rest on just being good.  They weren’t satisfied with our students just doing well.  They begin to look at not what our students were learning, but how?  They saw students who were already beginning to play the game of education.  The game where students memorized the answers to demonstrate success, all the while not getting to deep learning or thinking.

We wanted more for our students at CW.  The innovation begin when we decided to seek out ways to transform into a Visible Thinking school where thinking is prized and celebrated like the A’s used to be when I went to school.  The goal was no longer the answer.  The goal was deep learning and thinking.