The Right Questions

The Right Questions

I continue to read and be inspired by The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros (@gcouros).  This blog post will continue my reflection of his work and the connection to not only Central Woodlands, but to our education system across the world.

Innovation starts not by providing answers but by asking questions. #InnovatorsMindset

This proposition is interesting to think about more deeply and to tease out the implications it can have for us in education.  A few weeks ago, I was able to take several CW staff to the MACUL conference in Grand Rapids.  MACUL is the premier educational technology conference and always pushes our thinking in terms of how to meet the needs of students.

The keynote speaker at this year’s conference was Jaime Casap, a chief educational leader at Google.   I think about how some of his message resonated with this idea of asking questions.  Here are some tweets inspired by this theme:

@jcasap-Change conversation from, "who do you want to work for" to "what problem do you want to solve" ‪#edchat ‪#edtech

@davidsimpson512-Generation Z is global, social, visual, and technological… ‪#macul16 How do we meet their needs?

@davidsimpson512-We need to think about the questions we are asking our Ss? Are we making their thinking visible? Do we provide for ‪#deeperlearning? ‪#macul16

@davidsimpson512-How do we make all of our schools “passion based?” Maybe the first step is in asking our Ss the right questions! ‪#macul16

Asking questions is nothing new in our world.  In fact, renowned author, John Maxwell, even wrote a book called Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.   In his book, he argues “if you want to be successful and reach your leadership potential, you need to embrace asking questions as a lifestyle.”

If we really want to innovate in education, maybe we should start thinking more about how questions can drive purpose….questions can drive action…questions can drive innovation.

However, it has to be more than just questions that leaders ask.  It has to be more than just questions posed by thinkers in education.  It has to be more than questions asked by parents.  It has to be more than just questions asked by students.

I believe true innovation will occur when we create the opportunities for the intersection of these questions to truly reimagine what education can be in our world.  When groups of people with students having the loudest voice come to the table with questions, might we move from a neatly set table with preconceived notions of what a table should look like to something we haven’t even imagined?

Without asking questions, we fall into the trap of a fixed mindset for education.  We see something that has worked or that we feel comfortable with and we become static.  It is the same for our students as well.  They become comfortable with the “game of education” and will fall into the trap of negotiating this game on the surface, while simply falling in line with the system.

What if we give students an authentic voice?  Push them to ask questions?  Push them into deeper thinking about owning and personalizing their education?  Instead of creating an educational environment that is beholden to standards and rigidity,  let’s create an educational environment that has our students solving problems of the world as they develop a deeper learning and thinking approach.  I think sometimes we underestimate the thinking of our students.  However, by allowing them to innovate and ask questions, the synergy of ideas connected with questions coming from multiple voices will have the power to change the world!

Let’s start today.  Let’s begin to think differently about what education can be.  Let’s wake up on Monday morning and embrace the questions of our students.  Let’s push them to find their voice.  WE CAN DO THIS!