Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

When COVID first impacted education over a year ago, one of the messages we heard from educators is that "we need to address the social and emotional needs of our students." That message was driven by the concern that kids were increasingly isolated. Strong relationships that had existed began to fray. COVID also uncovered disparities in access to instruction, and so student performance suffered. But here's the sad truth: many of our kids were already in social and emotional trouble long before COVID.

Innovating in education can be challenging because of red tape, limitations, and a constant lack of funds. But this week's guest, George Couros, cautions that constraints shouldn't stop innovation. We can choose to look at a problem and the constraints that surround it, and be frustrated, or we can work with what we have to find a solution. One of the principles of innovation science is that the solution is contained in the problem. In this episode, we'll look at some innovators who used that thinking.

A recent guest on our show remarked that "The discussion in education has moved beyond the question of 'Do we need to transform education to make it more responsive to the needs of students in the 21st century?' That train has left the station. The debate now is over how." Today's guest, educator George Couros, answers that question in part by pointing to purposeful innovation. Not just innovation that changes something, but innovation that provides greater value, and makes teaching and learning better.

In this week's episode of "Getting Unstuck", we talked with Dr. Deborah MacNamara, a school counseling psychologist on why it's important for leaders to establish a healthy culture based on relationships. Interpersonal relationships are critical, but their success may be dependent on the relationship we have with ourselves. Those relationships can suffer do to what psychologists call the "empathy gap." And that's where we're going to focus in this installment of "Worth a Listen, Look, or Read."

Given what school leaders may face this fall — > lingering exhaustion brought on by managing the last year and a half under the cloud of COVID, and > the relentless academic push which manifests itself in the fear of students' loss of learning — how can they help teachers nurture a culture of collective strength, of sustaining relationship-based rituals? Counselor and educator, Dr. Deborah MacNamara provides some direction.

This week we reintroduced you to Jamahl Hines, an Assistant Principal and the founder of the Future Educators of Diversity, a program that creates a pipeline for developing teachers of color. Jamahl's story inspired us to look for other educators who are trying to reshape schools. Here we found Emily Pilloton-Lam, the Executive Director of the nonprofit Girls Garage where she teaches young girls how to put power tools together with science and math principles to build projects for their communities.

We first aired this interview with Jamahl Hines last November. His story continues to inspire us as an example of an effective change catalyst. It starts with him realizing a need – in this case that students of color need to see someone like themselves standing in front of the classroom – and then by taking action to develop future educators of diversity. A lot has happened since, so we decided to share Jamahl's good news in a brief update chat.

Sometimes circumstances are the catalyst for driving a change that you never anticipated. Assistant Principal, Jamahl Hines relates his experience in this story of transformation.

In this week's "Worth a Listen, Look or Read," we enrich the theme of external partnerships through a story that recently aired on NPR's "Morning Edition." The story details how five school districts on Long Island, New York confronted a growing mental health problem among their students. The solution that the district leaders and parents came up with relied on an external partnership and the innovation principle of "Near, Far, Sweet" – finding a solution that is desirable, feasible and viable.

What can we learn about leading transformational changes from someone outside of K12 education? In this episode we talk with Rich Razgaitis, co-founder and CEO of FloWater to learn: • the importance of having a succinct mission statement. • how to change behavior by first understanding human behavior. • why you should look outside of your space for inspiration. • the importance of agreeing on what problem you're trying to solve. • the need to be as dispassionate as possible when overcoming obstacles.