Craving More…
“It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness…”
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The exquisite first line of a novel can move a reader to deem it unthinkable to set the book down. Why? Great opening lines have power. They can ignite curiosity, inspire interest, and entice an experience so irresistible that the reader is hooked before they even know it.
Imagine a school that could achieve similar results — where learners are inspired to wonder, where the thrill of new discoveries catapults them into a welcome trajectory of life-long learning.
Now, picture your own school, or a contemporary school in your neighborhood, or even where your kids are enrolled. Perhaps an influential teacher or maybe a friend or classmate comes to mind, or possibly a project or a field trip sparks memories of an experience that will never be forgotten, like the timeless smell of mac-and-cheese. Does the school in your mind’s eye have the power of a great opening line? Perhaps the potential is there, but for too many of us, the answer is a resounding “no”.
What has kept our country’s schools from achieving powerful learning for all children? Typical responses to this question include many of the attributes of today’s American educational system — such as a focus on standards, limited funding and financial resources, politics and policy, poverty and inequity, accountability, even status quo. Even without current pandemic challenges, each of these roadblocks weighs on schools, school districts, and the communities they serve in varying ways, and both individually and collectively, they can seem insurmountable.
What if we could reimagine schools to overcome barriers and inspire powerful learning? What would these schools look like? How would they operate? What and how could students learn? How could these new schools ensure that every child’s learning needs were met with power and grace? How could this power be leveraged to support and strengthen our communities? Our team of Actionable Innovators has taken on these and other questions as we imagine new possibilities and opportunities to reestablish schools as settings for irresistible learning.
