I spent last night listening to the opening night panel discussion at #Educon then talking and reflecting thereafter with friends and colleagues. The members of the panel spoke of entrepreneurship and the need to believe in oneself enough to take the risk to be entrepreneurial. It is through and with this entrepreneurial spirit of course, where innovation and reform are born.
In education being innovative is hard. It is risky. To be a change agent means to go against the grain. Against one’s colleagues, administration or community, and perhaps against one’s union. Educators will often point to another group to reason away innovation. Teachers will point to administrators, administrators will point to school boards, school boards will point to the community and the community will point to legacies and traditions as a reason as to why innovation can’t take place.
To be innovative means taking a risk which may disappoint others, including those that make decisions about your continued employment. The problem, however, is if we never take a risk in education, we will only be satisfying the adults in our systems, when our focus should always be on the kids we serve.
