I have been involved in change processes in some capacity for the better part of two decades. For much of that period, I was and am tasked a senior leader, directly responsible for initiating and overseeing change. Business thinkers usually describe this as change-leadership or change management. In all that time, very clear patterns emerge, many of them based on predictable human responses to change itself regardless of the viability or appropriateness of the initiative. Fear of change often paralyses good people and good organizations; inertia in the face of change kills good ideas and good organizations.
Change is by definition a disruptive process. Not so much for surface-level changes, but substantive changes are an assault on any organization's sense of self: it's internal culture, it's history, it's meaning-making. Change requires a heroic portion of human energy. It requires a willingness to leap into the unknown. It requires tearing down the walls we build around old ideas, pet projects, best intentions, incomplete thoughts, even past successes.
Resistance to change is a very human response--why isn't what we've always done good enough? Why do we have to go change everything? If it was good enough in the past, why can't it be good enough in the future? We each have a threshold for change, hardwired directly to a panic button. This is especially true in schools, because the stakes are so very high. Kids have a much higher tolerance for change. Somehow, most of us lose this tolerance as we age, the intellectual casualty of fears acquired, dreams deferred--life lessons that leave scar tissue.
The hardest part of any change process is to stay the course through the inevitable early disruptions resulting from change initiatives. There is a veritable graveyard of great ideas abandoned because of our aversion to change. As is true in the whole universe, all disruptive processes find equilibrium. The goal then is to minimize these disruptions, to define and mitigate their eddy currents and chains of causality. We are working to do exactly this as we continue to transition to the International Baccalaureate.
A number of our students have communicated to me that the hard part for them in this whole process is that in the past, they were simply asked to memorize and repeat what the teacher told them, and now everybody expects them to always be thinking. There are a number of competing truths in these statements: an indictment of sorts, a revelation of progress, a question of fairness. We are guilty as charged--we do expect our students to think far more deeply now. It's kind of the whole point of learning. That said, we need to be fair to our students already so close to the finish lines, who will not have the benefit of time to grow towards advanced expectations.
Please know that we are working to find our middle, to honor our students, and to advance our program to world caliber quality. We are working to minimize the bumps along the way. I am in classrooms most every day, often for hours. I am watching the growth of our educators. I am also seeing immense growth in your children. They can do so much more than we expect if given direction, time, and the chance. This truth is coming alive in our classrooms. Good things are happening all over Baldwin.
An Invitation
I invite you to join us for Night@Oktoberfest at the VPAC, Saturday, October 17. This incredibly fun fundraising event supports the Innovation Center--a sciences and library complex for the 21st century, and a crucial next evolution in our campus infrastructure. Lederhosen are optional. Click here for tickets and more information.
Update
The new elementary space has reached substantial completion and we have filed for our usage permit. The facility will come on line in the next few weeks.
See you around campus.