Creating New Steps: Innovating from the Edge to the Middle
Schools and school districts change and innovate all the time. They just don’t do so radically enough. Mr. Washor and Mr. Mojkowski propose the steps that need to be taken to move beyond the boundaries of current practice.
BY ELLIOT WASHOR AND CHARLES MOJKOWSKI
Phi Delta Kappan, June 2006
IN THE movie Strictly Ballroom, dance innovators Scott and Fran demonstrate profound talent and courage by taking their unconventional dance steps out onto the competitive ballroom floor. Their risk is rewarded when they gain the approval of a public audience, thereby forcing reluctant judges to vote them the winners of the Pan Pacific Grand Prix Championship. Their victory is achieved much to the dismay of Barry Fife, president of the Australian Dance Federation, and his cronies. Fife had repeatedly insisted that there would be “no new steps” in the competition. But Scott and Fran made their case publicly, and ballroom dancing was never the same.
Educators have their own innovative steps, but these innovations seldom make a real difference in the learning opportunities and environments that students experience. And those innovations that truly make a difference are seldom sustained or passed on to other educators. Instead, most are strangled by a bureaucracy with limited vision, an aversion to risk-taking, inadequate leadership, and limited organizational capacity. It is not surprising, therefore, that many schoolpeople are skeptical about the possibility of significant and sustained change, particularly in large districts….
