What School Could Be

 

What School Could Be: A Conversation About the Intersection of Innovation & Education #BHSWhatSchoolCouldBe

Ted Dintersmith, author of What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America, leads a conversation moderated by Meghna Chakrabarti on how teachers can change the education system in creative, compelling and practical ways to positively impact students and better prepare them for the innovation economy. This conversation was sponsored by the Brookline High School InnovationFund. 

We had the good fortune to have about a 20 minute conversation with Ted and came away with some ideas about our school and leadership in the community. One of the big takeaways for me was the question of how to we help students fit with the curriculum rather than making the curriculum fit the students. With our initiative around exploring where Project Based Learning fits, this question will help guide some of our work.

The Innovator's Mindset Conference #IMMOOC

On Friday October 7th, Yarmouth High School hosted a day-long conference for 2 school districts. George Couros (@gcouros) keynoted and inspired all of us with his stories about empathy and relationships. This was followed by two Breakout sessions with presenters from the 2 districts as well as some of our PLN from around the State. Lunch was organized by job-alike rooms so participants could cross pollinate. The afternoon was set up as an EdCamp. Participants pitched ideas for all kinds of sessions. The hashtag for the day was #yfinnovate. We even managed to trend!

We were so excited from the anecdotal feedback we got all day. People seemed excited to have choices about the sessions they went to and enjoyed the mix of the 2 schools. This became more apparent as the EdCamp sessions were designed. Some were job-alike discussions and some were follow-ups to the morning sessions.  Judging from the feedback, people got a lot out of this day and we hope to be able to offer something similar in the future. I so appreciate the superintendents of both districts modeling an innovation mindset by accepting and following through on this day. I am excited about the possibilities for the future.