It was the perfect storm, as they say. Our district elementary schools were doing a book study on George Couros' The Innovator's Mindset. At the same time, looking to re-energize my teaching, I registered to attend the IASL Conference in April. The theme of the conference was The Perfect Blend: Innovative, Grounded, Future Ready. The keynote speaker was the amazing Joyce Valenza and the title of her keynote address was There is no box: Innovation and your whys, what ifs and why nots.
Bam! The inspiration hit with the force of a hurricane. I was suddenly evangelizing about innovation to anyone who would listen: Megan Halverson, my Instructional Coach ... Beth Campbell, our district Tech Integrationist ... strangers on the street. Megan and Beth were both very supportive of my enthusiasm. The strangers just backed away slowly.
While Couros' book talks to a more general audience, Valenza challenged the Teacher Librarians in the room. "School librarians can transform cultures and creatively move communities forward." Librarians have more flexibility in their job description and, therefore, are in a stronger position to lead the charge. But it was Couros' book that inspired me to blog about this journey. See? The perfect storm.
And just as both Couros and Valenza talk about innovators being risk-takers, this is a huge risk for me ... sending my (usually very private) thoughts out into the world. But it's a risk I'm finally ready to take. Because this is a journey for which I have passion. A journey I know will make a difference in the lives of our students. And, I hope that there might be one person out there who reads this and gets inspired to try something new.
Next time: What is your Why?
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