by Ross Peters, Managing Partner.
We are going to have so much to learn over the next year.
More than usual, I think, and I am scared and excited and anxious and expectant and dubious and hopeful. ChatGPT is not a shot over a bow warning of an event to come at some point in the future. It is an announcement that a kind of arrival has begun, an arrival so vast that it will take a long time simply to rise fully over the horizon and into full view.
We are poised for the entire panoply of usual mistakes when we react to new things that will affect our routines, habits, and behaviors–there is little we can do right now to prevent those errors. However, I have some questions we will use at EXPLO Elevate to guide us in areas where we have some impact (this is a work in progress–feel free to make suggestions and additions). Here are a few from my list.
- How will we bring our best selves to heightened uncertainty?
- How will we bring the best of our learning from the pandemic and all encompassed within it to bear on what comes next?
- Can we embrace our own “beginner’s mind” and use it to center our approach to the world creatively, patiently, and hopefully?
- How can we become more focused listeners and spot the voices we should hear most deeply?
- How do we preserve the best of our work within the rush for what is next?
I also have some wonderings regarding the work EXPLO Elevate does (again, this is a work in progress–feel free to make suggestions). Here is a sampling:
- Even as we are mired in conversations about teacher shortages, are we on the eve of the best time in history to go into education? Approached with a beginner’s mind, it is difficult to imagine a time when effective teaching will be more important.
- Where will schools need the most support? How do we help them formulate the most necessary questions and help develop thoughtful answers (and more questions)?
- How will the idea of strategy as it pertains to schools evolve in definition, approach, and timeline?
- How can we help schools maintain their strategic attention span when so many factors are and increasingly will be pulling at their ability to execute?
- How can we help schools keep those things simple that should be simple while at the same time helping them navigate complexity purposefully?
I had a similarly reflective moment very early in Covid–March 2020, and I have included links to pieces that in some ways seem quite dated already and in some critical ways have never seemed more relevant. Please check them out:
Keep an eye out for an updated Elevate webpage and for PD offerings, many of which are already listed (don’t miss out!). Finally, DON’T MISS DAVE’S NEW PIECE LINKED right HERE!
Keep learning!