Why is it so hard for us to do the right thing?

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

As leaders, we often know what is the right thing to do. Just to pick a few examples…

We know that ongoing, formative progress monitoring is more appropriate than ‘data days’ or ‘data retreats’ for yearly summative data, and yet many schools still only do the latter.

When it comes to positive organizational and/or academic impact, we know that the ‘sit-and-get’ professional development model typically is a complete waste of participants’ time and organizational resources.

Under any reasonable scenario planning forecast, it’s quite clear that the world is going to be quite technological and globally-interconnected, yet we continue to ignore that fact in most schools.

Under any reasonable scenario planning forecast, it’s quite clear that schooling and/or learning and/or assessment are going to be much more personalized and invidividualized than they are now, and yet few school organizations are preparing themselves for these new ways of doing things.

We’re supposed to be leaders. We’re supposed to be out in front, leading the way. And yet the organizations that we supposedly ‘lead’ are so very far behind in so many areas. We like to point fingers; it’s easy for us to do so and ignore our own culpability.

As leaders, when are we going to own the fact that much (most?) of it is us? Why is it so hard for us to do the right thing?

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people