The Innovation Imperative

Once a school has followed a concept to a certain stage, there is a slight descent as the school implements changes and readies itself for the more arduous and possibly more rewarding climb to a second peak. When I review Graland’s history, I see many examples of first, second and even third summits. Georgia Nelson’s initial intention to create a school that was counter to the “school as factory” model of that time was a premise that she followed over several summits, creating the foundation of Graland as a dynamic learning environment that fostered lifelong athletes, artists, scholars and leaders. 

 

Today, influenced by provocative and substantial thinkers on this topic — Alan November, Yong Zhao and Tony Wagner, to name a few — we begin our own path to implementation. In his works, Creating Innovators and Most Likely to Succeed, Wagner details a clear roadmap to educational transformation. In Creating Innovators, he establishes that schools with a culture of innovation “are organized around the values of: collaboration, multidisciplinary learning, thoughtful risk-taking, trial and error, creating, and intrinsic motivation: play, passion and purpose.” Interestingly, those values, as essential as they are, don’t always translate into change. A tradition of stagnation often smothers any possible revolution in schools. 

 

Motivated by this lack of traction, Wagner and his co-author Ted Dintersmith stress the necessity of change in their latest book, Most Likely to Succeed. They powerfully summarize the current educational crisis: “Today’s youth live in a world brimming with opportunity. Some will create, catalyze, and capitalize on a dynamic world hungry for innovation. Others will be left behind. Students who only know how to perform well in today’s education system — get good grades and test scores, and earn degrees — will no longer be those who are most likely to succeed. Thriving in the twenty-first century will require real competencies, far more than academic credentials.” Wagner and Dintersmith forcefully and convincingly argue for the urgent need for change. We can no longer just be intrigued by the idea of innovation. We must implement it. 

 

Throughout their book, Wagner and Dintersmith define the skills students will need to thrive in this century and provide strategies to foster those competencies. First, they expand the definition of innovation beyond the “bells and whistles” of technology: “The impact of innovation on education isn’t in using technology to deliver obsolete education experiences. It lies in understanding what skills students need in the innovation era and constructing classroom experiences that promote skills that matter.” The authors believe that these experiences should help students develop the “will to ask new questions, solve new problems, and create new knowledge.” Only by fostering intrinsic motivation will schools achieve what the authors see as the true purpose of schools: “to tap into the passions of students, help them develop critical skills and decisive life advantages, and inspire them.” This purpose doesn’t differ much from how Ms. Nelson envisioned and executed a Graland education many years ago. 

 

More recently, Graland has pursued another version of that same vision, one symbolized by the Corkins Center and the Gates Invention and Innovation Program. The Corkins Center is a place devoted to the values of innovation that Wagner described in Creating Innovators, as well as the tenets of design thinking. It emphasizes collaboration, experimentation and