Sharing Good Practice
IS NECESSITY THE MOTHER OF INVENTION? BY: TIM LOGAN
We have heard for decades now that the VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) poses profound questions for the future of work and the future of learning. The need to prepare our children and young adults to thrive in the face of challenge is also a compelling reason to reflect deeply on the way that we operate and structure our schools.
“If necessity is the mother of invention, it’s the father of cooperation. And we’re cooperating like never before.” John Ashcroft, Former US Attorney General
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acing a massive shortage of ventilators to save precious Italian lives, Dr. Franceso Minardi at the Maggiore Hospital in Parma saw an opportunity to adapt a snorkelling mask using an innovative 3D printing hack. So, in cooperation with engineers at ISINNOVA and the sporting goods retailer, Decathlon, they went into production to create the makeshift ventilators, so saving hundreds of lives. And in the spirit of cooperative invention, they made the 3D printable design, as well as the product itself, available free of charge on their website. While we have all felt many difficulties and challenges of this year’s COVID-19 crisis, there have been many stories such as this one, in which necessity has created the conditions for amazing innovations. Whether it is school graduation ceremonies held on ski lifts or within Minecraft, sociallydistanced music concerts, PPE vending machines or the ‘Goodnight
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Term 1 Sep - Dec 2020
Zoom’ project, creating opportunities for isolated senior citizens to connect with young children for remote story time, inspiration and community innovations have arisen out of extreme challenge.
Doing more with less As we have reopened schools for an academic year like no other, we know that we face very real challenges as educators and school leaders. We have critical budgetary challenges, prompting many very tough decisions about staffing and support for families in difficult economic circumstances. Our agility is being tested to the limit, as we plan for the unknown, respond and adapt to perpetual change, and communicate clearly in the midst of great uncertainty and anxiety. And our duty to continuously improve the standards of support and teaching and learning that we offer to our students is still being closely monitored and scrutinized through on-going inspection and accreditation processes. Just surviving is not an option! The good news is, there is a silver lining to these challenges too! Like so many other COVID innovations, out of necessity will spring educational invention too.
Class Time
Since we went ‘remote’ and started Distance Learning in March, we have learned a lot of useful lessons about the way that we work. As many organizations and companies are reflecting, there have been some unexpected benefits to this shift in working practices. For some, productivity has increased as time has been more intentionally allocated to ‘getting on with the job’, rather than wasting time in endless meetings! The work has also become more visible and transparent, for those using great tools like Slack channels, Glass Frog, or Trello to track workflow and facilitate team collaboration. For others, innovation has increased as faceto-face brainstorming or planning meetings, often dominated by the HiPPOs (the highest paid person’s opinion) or the extroverts, are replaced by online forums where everyone can contribute equally, in their own way, and after careful reflection. What if we could keep and purposefully develop these advantages as a permanent change rather than just a temporary response to crisis? As Jeff Sutherland, the founder of Scrum, describes in his book ‘Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time’, making simple but significant shifts in the way that we work can have massive impacts on our productivity as well as our ability to adapt, respond and improve our outcomes. But schools are already among the busiest workplaces anywhere, and teachers are among the hardest working and most committed professionals! So clearly, this is not about working harder, but smarter.
