Wow and WOW! No wonder the universe opened this door for me!!! Our first days as a whole school gathering to launch a mighty vision crafted from their year long work together last year was soooo inspiring! RVIS has a key "hedgehog" - a concept borrowed from Jim Collins' book Good to Great.
"The Hedgehog Concept is developed in the book Good to Great. Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Identifying a Hedgehog Concept is to have a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic or resource engine. Transformations from good to great come about by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time." Read More --> jimcollins.com/concepts/the-hedgehog-concept.html
RVIS' HedgeHog is Personalization! Some additional key qualities that will be supported and assessed are joy or passion along with along with agency.
We spent some small group time arranging movable hexagons around to represent the relationships between aspects for the three qualities: Ignite - Personalize and Impact. My group was the best even though there was no right answer. GREAT conversations!
We were also challenged to reflect and consider what these qualities will look like in our lives as well as in our classrooms - how policies, decisions, processes and choices will manifest this into a living culture. This is NO PAPER document - we are all expected to walk the talk. There will be learning walks to assess whether these elements are in fact coming alive.
What was so noticeable was the coherence between all the leaders along with "walking their talk" of organizing our start up meetings around the same core values. It was so inspiring, refreshing and exhilarating. One special point made by Tara Waudly -- we are not going to creating learning spaces around deficit learning - deficit skills and deficit thinking.
More specifics on "HOW" this all unfolds will be forthcoming . . . its going to be a mighty year - i feel so welcome - so respected and have already experience being given my own agency - personalization and respect. Wow and WOW! I have found myself in dreamland!
Stay Tune
Student Ownership and Agency is NOT New at RVIS
Faculty Team Building CookOff