One of the things I'm loving about using Linkedin is the feed of stories and articles that pertain to my industry and interests. Today I came across an article about how companies must tell better stories to move their agenda/products/etc and get the buy-in they need to be successful. After reading, it occurs to me that this same notion applies to our struggling public schools as well. We must come up with better stories to tell the public about why our schools and our students need their support.
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| When our stories become tired cliches, we have got to stop telling them. |
Like so many companies, our story is tired: poor minority children struggling in a public school system, teachers grossly underpaid for their professional services while being overworked thanks to the high stakes of a poorly implemented assessment, and the tale of how we have no money because our community is too poor to sustain an appropriately funded educational institution (and our state leaders refuse to take care of us!)
Being tired doesn't necessarily mean invalid. It just means that our message has now become a cliche. We can no longer afford to rant about our woes. We must now begin to focus our energy telling a new story. Don't have a new story? Start something that can become a new story! In my district it's going to be a school-within-a-school model of flipped classrooms for next year. It's a city-wide wireless initiative we were able to start with the help of local businesses. We are working to make it happen here. And you should, too.
