REINVENTION WITH PURPOSE
Autonomy and Innovation
What we know from research about innovation is that when organizations frame a problem as a threat , it helps them galvanize resources to tackle that threat . But if organizations continue believing the challenge is a threat , then something called “ threat rigidity ” sets in .
When this rigidity happens , an organization doubles down on its existing processes . That results in more top-down control ; reduced experimentation at precisely the time that an organization needs to be experimenting more to adapt to new circumstances ; and a focus on an organization ’ s existing resources , rather than questioning what else it might use to respond to the threat .
To escape threat rigidity , it ’ s important to shift responsibility to a new independent group that can reframe the threat as an opportunity .
The group could comprise both administrators and faculty members freed from the day-to-day responsibilities of the traditional school . But if there isn ’ t at least one person in the school system whose full-time job is to focus on the opportunity at hand and innovate , then it ’ s no one ’ s job . That ’ s because the day-to-day priorities of the organization will drain energy away from any efforts to create something new and different .
In an independent school context , that autonomy could function under many different arrangements . On one extreme ,
... if organizations continue believing the challenge is a threat , then something called “ threat rigidity ” sets in . When this rigidity happens , an organization doubles down on its existing processes .
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it could be a wholly new school — think what the Hawken School did , for example , to pioneer mastery-based learning when it created the Mastery School of Hawken , or what Lakeside School in Seattle did to launch a microschool , The Downtown School , at a significantly lower price point .
Yet schools don ’ t need to take such an extreme action nor do they need the sort of resources required to start a new school to gain the benefits of this autonomy . They can empower educators , for example , to create something novel over the summer or after school . Or such an independent group could comprise school educators creating a school within a school , such as a learning pod or some other arrangement .
What is the Purpose of Schooling ?
As an autonomous group of educators seek to reimagine the schooling experience , it ’ s
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CSEE Connections Fall 2022 Page 3