Education Innovation

Idea Killer B.I.N.G.O.

If you intend to encourage creativity in your Professional Learning Communities then your teams need to be comfortable with new ideas. Sounds easy, but as we know, it's harder than it sounds. People are all to quick to kill ideas. Like a fine wine, ideas need some time.

Here is some insight from the great Paul Williams of Idea Sandbox.

"One key reason new and potentially innovative ideas don't get implemented at companies is because skeptics and scaredy cats kill ideas when they're first proposed. They use killer phrases like: "We've tried that before." and "Yeah, but..."

"Great ideas often sound "wild and crazy" at first. They can go against the established guidelines and the status quo. (And then there are those who are afraid the new idea will put them out of a job). To help give ideas a chance, I've created an Idea Killer BINGO card.

 

"This will help you to identify when people use killer phrases that nip ideas in the bud before the idea has a chance to grow.

"This card is meant to be used for awareness, rather than played as an actual BINGO game. If in a meeting you have more than one or two of these pop-up... Your team needs professional help. You should stop the meeting immediately because your team probably won't create anything new and meaningful.*

"Your next meeting should be about how your team needs to be less critical, pause before they pounce, and try to build on an idea - see where it can go... Instead of just killing it.

"You can find more "killer phrases" at the Killer Phrase Central section of Chic Thompson's What A Great Idea site."

I love Paul's idea and would love to use the Idea Killer BINGO card in Professional Learning Communities or team meetings as a tool to get PLCs to give ideas some think time before killing them off to quickly.

Catalytic Questions:

1. Instead of figuring out why an idea won't work, what would happen if your PLC figured out how to make the idea work? 

2. When presenting a new idea, what negative reaction would you expect? How can you deflect it?

3. In what way is fear interfering with critical discussions of new ideas? How might you mitigate the fear?

4. How might embracing the creativity in others encourage more creativity in your PLC?

5. What might happen if you told your PLC that for 5 minutes they have to show how the idea could work and benefits of it, before they were allowed to attack it?

6. How would changing the context of an idea allow it to be considered more carefully?

7. What are the unintended consequences of "killing" idea to quickly?

7 Signs of Creative Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities are a proven element of building successful schools. While a major proponent of PLCs, I argue that creativity is often lost in the meeting process and the examination of student achievement data.
 
Author of Group Genius, Keith Sawyer, has spent years researching what makes for effective creative teams. Not just effective, but teams that are creative and innovative at what they do. Keith has identified seven key characteristics of creative teams.

1. Innovation Emerges Over Time
“Successful innovations happen when organizations combine just the right ideas in just right structure.”

The main issue here is time. Having enough time for teachers to meet and not only plan lessons, analyze student learning data, and prepare to meet student learning needs, but time to get creative. Often problems re-surface because teachers only have enough time to manage the problem, but not truly solve.

Secondly, the processes and values that schools choose to use when teachers meet is a key factor as well. According to Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and Disrupting Class, “The reason why innovation often seems to be so difficult for established firms it that they employ highly capable people, and then set them to work within processes and values that weren’t designed to facilitate success with the task at hand.”

2. Successful Collaborative Teams Practice Deep Listening
“Most people spend too much time planning their own actions and not enough time listening and observing others.”

Stephen Covey might say, “Seek first to understand.” Deep Listening is a doorway to trust and understanding. Being able to hear and truly understand the issues, feelings, and values involved in a team’s discussion requires that team members put aside their agendas and spend time listening deeply to what other team members have to say.

Deep listening will help teams understand what Tim Hurson, author of the book Think Better, calls “What’s UP.”  What are the underlying principles at work here? Teams need to listen to each other to understand these underlying principles and trust that they will be addressed in their work together.

3. Team Members Build On Their Collaborator’s Ideas
“When teams practice deep listening, each new idea is an extension of the ideas that have come before.”

In other words, the best ideas are a mash up of the team’s ideas. Ideas are like Legos or Tinker Toys. Individual ideas can be combined and built into a great idea. Much like a recipe, the individual ingredients work best when they are combined into a wonderful dish.

4. Only Afterwards Does The Meaning Of Each Idea Become Clear
“Even a single idea can’t be attributed to one person because ideas don’t take on their full importance until they’re taken up, reinterpreted, and applied by others.”

Often, we react to the new idea by attacking or fleeing from it, "We can't do that." or "It'll never work."

Teams need to avoid attacking or fleeing from and idea by not being too quick to respond to ideas. Like a fine wine, ideas need time to breathe.

Think of the team like a band of improvisational actors. “Individual creative actions take on meaning only later, after they are woven into other ideas, created by other actors. In a creative collaboration, each person acts without knowing what his or her action means. Participants are willing to allow other people to give their action meaning by building on it later.”

5. Surprising Questions Emerge
“The most transformative creativity results when a group either thinks of a new way to frame a problem or finds a new problem that no one had noticed before.”

Teams need to take time to reframe problems and ask questions. The major weakness of most PLC teams I have watched or participated in is a failure to ask questions of themselves and each other and a failure to reframe problems to get to underlying issues.

Believing you have the answer or the solution before you are even sure of the real issue is a failure of many PLC teams. Teams must learn to question their assumptions, their ideas, their data, and their plans.

Questioning and problem reframing might lead to the surprising result of finding new problems. “That’s critical because creativity researchers have discovered that the most creative groups are good at finding new problems rather than simply solving old ones.”

6. Innovation Is Inefficient
“Improvised innovation makes more mistakes, and has as many misses as hits. But hit can be phenomenal; they’ll make up for the inefficiency and the failures.”

Failures are part of the process. PLC teams should expect for some of their ideas not to work. That is part of the creative process. Think of the story of Edison and the light bulb. It supposedly took Edison thousands of attempts to get it right. But when he got it right, he changed the world.

“When we look at an innovation after the fact, all we remember is the chain of good ideas that made it into the innovation, we don’t notice the many dead ends.”

7. Innovation Emerges From The Bottom Up
Principals and managers, get out of the way.

“The improvisational collaboration of the entire group translates moments of individual creativity into group innovation. Allowing space for this self-organizing emergence to occur is difficult for many managers because the outcome is not controlled by the management team’s agenda and is therefore less predictable.”

Principals, you need to let go of the process and let PLCs develop their creativity and innovation.

Most Principals, “…like to start with the big picture and then work out the details. In improvisational innovation, teams start with details and then work up to the big picture.”  This is especially true when teams are creating and innovating from student achievement data. PLCs need to be free to discover the big picture based on what they discover through the data.

These 7 signs of creative teams would demonstrate your PLC to be more creative in their approach to the PLC process than the typical team. It is important that PLCs ask and discuss what they want students to know, how they will know if students know it, what will they do for students who know it, and what will they do for students who don’t; but to do so creatively will make the team all the more effective and innovative.

The model I have advocated here at Education Innovation is the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. The PNLC operates around the values of ICE³(Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, Entrepreneurship) Creativity and Innovation are two of the key components that are expected of PNLCs. The PNLC embeds creativity and innovation into its work because it is a core value of what the PNLC is. In either case, PLC or PNLC, the more creative the approach the easier it will be for teams to adapt, meet the complex needs of students, and reach the goal of all PLCs or PNLCs....results.

Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Steps to The Art of Innovation

Here is Guy Kawasaki’s advice to creating great innovative ideas. A great 8 min video of the speech too.

1. Make meaning: change the world and make the world a better place

2. Make a mantra: not a mission statement

3. Jump to the next curve: not better sameness, not slightly better, faster, etc

4. Roll the dice: create ideas that are deep, intelligent, complete, elegant.

5. Don’t worry, be crappy: it may not be great now, but at least it is revolutionary

6. Let a hundred flowers blossom: people may use your idea in ways you did not intend

7. Polarize people: great ideas cause people to love it or hate it, but at least they care

8. Churn baby, churn: be in denial, don’t listen to those who say it can’t be done

9. Niche thyself: the more unique, the more differentiated, the more of niche you have, the more valuable you are

10. Follow the 10, 20, 30 rule: your idea should fit on 10 PPT slides, give them in 20 minutes, in 30 pt font.

Bonus Step

11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down

The "Health Care" Based Professional Learning Community

What do you get when you combine Professional Learning Communities, the health care system, and some imagination? It would be participatory, planned, predictive, preventive, progressive, and personalized.

I have spent a lot of time listening to the sorts of words that educators use when talking about student learning, student achievement, and teaching. What has surprised me is how much it sounds like the terms you would hear from health care professionals and those working in the health care system. I found this interesting. Working at a high poverty, high second language learner, and low achievement school these teachers talked about their work like they were trying to save lives and get kids “healthy.”

So I wondered, how would implementing a Professional Learning Communities system at a school look if it was modeled off of a health care system. Here is where my imagination lead me.

First and this is very important, all 4 phases rely on two ingredients. Great questions and hard data. Great results begin with great questions. And without data all we have are our own opinions.

Phase 1:Participatory
Health care talks all the time about getting people to participate in their own health management. So I used the term “participatory” to represent the philosophy behind phase one of the change. The staff would have to participate in PLCs. The focus would be “Systematic.” Teams would have to meet during set times and on set days. Teams would be responsible for documenting the outcomes of their meetings using an agreed upon record keeping sheet.

Phase 1 focuses on getting the staff used to meeting with each other, sticking to the schedule, and documenting what they were doing.

Phase 2: Planned, Predictive, and Preventive
Health care systems used these terms to talk about what needs to be done to handle health care needs. They plan for what will happen, think about and predict likely issues and prepare for them, and attempt to prevent common illness before they begin.

Teachers too can improve their effectiveness when they are planned. Planning included common pacing and using Standards Based Lesson Plan design. By predicting what it is students will need to know at various assessment intervals, teachers can ready students and not be racing to catch up or failing to teach a standard all together. Finally, teachers prevent common mistakes because they are planned and predictive about what students will need to know and what they will do for those who don’t master a standard or who have mastered the standard.

The focus here is standards, skills, and strategy. What is it that students need to know? Thinking about power standards, essential standards, and deconstructing them into excellent focused lessons. What skills must they demonstrate and how can we equip students for the needs of the next grade. And what are the most effective strategies to teach students and help those who need more assistance in learning.

Phase 3: Progressive
Health care systems are progressive in the terms of the treatment options it brings to its patients. The goal was to move teachers to being just as progressive in response to “academic casualties” and special needs. It is in Phase 3, after teachers had moved from meeting to talk about student learning, to planning for student learning, we would put into place our Response to Intervention (RtI) model. The focus is on student learning and being progressive about meeting the needs of each student by moving them progressively through the Tiers as needed of the RtI model.  Truly meeting the needs of each students learning needs.

The focus here is symptoms and solutions. What is that our students’ need and what is that we can give them?

Phase 4: Personalized
The best health care system meets your needs. It gives you exactly what you need. Here our PLCs would become a place where we meet the needs of each and every learner. Not content to merely talk about percents of student who know or don’t know a standard, or sub-groups of students, etc; but truly knowing what each and every student in the classroom knows and needs; Differentiation at the most personal of levels.

Our focus is on students. Not groups, not percentages, not achievement or proficiency bands but a student with a name. Our PLCs will work to meet the needs of that student.

Here is chart that graphically displays the four phases of implementation.

You never know where a little imagination might you take you.

Sir Ken Robinson Thinks We Are “Out of Our Minds”

A few education related thoughts by Sir Ken Robinson from his book “Out Our Minds: Learning To Be Creative.”

“The dominant ideologies of education are now defeating their most urgent purpose: to develop people who can cope with and contribute to the breathless rate of change in the 21st century—people who are flexible, creative, and have found their talents.”

“The relationship between education and the world we actually live in are being stretched to breaking point. They need now to be entirely rethought. This process should begin by reframing the abilities we all have, and reassessing the skills and aptitude that are now most needed for personal fulfillment and for economic success. The preoccupation with academic ability is an example of a functional fallacy: the tendency to confuse a particular purpose with a general one. One of the functions of education is to develop academic abilities. This does not mean that the function of is wholly academic. Education has an economic function: this does not in mean that the functions of education are wholly economic. Education has many social, personal and community purposes that have to be balanced with broader economic functions. Human intelligence includes the capacity for academic activity; this does not mean that academic activity is the whole of intelligence. To educate people for the future, we must see through the academic illusion to their real abilities, and how these different elements of human capacity enhance rather than detract from each other.”

Teachers can save the economy

From Jessica Hagy's Indexed blog

Cultivate A Culture of Creativity

In his excellent book Out Of Our Minds: Learning To Be Creative, author, speaker, and creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson shares his thought on creating a culture of creativity.

Sir Ken says about culture, “At the heart of the social definitions of culture as a concept of values: the ideas, beliefs and attitudes that a group considers important and which hold it together as a group.”

Sir Ken offers this definition of culture, “…the shared values and patterns of behavior that characterise different social groups and communities.”

The values of Education Innovation and Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is called ICE³
Imagination Innovation Inquiry
Collaboration Creativity Curiosity
Exploration Experimentation Entrepreneurship

I believe that creativity is an essential value for PNLC, PLC, and educational organizations.

Sir Ken says there are 5 themes in a culture of creativity

Creativity is not purely a personal process

Nobody can know everything. The power of Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives, PLCs, grade level or subject level teams is that more knowledge can be brought to the table. Each of us knows a relatively small amount compared to how much all of us know. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative interlocks the individual networks of individual members to create a larger network of knowledge.

If the school or district is to have a culture that values creativity, these networks need to be easily developed and easily accessed. The creativity of the culture relies on open networks.

Creativity is a dynamic process and can involve many different areas of expertise

So much educational research is continually emerging; it is nearly impossible for the individual educator to stay on top of it all, unless that is all they do. Education technology is changing so rapidly, that it takes specialists to stay up to date with it all.

Specialization is the inevitable result. We can only know so many things, so it is natural that we tend to focus in on a few. That may not be ideal or it may be, but Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives can use the specialized knowledge of each member to be creative in increasing student achievement.

Creativity is incremental

Teams should not expect to have a “eureka” moments each time they meet. But what they can do is build on ideas each and every time. Ideas can be re-mixed, re-purposed, substituted, combined, adapted, eliminated, or rearranged. Let creativity build.

Cultural change is not linear and smooth

One thing that teams, individual educators, and educational managers should realize is that cultures of creativity are developed along some research based predetermined path. Creative cultures are developed over time through small successes and a repeated emphasis on the belief that all can be creative and that all should value creativity.

Cultural change is not strictly logical

You never know when the situation will be right or the conditions will exist for creativity to exist. But, I reject that idea. I believe we must constantly be aware of the potential to be creative and create conditions, create a culture that seeks creativity in all we do. The work we do, the people we work with, and the ideas we work with are constant sources of creativity. A culture of creativity recognizes this fact and is constantly on the look out for creative ideas. A culture of creativity seeks to create the conditions the will make teams creative.

Culture = Values at work. Make creativity a value and change the culture of your schools.

See also:

Cultures of Change: The Power of Values and Time

The "Killer App"- Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives

Leveraging The “Networked” Teacher: The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

The Ten Cultural Elements Of Collaboration In The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

In a previous post, I introduced my concept of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative and my belief that this is the model of the future for collaboration among professionals in education. In his excellent book The Culture of Collaboration: Maximizing Time, Talent and Tools To Create Value In The Global Economy, author Evan Rosen describes what he calls the Ten Cultural Elements of Collaboration. 

These Ten Cultural Elements provide an excellent framework from which to view collaboration within the context of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

1. Trust

To be able to give ideas up to the group for discussion, analysis, re-mix, contribution, and development is a sign of trust. Once an idea has been put forth, it ceases to becomes the “owners” and becomes the groups. Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives benefit when they trust the network with their ideas knowing that the network can improve and strengthen the idea collaboratively.

2. Sharing

Sharing what we know with the Professional Learning Network Collaborative makes everyone more valuable because they have more ideas to improve, re-mix, repurpose, challenge, examine, build upon etc. The strength of the Collaborative builds exponentially as the idea is shared with the network.

3. Goals

Developing common goals at the outset is an important step for PNLC to take. Common goals provide clear direction and target on which to focus the ICE³ values of

Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship. Goals allow us to understand when we have reached success.

4. Innovation

The best Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives will use ICE³ values to find new ways to do things that add value and increase student achievement.

5. Environment

How you ever looked at your physical environment (architecture, design, room layout, etc.) and asked yourself what the environment says about your organization? Is there a disconnect between the stated goal of networking and the physical environment to accomplish it? Is there a disconnect between the stated goal of collaboration and the physical environment?

This applies to not only the physical environment, but to the virtual environment as well. Technology tools and web environments that are difficult to use or interface with impact the PNLCs ability to accomplish its goals.

Physical and virtual environments must enhance and encourage collaboration, not hinder it.

6. Collaborative Chaos

Evan Rosen describes “collaborative chaos” as the, “…unstructured exchange of ideas to create value. While order encourages predictable results, collaborative chaos allows the unexpected to happen and generate rich returns.”

The nature of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is that the team can learn, improve, create, and innovate because they are networked. The network provides access to many more minds and the cognitive diversity of the network can create unexpected results and unexpected value for the PNLC.

7. Constructive Confrontation

Constructive confrontation is simply challenging, respond, exploring differences, disagreeing, or even attacking the idea. Not the person.

8. Communication

The PNLC must have good communication is both the physical and virtual realms. The “networked” aspect allows for collaboration to occur regardless of geography through the use of various technology collaboration platforms.

Professionals must use their best listening and understanding skills when face-to-face. Professionals must also understand that the technology collaboration platforms may not allow for non-verbal cues. PNLC members must anticipate this and be prepared to clear up miscommunications.

9. Community

Community is the shared interest in seeing goals accomplished and the trust in each other as professionals. The new community of the PNLC is the collaborative, which brings many more people and personalities to the table. It is important that all involved understand the goal of improving knowledge and increasing effectiveness.

10. Value

The value of the PNLC is accomplishing common goals. When common goals are achieved there is a value to the educational organization. When the educational organization achieves value from the PNLC the organization is able convert this value into increasing student achievement. The ultimate value of the PNLC and the 10 elements of collaboration is the benefit to students. 

Because value is what the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative (PNLC) is all about...

“Educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative operates according to the values of ICE³: Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship.” 

Professional Networked Learning Collaborative Defined

In a previous post I introduced the concept of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. I explained that this is the evolution of the current Professional Learning Community. Definitions being useful, here are the definitions of the PLC and my PNLC.

Professional Learning Community (PLC)

"Educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators." Learning by Doing (2006)

Professional Networked Learning Collaborative (PNLC)

“Educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative operates according to the values of ICE³: Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship.”
Education Innovation blog: Rob Jacobs 2009

Culture Making: Creating & Changing The "Micro Cultures" of Professional Learning Communities

In his fine book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, author Andy Crouch explains his premise that it is not enough to condemn, critique, consume, or copy culture. The only way to change culture is to cultivate and create it.

Professional Learning Communities, School Leadership Teams, grade level teams, etc. are, in essence, mirco cultures. A micro culture is a small unit of culture within a wider general culture. In other words, the grade level or department level PLC is a micro culture within the great culture of the school site and the school district.

Thus the micro culture of the PLC is subject to problems, difficulties, obstacles, and hurdles that face all cultures. These are things that the PLC could and should be change to improve its effectiveness, thus improving student achievement. Andy Crouch explains that there is a rule that applies when we try to change culture. I call it the cultural rule.

Cultural Rule: “The only way to change culture is to create more of it.”

by tmfotki

There are 6 approaches or practices that are typically adopted to change culture. These practices are used by members within their PLCs to change the culture of the PLC for the better. However, 4 of the approaches are not necessarily the most effective way to change culture. As you will see, the first 4 approaches are lacking, while the last 2 approaches have the power to change culture for the better in our Professional Learning Communities.

1. Condemning Culture: “No matter how much we may protest--condemning the cultural goods on offer—unless we offer an alternative, the show will go on.”

Those who condemn the current practices of the PLC will do little to change it for the better. Pointing out that the PLC does not use data properly, or does not follow established PLC protocols is not going to change the culture.

To be sure, as Andy Crouch points out, “Some cultural artifacts can only be condemned.” Some practices within in a PLC rightly need to be pointed out if they are truly damaging to the students, the teachers, and the school. But it won’t change things

Condemning culture also leaves us open to being hypocrites. Be careful to condemn the culture of the PLC, because you might be contributing to it. Remember, it does nothing to improve the culture because it does not create or add anything new.

2. Critiquing Culture: “ To be sure, the best critics can change the framework in which creators are measured. But such analysis has lasting influence only when someone creates something new in the public realm.”

“Some cultural artifacts deserve to be critiqued.”

This may be the most natural approach for educators in Professional Learning Communities. It is very easy to critique, to point out what is wrong and what is not working. This is very natural for some. But it does nothing to change the culture.

Critiquing culture is passive. We are left waiting for culture to, “deliver us some new item to talk about.” When we critique we do not move the culture of the PLC forward. Critics are left waiting for others to create change.

3. Copying Culture: “…imitate it, replacing the offensive bits with more palatable ones.”

Copying culture has the advantage of finding cultural practices in other PLCs and copying those practices for the PLC to imitate. Not bad. Adopting the best practices of others is a smart and effective thing to do.

“Even the practice of copying cultural goods…has its place.”

But, copying too, is passive. We wait for culture to be created to copy. “In fast—changing cultural domains those whose posture is imitation will find themselves constantly slightly behind the times…”

When we wait for others to develop culture change in PLC practices that can be copied and adopted you eliminate the potential to create and shape the culture of your PLC to the specific needs of your team members, grade level, subject matter, school, and school district.

4. Consuming Culture: “…can very rarely consume their way into cultural change.”

“There are many cultural goods for which by far the most appropriate response is to consume.”

Just as copying culture can be effective sometimes, consuming cultural practices of other PLC can be a smart thing to do. But the same problem results.

Consuming culture is passive too. It assumes a posture of waiting. Letting someone else create the culture to be consumed and assuming that that culture is better than your own.

So if condemning, critiquing, copying, and consuming culture are not desirable means to change the culture of a PLC, what is? Cultivation and Creation.

5. Cultivation: “All culture making requires a choice, conscious or unconscious, to take our place in a cultural tradition. We cannot make culture without culture. And this means creation begins with cultivation—taking care of the good things that culture has already handed on to us.”

“One who cultivates tries to create the most fertile conditions for good things to survive and thrive. Cultivating also requires weeding—sorting out what does and does not belong, what will bear fruit and what will choke it out.”

Being a good steward of the current PLC culture will allow the team to pick out what is working, affirm each other, and then weed out what isn’t working, making room for changes to take their place.

Cultivation is not passive. It works with what exists. It is purposeful. It affirms what has come before and makes way for what can come.

To often administrators make the mistake of not taking cultivation approach to their PLCs. Not everything is broken. Acknowledge the positive aspects of the current culture before you weed out the non-desirable practices.

6. Creators: “…people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful.”

Once non-desirable PLC practices have been weeded out, room will exist for the creator approach to change the culture with new practices, ideas, and approaches.

Approach 5 and 6 can be thought of in the spirit and mindset of a gardener and an artist.

The Artist and The Gardner

The Gardner: “The gardener looks carefully at the landscape; the existing plants, both flowers and weeds; the way the sun falls on the land.” 

“The gardener tends to what has gone before, making the most of what is beautiful and weeding out what is distracting or useless.”

The Artist: “The artist regards her subject, her canvas, her paints with care to discern what she can make with them.”

“The artist can be more daring: she starts with a blank canvas or a solid piece of stone and gradually brings something out of it that was never there before.”

The Key: “Indeed those who have cultivated and created are precisely the ones who have the legitimacy to condemn—whose denunciations, rare and carefully chosen, carry outsize weight. Cultivators and creators are the ones who are invited to critique and whose critiques are often the most telling and fruitful. Cultivators and creators can even copy without becoming mere imitators, drawing on the work of others yet extending it in new and exciting ways…”

“And when they consume, cultivators and creators do so without becoming mere consumers. They do not derive their identity from what they consume but what they create.”

To change the culture of a PLC the team must adhere to the Cultural Rule: To change culture you have to create culture. That is the only way. Allow the spirit of the gardener and the artist to allow your PLC to cultivate and create change in your PLCs culture, changes that will improve your PLC effectiveness and ultimately, your student’s performance.