Innovative thinking pays dividends

One of my favorite expressions is “best idea wins.” When I use it at faculty meetings, it’s not to challenge teachers to go beyond the standard syllabus or class activity to try something different in the classroom. I challenge them to really think outside the box, to find new and better ways to teach and mentor our students.

This summer, that spirit of innovation has paid off for two of our teachers who have been recognized outside of our own Rivers community for their groundbreaking ideas. I am so proud that the programs they conceived of and implemented at Rivers have gained the respect of top universities and institutions.

In June, Kate Wade’s RISE program for 10th graders helped earn her a $20,000 fellowship toward her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. The Gardner Carney Leadership Institute presented her with their first ever cgLi/Penn Fellowship in Pedagogy of Leadership, citing her “outstanding work in building the RISE program at Rivers.”

Shortly after that, Julian Willard, founder and chair of our Interdisciplinary Studies Department, was appointed a research fellow at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics as well as a visiting scholar at The Hastings Center, the premier center for bioethics research in this country.

These four institutions are the best of the best in the fields of leadership training and interdisciplinary studies. It’s wonderful that Kate and Julian will have the opportunity to expand their own horizons among like-minded academicians (they’ll both continue teaching at Rivers!).

Kate and Julian are just two of our many teachers who thrive on finding a better way to achieve their goals. Dave Burzillo’s BIG History course was a prototype for the Gates Foundation’s curriculum for teaching history online anywhere in the world. Our 21^st Century Focus Group – Rivers’ think tank – meets regularly to explore what’s new in education and to look for ways to take the best of those ideas and make them work even better at Rivers.

So when I suggest “best idea wins,” I never know what might happen, but I do know it will be exciting to watch it unfold.

Leading an Independent School

Last month, Independent School, the quarterly magazine of the National Association of Independent Schools, published an article I co-wrote with a retired head of school about strategic thinking in schools. Cynthia and I loved working on the article two summers ago as we each reflected on our own experiences as leaders of independent schools. As the article points out, many heads sadly tend to become problem-solvers instead of thinkers and visionaries. The job certainly lends itself to falling into this trap. But too often the result is that no one is thinking deeply about what the school is and what the school can be in the future. Strategic thinking, supposedly what schools are paying heads to do, takes a back seat to solving problems with the head becoming the problem-solver-in-chief. 
 
Good strategic planning requires research, study, and deep thinking. Unfortunately, heads often substitute their own biases and values for the hard work of thinking strategically. As a result, schools unnecessarily limit their potential. 


Over the coming 24 months Rivers will begin its own strategic planning process. It will do so, however, only after we have completed our self-study for accreditation next year and an analysis of the intensely competitive independent school market in the Boston area. In short, we will look inward to see how we can do a better job of living our mission and look outward to determine if those improvements are important to prospective families. Both perspectives matter. Gazing inward provides the grist to inspire our educators; focusing on the external grounds our vision in the reality of the market place. Great strategic planning marries the two perspectives.