"Innovation is a Team Sport!" by Carla Marschall, Berlin Metropolitan School
"Innovation is a Team Sport!" was the quote that rang through my head as my colleague, Megan Kensinger and I made our long way back to Berlin from the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. Presented during a workshop on how the business world views the process of innovation, it is a statement that implies both a common vision and collaborative working practices as the most important characteristics to help companies reach new levels of quality.
I thought about these aspects of the statement and compared them with the common images that come to mind with the word innovation: Thomas Edison`s invention of the light bulb in 1879, the successful flight tests by the Wright Brothers in 1903, and the first manned moon landing in 1969. In each of these cases, technological progress is simplified - singled down to easy-to-remember dates and names. Somehow, the idea that teamwork and collaborative exchange are integral to the process of innovation does not translate into the history of science and technology in popular culture. Such is a flawed vision that oversimplifies the long and winding road to innovation and discovery.
So, what does this mean in practical terms for schools that seek to create innovative teaching and learning environments? First of all, it reminds us that top down school solutions that do not take all community member perspectives into account do not work. Innovation cannot "happen" in a circle of a few staff members and simply trickle down to the classrooms. Furthermore, innovation cannot be randomly "assigned" to teachers; without believing in the vision, faculty members can feel disenfranchised from the process and resistant to adopting new methods. That is to say, as a school begins its journey towards more innovative practices, the entire community must decide in which direction it is going. Only in this way, can a school reach its final destination and be successful in its aims. This happens on the grand scale in the reevaluation of the school Mission Statement, but also informally on a daily basis in the form of lession planning, collaborative working practices, and conversations about teaching and learning amongst staff and families.
What the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil made clear is that the quality and success of our own school innovations is dependent upon the number of individuals we allow to work on them. By opening up the process to greater numbers and consolidating their ideas, we increase our overall commitment to innovation as a school community. This is one piece of learning that will surely guide our way during this year as a Pathfinder School.
