Necessity Is the Parent of Transformation

An alternative to the current model of schooling that should sustain a new reality of universal, blended, personalized, lifelong learning

One insight I’ve gained about making changes in schools is that education leaders believe they need additional resources to transform standard practices. However, when educators have extra assets they often use these to do more of the same: old wine in new bottles.

Transformation comes primarily when teachers, principals and superintendents have no choice, when the current model cannot be sustained and they must do something radically different. Now, civilization is in crisis, and educators cannot make every home into a remote classroom.

The challenge is whether we as leaders will use this opportunity to create a more effective, universal model of instruction based on the latest knowledge about learning, a system that provides every student the support to reach his or her full potential. If we succeed, when COVID-19 is under control, education will not revert to established suboptimal and unfair practices, but instead will sustain a “new normal” of universal, blended, personalized, lifelong learning.