Where do you go when you want to push your thinking? Do you have a reliable resource that can challenge the way you frame your ideas? If not... welcome to Akimbo. Akimbo is a podcast from Seth Godin - an entrepreneur, author, and thinker whose ideas sprawl across a range of topics from marketing and business to leadership and education. 

Godin describes Akimbo as a podcast "about our culture and about how we can change it. About seeing what's happening and choosing to do something." Sound familiar? That mission resonates with an ever-growing audience of educators who spend each day in a similar headspace, reflecting on past practice and creating actionable solutions to build schools that inspire. Any of the Akimbo episodes are worth a listen. They are brief, tightly organized, and thought-provoking. Beyond that, they're told with simplicity, honesty, and closeness that makes the content feel more like a conversation than a lecture.

The episode I've featured here makes a case for doing the work - simply, persistently, and purposefully doing the work necessary to make an impact. It's worth a full listen; however for the sake of this blog post, I focused only on the Q &A section at the end of the episode. Each week Godin takes questions from the audience about the previous week's episode. In this Q & A wrap-up, one listener asks the question, "What is school for?" Using the embedded podcast above, feel free to scan ahead to the 20-minute mark of the episode or read the transcript below. Let Akimbo push your thinking with the question, "What is school for? "

Add your answer in the comments below. "What is school for?"

By Mary Anne Moran, Associate Principal, Nipmuc Regional High School

​Some educators naturally feel a sense of urgency about the need to reimagine our schools as the model of our current schools which was created over a hundred years ago is no longer serving the needs of our students in these incredible times of change.  It is our responsibility to prepare students for a world that we cannot predict.  Despite not having all the answers and not knowing what the road ahead looks like, those of us that feel the urgency, charge ahead into the unknown seeking possible solutions, reimagining our work, and failing forward.  We also know that there are others that don’t feel this same sense of urgency.  These educators continue to teach the same lessons, adhere to the same curriculum, and offer the same assessments.  If we all know that the world outside of our schools is changing, how to we work together, with urgency, to reimagine learning for our students?

​In this article and podcast, John Kotter, author and Harvard professor, speaks about the sense of urgency that is needed to bring about change in organizations.  Thinking about urgency as necessary to incite change, Kotter shares some great insights in regards to organizational change.  Click on either of the images below to access the article and/or podcast.

​Sir Ken Robinson, author, speaker and educational leader, shares his thoughts about our current educational system.  Maybe best known for his TEDtalk “Do Schools Kill Creativity”, Robinson provides his thoughts in this video about rethinking schools to ensure spaces for divergent thinking and creating opportunities for students to be “fully alive” by challenging many of our assumptions about our current model of education. ​

Please share your thoughts below about where your own sense of urgency comes from in regards to reimagining school.

Pursuing a culture of inspired learning rather than a culture of teaching requires taking a clear-eyed look at past practices. More and more, educators are responding to the call to action to rethink past practice and reimagine our schools. In this week's resource post, we're sharing an article and a TED Talk that challenge educators to evolve their professional work to meet the needs of students. Both pieces highlight the aspirational parts of being educator and the great potential of modern learning. Check out the article and the video and feel free to add your comments below. ​

Educator Will Richardson provides a thought-provoking TED Talk that contrasts our practices as educators with what we believe about learning. Richardson is an author and educational thought leader; he also is one of the leaders of Change.School, an eight-week online learning experience for educators who are interested in leading schools that embrace modern learning. Learn more about the program here.