The world has learned a lot during 2020.  We’ve virtually all learned to Zoom, and most of us have learned to wear masks.  We have learned about the challenging social dynamics of a pandemic, as well as the fascinating world of toilet paper supply chains.  During this challenging year, the world has also learned how much it depends on teachers and schools.  As we close out 2020, it is not difficult to share a genuine thank you for our educational professionals.  

This Wednesday would normally mark our annual Teacher Appreciation luncheon, sponsored by our school governing board.  With distance learning and social distancing still in full swing, we’re foregoing the in-person tradition with the delivery of a gift to each of our teachers and other educational staff.  Our leadership team spread out all around San Jose on Friday afternoon to deliver thank-you baskets and a little dessert.  It was a small but heartfelt expression of our appreciation.

I am thankful for our teachers, who back in March made an overnight shift to teaching online.  Many have pointed out that this quick adjustment was not really distance learning, but rather was crisis teaching.  While that may have been the case initial, our teachers – and teachers around the world – quickly set about building their digital skills and capacity in order to design increasingly student-responsive learning environments online.  They taught each day while simultaneously mastering a new suite of online tools and software platforms.  

I am thankful for our teachers, who throughout the physical school closure have made extra efforts to make themselves accessible and available to students and parents who were either struggling with the content, or struggling with the technology to access that content.  Whether it was impromptu phone calls, one-on-one teleconferences, or small group help sessions or chat exchanges, our teachers made themselves available.   

I am thankful for our teachers, whose typical summer break was a somewhat more anxious retooling of their curriculum and instruction in anticipation of an undetermined extension of distance learning.  Crisis teaching in the early months of the pandemic were transformed into legitimate distance learning, as our staff deepened their familiarity with and confidence using digital tools to create increasingly student-centered and student-accessible content and learning environments.  

I am thankful for our teachers, who have been both digitally and emotionally present for students as our young people navigate their own anxieties, grief, and mental and emotional challenges associated with a worldwide pandemic.  When parents lost employment, when loved ones and family members passed away, or when the uncertainty of it all closed in around them, our teachers, counselors, and support staff were there to support and to love our students.  

When I listen to my mom or sisters talk about the challenges of teaching in-person and distance learning students simultaneously, or watch our Lincoln teachers huddled over their laptops teaching class while also passing out learning materials to parents in the pick-up drive-thru, I can’t help but feel a sense of appreciation.  It’s an appreciation for the sense of professional commitment to the educational well-being of young people.  Indeed, of all of the things that we have learned during 2020, one of the most important and most poignantly felt has been the powerful commitment our teachers have towards serving their students, regardless of the obstacles.  

I have long believed that teaching students the practice of reflecting on their own learning is one of the most important elements of personalized learning.  If we want students who are aware of their own academic identity and learning strengths and areas for growth, they have to practice reflecting on their work and progress.  

Perhaps this belief is why the chapter on the practice of reflection in Teaching Entrepreneurship resonated so powerfully with me.  Indeed, the authors point out unequivocably that “the practice of reflection is arguably the most important of all the practices for entrepreneurship education.”  But why would this be the case?  

The primary point the authors drive home is that entrepreneurship education has to blend both theory and practice.  In other words, learning about entrepreneurship will never be enough.  Students actually have to experience it, with all of the intellectual and emotional learning that goes hand in hand.  They cite Alfred North Whitehead, who reminds us that we have to experience things in order to better think about them.  In other words, our practical experience informs our conceptual understanding of those same things.  The practice of reflection, therefore, becomes an essential bridge between what we experience and how that experience informs our developing understanding.

This is a connection that I am passionate about.  As a high school principal with Envision Education, we employed a portfolio assessment system that held reflection at the pinnacle of our educational practices.  Following each major project, students wrote a reflection, drawing conclusions about both the content they had mastered as well as the leadership skills they had applied along the way towards completion.  Both the final drafts of their work plus their reflective writing on their learning process were then systematically uploaded into their student portfolios.  As students approached the conclusion of the sophomore and seniors years, they reviewed their work and assembled what might be considered as a meta-reflection, that sought to synthesize their learning and growth into a single document (we called it the “cover letter” to their portfolio presentation in 10^th grade, and their “academic identity” paper as they approached graduation).  The cover letter and academic identity formed the foundation of their portfiolio defense presentation – a 90 minute presentation and Q&A experience in front of a review panel of teachers and community partners.  

Everything about the Envision College Portfolio was designed with reflection and self-awareness as a primary goal.  And it worked.  I was constantly amazed not only with the content and academic content knowledge students had learned, but with how they developed in their ability to articulate their own unique journey.  Our graduates were intensely familiar with their strengths and weaknesses as learners and students.  They had many explicit conversations about the leadership skills, strategies, and routines that helped them be successful, and where they needed further attention and development.  This type of reflection proved to be hefty emotional work, as students confronted the challenges that stood in the way of achieving success, including how personal and family adversity both enriched and complicated their personal journey.  It was no suprise that tears were often shed during the public defense, with parents and other loved ones in the room to share the experience.  

With that rich professional experience in my mind, I smiled as I read the first line of the conclusion in the chapter on reflection in Teaching Entrepreneurship: “Reflection is one of the hardest things we ask our students to do.”  As the authors point out, entrepreneurship is deeply personal, and venturing requires navigation through tremendous uncertainty.  Having an awareness of who they are and why they are doing what they are doing has the power to sustain students in their entrepreneurial endeavors.  

Yesterday, for the first time since beginning my job as General Director of the Lincoln School, I found myself in a large room with all the members of our leadership team.  This day was one of the first things I planned in my mind when I joined the school, but was a long time coming due to the restrictions of the pandemic.  Beyond the joy of finally connecting in person, the primary purpose of our time together was for each leader to deliver their vision speech – the leadership summit.  

The Leadership Summit is an annual vision speech that normally would happen before the launch of the school year.  Of course this year was a bit different, so we had to make necessary adjustments.  Yet, I believe having clarity about your vision is so critical to your leadership success that I insisted that we move forward with the summit presentation, even if it already November. The view from the Summit captures your vision for your school or department, and lays out your strategic improvement plan to address focus areas and realize your goes.  It is your opportunity to practice and refine how you talk about your school and your focused efforts to improve.  The summit is a high level overview – what you working on, why you are working on it, and what you are planning to do?  It is your opportunity to get your team excited about what lies in store for the coming school year.  

While it may be tempting to believe that we put too much faith in the content and delivery of a vision speech, we know that a clear and compelling vision is a guiding factor for realizing measurable improvements within your organization.  Of course, we know that the success of an organization depends on many factors and variables that go deeper and further than speeches and storytelling, but there are compelling reasons that explain why the summit is so essential.   My first assignment as a brand new student in the School Leadership Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education was to interview two education leaders about their experiences and perspectives on organizational leadership in the field of education.  I interviewed Dr. Michael Cowan, then superintendent of Mesa Public Schools, the largest K-12 school district in Arizona, as well as Dr. Lattie Coor, who had just retired as president of Arizona State University and had launched a policy think tank called the Center for the Future of Arizona where I had worked as an intern.  When I asked about the most important element leadership, both of them quickly and unequivocally answered “vision.”  The Leadership Summit is the premier opportunity to communicate and share that vision.  

In other industries, vision speeches might come during the annual shareholders meeting, or an annual leadership retreat.  Similarly, a rousing call to purpose and action can be heard from the coach of an athletic team on the eve of a new season or from a general on the brink of conflict.  These are moments of drama that are often portrayed on the movie screen and the history books, and as such, can perhaps take on a hint of cliché.  Yet make no mistake, these moments when all eyes are on you and the people are hungry for shared purpose and inspiration matter tremendously.  Underestimate the importance of the vision speech at your own peril.  

We cannot forget that education is a deeply human endeavor.  After all, learning brings with it a range of new relationships, conflicts, experiences, and struggles.  It is deeply social in nature. From academic discourse to high expectations, our learning trajectory is plotted amongst the relationships and interactions we have with other human beings.  Not surprisingly, education is deeply emotional work.  We wade through triumphs and tragedies because the outcomes we seek are not physical products.  We seek learning, transformation, and strengthening of the human lives around us.  If there ever were a time for a heavy dose of symbolic leadership, this is it.  Yes, leading an organization requires the creation of purposeful structures, strategic management of human capital, and insightful political maneuvering.  But the vision speech gets at human emotions and motivation – this is the time to inspire.  As Bolman and Deal describe it, symbolic leadership is the acknowledgment that organizations are messy and often ambiguous, and that creating shared meaning and purpose are essential to the practice of leadership.

Above all,  remind us why we do the work we do.  Tell us what is at stake.  Convince us we’re the right people for the task.  Paint the image of new possibilities and show us the way we are going to get there.

At Lincoln School, one of our strategic priorities over the past several years has been the integration of Entrepreneurial Thinking into the academic and co-curricular programs of the school.  Our mission statement talks about things like being the leading innovator of 21^st Century education, and having graduates who make a positive impact on society.  In other words, at the Lincoln School we hold ourselves accountable for more than just GPAs and college acceptances.  We aspire to make a positive impact on the world, and a major component of that work is equipping our students with the skillsets and mindsets necessary to take risks in the service of social innovation and economic development.  

That’s why I am excited to dig into the book “Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach.”  The book was shared as a recommendation from our partners at Babson College and the Lewis Institute – organizations who are well known for their pioneering works developing a practice-based curriculum for teaching entrepreneurship. 

In the very first chapter, the authors address the question about how students learn entrepreneurship.  The authors’ position is clear, “in order to learn entrepreneurship, one must do entrepreneurship.”  Due to the highly dynamic nature of society and economic markets, we have to instill in students both the practices and the mindsets necessary to push for innovative solutions.  Again, the authors point out that “entrepreneurial environments are unpredictable, uncertain, and ambigious, and require a specific mindset, which is in stark contrast to the envrionments we teach in.”  In other words, classrooms are about the most unsimilar of learning environments for teaching entrepreneurship.  

To address this, our learning environments have to change.  I’m excited to learn more about what those changes need to look like, but what seems clear is that if we expect our teachers to successfully teach entrepreneurship, they will have to practice entrepreneurship themselves.  That is precisely what our teachers are doing.  Over 30 of our staff members just completed the Entrepreneurship Program for Innovators and Changemakers (EPIC) curriculum in partnership with the Lewis Institute.  Watching our teacher and administrator teams develop venture ideas, develop feasibility studies and business plans, and then pitch those ideas, was transformative – not to mention a lot of fun.  

 Just like we hold ourselves accountable for preparing our graduates to be successful in the most rigorous academic environments in the world, we want to systematically instill in our graduates the skillsets and mindsets necessary to venture and positively impact their communities.  We’re early in our journey, but excited about the transformations we are already experiencing.