Ideas are lovely and exchanging ideas is even lovelier especially when they have proven to have an impact elsewhere. Whether it is from the classroom next door or the school down the road, it seems insane to not take that nugget and create the same effect in your own setting. It sounds simple and it is too simple.
Ideas have roots and a language; they are connected to communities and cultures in organisations. This complexity all makes sense if you have wondered why X’s super plenary failed spectacularly with your class or why that CPD structure did not motivate your staff. Ideas need to be analysed for what was around them, before and under them to make them successful elsewhere.
Ideas need to be visualised, mapped out and adapted in their setting. I wonder if this is why some practice stops changing: we are leaving out a big part of the process and are reluctant to try again when the shiny new nugget fails to deliver.
When ideas are probed, shaped and honed, then they can grow in different hands.
@brightonteacher English Teacher/SLE – SE England
This article originally appeared in the September 2016 edition of UKEdMagazine
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