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So What? Now What?

Linda Cliatt-Wayman took on an enormous job when she became the principal of a failing high school. The staff and students had lost hope. With everything stacked against them, she looked at the data and told her team "So what? Now what?"


Too often in our schools and quite honestly every aspect of life people identify problems...and then...nothing. 

I often have conversations that start with a question about best practices in teaching. Most often, this is followed up by an explanation of the obstacles that prohibit the ideal learning experience. Only half of these conversations move on to the solution stage of the process without my intervention. 

When speaking with my children about their school-work, chores, and responsibilities, they are excellent at identifying how they were prohibited from performing tasks appropriately. When trying to push the solution phase of this cycle, I get eye-rolls like I just don't get it. 

If, when problems arise, we never get past identifying the hurdles to improve situations, we are just making excuses. We all know that problems in education are incredibly complex, but we must encourage each other to push past the problem identification phase into the solution stage. This can be intimidating or maybe even disheartening when what we try does not work. We must keep trying, no matter how often our plans fail. This is what effective leaders do, we empower others to say: Yes, there is a problem. "So what? Now what?" We will not give up. 

Take a page out of Thomas Edison's book and look at it this way: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In his book Leading in a Culture of Change, Michael Fullan (2007, p. 2) discusses the idea of seeking out leaders who are willing to seek out new solutions to the unique problems we face. Don't look for leaders who are confident that the way they have been doing things is the way to solve the unique issues arising in our systems. Be bold and delve into the messy problems facing your school, classroom, or community. Try something new. Yes, there are problems. So what? Now what? Let's come up with a plan.

References

Fullan, M. (2007). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Cliatt-Wayman, L. (2015). How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard. Retrieved 
          December 13, 2019, from
          https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_cliatt_wayman_how_to_fix_a_broken_school_lead_
          fearlessly_love_hard/up-next#t-522224

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