Open to Innovation

Near the end of November, I employed – not asked – my family to assist with leaf raking in our backyard. We have a large pin oak that enjoys clinging to its leaves far beyond the time that the other trees have shed theirs. This ensures – year after year – quality family time engaged in meaningful yard work well into December. As a kid, I remember all too well raking leaves in our backyard, particularly an area covered by trees where no grass even grew. I also fondly remember needing to rake and collect each and every last leaf in the yard, no exceptions. As I was taught, so too do I teach.

So here’s how the raking played out: I announced to my three kids that we just needed to get most of the leaves, not all. My kids were no doubt thinking how awesome I was as a dad at this point. We then commenced to raking, I with great fervor and determination – the kids with mild apathy and reticence. For five or ten minutes all proceeded as raking should, leaves piling up and the yard clearly visible again. What I soon noticed in two of my children was an increase in the weight of the rakes to the point that holding them and continuing to move the leaves required monumental strength, a strength that neither of my sons apparently possessed. My teenage daughter, on the other hand, had disappeared from raking altogether.

And then my wife entered the scene – with the leaf blower and the hundred-foot extension cord. I continued to move those leaves into piles with my traditional rake, which – by the way – holds an 1874 U.S. patent. Leaf blowers have only been patented in some form since the 1950s. My sons quickly abandoned their rakes to “help” mom with the leaf blower. Annoyance at their behavior only increased the vigor with which I collected those leaves with my tried-and-true rake. They should have been raking the leaves. That’s how leaves are gathered each fall and how they have been gathered by families for countless years.

Once connected, the leaf blower exploded to life, sending the leaves – or at least most of them – into piles that could be transferred onto a tarp and hauled to the street for pickup. What had begun as a necessary but arduous task was now transformed into an activity that led to my sons physically fighting with one another for the chance to use the leaf blower.

At the time of the leaf-raking-turned-blowing, I thought about how my sons can fight over anything and how my daughter can slip away silently from certain chores. Many days later, while talking to a colleague at work about innovation in the classroom, I couldn’t stop thinking about the family leaf-raking event and how it connects to education.

When we talk about innovation in education, we talk about how things will be done differently and how things will look different than they currently do. But in practice, we tend to stick with the way school has always been done, with the way it has always looked. As an instructional coach, I hear from teachers what is not working when it comes to instruction. This is the point where we should bring in the leaf blower, not the rake. The rake is not a bad tool – it just might not be the most effective tool to utilize. We want students excited about their learning, in the same way that leaf “raking” suddenly became a desirable activity for my sons once the leaf blower made an appearance. My wife saw a different way to rake leaves, a way that I had not considered in my 1874 rake mindset.

There is certainly nothing fundamentally wrong with the rake, but that doesn’t mean that it should always be used for the simple reason that it has always been used. In education, we should also be open to different ways of “raking,” even though those ideas may have been around for many years. The term “innovation” is tossed around in educational discussions, and this is a good thing. As educators, we should always be looking at ways to improve student learning by introducing new ideas and methods, by innovating.

What I learned from the raking episode: The biggest barrier to education is not a lack of resources and time. The biggest barrier is not our population of students or testing or technology. The biggest barrier to innovation is our own way of thinking, our mindset. When we acknowledge this – as I eventually did with leaf raking – we have opened the door to looking at learning with a new perspective. We are open to innovation.

Author’s note: My daughter was eventually located and returned to leaf-raking duties. She was not offered the chance to use the leaf blower. My sons continued to fight with one another, despite each being given a chance to use the leaf blower.