Innovation

How are Bill Gates and President Obama similar? Earlier this week I had the opportunity to listen to a Good Morning America interview with Bill Gates and last evening I listened to our President deliver the State of the Union Address and they both used the word innovation. In thinking about change I can think of no better word than innovation to address how to make change happen. .

Yesterday I was preparing for the opportunity that has been offered me to work with a group of Speech and Language Pathologists providing services in an urban school district. My assignment is to address progress monitoring in a Response to Intervention (RtI) environment. Determined to continue my quest to make a difference in the lives of children I began to review my previous presentations on this topic. I found many power point slides filled with my understanding of RtI; thoughtfully planned ideas that I had hoped would capture the essence of RtI and inspire educators to understand and act upon it. I found myself growing more and more stressed as I selected and deleted the best slides for my new presentation. Suddenly Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, flashed at me from one of my slides. "Hello, Mary Ann," I shouted to myself, "practice what you preach." In that moment of truth I became cognizant once again of my own resistance to change and fear of the unknown. I shut down my computer and escaped in a long walk.

Now it is Thursday and I can no longer procrastinate. I am determined to do something different and quite frankly I'm terrified. Perhaps because I know some of these Speech Therapists as former colleagues and student teachers. They have expectations of me and I have expectations of myself. What if I can't deliver? "Breathe, Mary Ann, breathe." And then I thought seek first to understand. So I am trusting my belief that "we are more similar than different" and tomorrow we will begin the conversation that will lead to innovative ideas as to how to monitor a student's progress in an RtI environment. Sam Keen once wrote, "To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions."

Music lights my way and I'm reminded of these lyrics, "Climb every mountain..." What is leading your way?