Am enjoying Ricardo Semler’s Seven Day Weekend at the moment. He makes the point that a number of companies position themselves as warm, nurturing “families” and look for passionate employees while restricting much of what makes them thrive with overly stringent routines and top-heavy directives. The same insight applies to schools. Paraphrasing a line from him,
“Rather than constantly talking about ‘passion’ – teaching passionately, building passionate learners, even marking passionately – schools should make it possible for teachers and students to feel exhilaration every once in a while. Let them get involved to the point that they shout “Yes!” and give each other High Fives because they did it their way – and it worked.”
Completely agree.