Are you a modern educational leader?

 “A new breed of educational leader is emerging from all parts of the globe. It’s a leader that fully understands the fundamental challenges to traditional teaching and learning that the new interconnected, networked world is creating. It’s a leader that also sees the amazing opportunities that abundant access to information, people, and technologies is bringing to all of our learning lives. And it’s a leader who is helping to create a new vision for her schools, changing thinking and practice in profound new ways to serve the dramatically different learning future that her students are stepping into.”

It has become a truism to say that the world is changing fast, not least in education. This changing world calls for a new type of educational leader.

In his latest White Paper Will Richardson describes the ‘Eight new attributes of modern educational leaders’. Although some of these attributes are generic for all leaders today, others are specific to the education sector.

As I read through his paper I considered that the following questions may be useful as a reflection on our practice as well as interview questions for new leaders.

• Connected: Where do we get our latest ideas about leadership, teaching and learning from? Who do we connect with online to get new ideas from? Online networks are fertile grounds for finding and reflecting on ideas and experiences. As Will Richardson states: “networks are the new classrooms.”
• Makers: Where in our work do we make and create interesting, beautiful, meaningful work that lives in the world and in some way changes the world? Making involves problem solving, iterating, cooperating and collaborating with others. It requires curiosity, creativity, persistence, and much more that’s required to live in the modern world.
• Innovators: How are we giving learners agency over their own learning? How do we allow them to use technology to connect with other learners around the world and to solve real world problems together?
• Models of learning: How do we model that we are also learners? Do we share reflections on what and how we are learning? How do we do this?
• Energizers of the curriculum: How does the curriculum we offer meet students’ needs? In a digitally-rich highly-connected world knowledge is at our fingertips, so how do we make the learning relevant and meaningful?
• Creators of new visions of what it means to learn: What is our vision for teaching and learning, and how do we ensure that it is keeping up to speed with advances in technology?
• Capacity builders: Coach, support, innovate and learn together to help others build leadership.^[1]
• Literate: In a world where it is sometimes difficult to discern 'truth from fake' how do we develop literacy? What does it mean to be literate in today’s world?  Richardson states that “literate users of the Internet are able to read, write, and participate. Within those broader categories are skills like programming, the ability to keep yourself safe, privacy, connecting with others, synthesizing information, and much more.” Are we providing our students with the skills to be literate?
• Continual learners: How do we keep on learning in an age when learning is the real work? Learning has become a way of life. How are our views of professional development changing to meet this new demand?