The difficulties of being a changemaker in education.

Written on
September 21, 2017
by
Peter Hostrawser

I received a text from a good friend and colleague of mine who is disrupting education in his classroom. The text read “When you try to change others will come after you. I’m feeling it.” There is so much truth in that statement when it comes to education. Change scares the hell out of traditional educators. Change in traditional education is excruciatingly slow. When you start moving fast, colleagues will go in one of two directions… they will mock you or follow your lead

.In the game of change, jealousy always rears its ugly face. Whenever a teacher tries something different, others in the school can get downright mean. I’ve seen teachers stop talking to changemakers. I’ve seen whispering and mocking. Believe me, it is worse than the students sometimes. It’s not easy being the changemaker in education.

I live by the mantra of if you are not pissing someone off, you are not doing anything important. This makes it easier to work through the pettiness of jealous colleagues. As long as you are helping the students learn and engage in self-awareness, you are winning.

A few items I like to pass along to my fellow disruptors of education when they are feeling the heat of the jealous ones are as follows:​

  • Hate is a side effect of impact.
  • Jealous colleagues don’t have the guts you have.
  • Focus on the outcomes in your classroom and not outsiders who know nothing about you.
  • Pray for your foes.
  • As you impact more students, the less poor performing colleagues will understand you.
  • Figure out who really is on your team and keep building change.
  • Keep grinding… trust yourself…. It’s worth it.

Sooner or later, jealous people will come around or leave the school. Look, nobody said change is easy in education. I mean really… look at schools today! Many of them still look like the schools of the 1950s! People are scared. As a disruptor, you are not. Move the students into the 21st century! Be bold. Keep going. Lose the loser educators. Build the future! #disrupteducation

Peter Hostrawser
Creator of Disrupt Education
My value is to help you show your value. #Blogger | #KeynoteSpeaker | #Teacher | #Designthinker | #disrupteducation
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