Engage the World – Change the World by Michael Fullan, Joanne Quinn, Joanne McEachen.
I’m reading this book one chapter at a time with my wife. As this book is very new, it has some wonderfully current observations. More importantly, the shift it’s authors have made, to a focus on the purpose for education being grounded in developing learner agency is deeply refreshing. One can, in fact, identify some through lines to the jurisdictions engaged in the New Pedagogies Deep Learning project.
I’m reading this book for two purposes. Well, three really.
- Because my wife is. She is a deeply professional school leader and highly reflective practitioner. We have many rich conversations which challenge and inform my own practices.
- I belong to one of those jurisdictions experimenting with NPDL and believe our school would benefit from some insight and context into the machinations informing current language and policy trajectory.
- Having engaged with NPDL from the very beginning I’m keen to learn from the experiences documented in this book.
Plumped in the passenger seat of our little Honda, with a hot take-away coffee in one hand and this book balanced in the other, I did my usual thing and went straight to the back pages.
Our boys were at their first cricket session for the season. Other parents huddled and shivered in the cold outside. My wife and I however, confidently opened up the pages of Deep Learning – and jumped right in.
I’ll declare right up front – I’m only interested in viewing this kind of material through the lens of learner agency. There is one overarching question I have of this or anything else on schools and what they do:
What can I learn about empowering learners to make rules and allocate resources such that they can inform the shape of their world?
First impressions of this book: A lot!