All people develop thoughts and insights as a result of their experiences and knowledge. Many want to share these insights with others but find it difficult to do so on more than a personal basis with friends and family. Reframing thought leadership to include quiet and collective thought leadership enables more people to step into thought leadership and to fulfil their desire to make a difference in the world around them.

While it is very important to acknowledge that teachers, school leaders, schools and even local communities cannot ensure sustainability and equitable outcomes on their own (for example, issues of access to appropriate devices and internet are a whole of government responsibility), a hybrid learning approach that ensures quality learning continues no matter what the circumstances are, in ways that support flourishing for each individual, family/whānau within a community will support equitable outcomes.

The language of “kindness” which is trademark Jacinda Ardern, the use of words like “nice” by Todd Muller and his National colleagues and then his suggestion of a non-combative election, may not just be a return to old-fashioned politeness and manners; but may, in fact, be signalling the emergence of a new way of thinking – “a qualitative shift in the very shape of the window or lens through which one looks at the world” (Robert Kegan).

…we, as a sector, do not need to wait for a leader to invite us to join the quest. The invitation to ensure the dignity of all people in our schools, to assist all children to continually fulfil their potential and to create the spaces where every child (and teacher) discovers their unique contribution to the world … has always been out there for all of us, waiting for our RSVP.

Urs Cunningham explores how knowledge of defensive scripts, combined with an understanding of what it means to maintain the middle ground, can help significantly in leadership growth and development.

Urs Cunningham introduces the concept of defensive scripts as a way of understanding and exploring more about what sits underneath our behaviours.

COACHING LEADERSHIP is a hugely powerful approach to the growth and development of leaders and to transforming your school/organisation. In this article, Lesley Murrihy shares the outcomes of a two year Coaching Leadership project at Amesbury School. Her final statement says it all: “I am simply overwhelmed by the growth and development I see in the people around me. How did they get to be so wise?”

In this article I make plea to embrace the spiritual dimension of the world as an integral, essential aspect of what it means to be a teacher and a student. If we don’t, we will, in spite of all our efforts, fall short of the educational task of arousing, through our teacherly gestures and the development of the  (uncertain) knowledge that gestures make possible, the desire in our students for wanting to exist in and with the world in a grown-up way, as subject….

Why are we talking about 22nd century learning already? The advertisement that we loved so much back in the day, “Good things take time” may still be true for cheese but cannot be true of education today. We cannot, must not allow any more generations to pass without cracking the hard nut of change in education – the hard nut of equity in education.

“We cannot go on running schools as though the “other” does not exist or does not matter. To say students should learn in a particular way because this way we might get the best overall outcomes, ignores the “other” for whom this does not work as well.” In this article, Lesley Murrihy explores her understanding of MLE and why these environments might not all be the same.

“When we bracket our desire for learning and our desire for understanding, the world can begin to speak to us, can begin to address us, can begin to teach us.”   (Biesta, 2017. Prologue: The Need for a Re(dis)covery of Teaching). In this article, Urs Cunningham, explores her experiences of being taught by the world while on a teaching sabbatical.

The ideas in this article are not new. But we are excited to be discovering them anew and to be embarking on a more explicit exploration of “subjectness” and the role of gestures in opening up the space for students [and teachers] to appear as subject. This raft of ideas may assist the rejuvenation of education and it may help education to rescue itself.

A plea to change the conversation about Modern Learning Environments to ensure that the teachers who work within those environments do not become victims of the debate and are not marginalised by it.

It is time for those of us in education to stop simply commenting and to start creating proposals, to test models and to look to hybrid solutions that take account of the complex nature of the 21st century and of education and create positive sum outcomes.  Let's not be like all the king's horses and all the king's men. Let's stop sawing sawdust. 

The miracle of 2017 is that in stepping aside from the day-to-day and the urgent, we don’t lose time, we gain it. So, how do you make that leap away from the business-as-usual and create space for more expansive thinking? Follow Lesley's journey of discovery in 2017, and find out how she made it happen for herself.

Imagine yourself with time and space to think and dream, explore the past, present and future and be productive...in a less manic way! Dr Lesley Murrihy describes how she made this happen for herself in 2017 in the hopes of inspiring others to carve out a similar space for themselves.

In an article first published earlier this year, Dr Lesley Murrihy examines the stark realisation that she was close to burnout, and how this revelation led her to turn over a new leaf in her life.

As the principal of a Modern Learning Environment, I have ignored the constant disparaging of Modern Learning Environments long enough. Why have those of us who lead these environments largely kept quiet and allowed it to continue as a mostly one-sided conversation?