Riptides in Shifting Currents

"Shift Happens", the provocative viral video from Karl Fisch via Scott McLeod is making its way around the Web while driving home the point that our world is changing in multiple known and unknown ways.  While we endorse wholeheartedly the premise that today's students compete less with their classmates than with highly educated, English-speaking peers elsewhere on the planet, a recent experience with the video reminds us of the difficulty of making change happen in the way we educate.

We used the video to stimulate thinking in a group meeting to make strategy for a large national nonprofit in the education sector.  While some in the room were stunned at the implications of the Fisch/McLeod clip, a small number of others seemed to be heading just the other way.  One person in particular rose to passionately make the point that threats have always seemed around the corner and somehow our educational process works; that is, students appear to learn what they need to know.  This argument against the need for revolutionary change is one we have heard before when issues both similar and different have been on the table.

The above seems to illustrate something fundamental and challenging about moving groups through change.  No matter how robust the wave of data making the case for change, there will always exist a riptide current running in the opposite direction.  Sometimes the riptide is just beneath the surface, while in others it lurks at another depth farther below.

Memo to leaders: read the above and know that no matter how obvious the case for change is to you, others, for reasons that are both rational and irrational, will fail to see the light.  Expecting this to happen goes a long way toward reducing the frustration you feel as the pace of change slows.  On the flip side, so long as the riptide current does not stop progress, it can sound a useful cautionary note that prevents groupthink and inaccurate inferences based on limited data.