BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update June 19, 02024, No. 175 (Read online) Honoring Our Responsibility to Students...and the Future Hey, Every now and again we come across something that makes us literally tingle with goodness. And that's what happened this week when we read an amazing story from the University of Victoria Department of Education about how they approached some very difficult budget conversations earlier this year. Every school is confronted with hard decisions, whether...
4 months ago • 6 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update June 5, 02024, No. 174 (Read online) Better? Or Easier? Hey, Here’s a frame for thinking about our approach to education in this fraught moment: We’re trying to do the wrong thing righter. Let us first say first that we really believe that the vast majority of people who go into teaching and school leadership care about kids, want them to learn, hope for them to thrive and be joyful in their lives. But what if despite our best intentions, our current...
4 months ago • 4 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update May 22, 02024, No. 173 (Read online) "Generation Transition" Hey, In her much anticipated annual overview last month of emerging tech trends, Amy Webb suggested all of us alive today are a part of what she called "Gen T" or "Generation Transition." We are now, she said, "being forced to transform at a much faster rate than we can comprehend what is happening to us" due primarily to lightening-fast advances in artificial intelligence, wearable devices,...
5 months ago • 7 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update May 8, 02024, No. 172 (Read online) Imagination as Strategy Hey, Have you thought about the role of imagination in decision-making, especially for the prickly, wicked decisions? Would you agree that a well-developed imagination is crucial to making the best decisions you can for yourself and for others? If that’s the case, how do you develop and exercise imagination, even for the most serious questions? If we don't spend time imagining the potential...
5 months ago • 6 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update April 24, 02024, No. 171 (Read online) When the Conversations Get Serious Hey, The complexities and the uncertainties of this moment we're living in are creating a real urgency to engage in hard conversations about our lives today and what the future might hold. To not "go there" and acknowledge that our lives on the planet are fundamentally different from what they were 20 or even five years ago is to deny the "depth and magnitude of the problems we...
6 months ago • 7 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update April 7, 02024, No. 170 (Read online) It's Just a Can of Soda, Right? Hey, In times of challenge and complexity, we must dig deep into our values to figure out what the most relevant, appropriate, fair, and effective response might be to any given development. This is the essence of leadership. That's why it's especially important for school communities to not look away from the big picture and even the seemingly insignificant realities we find...
6 months ago • 6 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update March 27, 02024, No. 169 (Read online) "Dopamine Culture" Hey, In our newsletter from a month ago, we shared a reading link to Ted Gioia's post The State of Culture, 2024. Gioia identifies "The Rise of Dopamine Culture” — which caught our attention. He discusses how new technologies are increasingly rewiring our brains to be in constant search of pleasure at any moment, regardless of how long-lasting it is. That dopamine hit that we get when someone...
7 months ago • 6 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update March 12, 02024, No. 167 (Read online) A BQI Update - What's Trending and How We're Responding Community responses to our 9 Big Questions in Kelowna, BC Hey, We’ve had a full first quarter of 2024 supporting schools in the U.S., Canada, across Africa, Europe, South America, and Asia. As we continue to learn, we wanted to dedicate this newsletter to updating you on trends we are seeing, and to share some of the ways we are working with schools like...
7 months ago • 4 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update February 28, 02024, No. 166 (Read online) The Growing Gender Divide Hey, Every once in a while, a statistic is released that seems shocking but logical, disappointing but not surprising – and we can’t stop thinking about it. A few weeks ago, we were made aware of one of these mind-blowing data points. Research out of Gallup and Stanford University illustrates a widening ideology gap between young women and men, unprecedented in previous generations....
8 months ago • 5 min read