Dear Richard,

You and I are both immersed in the challenges and opportunities of innovation in education. You’re working to evolve the ways our country is learning with the support of technology. Over here at IDEO, we’re working to design tools, experiences, and systems that engage and inspire the learners, teachers, leaders, and parents that are all part of the education ecosystem. We are both focused on innovation, but from very different angles.

I’ve been thinking a lot about innovation in education over the years and have been intrigued about how much the conversation has changed lately. Did you notice how many proposed sessions for SxSWedu this year included the words “innovation” or “design thinking”? Yes, of course, springtime in Austin is the most likely venue for conversations about innovation in education… but it seems, to me, that innovation may have finally gone mainstream.

Overall, there’s a lot more awareness out there that everything and each of us (including our systems) need to learn and grow and thoughtfully evolve with the times. The current way might not be the optimal way, and we’re at risk of continually creating the best dinosaur out there.

What I love about the conversations happening at SXSWedu, though, is that many are teacher-led. It’s not the suits leading the conversations, it’s the teachers. They are sharing new pedagogical approaches alongside EdTech developers who are showcasing their products alongside folks from foundations who are emerging points of view about scale and impact.

The innovation conversation feels born from the ground, with educators trying new approaches in their classrooms and schools and sharing them so that others can learn.

This feels so right in a sector that’s all about the skills and passions of people, where nationalization is counter-culture, and where learning is the center of its purpose.

So many questions are discussed around innovation in education — Are things changing too fast? Too slowly? Should the innovations come from the ground, or from the government? If it doesn’t scale quickly is it worth it? Will technology save us? Or is the answer in our teachers? Do we really need to redesign education? Or do we risk losing something we’ve already got figured out?

I always joke that when people say “we need to redesign education,” they’re saying something like “let’s redesign commerce!” It’s just that big. Our education system isn’t a thing that is designed; it is the outcome of many different designed elements and many different people’s creativity. Clearly there isn’t one simple answer. Because of that, it seems to me that it would help to unpack what the word innovation is really about in education.

Here’s a starter list for pulling apart the word innovation:

Incremental change vs. radical leap

When we talk about innovation, are we talking about new solutions that build upon what we’re currently doing, or radical leaps of practice? Seems we’re rarely that radical. Unless, of course, you’re Finland.

The how vs. the what

We’re constantly going between these questions. What should we be teaching? How should we be teaching? They’re clearly interrelated, and yet not the same.

From the ground vs. from the government

We tend to assume that change in education is policy-defined and top-down — but some of the most exciting innovations seem to be coming from teachers and schools.

Innovations vs. Innovators

Is the goal to get great new solutions out there, or get more people to create new solutions? I’m a little biased toward the latter, because the more people that are applying their creativity in education, the more innovations we will see, routinely, over time. And they’ll have the benefit of being locally defined. But clearly, both are needed.