At a workshop this summer, Kalyn, a 24-year teaching veteran, turned to our group and said, “I’m losing my spark. I’m losing my fight in a community of no’s.” While your wording may be different, how many of you have echoed Kalyn’s sentiment? How many Kalyn’s do you know and work with? Consider the huge loss in productivity and ingenuity when teachers and students are stuck in a "community of no’s," and how the educator incubator model could restore this spark.

Imagine instead, a system that says YES; a system in which educators identify genuine problems and then play with possible solutions. They analyze every angle, breaking down the problem to its root causes, then assess where action is both possible and will have the greatest impact.

Imagine that this type of learning is both common AND funded: educators can access small “spark funds” to implement their solutions and test their ideas. While initial projects may be small in scope, as learners test their Design Thinking/Human Centered Design skills and expand their competency, confidence grows. Having experienced the power of trust, they’re more willing to take risks, excited to tackle harder concepts and bigger challenges. The scope and impact of the projects and solutions grow, fueling greater change and impacting communities in vital ways. This work is the soul of R&D, and it has never been a more important time to find ways to sustain and nurture education R&D across the country. As national funding for education R&D evaporates, we can shift to more nimble, localized models of R&D, fueled by and for teachers.

What is being described is not only a learner-centered school but a robust and rigorous educator incubator model for teacher professional learning. While incubators are a common occurrence in the business and startup world, their agile approach to iteration has yet to gain traction in education. My experience is that when teachers experience the incubator model (and other trust-based professional learning), they flourish.

Read the full article about educator incubators by Darcy Bakkegard at Getting Smart.