The Hero’s Journey- Part 3: The Road Home
By: Geraldine De Fazio
Tags: Change Management, Leadership, Design Thinking, The Heros Journey, Education

Being on a Hero’s Journey is an adventure, an encounter into the unknown. With great risk comes the opportunity for great reward. But what if the journey you are on isn’t into the great unknown? What if the journey is actually into the past, present and future of your school? This is the final of a three-part series.

Photo by BRUNO CERVERA on Unsplash

Out of ashes our heroes emerge, battle worn but with a sense of victory. The team has learned from their mentor, has fine tuned skills to take home and holds a plan for action. There is confidence, fiercely earned amongst our heroes. In order for our heroes to return back to the real world, Campbell tells us that a moment of pause is necessary. Every hurdle takes a toll on our heroes. Our heroes remain humble and cautious for there is still a road yet to be travelled.

Photo by Alessio Lin on Unsplash

Our heroes, arm themselves with the right type of questions they will need to take the road home. Those they left behind or are yet to join our school, will need signs that our heroes are in fact leading the collective towards their common goal. Schools exploring such changes have explored such How Might We… questions as;

How might we develop effective, agentic PYP leadership at our schools? How might we be co-learners with our students through inquiry? How might we support the learning community in understanding agency? How might we help get technologists to talk to teachers and teachers to talk to technologists? How might we better engage our parents with what we really do in our classrooms? How might we create mental space for teachers to get reengaged and experiment, be free to be more creative? How might we help parents understand that how we teach their kids needs to change? How might we help teachers to redefine their role as learners?

These questions allow teams for teachers, leaders, students, parents and board members to explore possible unimagined solutions.

An ambush on our confident heroes!

Our heroes, so very close to home, are hit with a surprise attack. Lurking in the shadows with an unseen challenge. The confidence of having a solid question is only part way to finding the solution. It feels like being back at the beginning, immersing yet again in new research, and seeking insights from the broader community. Our heroes, perhaps for the first time, realize their journey is a creative process. It is revealed that the perfect circle of the Hero’s Journey was not the most accurate image to guide our adventurers after all.

Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash

Our heroes may have been surprised initially but they regained their footing. Their collective years of inquiry teaching and learning with some of the youngest learners has prepared them for this moment.

They are teachers who may be perfectionists, but they have lived it day in day out in their classrooms back home. They have developed the ability to not fear failure and embrace a culture of critique.

The prototyping spirit asks our heroes to hold their ideas lightly. To take this to the next level of change, they will have to allow it to take on a form not previously seen or imagined.

The playful spirit and practice helps our hero’s create, test, fail and repeat. This enables them to see their solutions evolve quickly and cheaply. In a time precious places like schools, this agility helps unburden the stress and fear of failure.

So what does this mean for our schools transitioning, being verified or evaluated?

Seeing the process as a journey may assist the type of buy-in and shared commitment needed. To help avoid the, “here we go again,” mentality, a spirit of adventure will go a long way. The process of accreditation or evaluation is best viewed as an ongoing process but as we have seen, not as a cycle. It is messy and chaotic with peaks and valleys, friends and foes; but always an adventure.

What are the lessons from the Hero’s Journey that will help?

Take the call to adventure – It’s worth it

Take a guide – They are on your side and can equip you with the tools you’ll need

Take a moment to breath – You’ll need time to pause, reflect and reset

Don’t be a lone hero — Be a team

Don’t trust what you think you know — Test assumptions

Don’t think you’ll get it right the first time — Embrace failure

Find your haystack. Design your thinking.

You can catch up on the series here.