Sydney, Australia: With the background music of the didgeridoo creating the atmosphere, a young male descendant of the aboriginal owners of the land offered the traditional "Welcome to Country" ceremony that is used to open events in the ancestral region. Through music and dance, an environment of respect was created, linking the past to the present and setting a stage for the future.
Members of the ASCD Board of Directors were fortunate to participate in this experience while attending the Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL) Conference, held in Sydney in October 2007. Cosponsored by ASCD, the conference included participants from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and several other countries.
Speakers represented the conference theme, "New Imagery for Schools and Schooling: Challenging, Creating, and Connecting," in their presentations through words like reinvent, reimagine, rethink, and re-create. As the Board members attended sessions and participated in the Board meeting later in the week, the importance of respecting the past, assessing the present, and looking forward to the future was evident.
One example of how we look at things differently in the 21st century occurred to me while participating in a very successful interactive video session. We have seen how technology now makes one-on-one communication possible among students, teachers, and others interested in a subject and provides valuable opportunities to develop and sustain mentoring relationships in business and education online. Now, the use of technology at ASCD is increasing participation in governance and influence.
Following the theme of technological innovation, keynote speaker Heidi Hayes Jacobs made a convincing case for rethinking a new essential curriculum in light of technology. She challenged attendees to throw off the shackles of 19th century schooling and rethink how learning happens. Throughout the conference, speakers from the corporate world and from inside the various education systems echoed that sentiment, saying that technology is drastically changing the world in which we live, making it more interconnected than ever.
That interconnectedness has become important to many organizations, and over a number of years, ASCD has developed cooperative relationships with several groups, including ACEL. With the increasing interest in sharing research across cultures and countries, these relationships have facilitated shared access to information and made our education world a little smaller. The landscape is constantly changing, so remaining flexible and aware of change is ever more important.
In the Board meeting, we discussed ways of reimagining, rethinking, and re-creating ASCD. Our strategic plans have guided the Association toward success and, then, from success to significance. Since the current strategic plan is now about five years old, we are in the process of developing a new one.
As Board members worked on the strategic plan during the October meeting, the experience of the ACEL conference sparked a rethinking of the planning process. We found ourselves articulating the understanding that an organization like ASCD that provides services and support in a worldwide environment needs to be flexible and forward thinking. We realized that the moment a plan is written down, it can become an anchor to today rather than a pathway to tomorrow. And we realized that the format of the strategic plan itself constrains creative thinking.
The strategic planning process is continuing, but in a different way than it has in the past. We don't know yet what it might look like, but it appears that there may be a new path for envisioning the future of ASCD.