Dr Frank Dick: There are only two skills that you require in a world of change. If change is happening to you, you must be adaptable. If you're trying to make change happen, you must be creative. And I believe one of the big functions of education is to help us have the adaptability skills and the creative skills.
I think everybody's got three responsibilities in life, right? Your first responsibility is for your own performance, to go out there and to deliver in your role, whatever it happens to be in life. Your second responsibility is for your own development. You must be in the driving seat of your own development. You know where you're trying to get to and you know where you are. You know when you're off track, on track, ahead of the game, behind the game. You know this, so own it. And your third responsibility is to stand other people on your shoulders and to pass it on. If your own development in life is as much about being a better coach, if you like - passing it on - as being a better player - your own responsibilities - you'll be world class as a player-coach.
I don't believe, in life, you should be trying to climb somebody else's mountain. You try to climb your own. You don't try to make them somebody else, you try to make them better at being themselves. And I think that, at the end, of course, is what fulfilment is - to be the best that you can be.
You have to create a tension, a dynamic tension, in a process, like trying to hold a circus tightrope walker's rope as tight as possible. At one end you've got challenge. At the other end you've got support. If you're giving support all the time and never challenge, the moment challenge comes they're gonna fall off. If you're pushing and pushing and pushing with the challenge and you don't support, you snap the wire. The trick is to get the right balance between the two.
The way I see it is you start off in life, as a coach, and you're the light that lights the athlete's path, or the young person's path, because they don't know where they're going. You have to give them that clarity of vision. Next you fuel their light, you teach them how to light their own path. Next you're the mirror that simply reflects their light, and finally you stand out of the light. You cannot expect people to take roles as leaders, to take responsible positions in society, to take ownership of their future, if you don't eventually have it in mind that you have to stand out of the light.
I believe we should all be extremely optimistic about the future. The new curriculum and our approach to seeing a different vision and a different future for Scottish education gives us all huge optimism, I believe.
Journey to Excellence: What's new RSS