We’ve all seen the above graphic on design thinking. It illustrates that often there is messy thinking and setbacks to overcome before the clarity of the design is formulated. I had this image in mind recently when I was asked to share my current school improvement goals. I referred to the tangled web of thinking to describe where I was in the process. I decided to develop a visual to describe the school improvement process:

We begin with ideas-thoughts of what we might want to improve based on our current goals and progress. Then we incorporate new learning. That’s when it can get messy. Often new learning leads to a reflecting mode where thoughts are jumbled and we need to ruminate to make connections to our current work. Using the new learning to generate improvements is when begin to innovate and iterate.

The school improvement process is fraught with messy thinking. Our efforts can vacillate from clear to messy thinking as a result of new learning that forces us to question our current values. This is good – we should always question our purpose in order to fully comprehend its value.

I’ve learned we need to embrace the tangle as an opportunity towards heightened school improvement. I’ve also learned that we need to surrender to the fact that our work is rarely linear or finite but more often a continuous cycle of refining and rethinking based on new learning.