“And that’s why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you’re trying to bring about change.” I found this to be the backbone to why I wanted to be a teacher and now a director. It’s the little bright spots that mean the most to us in education. I like how the author Chip and Dan Heath focus on the positive and the now. I found that to be very helpful in being able to move forward with projects, people, or even life. Stop focusing on what happened and focus on how to correct it.
“But if you’re trying to change things. there are going to be bright spots in your field of view, and if you learn to recognize them and understand them, you will solve one of the fundamental mysteries of change: What, exactly, needs to be done differently?” I really felt that this quote struck me the most and was very timely. As my director retires and I take on the role of director I hope to be able to find the bright spots and make change. Especially in areas that will benefit our school greatly.
“Now that you’ve defined your bright spot, you can try to clone it.” I have been working hard at one of our schools with my action research and feel that I have been greatly successful in working with teachers. Now I feel that I need to look at the other sites and see if it can be duplicated. I guess the big question is what do you do with the ones who resist?
I found the Bright Spots excerpt intriguing, though I wasn’t entirely sure whether I bought the authors’ argument based on the examples in this chapter alone. There have been so many of these pop-psych books recently, like Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, where the authors often cherry pick examples to prove their points. While looking at the bright spots seems like a smart and efficient first step, I do believe there is a role for deeper analysis of the problem, especially, as you mentioned, in cases where you meet resistance.