Instructional Soul

The Instructional Soul: Leading Schools with a Spirit of Innovation is about connections It explores a new way of organizing our schools and aligning our curriculum and lessons that is long overdue. What we know with great certainty is that our educational system is comprised of a disconnected assortment of skills, subjects, and departments. What we learn in math has little to do with what we learn in science. Even worse, our students are often disconnected from each other, and our schools are disengaged from their communities. In many ways, school is simply a place where we drop off our kids in kindergarten and pick them up when they are eighteen. This book dares to suggest something different, a system that is fully integrated, aligned, and purposeful. It provides a new framework for how we shape our curriculum, involve our families and communities, and align our work around skills like creativity and confidence in ways that are so unlike what we do now that a revolution may be in order. In the end, that will require bold leadership and a collective search for our souls.

The Instructional Soul provides readers with a bold and fresh perspective on how our schools must systemically change to better prepare our students to lead and succeed in the complex world in which they will live, learn, work, and play. This book offers engaging stories and revolutionary ideas for transforming our factory-based institutions into student-centered, responsive, and fully integrated school systems. As educators and policymakers, we must lead our nation in courageously discussing the purpose and future of our schools, and the conceptual frameworks presented by Daniel J. Evans must be part of this essential discourse., For our educational systems to succeed in preparing young people for a rapidly changing world and unpredictable future, many recognize the urgent need to envision a redesign of our schools. The good news is that help is on the way, thanks to this compelling book, The Instructional Soul. This beautifully written, powerful, and accessible resource employs a systems thinking approach to new ways of leading, learning, and teaching and provides educational leaders with a timely blueprint of insights and bold steps to revolutionize and transform today’s school systems.

Daniel J. Evans is an award-winning teacher, school principal, researcher, and writer in one of the nation’s largest and most innovative school districts. He is a devoted researcher in the areas of systems and complexity theory and is an ardent educational historian.