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“You Guys are Dangerous”

By LeaderTalk Contributor — December 14, 2010 1 min read
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Cross-posted at Eduthing

This is my favorite compliment of all times.....and it happened twice! Here’s the scoop...

#1 - Justin Bathon (co-blogger of Eduthing and lead-blogger of Edjurist) and Scott McLeod (Dangerously Irrelevant) walked into the Provost’s office at the University of Kentucky a few months ago to request support for an innovative school technology leadership program. After we gave our pitch, he looked at us and said “you guys are dangerous.” Of course we got the support.

#2 - Justin and I were presenting at the Innovation Summit held in Lexington, KY last week. We talked about the need for school technology leadership and our efforts at CASTLE to help schools at both the local and global levels. At the end of the presentation, a superintendent went up to one of our P20 leaders and said “I am glad I am retiring in a few years. Those guys are dangerously relevant.”

As professors in the field of educational leadership it is our duty to be dangerously relevant. If we are not helping schools shift to meet the changing needs of its clients, these schools will be dangerously irrelevant. In turn, we will become dangerously irrelevant to academia.

The shift is upon us. For better or worse, digital technologies change the very nature of education and thus require a dramatic change in the institution of schooling. It is not out of fear that I say this, it is out of hope. Here’s to being dangerous....and being relevant.

Jayson W. Richardson
University of Kentucky

The opinions expressed in LeaderTalk are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.