School vision and mission statements and moonshot thinking

The Moonshot Thinking video that we watched for class is all about casting away fears and doubts and focusing on possibility. In other words, it’s about getting away from the ‘yes buts’ and instead asking ‘why not?’ and ‘how can we?’ When we do that, we can accomplish great things.

Do our school vision and mission statements reflect this sense of possibility? In her blog post yesterday, May asked how we get beyond the buzzwords and educational jargon when we create these statements. I’m curious how we also make these statements drivers of possibility that energize school communities to move forward in needed directions. Thoughts?

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Words To Use or Not to Use?

Last night sparked some great conversation around a school’s mission & vision statement and their relevance to moving the work forward. I personally loved hearing Kristina MacBury talk about beginning each year with revisiting the mission & vision to see if they still align with the beliefs and values of the school. It led me to wonder though, how do we create mission and vision statements that are meaningful, worthy of the day-to-day work, without OVER-utilizing the current buzzwords in education? Perhaps, is it okay that words such as “life-long learner”, “21st century learners”, …etc are alive in many of our mission and vision statements? Might it be a balancing act? Jeffco11, I’d love to hear your thoughts!