What If Innovation Can Begin with a Small Step? #MakeADifferenceNow

A few days ago, my fellow innovation teammate, Curt White and I sat working on our presentation for an administrator's book study we are leading on Innovator's Mindset by George Couros. We've been blessed to hear him speak and love his book (aka our edubible). He has a way of pulling on the audience's heart strings and we've been working to be intentional and include moments in our presentations to "Couros them" as we like to call it.

In preparation for the book study, we began to dig through touching videos. Those who know me well or even around me much at all know that I can get pretty teary over happy things, sad things, small animals, babies, commercials...pretty much anything.  My husband refers to these instances as my "Weepy Wendy" or "waterworks" moments. They happen...a lot. I try to reign them in and sometimes I'm more successful than others. Disclaimer: I've read a few posts online (so you know it's true 😊) that people who cry easily are more empathetic, generous, and social. So, that's my story...and I'm sticking to it. But I digress. 

On this particular Friday, Curt found one of "those videos." A video of a boy struggling with stammering and how a teacher stepped up and outside his comfort zone to find a way to help the boy. Through redefining the purpose and role of a resource, innovation within the boy's life occurred and his life was forever impacted.

Needless to say, this was a "waterworks" moment for sure. As I sat trying to wipe the tears away without ruining my make-up and trying not to have puffy eyes (#girlprobs), I made an immediate connection to a video I'd viewed on Facebook a few weeks earlier. A very personal connection.  Since we are leading the book study and I know myself well enough to know there's not a chance that will be able to articulate what I want to say surrounding this connection without tears (and I'm not even sure I won't have tears anyway), I opted to write the story of the impact of the connection I'd made. 

Meet my granddad, a hard-working blue collar WWII Veteran who spent a portion of his life running a family owned gas station in Hume, Missouri. After selling the gas station, he moved his family (my grandmother, aunt, and dad) to Ft. Scott, Kansas where he worked as a Auto Parts Salesman for Ray Shepard Motors by day  and by night, he spent his evenings working with his hands in some way, shape, or form. He was not ever one to sit idle watching TV, unless it was Sunday evening for the show 60 Minutes. In fact, he'd be asleep within minutes if he sat down for very long. So, he moved, constantly. He would always be out "tinkering in the garage" building shelves, bird houses, coin banks, etc. These creations were often rudimentary in design, but functional in purpose. He was not into designing intricate things as those were seen as being frivolous. Practicality and functionality were his jam. If not working, eating, sleeping, or Sunday church day, he was in the garage. 

Along his Earthly journey, he was diagnosed with cancer in 1993 and not given a very good prognosis. Parts or all of 5 organs were removed at one point. Things looked bleak. He refused chemo and had to undergo dialysis as one of his kidneys was removed with the cancer. Subsequently, the other shut down due to use of too much dye to verify its function. 

However, he defied the odds and "this will probably be your granddad's last Christmas" turned into more and more years of Christmases. In fact, twenty-one more years. Another layer of his journey involved a diagnosis of Atypical Parkinson's disease in 2002. He didn't have the tremors and shaking of traditional Parkinson's. He began to lose the function of arms and legs. His lower limbs were the first affected and he experienced a lot of balance issues which then continued throughout the years to frequent falls...through walls, in the bathtub, anywhere and everywhere. His mind would say go and his body would say no. He soon went from tinkering in the garage and cycled from walker and then to wheelchair where he had difficulties even sitting up straight, feeding himself, and talking.


In Shaw family stubbornness, he was a resilient man who still continued to defy the odds. However, the once stoic man full of orneriness and constant energy who had to keep moving so he didn't fall asleep on the couch was now in a wheelchair with limited movement in his extremities. As a result, he truthfully spent the last several years without much quality of life. After watching the video of the young boy, I knew I had to play the video below for Curt and explain my thoughts (while trying not to cry...unsuccessfully) as to how this connected to our book study presentation. Here is the video so you can understand my connection and the impact it had.

So, as you can imagine, there I sat trying to gather myself from not one but two moments where we'd "Couros'ed" ourselves.  Innovation and my granddad were two words unlikely to be in the same sentence. After all, he was a simple man. But, something had been triggered deep within my soul. An immediate connection happened for my heart and mind. 

My hope in sharing this story is that it connected something for you.  I watch the video and I think "what if" this would have worked for my granddad.  As Couros states, "innovating in our schools requires a different type of thinking, one that doesn't focus on ideas that are "outside the box", but those that allow us to be innovative despite budgetary constraints." This therapist took a look at her reality and the patient's reality and created something new, an experience with a direct impact upon the life of her patient. 

What if there would have been some years mixed between walker and wheelchair for my granddad where taking a tool like a cell phone and playing music could have transformed his state of being for a while? Just think of the impact it would have had on my granddad and even my family by providing one more walk down the hallway together. Sounds like a simple thing, right? One more walk. But for someone imprisoned inside his own body, this would have been liberating, even if for just a few more trips down the hall.

The challenge to myself and to you is to start small, start simple, start big...but please just start...start with an open, growth oriented mindset using the tools and resources you have within your box and then build upon that. Don't wait for next year or think it's something for when our students graduate. Innovation isn't necessarily the newest or most expensive tool. Sometimes, it's about utilizing the tools and resources you have available to transform the experiences for your students...or patients like my granddad. Embrace it now so you can realize and recognize the possibilities in the moments of today before it's too late.