The work of the Science Leadership Academy has been a symbol of hope for me for a long time. It has been the place where I have imagined that student engagement is oozing from the system, and kids were passionate about their learning at this crazy level. I’m worried about being disappointed. I know that Chris and his staff have worked to make this a reality, but I also know that all journeys are in process, and from a distance, it is easy to think of SLA as a finished product. I hope that my expectations aren’t shattered. I’m trying to reorient my expectations, but I am super excited about being in a place of learning that I can embrace fully without holding my nose at times. As I worked to build this type of place as a principal, I was always aware of the warts and the weak spots, but I never let the public know about them when they visited. Maybe I should have. Maybe my transparency should have been bigger. We don’t need to scale SLA, but we need to inject hope, ideas, resources, and passion into the system. I want to feel the DNA of SLA, but I don’t want to clone it. We are wholly wrong in education if we just replicate stuff and airlift it into new place. The systems are unique, and the solutions are unique. I’m fully ready to just be happy at SLA, soak in the energy of what is possible, talk to great people, and all the network that continues to grow to seep in. There is no going back after tomorrow. The mental model of SLA will become the reality that is SLA. I couldn’t be happier.
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