For those of us who are pushing hard for change – A Revolution – within our public schools, frustration continues to fester.  We simply cannot persist at this pace.  Despite our best efforts, targeted change within our schools is happening too slowly or it's not happening at all. 

I watched an interesting documentary on video games.  It pointed out that resistance to accepting that there is educational value in video games has been dramatically reduced because we now have our first generation of gamers moving into teaching.  This illustrated my point: the deep, inner-belief changes that we need to make to turn our schools around is never going to happen with the current composition of educators working within the system.  Unlike the new generation of teachers raised on videogames, we have too many educators whose belief systems have become set in concrete.  We still have teachers who believe that if it was good enough in 1958, it must be good enough in 2008. 

Change strategies are not working on truly entrenched, hardcore, cynical, nearly burnt-out educators. Perhaps the time has come to admit that we have lost the battle to influence change from the top down throughout our entire educational system.  Perhaps the time has come to switch to battlefield tactics. 

Be warned: triage mode is difficult.  It is ethically edgy, but it is morally correct.  It will mean stepping over some staff and willingly leaving them behind rather than wasting any more time trying to change them.  In triage mode you will need to encourage some staff members to move on, to courageously counsel them to get off your campus. 

Trying to bring everyone along as we head into meaningful Educational Revolution is simply not realistic.  It has failed. I will admit to losing this battle, but not the war.  New tactics are called for: triage, trimming down, regrouping and then rebuilding.  It's time to fill the trenches and frontline with open-minded educators (of any generation), who are willing to change, to re-evaluate their fundamental beliefs about education, and to remain dedicated to doing whatever it takes to rebuild a system that can work.