Rabbi Eric Grossman is Head of School at Frankel Jewish Academy in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

All learning is predicated upon an openness and willingness to change.

To learn is to change our knowledge and perspective, then perhaps our outlook and practice. This is why elementary and high school classrooms make such splendid learning communities: from toddlers to teens, children are in such a rapid and accelerated state of growth that change is indeed the only constant in their lives.

Paradoxically, the major impediment to the classroom as a learning community is the adult individual in the room in the most arrested form of development – the teacher. In the traditional classroom this is not a major issue since the roles of student and teacher are so clearly, and immutably, defined. Progressive education has fought this paradigm for well over half a century (with a good deal of success) incorporating the teacher as a fellow learner in the classroom, creating a truer learning community in the classroom itself.

What of the school as a whole? Here, the goal of creating a learning community is more challenging. In a classroom learning community the adult can, through pedagogical tzimtzum, set the stage for growth and creativity to emerge. If such a shift is fostered properly, the teacher will at times become one voice among the tens of youths who are in their natural mode of intellectual evolution. But as a faculty, teachers will remain the more conservative constituency in the school and least prone to growth and change. This is true in part because teachers are adults, and adults are naturally more set in their ways, having already solidified their thoughts, opinions, and practices. This is even more true for teachers who are generally, as a whole, risk-averse. This is not a slight, rather, it is a trait reflecting the common human desire for stability and security.

There is, however, a small percentage of humanity who embrace risk and prefer opportunity to security – they are called entrepreneurs.

The way to create a vibrant learning community, it seems to me, is to create schools that are entrepreneurial. This is not to be confused with the canard that we need to run our schools more like businesses; business is not entrepreneurship. Business is about systems, rules, and protocols, which can lead to better operations, but not directly to better learning communities. Entrepreneurship is about creating an environment where risk is not merely tolerated, it is embraced. Risk is associated with high returns, but also with danger. In creating learning communities we must create environments where teachers and students alike are encouraged to take risks, and while we cannot create environments which are completely safe for risk-taking, we can create school cultures with a high tolerance for risk and failure, understanding that without danger there is not real risk – nothing wagered, nothing gained.

Not everyone is cut out for such a culture. Many people select a career in education because of its stability and predictability. There are genuine advantages to schools that place high value on consistency and dependability; such faculty and administrators are good matches for these schools. Schools that strive to become learning communities, however, need to attract educational entrepreneurs who have chosen education for its myriad possibilities and potentialities with all of the attendant risks and dangers. Creating such a community is itself fraught with risk, since it will inevitably involve parting with fine teachers who are better suited to more constant environments. Further, educational entrepreneurs remain in any particular learning community for a short number of years as they learn, grow, mature, and graduate to new environments and new challenges.

Indeed, for schools to become learning communities, change needs to be more than a one-time event; change must be the norm. A community of learners who are always evolving means developing some level of comfort with the reality that people will always be moving on. Moreover, by attracting personalities who themselves seek change, opportunity, and risk, the school learning community invites upon itself a constant turnover of talent who look to the school as a stepping-stone to further growth. On the model of a teaching-hospital, schools that seek to be learning communities should seek out the best and brightest learners and invest in them heavily – with mentoring and professional development, without expectation that the school will accrue the direct benefit of that teacher’s long time service. The indirect benefit will be a reputation of learning excellence that will attract a constant stream of new energy and talent – the best doctors are found in the teaching hospitals. In a learning community the profile of the staff will mirror that of the student: open, eager, learning, and graduating; a constant cycle of growth where the only constant is change. We must not only embrace this consequence – we should foster it.