Don’t Wait For A Public Date

by Cheryl Lacey, DGSJ, blogging at CherylLacey.com, ©2026

(Apr. 6, 2026) — When you read the words First Principles On Education^®, there’s a reasonable chance your first thought is ‘interesting but not essential’.

Reading on, you notice an offering – ‘wait and see’ is the next likely thought, followed by, ‘when others are showing interest, or government gives the nod, I’ll join in – not before.’

In the education sector the next best thing is never far away.

Remember the Cuisenaire rods, phonics, learning styles, or John and Betty (Dick and Jane). What about nonsense words, De Bono’s six thinking hats, whole language and inquiry learning. Direct instruction, self-directed learning and high impact teaching strategies (HITS) have also been in the mix. Evidence based practice, flourishing and all manner of ‘leadership adjectives’ are now there too.

The instinct to wait has been a natural one for educators for some time – be it right or wrong.

But there’s another instinct.

A question that every teacher asks every day: “What does this student need?”

It’s the right question to ask.

What follows, however, is where things become less certain.

“Can I provide this need? If so, how? If not, who can?”

These are the questions that should come next, but that’s not guaranteed. The foundations that would make answering them straightforward are not always in place.

Then there’s the question that goes deeper still.

“How has this need arisen? Is it new, or has it been carried forward from something previously unaddressed or misaligned?

That something is likely ownership.

We are very good at accepting ideas and very practised at moving on from them. What we are less practised in is owning them – the slower, more demanding work of thinking them through and deciding what we actually believe.

That is what First Principles On Education^® is about. The colloquium is where that happens.

Ownership of thoughts, ideas, philosophy and action is what unfolds.

And let’s be clear about what it’s not.

There’s no off the shelf solution that tells you which principles to adopt. You won’t get handed a list of values to laminate and display. You don’t arrive expecting ready-made answers for your context, your community, your colleagues.

None of this is available — because that’s not what honest intellectual work involves.

What the colloquium does do is create the conditions; the time, the structure, the shared language, for you and the people you work with to explore, to question, to discard and to build something that you own.

The outcome, when that work is done well, is an organisation where principles are agreed and genuinely held in common, where every person understands the purpose and vision they are serving, and takes real ownership of the actions to achieve it.

It’s challenging. At times it can be confronting.

But leaders who have had the courage to do this work have found it among the most rewarding professional experiences of their careers.

They discover what has been available all along — that their thoughts and actions belong to them. That extraordinary possibilities are ready and waiting.

So don’t wait for a public date.

Take the lead.

Host a First Principles Colloquium for your organisation, or for a cluster of organisations you respect and trust.

That is, after all, what first principles look like in practice.