I read not too long ago Robert McKee’s seminal book, “Story”. This book is the core textbook in most film schools where aspiring film directors, producers and scriptwriters learn the fundamental elements of story.
What makes a great story? Great stories involve an ambition that is difficult to attain and that is sacrificial (i.e. benefits someone else). This is why they don’t make a movie about you getting a haircut or buying groceries.
In fact, McKee says the basic structure of a story involves a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. All great stories are told in conflict. However, as humans we often are unwilling to embrace the potential of the story we are in and instead try to avoid such conflict or risk, thinking God is unjust or unfair. What we discover is that the point of life is the point of good story, it is about character transformation (not the climax or conclusion as most would assume).
McKee says that every story has 3 Acts.
ACT I: Inciting Incident. The purpose of Act I is to build to the inciting incident, the event that radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist’s life and draws him or her into the story.
What has been the inciting incident of your career? If you cannot find one, perhaps you are not in the right career or are living a story that is not very compelling.
ACT II: Progressive Complications. Every story has positive and negative turns. Great stories go to those who do not give in to their fear because otherwise fear manipulates us into living boring lives. At the height of ACT II, we are not sure if the protagonist is going to make it.
The greater the opposition, the grander the vision you are pursuing.
ACT III: Climax & Resolution. Here the story concludes, reaching its pinnacle, and the conflict is resolved and the character transformation complete.
Matchbook Learning launched in 2011 as a new social venture targeting the nation’s worst (bottom 5%) schools in an industry (K-12 public education) that is not historically known for its willingness to embrace change, innovate and support an eco-system of entrepreneurial start-ups.
Why bother forging ground, gaining traction and building momentum inside school districts with schools that have chronically failed for decades and odds are will continue to do so? Why bother spending all this effort and energy in trying to turnaround a school, only to give it back to the State or District at the conclusion of a 4 to 5 year contract with the hope (not assurance) that the turnaround will be sustained post our departure? Why not plant a charter school(s) that we run in perpetuity? Why not start a series of blended private schools?
I have heard all of these questions before. I have heard them from Foundations targeting education. I have heard them from philanthropic investors. I have heard them from other education reformers, District and State Officials and even policy makers.
Epic stories require adventures of great risk. I have heard the hundreds of ways turnarounds in general do not work and are likely to fail, and how school turnarounds in particularly are incredibly rare. So why bother?
I am not sure why our human psyche always processes first and foremost the risk of failing. But what happens if the risk, tied to a great story of transforming teachers initially and students eventually in the most impoverished of neighborhoods is…successful? What if a bottom 5% school through a thoughtfully designed and executed blended model of school could take the same students that were in the bottom 5% and take it to the top say 5% in the State in a 5 year period, all the while remaining a local public school? Now, that would be a great story.
We can easily picture the ACT III climax and resolution as that one little school becomes a beacon for the State upon which other schools, education policy and funding could emulate. We can also envision the progressive complications that would have risen along that ACT II trajectory from bottom 5% to top 5%, with naysayers and roadblocks lining the paths. What is hardest to picture is perhaps the ACT I inciting incident that catalyzes all of this together. Matchbook Learning humbly steps into this ACT I seeking to enable our turnaround teachers and students to be the protagonists of their own story. Stay tuned to see how the story turns out.
