Steve Jobs died yesterday.  They say he was a “Visionary Leader”.  He was! But could he have been a visionary leader if he had been a classroom teacher, or a principal of a school with struggling learners?  Could the title “Visionary Leader” be applied to an educator?  Apple fired Jobs because he was a problem for them.  Too much of a visionary!   They kept Sculley who by his own admission, didn’t know a thing about computers before Jobs recruited him to come to Apple.  If Steve Jobs had been a classroom teacher, or a principal or a School Superintendent, he would have been fired because he would have been TOO much of a visionary.  He would have demanded excellence and innovation and freedom for the kids to learn and for the teachers to learn and teach.

Visionary + Leader = Oxymoron in the American Educational system.  How can this country have the best higher educational system in the world, send a man to the moon, and still not be able to educate all its poor and minority citizens so that they learn to read and compute at a basic level?  It isn’t that America can’t, but rather that it won’t ensure that all children do learn.   If Steve Jobs had been a first grader  in one of the low performing schools where children are left behind every minute of every day, he too would have been left behind.  He dropped out of College so that he could become the Visionary Leader that left us yesterday.

For the other young brains in our schools who need the right environment to thrive, we need to allow teachers and principals the freedom to be the visionary leaders that they truly are.   Regimentation, standardization and inane test prep inhibit learning.

Visionary Leadership was good for Apple.  It would be excellent for our schools, the teachers and the kids.  Visionary Leadership of the kind Steve Jobs showed has to be sought out, nurtured,  protected.   We need the Steve Jobs of this world to provide not just money for education, but to provide the strength and moral leadership necessary to support Visionary Leaders who will make this American educational system a success for those who have been or will be left behind.

Where will that kind of leadership come from?  Look within the schools to the teachers who love what they do and need the support and freedom to do their work.   Get out of their way and help them lead.   Steve Jobs was a visionary leader who got his hands dirty creating the products that changed our world, but he led from the bottom and from the top.   We have much to learn from his way of working.