BIG Questions Institute Update

April 2, 2026, No. 198 (Read Online)
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Don’t Let Your Strategy Sound Like an April Fool’s Prank

I love a good April Fool’s Day joke, so when the Woodleigh School in Victoria, Australia, a progressive school I’ve long admired, posted “Woodleigh to Pilot ‘Screen Sanity’ Risk-Mitigation Measure After Playground Injury Surge” on April 1, I was hooked.T
Thebrilliant tongue-in-cheek rpiecetappiedinto the hot topic of phone bans “to reintroduce student phones as a risk‑mitigation response to a measurable uptick in minor injuries, noise complaints and staff conversational load”.
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As I read the satire, something else besides the jokes started sinking in. I could see “strategery” language that is taking over many school’s strategic plans - and they aren’t doing it to be funny. Busy administrators outsource the writing and thinking to AI – resulting in eloquent word salads that few understand or feel emotionally connected to.

Look at the following excerpts from the Woodleigh prank. Notice how language can start off sounding smart (using words like data, operational calm, capacity, international evidence, meta-analysis, pragmatic and child-centered, pilot indicators…). It holds grains of truth, but descends into corporate double-speak – a veil behind which real-life and logic are obscured – and ends up sounding pretty ridiculous.

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See what I mean? Fancy words, good acronyms, reference to data, pilots, international evidence … and it’s still a joke.

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​Watch Out for Cognitive Offloading that Ends Up Sounding Like Gobbledy-Gook

One of the biggest new pitfalls I'm noticing across diverse teams taking on strategic planning over the past couple years (or virtually any school leadership challenges) has been the quick rush to offload the communications, problem-solving, and hard design work to AI.

If I ask “what do you think would be a better response?” I often hear, “let’s ask Chat GPT.”

If we are trying to figure out verbiage for a mission or vision, a member of the team quickly generates lists of words or phrases via AI.

When thinking through new elements of the plan, the old plan is input to Chat GPT and asked for an update.

Too much off-loading and the result sounds a little like the April Fool’s article.

Just as you want your students not to short-cut their problem-solving skills, your school-wide strategy needs human struggle, multiple perspectives, clarification of intent, purpose, and shared story-telling. Without this, you lose strategic and organizational trust, and possibly personal trust in your leadership, too.

Clarify in advance what you will generate using AI (for example, some good uses include generating standard policy language, ways to measure results and analyze data, organization of indicators and goals, a list of trends that might impact enrollment and hiring), and wherever possible, listen to real voices from your community, your team - and don't bypass students.

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What Culture Do You Want to Build?

When the AI is summoned for the answers too soon you’re more likely to get a pretty word salad, but not tap into the heart and soul of your school community. This isn’t about being precious. It’s about building culture.
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When a listening process is short-circuited in favor of an AI summary, you’ve cut off the human connection that creates the special sauce of your school.
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I recently facilitated a Board retreat intended to finalize a new Mission statement. We could have input all their great words from the website into Gemini and a pretty statement would have been produced in 2 seconds. Instead, guided by a messy trove of community input (which AI did assist in summarizing, but we also personally read through all the responses), the Board worked through an iterative process, involving diverse voices, working through teams that didn’t usually collaborate, and something special and unique emerged. It took a day instead of 2 seconds; but what resulted felt true – an emotional connection to the mission, that wasn’t generic, sounding like any other school’s mission, and greater unity among the disparate group so that they will work together to carry out the new mission.
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This is the difference between regurgitating words that sound ok versus producing work that feels real and relevant.

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There are strong use cases for AI, but watch out that it doesn’t end up making you (or your strategy) sound like a joke.

With Levity,

Homa
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If You Need to Make a Case for Learner-Centered Learning:

If you’re looking for research-based links between learner-centered environments and outcomes such as increased learner agency, stronger equity, and long-term success, to make a case for for change, Education Reimagined has a brand-new report out, The Transformative Potential of Learner-Centered Education. It synthesizes findings from 93 studies across 22 bodies of research to explore the evidence of impact when young people are at the center of their learning journey. We are grateful for Ed Reimagined’s generosity in sharing this report and look forward to learning more about how the report is being used!
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Planning for next year?

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If you're deciding on next year's budget or work plan and looking for thought partnership, "surgical" support on initiatives, external eyes, ears, or facilitation for the Board, or leadership coaching for you personally or your team, please do reach out. We are booking next year's Board retreats, leadership team development, conferences, strategic plans, and other projects. Reach out to homa@bigquestions.institute or kathleen@bigquestions.institute for an exploratory conversation.