In today’s knowledge societies, schools need to teach content knowledge in
a way that prepares students to use that knowledge creatively; they also need to impart thinking skills, twenty-first-century skills, to students. Teaching in this way requires disciplined improvisation. And yet, schools are complex organizations with many structures and constraints; these structures serve important functions and cannot simply be abandoned. The tension between structure and improvisation cannot be avoided– it is fundamental to the institution of schooling in the knowledge age.