It’s not often I come across an education leader who is working in two different parts of the education system – but my guest in the latest episode of my series on Conversations on the Future of Education is one who does. For the past eight years he’s been Superintendent of the Eastern Hancock Schools District in Indiana , and for the past two years has also been CEO of the Indiana Micro-schools Collaborative, an initiative that he helped to found that is working across the state.
I first came to know Dr George Philhower eight years ago when I was working alongside a group of schools on a transformation project in North West Arkansas. George was also working alongside them as the project researcher, and was able to travel to New Zealand with many of the leaders from these schools when I hosted them on a tour of schools here. Since then we’ve kept in touch and I’ve had the privilege of visiting him in Indiana and spending time in the schools he’s responsible for, observing first hand the impact of his leadership approach and the things he shares in this podcast.
The overarching theme in our conversation focused on the need to shift from schools designed for the system to schools designed for the learner. As George said of his own approach as a district superintendent, he’s committed to ensuring “each kid gets to go to a school that feels like it was designed just for them.” The most provocative idea in the podcast came when George highlighted to the difference between a focus on ‘each‘ versus the focus on ‘all‘. We often talk about all learners succeeding, all learners achieving, all students getting the same opportunities. But perhaps the language of each forces us to confront individual experience, identity, strengths, interests, aspirations and needs.
George explained the ‘four promises’ that underpin the work of his teachers in the Eastern Hancock schools as an illustration of this principle. These are; Joy, Connection, Growth and Academic proficiency – you can hear him explain more of these in the podcast, but I was particularly interested in the first of these and his explanation of what that looks and feels like in the daily life of teachers and students at EH schools. I’ve actually had the opportunity to observe this first hand, so can vouch for what he’s discussing here. Put simply, George explained the focus on joy as focusing on providing students (and staff) with the emotional experiences that help anchor memory – giving this more depth than simply saying “learning should be fun.” When I challenged him on this he explicitly rejected the idea that joy means “play way” without learning. Joy becomes an anchor for memorable learning, while growth and academic proficiency provide the necessary rigour.
I was also very encouraged by his explanation of how he and his team are active in involving parents and the community in what happens at EHS. His CAFÉ strategy deliberately brings community partners into the educational work. The reason isn’t merely engagement with parents or community goodwill: it’s because the application and meaning of much of what students learn exists beyond the classroom. This is something I’m personally passionate about and have been helping a number of schools to work on in recent years as part of their strategic planning. For me it’s important that instead of simply asking “how can we involve the community more?’, we consider; “What happens when we stop thinking of community as something schools engage with and start thinking of community as part of where learning happens?“
When it came to discussing his involvement with the Indiana Micro-schools network, I was interested to understand his motivation for starting this up – and whether he saw this as something that could eventually replace the traditional state school. George acknowledged the tension between improving today’s schools and creating radically different ones. His conclusion isn’t “tear down the existing system.” Instead, he talks about the possibility of operating schools within schools – creating new models within existing structures and allowing them to develop and spread. His advice is “don’t try to transform the whole system at once. Create somewhere in the system where the future can be rehearsed.“
One of the issues with our current system that George raised is how excessive reliance on standardised measures, prescribed materials and predictable processes can actually de-professionalise teaching. He pointed to the numbers of good teachers who are leaving the profession in the US as an indicator of this. By contrast, the teachers in his micro-school model need to:
- know learners deeply
- assess where they are
- determine what they need next
- design learning experiences
- monitor progress
- adapt continually.
In other words, professional judgement comes back to the centre of teaching. This is certainly something that was reinforced for me in my own teacher training and during my time as a teacher and teacher educator, however, I agree with George, that the whole issue of teacher professional judgement appears to be under attack in the current education mileu.
As I reflect on this post I wonder if perhaps the future of schooling isn’t about finding a better version of the system we have, but creating the conditions for something more responsive to emerge – something that puts learners at the centre, restores teaching as a deeply professional endeavour, and allows different models to develop, learn and spread. That means improving the schools we have while simultaneously creating the schools we might need. And, above all, it means shifting our ambition from designing education for all to designing it for each. “All” is a system aspiration. “Each” is a human commitment.
Why not listen to the conversation yourself and hear more of what George has to say:
