The Power Shift: From Educational Equity to Ownership of Learning

True educational equity requires more than inclusion – it demands a fundamental redistribution of learning agency.

In my previous post I explained how I came to establish FutureMakers, and I explored how educators can shift from fighting change to building the capabilities students need for an unknown future. But there’s a deeper conversation we need to have – one that makes many educators, parents, and policymakers uncomfortable. It’s about power, and who really controls learning in our schools.

The equity debate in education often focuses on important but surface-level changes – things like diversifying curriculum content, creating more inclusive physical spaces, implementing culturally responsive teaching materials or ensuring equal access to resources for example. While these efforts matter, how we go about them can inadvertently maintain the fundamental power structures that create inequity in the first place. For decades we’ve been rearranging the furniture while leaving the foundation unchanged.

The Courage to Confront Our Design Flaws

Somehow we need to find the courage to acknowledge that our current educational system is designed with an inherent power bias. The teacher and the system are in charge, and learners are positioned as passive recipients of knowledge that someone else has deemed important for them to know. This isn’t an accident or an oversight – it’s by design, rooted in industrial-era efficiency models that treated education like a factory production line, and perpetuated now in what has been termed, the grammar of schooling.

But there’s an even deeper layer that we must face. Our educational system has been designed with a Eurocentric understanding of success, knowledge, and learning. The models of what counts as knowledge, how learning should happen, and what constitutes achievement reflect this singular cultural lens. When we impose this framework on societies represented by citizens from other cultures – where their ways of knowing, being, and doing may differ significantly – we create massive inequity. These young people and their families become disenfranchised, not because they can’t learn, but because the approaches to learning that are ‘normal’ for them aren’t recognised or valued.

This creates a painful paradox. Families who have experienced educational systems that didn’t honour their cultural ways of knowing may still defend the traditional model because they believe it’s what their children need for “success.” Parents, drawing from their own school experiences, implicitly support teacher-controlled learning because that’s what they know, even if it may not have served them well. They fear that any departure from this model might disadvantage their children in a system that continues to reward conformity to dominant cultural norms.

Beyond Inclusion: The Agency Imperative

Real educational equity isn’t about better including marginalised voices in existing power structures – it’s about fundamentally redistributing power and elevating learner agency. It’s the difference between inviting someone to sit at a table where the menu has already been decided versus creating space for everyone to contribute to deciding what gets served and how the meal unfolds.

Consider how different these approaches are:

Traditional Equity Approach:	Learning Ownership Approach:
“Let’s include more diverse authors in our reading curriculum while maintaining teacher-selected texts and predetermined discussion questions.”	“Let’s create opportunities for students to investigate questions that matter to them, drawing from diverse knowledge traditions and ways of understanding, while developing their capacity to think critically about multiple perspectives.”

The first approach maintains teacher control while diversifying content. The second shifts ownership of learning to learners, acknowledging them as agentic, while building critical capabilities. Both can coexist, but without the second, the first remains superficial.

The Responsibility Spectrum: Building A Civil Society

Here’s where the power shift becomes not just about equity, but about preparing young people for democratic participation in diverse societies. When we release control and give students genuine agency in their learning, we’re not just making education more equitable – we’re building the foundation of civil society.

This happens across a spectrum of growing responsibility:

1. Responsibility for Self

When students have agency in their learning, they develop intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and the ability to direct their own growth. They learn to identify what they need, seek resources, and persist through challenges – not because a teacher is monitoring them, but because they’re invested in their own development.

This isn’t about abandoning structure or support. It’s about shifting from external control to internal ownership. Students still need guidance, feedback, and scaffolding, but within a framework that honours their growing capacity for self-direction.

2. Responsibility for Others

As students gain agency in collaborative learning environments, they naturally develop awareness of the impact of their decisions on others, and take responsibility for their peers’ success. When learning is truly shared, individual achievement becomes connected to collective progress. Students learn to support each other, navigate disagreements constructively, and recognise that diverse perspectives strengthen outcomes.

This moves beyond superficial “group work” to genuine interdependence. It’s where we see the impact of “collective efficacy“. Students learn that their success is intertwined with others’, a fundamental principle of democratic societies.

3. Responsibility for Our Shared Environment

The deepest level of responsibility emerges when students understand their learning as connected to broader community and global challenges. With genuine agency, they begin to see themselves as contributors to solutions, not just recipients of information about problems.

This is where cultural ways of knowing become essential. Many indigenous cultures, for example, emphasise learning through connection to land, community, and intergenerational wisdom. When we honour these approaches alongside others, we create richer opportunities for students to understand their responsibility to shared environments – both local and global.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Compare the approaches outlined below:

In Traditional Power Structures:	In Learning Ownership Models:
• Teacher selects topics based on curriculum requirements • Students complete assignments designed to demonstrate mastery of predetermined content • Assessment measures how well students can reproduce expected answers • Cultural diversity is added through multicultural content while maintaining dominant pedagogical approaches	• Students investigate questions that connect personal interests with academic standards • Learning emerges through collaboration between students, teachers, and community members • Assessment focuses on growth in thinking, problem-solving, and contribution to collective understanding • Diverse cultural approaches to learning are valued and integrated, not just represented in content

A Practical Example: Instead of studying poverty through a predetermined social studies unit with textbook readings and statistics, students might notice the increasing number of people using their local food bank and ask “Why is this happening in our community?” This authentic question could lead them to:

Interview food bank volunteers, users, and community leaders to understand multiple perspectives on local food security
Investigate supply chains using diverse research methods (economic data analysis, mapping where food travels from, talking with local farmers about growing seasons and challenges, learning about traditional food preservation methods from community elders)
Collaborate with families to understand household food experiences across different cultural and economic contexts
Explore solutions that draw from various cultural approaches to community support and food sharing
Plan for and undertake a fund-raising activity for the local food bank (see image at the top of this post)
Develop actual initiatives they can implement – perhaps a community garden, a food rescue program, or advocacy for local food policy changes
Reflect on how their understanding of food, community, and responsibility evolved through this inquiry.

Navigating the Challenges

This power shift isn’t without challenges. Parents may worry about academic rigour. School leaders may concern themselves with standardised outcomes. Teachers may feel unprepared to facilitate rather than direct learning. Students themselves may initially resist the responsibility that comes with agency after years of being trained to be passive recipients.

But these challenges reveal the work that needs to be done, not reasons to avoid it. We need:

Professional Development that helps educators develop facilitation skills and comfort with shared authority.

Family Engagement that helps parents understand how learner agency actually strengthens academic outcomes while building life skills.

Policy Advocacy that creates space for schools to measure success through multiple indicators, not just standardized test scores.

Cultural Humility that recognises educators (myself included) need to continuously learn about and from the diverse communities we serve.

The Democratic Imperative

Here’s what’s at stake: our democratic societies are facing unprecedented challenges that require citizens who can think critically, collaborate across differences, take responsibility for collective problems, and create solutions that honour diverse perspectives and needs. These capabilities can’t be developed through traditional power structures that position students as passive recipients.

When we maintain educational systems that require conformity to dominant cultural norms and teacher-controlled learning, we’re not preparing students for the complex, multicultural, rapidly changing world they’ll inhabit. We’re preparing them for a world that no longer exists – if it ever truly did. Or worse, we’re simply preparing them to become robots in a society governed by autocrats.

But when we have the courage to shift power, to honour diverse ways of knowing, and to build learner agency within frameworks of growing responsibility, we’re preparing FutureMakers who can engage constructively with difference, solve problems collaboratively, and take responsibility for creating more equitable and sustainable communities.

Your Power Shift Decision

Every educator, parent, and policymaker faces a choice. Will we continue to defend systems that maintain familiar power structures while adding superficial diversity, or will we have the courage to fundamentally redistribute learning agency?

The first path feels safer because it’s familiar. The second path requires us to examine our own assumptions about whose knowledge matters, how learning happens, and what success looks like. It requires us to develop new skills and comfort with shared authority. It requires us to trust that young people from all cultural backgrounds are capable of far more than our current systems assume.

But only the second path leads to true educational equity. Only the second path prepares students for meaningful participation in diverse democratic societies. Only the second path honours the full humanity and potential of every learner who enters our schools.

The power shift isn’t just about making education more equitable – it’s about building the foundation for civil societies that can thrive amid complexity, difference, and constant change.

What will you choose to shift?

How do you see power dynamics playing out in your educational context? What would it look like to honour diverse ways of knowing while building learner agency? I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments below.

If you’re interested in exploring how you can create the conditions for learner agency in your school or classroom – download the free Agency By Design: Educator’s Playbook today.

This playbook provides a simple framework to guide you through the process of creating the conditions that will encourage agentic learning to develop, and then focus on the characteristics you’ll expect to see in your students as they mature in this way.

There’s plenty of illustrative material to guide you, and rubrics to help you evaluate the effectiveness of what you’re doing and help inform your next steps in this journey.

Tags educational transformation, learner agency

System Persistence

This post is taken from some thinking I’ve been doing as I begin to construct my next ‘thought piece’. The motivation comes from reflecting on many years of effort in our education system to address many systemic issues that create pressure on schools, educators – and ultimately impact on the quality of educational experience of our tāmariki. As I’ve been working again in schools as yet another school year begins and witness the anxiety, confusion and frustration being expressed in so many places, I’ve been pondering again the challenge of the ‘revolution vs evolution’ argument re system change, and the extent to which system persistence represents a significant barrier to meaningful education reform.

Beyond Reform: The Case for Transformation

Our education system is not broken – it is functioning exactly as it was designed. This is precisely the problem. Created in an industrial era to produce standardised outcomes, sort learners into predetermined categories, and maintain existing social structures, the system continues to fulfil its original purpose with ruthless efficiency. The issue is not that the system needs improvement or reform – it needs complete transformation.

When we frame the challenge as one of “reform” or “improvement,” we perpetuate the fundamental misconception that the current system’s basic premises are sound. We cannot simply enhance a system designed for a bygone era with different societal needs, values, and understanding of human potential.

The Current Reality

Our education system stands at a critical juncture. Despite promises of reform and declarations of intent to create an inclusive, learner-centred system, we remain tethered to outdated paradigms that fail our tamariki and rangatahi. The statistics tell a stark story, particularly for Māori and Pasifika youth, whose disproportionate rates of academic failure, depression and suicide attempts reveal the human cost of our systematic shortcomings.

When you consider the current changes in education being made in New Zealand – and around the world – they reflect the ‘reform and improvement’ mindset, rather than transformation (with a few significant exceptions). Concerns about falling literacy and numeracy rates are being addressed by initiatives aimed at improving the way maths and reading are taught – and assessed. Solutions for poor attendance are seen as involving a range of measures to get students back to school, and difficulties with attracting and retaining suitably qualified teachers are being addressed through lowering entry standards and time for training. We continue to seek improvement without seriously challenging many of the assumptions upon which our current system is based.

Learning from Past Reform Efforts

The history of education reform in recent years in Aotearoa New Zealand provides compelling evidence for why transformation, rather than reform, is essential. Consider these examples:

Initiative	What was Promised	Shortcomings
Tomorrow’s Schools (1989)	Increased local autonomy and community involvement in school governance Improved educational opportunities and achievement for disadvantaged groups, particularly Māori children and those from low-income homes More efficient and less bureaucratic administration of schools Enhanced home-school partnerships Better targeted resource allocation to schools	Greater competition Wide variability in performance both between and within schools Widened gaps between communities – greater inequities Increased administrative burden Uneven outcomes between schools over time Reinvention of the wheel in many schools without overall system improvement
NZ Curriculum (2007)	A vision for young people as lifelong learners who are confident, creative, connected, and actively involved A curriculum that reflects New Zealand’s cultural diversity and values the histories and traditions of all its people Capabilities alongside content Flexibility for local contexts “Learner-centred” pedagogy	Emphasis on the ‘back half’ only Achievement objectives dominate planning Significant reduction in prescribed content compared to previous curricula, potentially leading to knowledge gaps Overemphasis on preparing students for workplaces at the expense of broader educational goals Concerns about a decline in academic achievement and persistent disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged students
Kahui Ako (Communities of Learning)	Develop collective responses to local challenges Build professional capability through collaboration Focus on student achievement challenges Create pathways across education levels Enable smoother transitions for learners between schools	Achievement challenges often became compliance exercises Leadership roles sometimes created tension within and between schools Bureaucratic requirements overshadowed genuine collaboration Time and resource constraints limited meaningful engagement Artificial groupings that didn’t always reflect natural communities Funding model reinforced hierarchical rather than collaborative relationships
Ka Hikitia	Māori achieving success as Māori Building cultural responsiveness System-wide change for equity	Focus on activities rather than deep change Limited impact of core teaching practices Overburdened Māori staff – system barriers
NCEA	Recognition of diverse forms of learning Promoting lifelong learning competencies Recognising success as progression	Schools continued to translate achievement standards into traditional numerical grades The focus shifted to credit accumulation rather than genuine learning progression Assessment became more granular and bureaucratic, rather than holistic The system’s flexibility became viewed as a weakness rather than a strength Its potential for recognising diverse forms of achievement was largely unrealised
Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs)	Fostering creativity, collaboration and student-centred learning Intentional linking of pedagogy and space	Adoption of physical changes without transforming pedagogical approaches Teachers were expected to work in new spaces without adequate professional development in new ways of teaching Traditional timetabling, curriculum delivery, and assessment practices remained unchanged Tension between innovative spaces and conventional practices leading to frustration and calls to return to single-cell classrooms
Modern Learning Practice (MLP)	Learner-centred approaches Project/problem-based learning Digital integration, collaborative teaching Flexible learning pathways	Technology being used to replicate traditional practices Collaborative teaching hindered by traditional timetabling Assessment requirements limiting innovation Professional development not matching ambition Parent resistance to unfamiliar approaches
National Standards (2010 – 2017)	Clear expectations of achievement Better information for parents and whānau Earlier identification of learning needs Ability to target resourcing to areas of need based on data	A narrowed curriculum focus Increased testing and labelling Contradictions with NZ Curriculum’s flexibility Creating artificial benchmarks Damaging student confidence and motivation

As illustrated in the table above, each of these large-scale, system-change initiatives has been introduced with the best of intentions, with promises made of delivering positive change that addresses identified areas of need that will ultimately benefit the learners we are seeking to serve. The column titled ‘shortcomings’ illustrates that, despite these best intentions, and the fact that there are unquestioningly many benefits that have been gained from them, the scale of impact that may have been achieved has not been fully realised – certainly not in a sustainable manner.

Structural Persistence

A key reason for these shortcomings existing is the issue of structural persistence – the deep-rooted tendency of educational institutions and broader educational systems to maintain their fundamental structures despite reform efforts.

At the school level, this manifests through the unwavering adherence to traditional organisational elements that have defined schools for generations. The rigid timetable structure, with its fixed periods and subject-based divisions, continues to dictate the rhythm of learning, leaving little room for more flexible, integrated approaches. Similarly, the classification of students by age into year levels persists, even when evidence suggests that ability-based or mixed-age groupings might better serve learning needs.

Equally significant are the system-wide structures that resist change: standardised funding models that perpetuate resource inequities, inflexible teacher accreditation systems that may not recognise diverse forms of expertise or emerging pedagogical approaches, and policy frameworks that struggle to adapt to rapidly evolving societal needs and technological possibilities. These entrenched structures at both levels – institutional and systemic – create a complex web of resistance to meaningful change.

Traditional approaches to assessment represent another critical aspect of system persistence. Despite calls for more authentic evaluation approaches, standardised testing and summative assessments continue to dominate educational practice. These assessment structures often drive teaching methodologies backward, encouraging educators to “teach to the test” rather than embrace innovative pedagogical approaches. This assessment-driven culture reinforces conventional teaching methods and can stifle attempts to implement more progressive, student-centred learning experiences.

Perhaps most significantly, system persistence manifests in the maintenance of existing power relationships within educational institutions. Traditional hierarchies between officials, leaders, teachers, and students remain largely unchanged, with decision-making power concentrated at the top. This power structure can resist bottom-up innovation and limit the agency of both teachers and students in shaping their educational experience. When combined with entrenched structural practices, these power dynamics create a self-reinforcing system that naturally resists substantial change.

Where to from here?

Over the next few weeks I intend to continue exploring this thinking and in my next post I’ll write about three more things I see as contributing to reform failure: (a) Implementation gaps, (b) cultural resistance and (c) system contradictions. I’m also building a set of ideas and actions that may be useful for people at any level of our education system to become more thoughtful about the need for transformation in the work they do.

In this post I’ve attempted to develop a compelling argument for transformation over reform in education, highlighting the persistent structures and shortcomings of past initiatives. Here are some questions you might like to ponder and discuss with your colleagues as you think about what I’ve written…

“In what ways might the deeply ingrained power dynamics within educational institutions – from national agencies to classrooms – be the most significant barrier to transformative change? What strategies can be employed to redistribute decision-making power and empower teachers and students to shape their educational experiences more fully?”
“Given the history of well-intentioned but ultimately limited reforms in Aotearoa New Zealand, how can educators and policymakers move beyond incremental changes to address the core structural issues that perpetuate inequities – in particular for Māori and Pasifika youth?”
“Reflecting on the persistence of traditional structures like rigid timetables and age-based groupings in schools, what innovative, practical steps can you take in your context to foster more flexible, learner-centred environments within the existing system, even while advocating for broader systemic change?”

Tags education leadership, educational change, educational transformation, school leadership

Leading for Transformation

One of the amazing things was how well this group from across a range of sectors and experience levels in leadership just came together and supported each other a grew together.
2024 Programme Participant

Around this time last year I caught up with friend and colleague, Maurie Abraham, who had recently retired after 11 years as foundation principal at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. Maurie was keen to canvas some thoughts on how he might work with a small group of principals who were keen to engage with him now that he’d retired, to learn more about how they might develop further in their leadership journey.

During our conversation we discussed how principals have access to a wide range of professional learning opportunities that fall broadly into the following areas of focus:

Maintaining – Developing the ‘mechanics’ of principalship – understanding their role as leaders of organisations. Equipping them with the knowledge and skills required to function as a leader in the school as it exists, ensuring they can manage and sustain current practices that focus on providing a quality education experience for their students. These programmes assume the system is operating effectively and focus on inducting leaders into understanding how to sustain it.
Improving – Recognising the need to make changes that address areas of weakness or concern in what is happening (e.g, student motivation and engagement, achievement in identified areas, attendance, the capability of staff etc.) and introducing specific strategies to change/lift performance and monitor outcomes. These programmes operate on the assumption that the current organisational structures are fit for purpose, but that there are areas where the school system should or could be adapted, modified or improved to deliver on better outcomes for all learners.
Transforming – Questioning the systemic factors that shape how schools operate, and unpacking the reason and purpose behind these things. Involves connecting with the ‘why’ behind what is being done currently and being prepared to challenge and change these things. Recognising that simply improving things won’t achieve the systemic change required to achieve an equitable, future-focused approach to teaching and learning for all. These programmes require a high level of commitment, buy-in and trust and support for pushing the boundaries to make change happen.

The image below provides a more simplified way of thinking about this relationship…

Maurie and I agree that there is value in all three of these approaches, but that while there are many opportunities available for school leaders to engage in the first two types of professional learning – there are far fewer in the third, and that of these, few are designed to fully support the transformation actually happening back in schools. This is because such change initiatives will inevitably encounter all sorts of roadblocks and challenges, causing leaders to loop back to the things addressed in the ‘maintaining’ or ‘improving’ approaches.

We talked about the approach that would be most appropriate for achieving the sort of transformational change that we were discussing I referred to the research-based principles I’ve referenced previously in which I identified following four characteristics of effective professional development:

It is in-depth

It is sustained over time

It is related to practice

It is contextually relevant

With these principles in mind, we set about designing an experience for school leaders with a vision for transformation within their school and the education system. As we explored this further we agreed that whatever we did needed to address the needs of participants at three levels:

Changing themselves – helping participants understand what motivates and drives them as a leader, the beliefs that shape their practice and the strategies they have to care for self in the midst of a challenging and demanding role.
Changing others – learning how to build trust so that others will be motivated to engage with and contribute to the change. Providing support for individuals while building a sense of collective ownership around an agreed direction and purpose.
Changing the environment – developing a ‘system mindset’ – understanding the school as a system and as part of a wider system, and the ‘connectedness’ between various parts of the system. Understanding how change made in one area will inevitably impact other areas.

(Astute readers will recognise this framework from our Agency By Design playbook)

And so the foundation for a programme we’ve called “Refresh, Reconnect, Refocus” was laid, and over the next few weeks we worked to design the elements of the programme and advertise it among our networks to see if we might find a group of principals willing to participate. The rest is history – the initial programme began with a retreat held at Hanmer Springs in March of this year, concluding with a day of celebration in July where participants were able to share the changes they’d achieved in their local contexts.

The programme we designed, as described on our web page, was spread over a period of 20 weeks, beginning with the retreat where relationships were formed, key themes and ideas explored, and tools to guide further action introduced. Over the following 20 weeks participants were involved in regular one-on-one coaching sessions with Maurie and I, ongoing contact with a participant ‘buddy’, and periodic group sessions where they could engage with international experts in different aspects of educational transformation. The programme concluded with the ‘celebration’ event where each participant shared what had been achieved in their personal context.

Sarah Martin was one of the participants in our 2024 cohort. Sarah has been principal at Stonefields School in Auckland for more than a decade, and she had this to say about her experience of the programme and how these elements wove together to help shift her practice and thinking as a school leader:

Much of what Sarah says here is captured by the feedback received by another of our participants in this year’s programme:

“It’s not often that you will find a professional learning programme that reignites your leadership fire for education! As well as being supported and encouraged throughout the six months; I feel like I have had an over-qualified cheerleader working alongside me! This programme offers all the good stuff: a retreat but guilt-free workshop, a new network, practical and tested ideas for leadership, future of education insights, 1:1 coaching, ongoing peer support and bite size professional learning invites – all with just the right amount for busy Principals to engage with.“

Weaving all of these things together to provide the right balance of personal reflection and growth alongside developing the capacity and capability to lead change lay at the heart of our programme design, and lies behind choosing the name ‘Refresh, Reconnect, Refocus“.

As we suspected, the importance of maintaining a purposeful, supportive connection with and between participants during the 20-week period proved to be a key element of the programme. This is highlighted well in the feedback from another 2024 participant, Dyane Stokes who is at the start of her principalship journey at Paparoa Street School in Christchurch:

Each of these participant views highlight the success, for them, of the programme design and how this has helped them in their personal and professional motivation to achieve the goals they have for their schools, their staff and their students – and for themselves as leaders.

Throughout the process Maurie and I emphasised the importance for participants to think of themselves as system leaders, rather than simply leaders of an organisation. While it is both inevitable and important that attention is given to addressing the everyday and often urgent matters that face leaders within the organisational context of a school, to be effective as a transformational leader you need also to sustain a broader scan of the education environment, and be skilled at understanding and managing the complexity of relationships that exist within the learning ecosystem.

Would you like to be involved?

Now that we’ve crafted a successful programme design, Maurie and I are offering this opportunity to fresh cohorts in 2025. Next year we’ll be offering a repeat of the programme for principals beginning with a retreat at Hanmer Springs from 13-15 March.

In response to numerous requests from a number of people, we’re also offering a modified version of the programme to specifically address the needs of AP/DPs, beginning with a two-day hui in Wellington on 23-24 January.

In addition, we’re working with the Lutheran Schools Network in Australia to co-construct a variation of the programme for a mixed group of principals and senior leaders in Melbourne, starting in April.

One of the key benefits of these programmes is the level of personal attention you will receive. We have deliberately designed for smaller cohorts of around 20 participants, so that there is a greater degree of intimacy and personal connection in the experience.

If this sounds like you please click on the image below to take you to a page where you can find additional information and links to the registration forms. I encourage you to share this post with anyone in your network that you think may benefit from being a part of a programme to support them in becoming a leader of transformation in their school or context.

Tags education leadership, educational change, educational transformation, environment scan, school leadership

Self directed learning

“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”
John Dewey

Earlier this week I was camping at White’s Bay, a magical spot on the coast less than 30 minutes from Blenheim. Although the peak of the holiday period was over, there were still a number of families camping there with the beach providing a safe place for the kids to swim, play, explore and interact under the watchful eyes of their parents.

After a morning swim I took the time to stroll along the beach and take in what some of these kids were doing. In the image above you can see what the beach looks like – before the kids arrived. If you’re observant enough you’ll also notice the tell-tale signs in the sand of water from a small creek winding its way across the sand into the ocean.

It was around that spot that I stood and watched a fascinating learning experience unfold before me. Two groups of children, mostly boys, aged (I’m estimating) between 7-12, were busy digging in the sand, some with shovels and others with pieces of driftwood or their hands. Observing for a while I saw what was happening. At two different spots after the creek emerged from the reeds behind the beach groups of children were hard at work trying to alter the course of the water. One group appeared intent on creating a small dam and creating a pond behind it, and another creating a deeper channel to expedite the flow of water directly to the sea.

I paused and chatted with each group, hearing their stories of how they got started on the idea, what they’d tried already, what had worked and what hadn’t and what they were planning to do next. All the time the groups continued to work on their projects, aware that the water they were trying to ‘tame’ wasn’t going to wait while they held a conversation with a passing member of the public.

After some time there I continued my walk to the other end of the beach, then returned the way I’d come. On my way back I paused again to observe the progress being made. By now the labyrinth of channels had become quite sophisticated. Aided by the addition of small rocks and large pieces of driftwood the dam was doing its thing, while the deeper channel was being worked on to address the issue of the collapsing walls where the faster flowing water now caused erosion of the sides.

What was even more interesting was that these two groups were now working together to address an entirely new challenge – how to create a channel that would re-route the water from the pond behind the dam into the large channel that the others had created some 10 metres away and so create a continuous flow. I hadn’t seen what had precipitated that collaboration, but by the time I had arrived the teams were working seamlessly on this new task, with ideas being contributed by young and old, and everyone getting on with the task they felt was theirs.

I sat at the beach for some time after, watching the experience evolve as if guided by some ‘invisible’ agreement among all of these young people – with no sign of adult intervention at all (apart from this elderly gentleman stopping to ask a lot of questions 🙂 … which got me thinking again about the experience of learning that we provide for our students at school. Right before my eyes I was seeing the manifestation of the characteristics of learners and learning that so many schools aspire to in their graduate profiles, but so often are neglected or ignored when the pressure goes on to address fundamental issues of literacy and numeracy, or to focus on specific details of ‘content knowledge’ to provide a focus for narrowly defined assessments. Not that theres merit in considering these things – but not at the expense of taking the joy out of learning in such authentic and motivational ways.

Here are just some of the things I observed and reflected on while watching these children:

They were working to a plan – and they owned that plan. The plan wasn’t particularly detailed, nor was it aligned with a specific area of the curriculum. Their plan emerged from their inbuilt curiosity and the desire to discover what might happen if…? As such their plan was constantly being modified and re-focused. Further, they were all capable of articulating what the plan was when a casual observer such as myself took the opportunity to ask them!
There was a culture of experimentation. While the plan was agreed on in a basic sense, the detail of how they’d execute it was left to a process of experimentation, where risk taking, learning from failure and trailing multiple approaches were simply a part of how the activity rolled. Nothing was a ‘failure’ – everything was something that helped inform the next step that was taken.
The participants knew what success would look like. Each of these children had a clear idea of what they were striving to achieve, and therefore what success would look like. In their conversation with me they were able to articulate why some approaches had worked and others hadn’t, how they’d modified their approach at times and some of the ‘big ideas’ about the movement of water they’d learned along the way. They didn’t need an external person or assessment task to tell them if they’d been successful or not.
They weren’t about to give up! In fact, one of these groups had been working on their ideas the previous day and had come back with a refreshed view of how to tackle things as they thought about it overnight. Without the constraints of time they were able to take the time required to work on their challenge – demonstrating high levels of perseverance and tenacity in the process.
The activity was highly collaborative. No-one was excluded in this task. If you turned up and were prepared to assist you quickly found a way you could contribute. Those who’d been working on it a little longer emerged as leaders in small ways, helping guide what others should do through direct instruction or through suggestion as the need determined. Many of the ideas that were put forward were quickly discussed and decided on – often with the addition of new ideas that emerged through this process of negotiation. Overall, there was a role for everyone and anyone who wanted to participate.
There was a lot of reflection going on. Throughout the entire process the thing that intrigued me the most was the level of conversation going on among the kids. It was a sort of articulated reflection in a very real sense. When someone saw an opportunity to do something differently, there would be comments made about what had worked in the past and why this might or might not work in the future. As new ideas were being trialed there was an explicit articulation of the thought processes – often with questions being asked among members of the group, seeking affirmation or confirmation of whether something was a good idea. The reflection wasn’t being left as something to do once the task was over – it was an authentic and highly integrated part of the task itself.

Now I’m not so naive as to think that every aspect of what we do in schools could be designed and constructed in this way. There is, arguably, always going to be a need for developing some of the foundational skills that these children were calling upon quite naturally in this environment. Plus there’s loads of scope for an excellent teacher, through crafted questioning, to promote event deeper levels of learning to be realised from such a task.

My pondering here is simply this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, as we start a new school year, we could do so with a renewed sense of commitment to ensuring all of our learners are able to experience the kinds of delight and joy in learning that these kids on the beach were? Before we become ensnared by the imposed requirements to address the basics more rigorously and of ensuring we address specific areas of content knowledge, let’s ensure we leave room in our design of learning for our learners to experience joy in what they do, and delight in the achievements they make – however big or small.

Oh that more of what happens in our classrooms and schools could resemble what I observed on the beach this week.

If the ideas in this blog post resonate with you and you are looking for ways to incorporate more of this type of learning into your classroom you may find it useful to read Agency By Design: An Educator’s Playbook that I’ve written with Marsha Jones, with the help of George Edwards and Annette Thompson from the USA. It is full of ideas and practical examples to guide your how you might create more agentic learning and learners in your school or classroom, together with ways of measuring progress.

You can download the entire book or individual chapters from the Aurora Institute Website here: https://aurora-institute.org/resource/agency-by-design-an-educators-playbook/

Tags educational transformation, learner agency, learner engagement

Looking for more ambition in 2024!

Photo by Leif Christoph Gottwald on Unsplash
Rocket image: https://www.needpix.com/photo/174049/

“There’s no definite roadmap for a successful moonshot; the path is littered with obstacles and failure. It takes passion, grit, luck and sometimes a decade or more of hard work to see a moonshot materialise, much less succeed.”
Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur, futurist, technologist, New York Times Bestselling Author

I was at secondary school when the Apollo 11 mission made a successful moon landing. I was one of those completely caught up in the wonder of that event – I still have the scrapbook I kept of every newspaper clipping I could lay my hands on at the time! 1300 of us gathered in the school assembly hall and sat in silence for almost three hours, listening to the broadcast on a single speaker that had been set up on the stage. (Yes, no live-stream TV in those days – in fact, no colour TV even, we watched the fuzzy, black and white images a day or two later!)

That was 1969! Just a few years earlier, in 1962, US President, John F. Kennedy, planted the seeds of a dream when he declared “We choose to go to the moon this decade.” At the time this must have seemed near impossible to many, yet it inspired a nation to believe – and to act. The president didn’t say precisely how it was going to happen – he simply set a timeframe for something ambitious, something incredible to happen. It was his ‘moonshot’ moment.

Decades later this concept has become known as ‘moonshot thinking’, when you choose a huge problem, such as climate change, and propose to create a radical solution to the problem using a disruptive technology.

I reckon we could do with some ‘moonshot thinking’ in education at present. There’s no shortage of huge challenges facing us, but there is a distinct lack of any ambition in the solutions being proposed. Mostly we see the same old ideas being re-cycled like the re-runs of Home Alone movies at Christmas. It all seems so tired, unambitious and focused narrowly on short-term wins that pander to the populist vote. It’s been like that for many years now, and there appear to be no changes on the horizon despite a change in government. The table below illustrates just a few examples of the challenges schools face currently and the responses we are seeing…

Consider our current approach…

Problem	Solution	Concerns
Students not attending school, truancy.	Employ people to track students down and bring them back to school. Punish parents for not sending them to school.	Why are they choosing not to attend in the first place? How might we make schools and learning more engaging and meaningful for all learners?
Digital Distraction.	Ban mobile devices at school.	How do we prepare young people (and teachers!) to function effectively in an increasingly digital world – including understanding the safety and moral issues of being a digital citizen?
Declining literacy and numeracy achievement.	Spend more time on structured approaches to reading, writing and maths, focusing primarily on the mechanics.	How do we inspire writers, authors and mathematicians for the future? How to sustain an interest in literature, story-telling and mathematics in the world around us?
Bullying.	More supervision, more punitive measures for those responsible.	How to address the social influences and generational patterns of behaviour that are behind this sort of behaviour?
Recruitment and retention of high quality teachers.	Introduce teaching standards, recognition of excellent teachers and punitive measures for those not performing.	How to make teaching a profession that attracts the very best candidates. How best to design initial teacher education programmes and professional learning programmes that sustains a dynamic profession?
Low level of participation in STEM subjects to meet demand for employment in the tech sector.	Privilege resourcing of STEM programmes and STEM teachers.	What about the arts subjects where creativity (a key element in innovation) is cultivated?
Increasing numbers of learners with special learning needs (incl. ADHD, autism etc.)	Limited funding for special needs teachers and support people. Teachers expected to become skilled in dealing with these demands.	What are the conditions that are most suitable for these learners, and what support is most helpful? How can we personalise/individualise programmes within the traditional one-class, one-teacher structures?
Ongoing disruption and change (e.g. natural disasters, weather events, pandemics etc.)	Short term mitigations, targeted resourcing to bridge the gap until things ‘return to normal’.	What if ongoing disruption of this nature is the ‘new normal?’. How might we structure schooling to take account of the ongoing challenge to sustain an approach that is historically dependent on attendance at a single site?

As the table above attempts to illustrate, it’s not that the solutions being suggested or implemented are inherently wrong – indeed, many have sound research supporting their use in defined contexts. The issue is that while they may provide an effective solution for particular learners in particular contexts, they are unlikely to address some of the wider (and more complex) concerns that are a part of the problem they are attempting to address. It’s not a binary argument – it’s about understanding the broader, richer and more complicated tapestry of interactions among and between these areas that create the current form and function of schools and schooling.

I believe we need to see more ambition our efforts to identify (and courage to follow through on) solutions that matter. Of course, there’s plenty of ambition around at a personal level, with individuals seeking to ‘climb the ladder’ of personal success, or schools seeking to outdo their rivals down the road – but this sort of ambition is counter-productive in terms of achieving the solutions required to some of our ‘wicked problems’ in education.

I’m talking about the sort of ambition that is linked with taking risks (something that is frowned upon in our current bureaucratic structures), to ‘stretch’ beyond the current limits and push the boundaries of educational possibility. This sort of ambition sets aside personal interest for the corporate good. It involves releasing dreams and capturing the interest and trust of others to pursue those dreams. It’s about letting go of conventional thinking and ways of working, and experimenting with new forms of teaching, schooling and learning to find what works and what will help us achieve our ‘moonshot’ ambitions.

In the table below I’ve shared just a handful of ideas that could form the basis of the sort of ambitious ‘moonshot’ thinking that we’re talking about here. There will, of course, be others you can think of (hopefully!), so regard these as they are intended – something to stimulate your thinking. It might be helpful to consider taking one or more of these and using them as a starter for a conversation with colleagues, or at a start of year staff meeting – anything to help stimulate conversation and lift the level of thinking beyond ‘the ordinary’ as we seek to find ways of resolving the increasingly challenging problems we face in education.

Could these be your moonshot…?

Moonshot 1:
Agency and Joy!

Imagine if…

…we were to create schools where learners come curious and leave inspired? Where learners were eager to attend because they found what happens there, day by day, exciting, engaging and relevant to their needs and interests. Where learners ( and teachers) experience JOY each day, where their physical, mental, social and academic health and wellbeing were all being addressed as a matter of course. Where there is a definite ‘shift in ownership’ of learning, and learners (and teachers) experience agency in all aspects of their learning.

Moonshot2:
Learning Laboratories

Imagine if…

…we were to design our schools as learning laboratories, and our learning programmes around a culture of experimentation, where teachers and learners are open to risk and learn from failure? What if our approach to learning across the curriculum left space for teachers and students to experiment with new ideas and pursue the questions that are important to them. What if, instead of following prescribed methodologies we encouraged innovative approaches to solving problems, including how to address individual learning challenges or needs (e.g. as those in the medical profession do when making a diagnosis).

Moonshot 3:
Boundary-less Schools

Imagine if…

…we conceived of schools as ‘boundary-less’ entities, as nodes in a network or learning ecosystem. Where physical attendance to participate in social, sporting, cultural and collaborative activities, is valued alongside access specialist teachers in other contexts, including community settings and virtually. And what if that learning was all recorded and tracked in a single ‘record of learning’ that recognises the value of what is learned in all of these contexts? What if we recognised the roles of those providing support for learners differently – as specialist teachers, as pastoral support, as virtual teachers etc. as opposed to assigning all tasks to a ‘generic’ teacher. How might we include the link with home and partnership with parents as an essential aspect of this ‘boundary-less-ness’?

Moonshot 4:
AI Enhanced Personalisation

Imagine if…

…we could harness the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create truly personalised programmes of learning for both individuals and for groups based on an analysis of their needs and preferences? What if the AI platform could then provide personalised support and feedback as the learner/group worked on the learning task, scaffolding and shaping the learning activity based on the learner response and evidence provided. What if the platform could also maintain a record of learning for each learner with dynamic links to the evidence provided by the learner to illustrate achievement against the criteria set.

Moonshot 5:
New Structures

Imagine if…

…we were to completely suspend all of the structures around which our current school system is designed – learning spaces, timetables, curriculum, staffing allocations, assessments/exams etc. How would we design things differently? How would the school day work? What would the curriculum look like? What if we were to create the opportunity for learners to be immersed in learning for as long as it takes for them to become accomplished in what they are doing? How might we keep track of what is being learned, how it is being learned and when it has been learned?
What would be the role(s) of educators in all of this? How would they be supported?

Moonshot 6:
New Measures of Success

Imagine if…

…we adopted completely different ways of measuring success? Where exams and summative assessments were replaced by more dynamic and ‘real-time’ provision of evidence to match against the progression indicators linked to criteria established at the beginning of the learning activity? What if learners were actively involved in the decisions around the criteria and the indicators? Instead of designing learning to match the assessment criteria, what if learners were able to immerse themselves in meaningful learning activity, and then select the criteria that they have evidence for – from across different ‘subjects’ and different levels?

[Rocket image: https://www.needpix.com/photo/174049/]

None of the scenarios above are particularly original. In fact, examples of each of these innovative approaches already exist in various jurisdictions and contexts around the world. As William Gibson once said, “the future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed yet‘. Also, while the scenarios have been separated out here to emphasise a specific idea, there are many overlaps between them and in most cases, a ‘moonshot’ idea will likely include elements from two or more of the scenarios above (and others not mentioned here).

Create your own moonshot:

Being ambitious in our thinking like this doesn’t come naturally. For many of you reading the list of ‘imagine if’ statements above you may find yourself thinking immediately of all the reasons why this couldn’t happen. That’s quite normal. It’s how we’ve been programmed – a consequence of the education we’ve received and the structures and systems we conform to. But you can break the habit – all it takes is some courage to allow yourself a little space to dream and ponder.

The important thing is that, like JFK, you don’t have to have it all sorted from the beginning. You simply have to imagine, put the idea(s) out there, and be relentless in seeking to find ways of making it happen.

Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur, futurist, technologist, and writer of the TechBlog has a simple five step approach for MoonShot Planning:

5-Year Goal: Briefly describe your 5-year Moonshot goal in a clear, objective fashion using specific dates and numbers.
1-Year Goal: What concrete, measurable milestones can you achieve in 12 months that will put you on track? Remember, your progress is exponential. You just need to hit 6.25% of the target.
30-Day Goal: What can you do in the next 30 days to test and ‘de-risk’ your 1-year and 5-year objectives?
PROOF: What evidence can you provide to your team that this Moonshot is possible?
ACTION: What single action can you take right now to make immediate progress? (Do it in the next hour).

Why not use this framework to create your own moonshot and consider the ambitious approach you want to take in 2024? You don’t have to do this alone. In fact, it’s best if you do it in collaboration with others. Build the dream collectively. Get the buy-in of those who need to be involved and for whom it matters.

Imagine if, across the country, school leaders and teachers found time in these last few weeks before the next school year begins to work through the five steps outlined above, so that as you return to school for 2024 it isn’t simply to repeat what you did in 2023 with a few minor tweaks and improvements, but is something more revolutionary, more purposeful and more life-changing!

Instead of planning to get ‘back to normal’, let’s make 2024 a year of being extra-ordinary, of being ambitious in what we seek to achieve for our learners and our schools!

Check out some of these links for further ideas…

Tags education leadership, educational change, educational transformation, learner agency, learner engagement, school leadership

Overwhelm

Overwhelm is the fact or feeling of not being able to cope or deal with something.
Collins Dictionary

The headline in a paper this week, quotes a new report from MFAT that says the ‘Future looks grim“. The report details what MFAT believes Kiwis should know about risks to NZ’s security, and that conflict in our region ‘could occur’. According to the report the globe is experiencing “heightened strategic tensions and considerable levels of disruption and risk“, with New Zealand just as affected as others due to its interconnectedness, the changing nature of the Pacific and the evolution of new threats. Grim reading indeed!

All of this on top of the disruptions we have faced through pandemics, weather events, political unrest and the impact of rising interest rates and housing (un)affordability! It really is a bit overwhelming.

As if that’s not enough, in education there’s yet another avalanche of disruption and change being experienced as a result of declining achievement in key areas, the introduction of a new curriculum, changes in assessment practices, changes in PLD allocations plus ongoing issues with truancy and low levels of learner engagement – just to name a few.

No wonder educators are feeling overwhelmed and looking to other career options. According to NZ’s Newshub teachers are leaving in droves currently. And not just in New Zealand. The USA Today reports that the number of teachers quitting has hit a new high, with one teacher quoted as saying ‘I just found myself struggling to keep up’.

Understanding the perceptions teachers have about all of this was the focus of a recent FutureMakers report titled Roadblocks and Drivers, which provides an analysis of the responses received through submissions to an online survey posted on the FutureMakers website in early 2023. The analysis reveals a comprehensive list of perceived drivers and roadblocks in our system, highlighting a range of complex and interconnected issues. The most prevalent challenges reported include:

initiative overload leading to fatigue and lack of follow-through
inadequate resources in terms of staffing and funding,
resistance to change driven by a focus on tradition, and
difficulties related to leadership, such as vision deficits and poor communication.

One word that sums up the feeling across all of the responses received is overwhelm. While it’s true to say that the notion of overwhelm has been impacting many for a number. of years now, the evidence in the survey analysis reinforces the view of may others that the level of change and disruption being faced in our profession (and society) is escalating rapidly, and is also becoming increasing diverse – impacting us on many fronts.

The survey responses paint a picture of teachers who are facing an increasingly challenging and overwhelming environment in schools. They are bombarded with a multitude of new initiatives and requirements, not giving them time to reflect or renew their energies. They are also overwhelmed by the constantly changing demands from parents and communities, and the evolving behaviours and learning needs of their students. This overwhelming situation can lead to a sense of paralysis within the education system.

This sense of overwhelm is captured in the following from one respondent:

“It’s just too busy. There never seems to be enough time to do the day to day job as well as learn new and better ways. When under pressure, we often revert to old ways. Teachers don’t fully adopt new ways because they don’t really understand the why and how….and they don’t get a chance to spend time on these. Usually they do want to do things better, but get caught up in their day to day work and have no capacity for more.”

Some respondents referred to the notion of ‘burden’ – the sense that everything is being added to what they are already doing, and that there really needs to be a ’letting go’ of things that they are already doing in order to create space and have the freedom to change. Others raised concerns over change initiatives occurring on multiple fronts of activity, often overlapping or causing conflict.

Addressing this level of ‘overwhelm’ must surely have to be a key focus of our system leaders you would think. But what we see at present appears to be even more layers of disruption and change being imposed – most of it appearing as a re-hash of previously tried (and failed) approaches. As Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results!” My concern is that Continuing to do what we’ve always done and expecting better results is not only a sign of insanity, it is depriving our young people of their future!

Continuing to do what we’ve always done and expecting better results is not only a sign of insanity, it is depriving our young people of their future.
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Fortunately the survey responses weren’t all negative. There were some useful suggestions provided in the responses, offering some ways to address the issue of ‘overwhelm’ including:

Streamline initiatives and requirements: Rather than overwhelming teachers with a constant influx of changes, focus on implementing a few well-thought-out initiatives that have a proven track record of effectiveness.
Provide targeted professional development and support: This may include mentoring, coaching and wellbeing programmes to provide guidance and help teachers cope with the demands they face.
Foster more collaboration: This reduces the burden on individual teachers and allows them to leverage collective knowledge and support.
Prioritise well-being and work-life balance: Provide resources and support for managing stress and burnout. Encourage schools to adopt policies that promote reasonable workloads and create opportunities for self-care and rejuvenation.
Engage stakeholders in decision-making: When stakeholders feel heard and valued, it can reduce the sense of overwhelm and foster a sense of ownership and collective responsibility.
Research and evidence-based practices: Ensure that initiatives, requirements, and interventions are based on sound research and evidence. Avoid adopting trends or fads without a solid foundation.
Advocate for systemic change: We must recognise that the sense of ‘overwhelm’ experienced by teachers may be indicative of broader systemic issues within the education system.

None of the things on this list will come as a surprise. In fact, I’d recognise most as being the things I observe in the practice of some of our more effective school leaders as they provide leadership for their staff and communities through these times of change.

In times of crisis and overwhelm one would look to the leadership at a system level and in our schools for a strong and robust response, but it would seem that this sort of practice is not uniformly experienced. This may have something to do with the quality and experience (or lack of) of our current school leadership.

A recent ERO report has found that a third of principals in our schools have less than five years of experience. It also notes the difficulty in recruiting and retaining quality leadership at principal level. How can we expect great leadership in times of disruption where the depth of experience simply isn’t there? This is yet another indicator that we have an education leadership crisis in our country.

Sure, there’s always the exception to the rule, the outstanding individual who has been well mentored and understands intuitively what to do when faced with complex issues or a crisis event, but they are a small minority. Good leadership becomes great on the basis of experience – in the same way a good athlete becomes great through putting in the ‘hard yards’ of training in all circumstances.

One thing is for certain – there is no returning to the (imagined) stable state of what we experienced in the past. Research suggests that this is a sign of an inexperienced leader – that when the chips are down they resort to using strategies they remember having experienced, and not the sorts of things that evidence is suggesting need to be employed in a VUCA world. We see evidence of this on a daily basis it seems, particularly right at the moment as the political parties are putting forth their ‘solutions’ for what they see as a failing system. These are yet more examples of what I wrote about in a previous post listing signs of system and organisational distress.

What can leaders do?

Two thoughts as suggestions occur to me. There’s no silver bullet here, but we can take responsibility for the things that fall within our locus of control, so here they are:

Start by acknowledging that the sense of ‘overwhelm’ that your staff and community may be feeling is a natural response to the pressures they may be feeling from the continual barrage of change initiatives and demands that come with that. It isn’t their fault or a sign of weakness. But it can be addressed.
Next, make time for your own personal reflection and become self-aware as a leader. The minute you find yourself falling back into the ‘old ways’ or defending actions that are indefensible, stop! Seek support, seek guidance and seek the assistance from those who can help you work through what you need to do with a fresh set of eyes.
Then, determine to do something to address this. The list of actions above provide a pretty useful starting point. Read each carefully and consider how you could take some positive steps to make this a reality in your context. Don’t waste valuable time trying to create a comprehensive plan that has everything covered before you start – just do it, reflect often and change as required. If you can’t think of anything, don’t give up – seek the counsel of a wise colleague, listen to what they have to say. And make time for some professional reading as a way of understanding what successful leaders are doing in other contexts.
Finally, understand that the pace of change that we’re currently experiencing isn’t likely to ease, and that our traditional ways of managing change are simply not fast enough or effective enough to keep up, let alone get ahead of the situation. We have to do things differently – starting with letting go of some of our sacred cows of management (e.g. complex bureaucracies, top-down management, positional authority, organisational silos, KPI-driven performance etc.) and be prepared to embrace experimentation, risk taking and learn from failures. Look to release staff to pursue short-cycle experiments that empower them to discover new ways of working where the old ones aren’t. But make sure as you’re doing this, you have a clear eye on the horizon, and are mission-led in your leadership style, and not tangled down in the weeds.

Tags education leadership, educational change, educational transformation, school leadership

Educational Leadership Crisis

CRISIS – “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs
in which decisive change is impending”
Miriam Webster Dictionary

A headline in yesterday’s newspaper read:

The article quotes NZEI Te Riu Roa president Mark Potter who says; “… it’s clear that New Zealand has an imminent problem with a shortage of school leadership. Even new leaders in the profession are facing burn out and ultimately, it’s the children who will suffer if we can’t attract people to the role and retain them.“

I was particularly captured by the use of the word ‘crisis’, not so much in the headline as that’s the sort of thing you expect from a media release – but in the title of the summit itself. From my experience the government, MoE and education agencies generally avoid using the term ‘crisis’ because of the inevitable door it opens for criticism, blame and fear mongering among those who have an axe to grind or who are seeking to promote their own agendas. Given the Miriam Dictionary definition at the head of this post however, I think that the word may perhaps be appropriately used here.

Which brings me then to the purpose of the gathering held in Wellington that is referred to in the newspaper article. In my Twitter feed I noted the following from a principal travelling to attend the event:

The principal appears optimistic about what may be achieved at the event. He notes that “we have admired the problem, talked the problem, worked around the problem...” before calling for concrete solutions – not surprising in a crisis situation.

I think a large number of people would agree. We have spent a lot of time debating, future-gazing, analysing etc., but all too frequently, fail to identify any actions of a significant or strategic nature that are actually actionable or followed through (another sign of failing leadership).

So what are the chances of this event achieving anything different? I guess I’m not as optimistic as my principal colleague. I’m not saying this simply to be cynical, rather, it’s my observation borne out of a number of years of experience both in participating in problem-solving and strategic fore-sight events and in facilitating them.

To clarify, here’s what I’m thinking…

There is indeed an education leadership crisis – and it exists across all levels of the system, from the offices of the Ministry of Education down to the principals in schools and even further, to the teachers-as-leaders in classrooms. Successive decades of a neo-liberal approach to how our system operates has seen significant emphasis on accountability based on assumptions about the intrinsic leadership capability of those appointed to leadership roles.

This has created a climate of competition, blame and punishment for underperformance, when what is desirable is a positive focus on building, nurturing and sustaining the qualities of good leadership in our leaders. In other words, if we want good leadership we must be focused on what that looks like and invest in what’s required to achieve that.
The problem is ill-defined. – One of the things that makes me wonder how effective this event will be over others that have been held in the past is the impression gained from reading through everything available to me (and remember, I didn’t attend or receive and invitation to attend which may have had further information available). All of the material I see, including on the NZEI website, focuses on the identification of solutions to be put in place. According the survey of principals quoted, these involve the provision of more teaching staff, more management staffing, and increased access to specialists for children with additional needs. What I don’t see is a deep analysis of the issues, concerns and problems that can then be approached in a more strategic and disciplined way.

This sort of approach is exactly what leads to inaction. We’ve all experienced it. It can feel great, at the time, to be able to give voice to the frustrations we are feeling, and even better when in an environment where we hear others saying similar things to us, and better still, when someone with positional leadership (in this case the Minister of Education) is there to share in the conversation. But as valuable as that may be, it is a classic case of the ‘externalisation‘ of the problem. By that I mean we project onto ‘them’ the things we feel need to happen, and, having voiced our concerns, leave the meeting feeling it’s now ‘their’ responsibility to get on and use what we’ve told ‘them’ to fix it.
The answers lie within – always. – in a recent blog post I referred to the concept of ‘clarity’ as a foundational attribute for an effective, transformative leader. I referenced the work of Shawn Ginwright who I met earlier this year in the US, and whose work has significantly impacted my perspective on the personal qualities required of each of us as leaders. Dr Ginwright coined the term ‘mirror work’ to describe a commitment to self-reflection and truth telling (to ourselves) about ourselves and our performance.

Clarity comes when we shed all of the barriers, confusion, distractions, indulgences and excuses that get in the way of what we really want. Without this clarity we struggle in a cloud of confusion, distraction and ambiguity. We end up feeling overwhelmed and delay important decisions and procrastinate on tasks. We fail to recognise that we, and the systems, traditions and expectations we hold so tightly to, may actually be a key part of the problem that we are busy externalising for others to take responsibility for.

My point here is that no matter how well intentioned the gathering of affected people might be, it can only really serve as a forum for expressing concerns and sharing grievances. Without the mirror work and personal clarity described by Ginwright, it’s unlikely there’ll be any ownership of the fact that a part of the problem exists in the room.
It’s difficult to lead if you don’t know why! – Clarity is tied also to our sense of purpose. When we are unclear and vague, we can simply cannot practice transformative leadership because we lose sight of our destination. This is compounded when that sense of purpose is something that is missing from our corporate understanding. I see this as a particular issue in our education system today. After years of reform efforts and the introduction of different regimes or point solutions, I’d argue that we’ve lost sight of the purpose we have for our education system.

If you asked any group of educators to explain what the purpose (i.e. our ‘why’, our aspiration) of the NZ education system is I’d wager you’d get as many different answers as there are people you asked. This could be difficult if they were all from one school. There are many schools that have done an excellent job of defining their ‘why’ and regularly referencing this with staff and the community – but there’s no real evidence of a common sense of purpose for the whole of our system.

I realise now that there’ll be a number of people who will defensively point me to statements that exist on different websites – but of that’s the case, why do so many educators struggle to recall these, and why don’t we see our system leaders more regularly in the media inspiring us to work together towards these aspirational goals?
We lack change literacy – Simply put, we don’t understand how to lead change, or even how to lead in a time of change. in a conversation with a colleague this afternoon we were discussing the qualities of principalship, and what is required to operate effectively as an education leader in today’s world. My response was change literacy (to add yet another term to our lexicon of educational jargon). My reason for this is that we live in a VUCA world, where change is the constant and the idea of achieving again the ‘stable state‘ is simply not possible.

In education we’re constantly bombarded with change, usually imposed change, change that we’re expected to implement or take responsibility for – be it change in curriculum, health and safety demands, roll growth, change in pedagogical practices for literacy etc. We all assume that those who are mandating the have a valid reason for it, and that it will produce the anticipated results – eventually in terms of outcomes for learners as they are or should be at the peak of our education value chain.

Too often we end up implementing point solutions in response to the problems we face (such as those identified by the NZEI principals above) and while not arguing the merit of these as possible solutions, we fail to understand or align these things with a theory of change that has been developed to demonstrate the causal links (or intervention logic) between the particular intervention (or ‘solution’) and our overall goals for our education system.

Not sure. if this is helpful or clarifying, but it’s certainly been a useful exercise teasing out what I’m thinking. It’s not meant to disrespect any of those who are putting in tireless hours to support their colleagues, or to those who have given up a day to address the concerns they share – I only hope that somewhere in the mix there is the will, the expertise and the commitment to address some (all?) of the things I’ve reflected on here to help us move from a position of suggesting solutions to a where we might achieve a truly transformative set of actions that will genuinely change how we work as a system, how we serve those learners in our schools and classrooms and ultimately, how all of this will contribute to a equitable and thriving future for Aotearoa/New Zealand. You can count me in on that!

Tags education leadership, educational transformation, school leadership

Congratulations CORE Education – 20 Years!

It’s not everyone who gets the opportunity to be part of a ‘start-up’ that grows to employing more than 250 inspiring people located across the country, then stand aside to watch it being led into an exciting new future by a new team of leaders. I feel very privileged that I have had that experience!

This week marks 20 years since the official launch of CORE Education in Christchurch and I’ve been privileged to receive emails from a number of educators who have worked for or with CORE over those years, reminding me of this fact!

A couple of years prior to March, 2003, Nick Billowes and I had been in conversation with Stephen Heppell from Ultralab in the UK, together dreaming of what we could achieve by setting up a ‘sister’ organisation to Ultralab UK here in NZ. We were joined soon after those initial conversations by our colleague, Dr Vince Ham, and these dreams began to take shape as we then worked with the Canterbury Development Corporation to establish what was originally UltralabNZ, then to become CORE Education. Ali Hughes joined us soon after we’d started and became the perfect complement to our spread of skills and background in education.

Reflecting back I came across the proposal we submitted to the CDC and UltralabUK – here are some extracts:

The development of Ultralab NZ will be through the formation of a Trust where the interested parties (Ultralab UK and Canterbury Development Council, CDC) will act as trustees as set out below and will move to set in place a management structure as described to ensure the running of Ultralab NZ conforms to the proposed management plan.

The development of the Lab will take account of the fundamental mission to act regionally to facilitate “learning with, by and through technology and through research opportunities to assist in developing educational pedagogy and practice.

Ultralab NZ will actively develop programmes in professional development (UltraPD), research and development (UltraResearch), resource and programme development in new media (UltraResource), enterprise and innovation development (UltraInnovate) and establish a Fellowship programme that will reach regionally into both education and industry for a wide range of research and development projects (UltraFellowship)

Through collaborative and collegial development of the potential of learners internationally, we will assist in the creation of a wider understanding between and within nations and provide for the needs and desires of all learners to have their learning needs met in individualized and effective ways that engage a desire for life long learning and understanding. The key words that define the operation of the Lab will be “Learning, Technology, and Research”. These will form the litmus test for the development of all programmes within Ultralab NZ
From Proposal submitted to CDC, 17 April, 2002

Reflecting back, this was a pretty lofty ambition, and I would venture to suggest, at that time none of us were entirely sure of just how we would achieve it, but time has demonstrated that, to a fairly large extent, we have done so, and, with the support of a great number of people, managed to drive towards our goals, having a positive impact on teachers, schools and the education system here in NZ along the way.

As I think back to what it was that made this organisation such a joy to work for and with, experiencing lots of successes along the way (along with a few failures :-), there are two things that stand out for me. These weren’t just things that happened accidentally – we identified them as foundational to what we wanted to achieve and how we wanted to achieve it right from the start – as recorded in that early proposal document and others. Those two things are:

1. Being clear about our purpose

It should be no surprise to see this one here – we worked hard on this for over a year, gradually re-shaping and refining what we thought to be important and how we’d articulate this to the world 🙂 What started as a 3-4 page document was eventually whittled down into a simple phrase that stood the test of time for at least the first 15 years of CORE’s existence:

“Pushing the Boundaries of Educational Possibility”

This mission statement focused our minds on our purpose as it encapsulated everything we agreed would be our business moving forward:

Pushing – we didn’t want to be just another organisation doing what everyone else did. We wanted to become known for being future focused, and for acting in a way that took ourselves and the educators we work with out of their comfort zone, to become used to working in the unfamiliar, and for being risk takers rather than risk averse.
Boundaries – meant that we had to have a really good grasp of what those boundaries are/were – which is why our emphasis on research-informed practice was so important. Involved understanding the past in order to challenge the future, and being aware of the interconnectedness of the education ecosystem to be understand the impact of actions at one point on another.
Education – this was our domain. It’s what we understood and were familiar with. It is where our passion lay – for transforming things so that the experience of everyone was ‘fit for purpose’ in our rapidly changing and evolving world. A relentless focus on learning – for teachers and students – lay at the heart of this, not as vessels to be filled, but as fires to be lit!
Possibilities – we were motivated by wanting to explore the new and emerging horizons for education – leading us to publish the annual ten trends, and to engage in the complex issues of becoming Te Tiriti honouring in the way we worked (and ultimately, how we were structured) and with becoming more inclusive, leading in areas of Universal Design for Learning, and in working alongside numerous cultural and other groups in society.

This mission statement is something of a personal mission for me – which is why, when I stood aside from CORE, I established FutureMakers, which is committed to supporting and promoting a future-focused view of education. I acknowledge, though, that for CORE, the journey is now taking a slightly different tack – championing the goal of equity across all areas of our education system. This, for me, is an exciting development for an organisation led now by those with a passion for this area, and a clear vision for what needs to be achieved.

2. Being intentional about building an inclusive culture

The second thing I believe we managed to get fairly right was an unrelenting focus on developing the internal culture of the organisation. Without the support of a highly skilled and knowledgeable staff who were as passionate as we were about our mission, we knew we wouldn’t succeed.

In those early years in particular we were very focused on ensuring we created a culture where everyone felt they could participate in the decision making, and where they could bring new ideas to the table to be considered. We had regular ‘whole staff meetings’ online, with people from all over NZ, experimenting with all sorts of emerging software to get us there long before we had skype, zoom or Teams to help us.

Our conferences were another key part of this intentionality. The Learning@School and ULearn conferences became places that not only teachers would want to come, but we made sure we could get as many of our staff there as well – not just because we needed their help to run the event, but because it was an opportunity to gather physically together and to experience in person the relationships we tried so hard to establish among our staff, with our schools and with the many businesses that supported a lot of what schools were doing.

We held whole staff ‘retreats’ on a semi-regular basis, and made sure these were times where we could enjoy being the ‘people of CORE’, but where there was a huge emphasis on participating in developing innovative ideas for taking us into the future. We endeavoured to operate a ‘flat’ as possible when it came to leadership and management, providing teams with permission to manage their own projects, and doing what we could to support and develop those who showed a particular flair for leading in areas of innovative thought and action.

For some years, as we grew, we saw very few people leave the organisation to take up roles elsewhere. After time, the experience at CORE became a stepping stone for a number of people, with their future employers recognising the value of the experience they’d had in our organisation. For a while it became commonly said that ‘you never leave CORE, they just stop paying you!”

Of course, 20 years is a pretty long time – half of a working career – and in that time lots has changed. I write here with rose-coloured spectacles, I know, but I’m pretty confident that for so many of those I’ve worked alongside at CORE, the things I’ve written about here would resonate.

The privilege of contributing to the establishment of this wonderful organisation will remain one of the high points of my career. Having stepped aside four years ago to allow a new team of (younger!) leaders to take the organisation forward, I can now only watch with pride as the organisation sets a new course to address the things that are topical and demanding attention as we progress further into the 21st Century. I wish Hana O’Regan and her team all the best as they do so – and wish CORE a very happy 20th birthday!

I’m looking forward to catching up with lots of those old friends (and new) at ULearn23 in Manukau, Tāmaki Makaurau from 4-6 October this year! Why not come and join the celebration.

[This post is dedicated to all of those who have worked for or been connected with CORE over the past 20 years. Your passion, focus and commitment has helped serve teachers, schools, kura and EY centres in inspiring and future-focused ways.]

Tags education leadership, educational transformation

Recombinant Education

Photo by Rohit Choudhari on Unsplash

“Just as genetic recombination increases diversity by producing new forms of DNA, so too education recombination promises to bolster the learning ecosystem’s resilience, helping it withstand threats and make use of possibilities”
Knowledgeworks

I recently had the privilege of helping facilitate two days of workshops hosted by the Education Partnerships and Innovation Trust (EPIT) in Auckland, where Valerie Hannon both inspired and challenged those present to transform what we are doing as a system. She referenced the five signposts from her recently published paper with Tony McKay, and used examples from school systems around the world that are illustrated in her book Future School.

These workshops provided a refreshingly different perspective on how we might address the challenges we are facing – by applying research-based design principles to enable schools to evolve into the future. More than ever we need to be looking out to the sign-posts that might guide us towards a future state that will ensure our young people can thrive in the future.

In my view the ‘back to basics’ political debates about the future of education in New Zealand are sadly lacking in thinking at a transformational level. So much is simply a re-hash of failed strategies of the past, or focusing narrowly on the ‘micro’ aspects of teaching and learning to ‘fix’ key problem areas such as lowering literacy and numeracy achievement, while side-stepping the ‘macro’ issues and to look at the bigger questions around what we’re trying to achieve in our education system in the first place, and whether our current approach remains fit for purpose?

The need to focus on our purpose was central to everything Valerie shared during these days. In her previous book, Thrive, Hannon advocates a new purpose for education in a rapidly changing world, and analyses the reasons why change is urgently needed in our education systems. In her paper with Tony McKay, she argues that that a new form of leadership is urgently needed to reshape our educational systems in a post-Covid environment. Hannon and McKay argue it is clear that leadership in education is entering a new phase. They say..

Leadership is more important than ever, but is faced with profound challenges: the legacy of health-related disruption; unacceptable and unsustainable growth in inequality; mental health problems amongst learners and teachers; leadership burnout; and difficulties in recruitment. At the same time, the rapid development of convergent technologies and the awakening of new sensibilities, taken together with new sources of power, offer the most astounding opportunities for humankind – if only we can grasp them.

Reflecting on the conversations that were had at the EPIT event reminds me that the future is not a fixed point – it is ours to create! But this doesn’t happen by simply sitting by and hoping. As Valerie encouraged us, we need to be actively scanning the environment for the trends and disruptions that are likely to influence that future, and then act accordingly – something I’ve addressed elsewhere with my Empty Seats and Environment Scan publications.

I’ve been very drawn to the notion of an ‘ecosystem’ design for education for many years now – something that Valerie has also provided strong thought leadership about through her work as co-chair of the Global Education Leaders Partnership (GELP) of which I’m a member. For me, this sort of thinking – that maps and values all of the players and influences on our education system – is where we must start if we’re to succeed with transforming it. We can no longer be satisfied with simply looking at things in silos, and attempting to provide point solutions for the things we observe to be needing support.

Over a decade ago, KnowledgeWorks his relatively short publication from KnowledgeWorks titled Recombinant Education, providing a really useful breakdown and forecast of five disruptions that the authors predicted would reshape learning over the next decade. Like the work of Hannon and McKay, it summarises the challenge (emphasis mine):

An explosion of innovation has been transforming how we think about learning and how we organize talent and resources for learning experiences and has effectively unbundled “school” as we knew it. The tightly bound relationships and resource flows that used to deliver instruction, develop curriculum, perform assessment, grant credentials, and provide professional development are dissolving. Teaching and learning have become uncoupled from traditional educational institutions and are now available through and enhanced by a vibrant learning ecosystem.
Recombinant Education

What captured my attention here was the word in the title – Recombinant. If teaching and learning has truly become ‘uncoupled’ in the way they suggest, then the idea of somehow re-combining this myriad of new education innovations, organizations, resources and relationships in new sequences to create a diverse and evolving learning ecosystem.

This piece from the paper’s introduction puts it well:

At its best, recombinant education will discover diverse organizational forms and learning formats that find many ways to integrate talent, community assets, and global resources in support of student-centered learning. New ways of reassembling what seem like disparate pieces — and of incorporating new kinds of inputs — have the potential to usher in a world of learning that provides rich personalization for every learner throughout a lifetime.
Recombinant Education

The paper outlines five disruptions that the authors predict will impact our education system over the following decade – and considering this paper was published a decade ago, it’s worth reading today with the benefit of hindsight and consider the extent to which these disruptions have in fact occurred, and, how important it is that we continue to press forward to the a ‘regenerated ecosystem’.

I recommend you read the paper and consider in particular, the opportunities and challenges that are highlighted on the pages that detail each of the disruptions identified. Each resonates powerfully with what’s impacting our system right now, and the imperative to act hasn’t diminished.

The impact of COVID and the extreme weather events here in New Zealand and in other parts of the world (neither of which were a ‘thing’ when this paper was written) are examples of disruptions that have caused major disruption to our education system. They have exposed the vulnerability of schools as isolated entities, and an education system that operates in its own silo of activity. To achieve a ‘future state’ that is resilient and capable of responding to future disruptions, we have to do better at implementing an ecosystem response as suggested by Knowledgeworks, Hannon & McKay and others.

Bottom line is this – we have a choice to make. As disruption continues to impact our education system, are we prepared to make the tough calls and make the significant and bold steps required to operate as an ecosystem? Or will we continue to shift the deck-chairs on the titanic and put our faith in yet more cycles of ‘back to basics’ campaigns that will continue to fail our kids and their future?

Tags education leadership, educational transformation

Resilience Required NOW!

Photo by Wang Whale on Unsplash

What if 2023 is more disrupted than 2022? What if there are more of these empty desks? Would we be prepared?

Most who know me regard me as an optimist, someone who looks on the ‘bright side’ of things. Certainly, throughout my career I have had the privilege of being involved in a wide range of innovative and ‘hope-bringing’ initiatives. Some may say it’s a result of how I’m wired, and there’s bound to be truth in that. But another reason is that I’ve always had a fascination with emerging ideas and innovations, and have always been scanning the environment to keep abreast of trends and new thinking. – so my actions have generally been inspired or motivated by the things I see coming.

Right now, however, my sense of optimism is feeling ‘dented’. This time last year I wrote a blog post in which I outlined my concerns about the difficulties I foresaw in the coming year (2022), and introduced a paper titled Resilience Planning for Schools which outlined a series of things I believed schools could and should be considering in order to cope with the disruption that I believed we’d experience in 2022. At that time I was becoming agitated by what I perceived as a lack of real engagement with what so many ‘signals’ were saying, and a lack of forward planning based on the sort future they foretold.

Fast forward to February 2022 and suddenly these things began to impact schools and classroom teachers. My resources on resilience planning and hybrid learning were downloaded hundreds of times, the MoE began providing 25 hours of PLD for schools to prepare themselves for hybrid learning, various webinars and forums were established to share ideas and the MoE also added a section with advice on hybrid learning on their learning from home website.

Then, just as quickly as the interest in hybrid learning ramped up, by the second half of the year it waned, to the point that, by the end of the year it’s now hardly mentioned. In fact, in speaking to many of my friends who are parents and grandparents of tamariki in schools, the end of year messaging appears to have focused on the expectation that things will be able to ‘return to normal’ next year.

But what if that’s not the case? What if we’re failing to look up (again) and some of these signals actually manifest in more disruption in 2023? How prepared are we as educators, as schools and as a system to avoid this taking us by surprise? What strategies and approaches have we developed during 2022 that will ensure our resilience under such circumstances?

In the table below I’ve selected just a few of the things I’ve been reading about and pondering their possible impact on schools in the 2023 school year…

Now, I’m not wanting to paint a ‘doom and gloom’ picture at all here. We can be certain of none of these things, and the optimist in me hopes for the best. However, it’s a bit like making plans for the Summer camping trip. I always consult the weather forecast – both short term and long term, and consider the options that are presented from the forecasting modelling that is carried out. On that basis I go prepared for the conditions that I may encounter.

That’s what my plea is here. It may be that only some, none – or all, of these signals manifest themselves in 2023. But our responsibility as educational leaders is to ensure our learners can continue with their learning with the least amount of disruption or disadvantage. And the same applies to our teachers.

So there it is, my reflection here is; “have we fully taken advantage of the opportunity we had in 2022 to develop the levels of resilience in our schools and system to be able to withstand another year of disruption in 2023?” I fear not.

Of course, there have been many initiatives taken by schools around the motu, some of which have been documented on the MoE’s Learning From Home website, as well as the schools such as those in the Manaiakalani network which have been using digital technologies to enable seamless home-school learning for some years now. More recently I’ve had the privilege of working alongside a fabulous group of teachers who have explored a range of innovative ways to connect learners with their learning regardless of location which have just been published on the Tai Tokerau Hybrid learning Project website.

Despite all of this, I remain concerned about the lack of any real movement forward as a system to engage with the level of transformed thinking required to ensure the degree of resilience required. Sadly, with an election year coming up, it’s likely that many of these concerns, as legitimate as they are, will become weaponised as individuals and political parties appeal for support for their particular ideologies.

Rather than succumb to this, let’s build on the great work already done and the success stories we have access to – in NZ and internationally. There’s so much that individual schools can do to build a resilient approach and I encourage school leaders to embrace this challenge as they head away to a well-deserved break. Otherwise it’ll be my grandkids who again are left to ‘catch up’ as if it’s their fault there’s been such a lack of continuity in their learning.

For holiday reading I’ve listed below the resources that many schools found helpful in the early part of 2022 – perhaps they’ll be found useful again. In particular I’d recommend the one titled Being Resilient: Characteristics of Resilient Schools as a useful start point for conversations with your staff at the beginning of the 2023 school year, to evaluate how well your school, your systems and processes etc, are designed to meet this challenge.

Simply click on the image below to access the resource, or visit my Hybrid Learning page where these and other resources are linked.

Tags educational transformation, environment scan, hybrid learning, leveraging digital, school leadership

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1. Being clear about our purpose

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