Pondering the Path

What have I learned from opening Multiple Windows over the last few years? When I ponder the experiences that have changed how I see the world, events that are Meaning Makers, the study tours feature. This experience is both for the magic of travelling and learning with others, and the insights that came from the work that followed. What emerged when ideas were implemented following those international experiences have regularly surprised and delighted me. In addition, when these learnings bumped into other good ideas stored from my past learning, the breakthroughs have been powerful Eureka Moments.

There are four key learnings for me that are now woven into my story. Although I have felt this for some time, the most obvious is schooling is not the same as learning. Learning is a natural and joyous thing. Schooling is a societal construction to feed the demand for a workforce for a previous age. For the most part, it has served us well but we can do better for our future.

This need for change is because overly simple responses to many of the complex issues facing schooling, due to a focus on Rear Vision Research and Measuring the Wrong Things, is insufficient in supporting a future in which humanity thrives. Our existing conversations often create a False Dichotomy that results in conditions in which the status quo prevails. Our work in school leadership is complex and our continued tinkering with a system to gain efficiencies and effectiveness for incremental improvement, powered by knowing, is not the way to re-imagine schooling.

My second learning is in understanding what motivates people undertaking complex work is not setting targets, close supervision and performance assessment. What I've learned from the NOII confirmed this. Daniel Pink expressed this well in 2009. It's about Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. What I have learned since then from exploring the 'Agile' practices of technology companies, and also when supporting school as they experiment with Designed inGenuity, are the additional requirements of psychological safety and creating a rhythm to the work. Geepaw Hill builds on Pink's idea with RAMPS - Rhythm, Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose and Safety. Google's Project Aristotle also confirmed the importance of psychological safety in high-performing teams. Pink's idea is about motivating the individual. Hill's idea is getting the best from a team or organisation.

My third learning is that it's the work done in the middle levels of a school or system which is essential for effective change. The macro level policy setting can assist, (and hopefully these policies will be better set in the future because my observation is that good practice emerges from learning, not mandated policy settings). What leadership in education systems has traditionally done is impose strategies to engineer the implementation of specific practices. In the future educational systems will pay attention to the difference between imposing top-down strategies and creating environments in which learning can thrive.

Which brings me to the fourth learning. For us to reimagine schooling we need to recognise the importance of a different type of leadership. Leaders must become learners, not knowers. Having a bias for action – for doing – is key to learning. School leaders have to recognise that success in complex systems comes from how fast an organisation can learn, not be limited to what is known and certainly not what is imposed. School leaders, then, must be commissioned to be learners before being knowers. This challenge is also true for leaders in the education bureaucracy so that policy settings assist learning, not try to engineer improved test scores.

Let's explore these four ideas in more detail.

Next: Learning Rather Than Schooling