Communities of Status Quo: Is there enough disruption in your Community of Learning??

Over the last year or so I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the establishment of what looks to be a particularly fabulous West Auckland COL - Te Whiria te Tangata. It is great to see school communities of schools coming together to collaborate to improve student outcomes. It is great to see school communities of schools collaborating, full stop.

However I do have a concern. I am not concerned that communities of learning won't see schools coming together to improve learner outcomes, what I am concerned about is that they may not, because of their very structure and achievement challenges, actually change much else. When scanning the endorsed achievement challenges and in the conversations I have had with many colleagues from a range of communities, I keep thinking, is there much within COL plans and achievement challenges that move beyond the paradigm of business as usual? Or are we simply going to see communities of schools holding hands, singing kumbaya and patting their respective inquiries on the back?

Is there much within COL plans and achievement challenges that move beyond the paradigm of business as usual? 

At this point I need to make an admission. During the period of COL policy development, or what was then referred to as IES or Investing in Educational Success I was lucky enough to be serving on the then Deputy Minister of Education Nikki Kaye's 21st Century Learning Reference Group. We were in the throes of developing a set of recommendations that came together as the report Future Focused Learning for Connected Communities. I remember very clearly the day we were briefed on the plans for IES and getting my knickers in a complete twist. Why the freakin' heck weren't they weaving the need for innovation into the very DNA of the COL policy? Having long been an amateur futurist and early adopter of technology I was confident that critical thinking, technology, personalisation and greater learner agency was something we needed to support all schools and educators to tackle.

Amos the Amateur Futurist 😂

This was compounded by the fact that I had recently had the pleasure of leading a large scale ICTPD contract at Epsom Girls Grammar School, and whilst I won't make any spurious claims about leading massive change, I did see, first hand, the potential of a school wide teaching as inquiry initiative infused with an expectation to explore e-learning interventions within every inquiry. Inquiries were still firmly focused on raising student outcomes, and also had a focus on developing thinking skills and introducing differentiation to develop greater engagement and interest. Yes, it caused unease and a certain level of discomfort as each and every teacher was expected to explore technological interventions, whether that was personally appealing or not, but it also got teachers to see the potential for employing new and different ways of engaging and supporting learning.

In this case, the demand for technological pedagogical interventions was a disruption, albeit a fairly palatable and minor one. It stopped teachers simply resorting to interventions that sat within their comfort zone. In my mind teaching as inquiry or spirals as inquiry without discomfort and an element of disruption is simply teaching.

The great thing about the policy as exists it doesn't preclude disruption, it simply doesn't demand it. And I am certainly not suggesting there isn't brilliant and innovative work taking place, I am just concerned that COLs, particularly if schools and/or educators are risk averse, can avoid any real change. So what can we do? Well the first thing I would suggest is that any educators involved in leading or supporting a COL develop an understanding of exponential change and what this really might mean for the very near future of schooling in New Zealand. See Kaila Corbin's fabulous introduction to exponentials below:

Source: YouTube

And if you are in any doubt that this isn't really applicable to education, listen to what Sue Suckling Chairperson of NZQA has to say about the Future of Education. If the chair of NZQA questions the future of NZQA, NCEA and the whole current concept of schooling, you need to wake up and smell the curriculum! (Who just today announced NZ's first micro-credential on Twitter.)

Source : YouTube

What is your COL doing to prepare for the potential disruption of COOLs? What are they doing to prepare for self-taught teenagers who can accrue international micro-credentials that render NCEA and the current concept of school redundant? If we are going to come together to collaborate, let's come together to tackle some very real threats and opportunities that are closer than we think. 

If nothing else, design some elements of disruption that at the very least prevent your Community of Learning being little more than a synergetic version of the status quo.

Connect with and follow the less amateur futurists:

Frances Valentine

Cheryl Doig

Derek Handley

Kaila Corbin

Melissa Clark-Reynolds

Other posts that might be of interest:

#SUNZSUMMIT - What I learnt from attending SingularityU and what I reckon it means for education in NZ

It's not about our students not being school ready, it's about our schools not being 21st Century child ready

Keeping our cool about COOLs (without drinking the COOL aid)

Blue Sky High - five things every secondary school should implement...now 

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How might we disrupt secondary education in New Zealand?

Today I am writing a *brief post to simply try and get myself rebooted and back writing on a weekly basis about the sort of stuff that keeps me awake at night, keeps me thinking about education pretty much 24/7. I admit it I am obsessed and happily so.

The topic outlined in the title is one such topic, often causing me to toss and turn at 4am. It is a topic I have avoided tackling here because it is so complex and brain hurty.

But before I get to the how, let's start with the why. The reason why we need disrupt education is because we need to change education. The reason we need to change education has been covered many times in many places (see here and here) - basically the world is changing, industry is changing, schools are not. Okay they are. But at a pace so glacial I am not convinced we will see the widespread and deep seated change we need unless something happens to disrupt on a system wide level.

So what (short of something catastrophic like war or natural disaster) might cause the level of disruption that might result in something akin to radical educational change?

Here's a few ideas (please don't mistake inclusion of ideas as approval of ideas - this is simply a indulgent "ponder piece").

Charter or Character Schools?

A couple of weeks ago I had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from David Seymour. Unexpected because I didn't think he'd actually front and unexpected because I didn't expect to find him so interesting. No. I am not a fan of charter schools. In fact the reason from Mr Seymour's visit was actually a direct result of the blog post I wrote about Why the hell can't we just have more character schools - An open letter to David Seymour and whilst he didn't change my mind about my preference for character schools over charter schools (in fact he even conceded that maybe character schools "could" have been the answer) he did raise the rather interesting notion of charter schools being a virus (yes I also snorted at this analogy) but actually, he had a point. There are many ways to lead innovation and change and as far as he was concerned the concept of charter schools has the power to be infectious and therefore spread change. Personally I don't think charter schools are the virus I wish to see spreading, but if we replaced charter with character I think he could be on to something. Think about it, small agile institutions are where we see innovation happen - the large corporations often feeding off the small agile companies by adopting innovative practice by gobbling up these companies - think Facebook or Google who have adopted a PacMan like approach to becoming innovative by literally consuming the small and agile start ups. How might we translate this approach in the educational landscape - activate a vast number of small agile character schools around the country that might prototype and then be absorbed into larger less agile schools?

Communities of Schools?

Can the networking of schools lead to transformed educational practice or might it simply embed and strengthen the status quo? On one hand IES has the potential to form genuine communities of learning who might be able to develop a genuine community for the learner, wrapping around their learning journey from entry into ECE to graduation into tertiary or industry. However, forming a community might not be enough, without intervention and demanding innovation, you may just strengthen the status quo and enable communities to build barricade which enables them to fortify and resist change even more effectively than before. Bigger doesn't always equate to better and a network can soon become a net that further stymies innovation and risk taking. As a member of the 21st Century Learning Reference Group (who wrote the Future Focused Learning in Connected Communities report) I did try my best to campaign for a future-focused innovation focus to be wrapped around the initiative, but alas my pot-banging fell on deaf ears. Whilst innovation is mentioned in the plans, I worry that the "improvement agenda" will dominate - and my concern is that "improvement" in isolation can be achieved through some less than forward thinking means - think rote learning, narrowing of the curriculum and either greater adversity to risk-taking. In fact all we may achieve is more of the same but with increased hierarchy and fewer overarching leaders for the ministry to deal with. Efficient? Maybe. Innovative? Probably not.

Assessment Reform?

I have oft harped on about the potential for future-focused assessment practices (see here) as being the tail that just might wag the dog. In fact "reimagined assessment practice" could very well be the disruption that is required. The thing that won't provide this disruption is tweaked assessment practice, aka digitised exams. Again, I am concerned that we will take what could be revolutionary (i.e. forgoing exams altogether for multi-media portfolios of learning) and turn it into the banal (i.e. doing your exams online). We will do this because we don't want to "frighten the horses". Personally I'd rather frighten them than bore them to death.

Of course such reimagining is nigh on impossible thanks to the buggers at our NZ universities. University requirements are so prescriptive one could make mistake them for being all lofty and rigorous. Bullsh*t. They are simply easy to compile into an innocuous grade point average that puts all the work back on us, the secondary educator (at the free place of study), so the student can have the honour of being a "bum on the seat" (at the overpriced and spectacularly underserving institution). Like we are suffering some sort of servitude to the mighty tertiary princesses shouting "Let them eat cake!" as we scurry to serve up the exact requirements. Okay might have got carried away, but you get my point - why the hell are we stymying innovation and creative assessment practices for our young people to simply meet their scurrilous demands. Why can't we roll around in the joy of helping our learners to craft a rich portfolios of learning and let the the universities do the work in assessing the portfolios themselves?

What else might we do? 

I like that Teacher Led Innovation Fund - maybe we could breed some more of those babies?
What about getting crash hot innovative educational specialists partnering with BOTs on all key appointments in schools?
What about limiting Principal tenures to five year periods and incentivise moving to schools in need?
What about incentivising movement across the board, make it possible for job sharing, job swapping, industry experience etc. Teachers can be a stagnant (safe) bunch.
What about rethinking the notion of times, terms and locations of schools?

Am interested in what you think. Maybe you don't even agree disruption or transformation is necessary or you think glacial change is okay?

*Oops. What was meant to be short turned into a rave...at least it got me going and I sense there is much more to come.

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