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This newsletter written by Bruce. Feedback to: bhammonds@leading-learning.co.nz

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The New Education Agenda for the 21stC: 'Creative adaptation at the local level'

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Newsletter theme: Do we need to develop new creative local possibilities or continue to respond reactively to ongoing educational crisis by imposed mandates?

This newsletter covers the following points:

1. The current reality - two conflicting models for change.
2. Vision of personalized learning - is the UK leading the way?
3. Will it be possible for 'mere mortals'? - thoughts from Dean Fink
4. Solving the paradox of 'top down' or 'bottom up' change: A vision for the future, as outlined by Michael Fullan, based on the need for 'teachers to transform education'
5. Some conclusions .Fullan outlines a powerful vision for us all to work towards but do we have the leadership at the central and community levels? If so will this will be an exciting challenge for us all.

Half way through the first decade of the 21stC it is time to reflect on the shape of education for the new Millennium. Is it time to redress the central local balance? We think so. Do you?

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1. There are two responses to education change.

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Worldwide here are those who continue to genuflect toward the alter of standardization, efficiency and accountability. Although they realize that things are not working out as planned, those who follow this approach are doing their best to whittle away the countless standards in an attempt to make them more manageable to 'deliver' and assess.

This technocratic 'top down' approach may have been watered down for primary schools but it is still firmly in place at the secondary level. In New Zealand, the NZ Certificate of Educational Achievement ( NZCEA), with its complicated units and levels, 'fits' uncomfortably with school structures and mindsets that haven't changed since comprehensive high schools were established worldwide in the 1950s.

These general purpose schools now face real challenges to transform themselves in high quality learning organizations able to offer a personalized education to suit the diverse needs of every student. To compound the problem, the general public remains unaware of the deep issues of the need for educational transformation, being sidetracked by the intricacies of the NZCEA. Even the teachers, except for an important creative minority, have their minds firmly shaped by the archaic environments they work in and struggle to provide any real alternatives. Implementing the NZCEA seems to take up all their time and energy.

For all this there are powerful voices in western countries that are backing the proposition that it is time to re-think and re-invent high schools and, in the process, develop a unified approach across all ages of learning.

The means to achieve this is not so certain. Education is still firmly in the hands of the technocrats and policy makers whose answers amount to improving what we now have. Their answers are 'top down' solutions to the wrong questions. Even in New Zealand the Ministry still holds to this 'top down' agenda. The current revision of the National Curriculum is planned to be 'official' in 2007 to give time for everyone 'to get on board' 'their' new documents. At least the technocrats have learnt the lesson that teachers need time to absorb new documents. Rather than 'tinkering with the deck chairs on the Titanic' they ought to remember that, while experts built the Titanic, the Ark was built by an amateur!

This technocratic approach to solving current educational problems is an attempt to improve the countries economic viability. In NZ the Ministry policy analysts have rushed to get 'on board' the latest panacea - the idea of 'key competencies' as outlined in a recent OECD report. Nothing wrong with concept, except its mechanistic name, and nothing new either. I guess it fits in well with all the technocratic jargon of 'delivering the curriculum', achieving 'targets', measuring achievement and seeing the students as education consumers. Nothing much about developing a love of learning; to difficult to assess we presume!

It is just not imaginative enough. We are moving into an age of ideas, imagination and creativity and need more than 'tinkering' to develop the only real resource we have - the talents and ingenuity of our students - if we are to thrive as nation in the future.

There is second approach to change; one that reflects more a discourse of possibility and re-invention than one of crisis or timid improvement. This approach seeks to transform the system and focuses on new understandings about how students learn and the conditions required to allow creativity to flow. It is an approach that places more hope on the possibility of developing a diversity of locally developed situations.

This has always been the approach we have supported and it also taps into the strengths of an emerging 'millennium generation' and their needs, rather than nationally imposed prescriptions. Youth today are idealistic and have high expectations for themselves and the future, coupled with a growling cynicism and distrust of those in authority .And who can blame them? This agenda of local creative possibility is more upbeat, positive and student centred.

Whatever the agenda there is worldwide agreement that things need to change. Primary and secondary schools have been allowed to develop as two completely different organizations rather than a seamless unified integrated system ; Middle Schools fit uncomfortably, as if in an educational 'no mans land'. Many students, particularly the disadvantaged, must find changing schools like 'visiting a foreign country', compounded by the fragmented subject teaching of high schools. As a result of this dysfunction too many students 'dropout' without achieving adequate qualifications - in NZ it is approximately 30%. Even the 'successful' are limited in outlook by their experiences.

We worry about our 'achievement tail' failing to understand that the current fragmented dysfunctional school system, compounded by the schools professional isolation from the communities they are supposed to serve, may well be the problem . Appreciating that the schools themselves, designed for an industrial age, might be contributing to school failure, particularly as students enter secondary school , is only slowly being realized - but with little sense of urgency.

So in the meantime too many students are 'compulsorily miss-educated'.

Until we have the courage to act we will be dictated to by politicians and technocrats, with 'red tape in their veins', who will always look towards simplistic 'top down' solutions. Their answers are limited to: fewer but higher standards, an obsession with literacy and numeracy, standardized testing and auditing anything that moves. Brave new world indeed! And every year schools fail in greater numbers.

Secondary schools in particular remain 'prisoners of their time', busy 'tracking', grouping and sorting students; regimented by timetables, bells and fragmented class periods. Even the factories, on which the schools were modeled on, have long past this mechanistic 50's formula. Such schools would be OK if it were 1965!

Added to this the world has changed even if schools have not: globalization, terrorism, instant communication, changing demographics, transitory careers and the new capital of human talent, mark the first decade of the 21stC. The first country to seriously re-invent their education system to tap into the creativity of all its students will be a winner. For too many students the vision of mass education of the 50's has turned into a nightmare.

At least there are new optimistic and democratic ideas to consider, even if they operate beneath the radar of all but a few. These ideas, an alternative to the 50s myth of standardization and mass education, place a greater emphasis on the assets of students, teachers, and their communities, and not in patching up identified weaknesses.

All sorts of strategies are emerging worldwide. In some cases entire new schools are being imagined; in others large schools are dividing into smaller schools on the same site; in others areas talent based schools are emerging, and of course there are schools without buildings making use of the local community and/or the internet. All are premised on the need to recognize students' voice', identity and individual talents, and all value supportive and reflective relationships with adults in the community. The Educational Foundation established by Bill and Melinda Gates currently supports 700 such schools, Ted Sizers 'Coalition of Essential Schools' and Dennis Littky's 'Big Picture Schools' both provide excellent models for schools to customize. We are not short of ideas. No doubt there are also similar ideas in action in New Zealand with similar potential.

The challenge then is to transform the general purpose high schools of the 20th century into high quality diverse learning organizations of the 21st. The new curriculum of the future, the Gates Foundation suggests, must be based on a new set of three R's: 'rigour, relevance and relationships'. We would also add an appreciation of personal excellence.

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2. The reinvention of Personalized Learning.

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At least politicians, and their technocrats, have just discovered that it is the quality of teaching that is the most important variable within a school to ensure students learn! Recent research has emphasized that the most important variable of all is a child's home life but that is another issue. As Michael Fullan has reminded us learning depends on 'the power of three' - students, parents and teachers working together.

This leads to the latest educational 'buzz' words 'personalized learning'. Personalized learning is capturing the imagination of educationalists worldwide and interesting material is being published the UK Department of Education and Science. Personalized learning is about 'adapting the school to the unique needs of the students, as opposed to the traditional practice of making students fit to the school'.

As Dean Fink, the Canadian Educationist reminds us, 'personalized learning, as exciting as it is, is hardly a new idea', saying 'it held favour in the 70s until it had its light extinguished'. But, he continues, 'that was then, this is now', 'that if seized optimistically it could be the significant movement of the 21stC'. It is time he says, 'to shake off the shackles of conformity and compliance, and imagine, create, innovate, do something.'

Innovative teachers have always based their teaching on a personalized learning philosophy making use of such pedagogy as: using rich, real and relevant problems; interdisciplinary inquiry; a 'just in time' rather the a 'just in case' curriculum; valuing learning styles; using focused feedback; a constructivist teaching approach; seeing teachers as 'learning coaches'; utilizing higher order thinking and multiple intelligences - to name a few. Creative teachers, who value the power of personal expression, would also add an appreciation of personal excellence; doing fewer things well.

It is becoming obvious that strategies to teach yesterdays students are unlikely to work today and, that if nothing changes in the classrooms, if teachers aren't enlisted, little will change. For too long in this managerial environment teachers and schools have been trapped between compliance and integrity! The time is right for new educational leaders to emerge to support teachers and schools who want to move towards personalized learning. 'No more prizes for predicting rain; prizes only for building arks'. Real change will requite courageous leadership- who though, is willing to take the first step?

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3. Will it be possible - or are there some 'bumps on the road'?

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Dean Fink sees, 'some bumps on the road' to implement personalized learning as a result of the current 'top down' self management environment:

1. Too much principal's energy is taken up with: 'time greedy' tasks ranging from leaky roofs, broken urinals to the 'care and feeding' of school governors and having to get favorable OFSTED (ERO) Reports, to focus on the more important role of being a 'leader of learners'.
2. As well too many principals in recent years have been appointed based on the 'government's laundry list of proficiencies' that are more 'managerial' than educational. Such principals, according to Fink, will find 'the idea of personalization rather scary.'
3. Then there is the 'standardization /flexibility' paradox. By trying to comply with imposed standardized curriculum expectations schools 'runs aground one basic core reality - the kids are non standard.' 'Schools that take on creative, innovative and flexible approaches still have to operate within the trappings of failed standardization' - tests, targets and ERO Reports.
4. The final dilemma is the 'good school/ real school' paradox. What the 'smug self satisfied elite', the middle class parents think is a good school is one that suits their children!

Dean's solution is for schools to work more collaboratively. Otherwise Dean believes the current challenges, unless things change, are beyond the capability of 'mere mortals'.

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4. Solving the paradox.

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Michael Fullan has written a valuable document, available from the UK Department of Education and Science, which solves many of the issues facing schools.

Fullan writes that 'top down' initiatives, such as the UK Literacy and Numeacy programmes, have improved achievement levels dramatically but that now the results have plateaued. This, he believes, is because of a 'lack of deep ownership' and that to move beyond the plateau will require engaging the 'ingenuity and creativity of practitioners. More importantly, that local ownership is the only way to develop better solutions.

Fullan writes about the need to go beyond current 'top down centrally driven ways of working', which he says, can only take us part way; but on the other hand he warns us that 'decentralized strategies' which seek a 'thousand flowers to bloom do not take us very far…..not enough flowers bloom; and good flowers do not get around (to create) critical breakthroughs'.

Fullan's answer is to 'unleash all those who work at the lowest levels and to access (what one writer calls) the wisdom of the crowds'. This, Fullan believes can only be done if people feel their opinions count, if diversity is valued, and if it is decentralized enough to draw on local knowledge. And there has to be a means of turning independent judgments into collective decisions.

This is a solution that we at Leading and Learning have always been committed too. Perhaps it is an idea whose time has come? We are hoping so.

The role of the centre, according to Fullan, is to create the conditions where 'local wisdom can be amassed and mined.' The need is to 'invite the system as a whole to engage in this specific adaptive change of reaching levels never before reached.'

To achieve these 'higher levels', Fullan says, we 'have to draw on and reconcile the power, resources and actions of the centre on the one side, with the ideas, wisdom and engagement on the other. We need a system that mitigates the weaknesses of both…and builds on combined strengths.'

'There is no way' Fullan continues, to achieve thus 'shift of mind' unless we 'learn by doing.' And this will take anew kind of leadership at all levels to break through the status quo as there are 'powerful forces, sometimes called inertia that can easily have the upper hand in preventing shifts.'

Leadership will be needed to develop the necessary 'we-we or collective identity' both laterally and vertically between schools. 'Individual heads', Fullan states, will have to 'become almost as concerned about the success of other schools as they are about their own school.' The context of schooling needs to change from what one writer calls 'look at me schools' to 'look at us' schools. The idea of locally appointed people, to act as school liaison mentors, is one suggestion Fullan offers.

Tensions between the central and the local will have to be lived with creatively, and empowered school networks, Fullan says, need to have the courage to critique current unhelpful national directions. The challenge is for schools to develop quality networks to spread 'high quality practices' and in turn to assault the current standards movement which has now plateaued. Networks of schools, Fullan writes, will need to be guided by shared moral purpose and be committed to change. They need to positively interact beyond their own situation to identify, extend and share innovative practices. For older principals it will like going back to an earlier more collaborative environment!

Problems, Fullan believes, have to be solved locally and schools will have to take the responsibity for outcomes. There will always be a tension between local and vertical authority, at all levels, but from this 'dynamic tension' creative solutions will develop.

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5. Some conclusions: the best of both worlds!

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For too long we have moved between 'top down' and 'bottom up' approaches, although 'bottom up' revolutions have had short lives and rarely have made it into secondary or high schools. Top down approaches, with their 'one size fits all mentality' have an instant appeal to politicians and the conservative parents groups - particularly those parents whose children currently benefit from the status quo.

But, as we have pointed out, there are powerful voices (none the least Bill Gates) who believe the way current high schools are organized, are past their 'use by date'; or in Bill Gates's word 'obsolete'. And there are plenty of examples worldwide for a country like NZ to customize to suit NZ conditions... In an age of imagination and ideas New Zealand needs to develop the talents of all students; this is currently not the case. No country as yet has developed a talent based education system but a personalized learning philosophy would provide the means.

Transformational approaches focus on tailoring an education to suit the talents of every learner, valuing diversity rather than standardization. There are plenty of ideas to try if we had the imagination and leadership to do so. Personalization of learning, creating schools as learning communities based on shared beliefs, and linking home and school, is an excellent unifying philosophy. Not only has it the power to develop the talents of every learners but it would also solve the problems of learners, who worldwide disengage from school in their early secondary years, by creating a unified education system based on sound pedagogy.

But, as Dean Fink says, things that get in the way of principals being 'lead teachers/learners' will have to go. It is just not possible to realize the dream of personalized learning in the current 'top down' environment. And schools will have to work together to share ideas and give each other mutual support if it is to succeed. This will require leadership to break through the privatization created by the current competitive ethic.

Michael Fullan believes that local 'creative adaptability' is not only a good idea but that it is the only way to ensure all students achieve higher levels. This means redefining the role of central government and local initiatives - finding a new creative balance between the old dilemma of 'top down or bottom up' change.

It is not about 'letting a thousand flowers bloom'; it is about sharing ideas so energy is not dissipated or schools becoming over committed. There is no way schools can wait for answer to come from on high - those at the top simply do not have the appropriate wisdom to share. Those with the problems, Fullan says, will have to solve their own problems in as many diverse ways as possible - and successful ideas will have to be shared. New liaison roles to help schools create networks, and learn from each other, will need to be established, but to succeed these cannot be seen as a central imposition.

We believe that all the ideas shared in this newsletter are very exiting, even revolutionary. Together they have an intellectual appeal, a 'future pull', or an 'attraction', that could well appeal to schools and teachers to commit themselves to being an integral part of a new positive future, able to solve problems beyond the capability of any central initiative. If so, it would be a dramatic shift, a shift with the potential to create the first unified 21stC education system

It could be the beginning of redefining community and democracy for the 21stC.

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Bruce Hammonds

Editor: www.leading-learning.co.nz

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References:

'Personalized learning and the paradoxes of leadership by Dean Fink to be found
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
UK Department of Education and Science 'Personalized Learning' Pamphlet
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-unit
Michael Fullan Dfes Pamphlet 'Systems Thinkers in Action; moving beyond the standards Plateau'
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-unit
Michael Fullan Book summary
www.leading-learning.co.nz/newsletters/vol01-no03-2002.html
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
www.gatesfoundation.org/Education/TransformingHighSchools
Denis Littky: The Big Picture Company www.bigpicture.org
The Coalition of Essential Schools www.essentialschools.org

There is a School Vision and Teaching Beliefs used by a number of schools in New Zealand to 'customize' on
www.leading-learning.co.nz/download-files/te-ara-vision-and-beliefs-number2.doc