Administrator ' s Corner
Changing the education status quo
By Graham Norris
“ Transformation is the sum of wellchoreographed incrementalism .”
What a jargon-loaded quotation that is ! It is an interesting one because , if you spend a moment to work out what it means , you ’ ll struggle to forget it . Perhaps the most common misconception about transformation is that it is a visible big bang . Maybe it is , but usually it isn ’ t . Think about how mobile communications technology has transformed during our lifetimes . The big bang moment was the appearance of the first mobile handset . The transformation since has been even more remarkable . Anywhere , anytime access to the technosphere to communicate with anyone or anything we need , through numerous version upgrades over the years - in other words , well-choreographed incrementalism . That ’ s how education changes too . Educational reform is not about big bangs . It ’ s about hard-won incremental steps .
How well do we choreograph the steps , so that they all lead to the transformation we seek ? Do we know what transformation we need , and why ?
Teachers everywhere are trying to shift from teaching about to teaching how to , often in response to curriculum reforms focused on outcomes . In many parts of the world , teachers are now advancing powerful and successful approaches to investigative
learning , which are about the how to of application , based on higher-order thinking skills .
So , how is the classroom changing to promote these ‘ how to ’ skills ?
Perhaps we ’ ve seen the change from blackboards to whiteboards , but has pedagogy really shifted as a result ? Is the teacher still seen as the holder of knowledge to be imparted to the student , probably with an examination to check students ’ memory once done ? Think again about the unlimited knowledge at our fingertips in the technosphere and the skills we need in order to process that information . This isn ’ t about teaching our students to store knowledge as if they are some kind of computer hard drive , but to help them to find out how to process the knowledge in productive ways - more like the computer processor does .
How do we shift teaching so that it unleashes the vital how to skills ? Perhaps we need to be thinking more about the system of change itself – the choreography of incremental steps that lead to transformation ?
We know about self-evaluation and have been getting better at it for decades . Self-evaluation means looking inwards ; knowing our schools inside out . Most of us do this by analysing data forensically , by finding out what people think and using their views and , most importantly , by looking in on lessons to evaluate the quality of learning and teaching live .
We are also getting better at looking outwards , learning from others to challenge our own thinking . We do this by sharing practice with colleagues , by benchmarking our data , and through professional networks .
How often do we look forwards with a clear focus on what our students will need to be able to do in 20 years ’ time ?
This is the most vital perspective of all . Without a clear view of what students will need , we could well be doing brilliantly at teaching them things that will have no relevance in the future . That will probably impress our selfevaluation too . Take , for example , handwriting . Have you ever counted the hundreds of hours we spend in school teaching students how to write legible script ? However , if we look forwards , do we really believe that handwriting will be an essential life skill in 20 years ? Might some of that time be better spent on developing the skills , dispositions and values we need to use in the technosphere productively ?
Perhaps now is the time to start thinking about the future , then , if we haven ’ t already . In my next article I will explore transformative tools that help us do just that – to help us all to think about how to change .
8 | Mar - Apr 2017 | | Class Time