Epic Design Challenge for Schools
Dr. Robert Maxfield and Dr. Suzanne Klein welcome podcast guest, Will Richardson, the co-founder of the Big Questions Institute. Author Homa Tavangar, who has frequently spoken about diversity, equity, justice and global competence co-created this Institute, which is driven by questions. Mr. Richardson explained, "We don't believe that there are a lot of answers right now, but we do believe that there are some really important questions that we need to be asking."
According to Will Richardson, "We are in the midst of an epic design challenge right now, to try to figure out what it is that schools need to become. This is not just because of the pandemic, but because of many other things that have happened and come to the surface in the last couple of years. What we have been doing has contributed to this moment in some pretty powerful ways, and the only way we're going to get out of this moment is through education redesigned. We have to be willing to take every part of our system, every piece of our practice and ask: Do we want to continue doing this? What is sacred? What do we want to leave behind in this moment? What do we want to take forward with us? How does it comport to our understanding of how people and specifically children learn? How is it relevant for the moment that we find ourselves in? Do we want to continue to do it and if not, then what do we replace it with? The problem is that a lot of these practices are very deeply embedded in the narrative of school.”
Looking at models of redesign, Will Richardson pointed out, "most of the really transformative, progressive changes are in new innovative startup schools that have been built for that purpose. Kids are doing real work for the world there. They have real agency and input on what the experience of school looks like. They are developing all sorts of skills and literacies and dispositions, more than this emphasis on content knowledge and on recall. But taking a school or school system that's been around for a long time, and moving it to something like that is excruciatingly difficult for any number of reasons.”
When asked what two or three things he hopes that schools have the courage to begin with, Will Richardson suggested that right now “there's just a ton of capacity building that we need to do in terms of leadership- teachers, parents, community members. That's number one, we have to get a contextual coherence as to what's happening in the world. Budget our time and money to educate ourselves to a level where we can look at schools through a different lens to make the best decisions we can for kids.”
“The second thing is that we need to get some coherence around or some common language around what learning is. Learning, success, achievement, all of those things; we need to have some conversations as to how we define those and how maybe our mission becomes different when we use those lenses to look at our work.”
Will Richardson observed “kids find that they have a lot more agency outside of school to learn, to connect, to create. Most kids say they're doing their most interesting, important work on their own, not in school. Kids have a sense of the changes and challenges we face in the world today. They are aware of the conversations around justice and concerns for the climate, so schools need to be relevant."Student voice and agency is critical. “If we're talking about kids, kids need to be at the table. Kids need to have a voice because they are bringing a perspective and a knowledge base that many adults don't have. We can't make really good decisions about the future for our children if we're not listening to them. In many ways they know more than we do about what's going on and about how learning is possible in the world today. If we are going to make good decisions, we have to put the collective in front of the individual. He referred to Otto Scharmer, author of Theory U, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018) whose work advances the need to shift from ego systems to ecosystems.”
When asked about how to reverse the declining numbers of education majors, Mr. Richardson proposed “we have to make it more of a learning opportunity for the teachers. Create environments where they are engaged, creating and learning. The way to do that is redesigning the role", so students and teachers can come together in really healthy, joyful ways, to do collaborative, dynamic, important work in the word. "We need to center wellness in order for kids to learn and flourish by cutting back to the things that are most important and that matter most. I think that would be the one message; try as hard as you can to advocate for less right now and more wellness."
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