originally published April 27, 2005 in my blog entitled Schooling ≠ Education
Anyone participating in the process of educational change or anyone who is thinking about making changes to a school or school system is faced with making several significant choices. These choices are not typically addressed consciously and yet they impact every other choice that’s made along the way.
These ‘choices’ are actually answers to several questions. These answers begin to uncover some fundamental beliefs about the nature of human beings and how human beings learn. From my point of view, these ‘questions’ cut at the very core of any educational change process.
The first question is one that determines the systemic ‘vantage point’.
Question: Is education as we know it fundamentally flawed and hence needing redesign?
or
Is education as we know it generally working and simply needing improvement?
At first glance the significance of this question may not be apparent as I think most people who engage in thinking about education and learning have a strong desire to improve what we currently call ‘school’. The significance of this question – or it’s answer – is the clarification of a systemic vantage point. This systemic view will determine ‘a path’ in which the process of change will travel. In many cases answering this question will save the change agents significant heartache (not to mention time and energy). Improvement and redesign (design) are completely different activities and require different strategies, different types of knowledge, different skills, different resources and require different kinds of effort (hence time).
Improvement
If an individual or group of people believe that education is generally working and simply needs improving then the universe of possible solutions (or improvements) will lie within a certain bandwidth of options (or ‘right answers’). If improvement is the approach taken to educational change that implies then a series of follow-on questions that need to be asked. Those questions include but are not limited to are:
What should we improve? Why?
What improvement will make the most difference (provide the most bang for the buck so to speak)? What shouldn’t be improved? Is anything sacred (beyond question)?
How will we know things have improved? How do we define improvement (what is ‘improved’)?
Redesign
If an individual or group of people believe that education as they know it is fundamentally flawed and needs redesign, then the universe of possibilities (or right answers) becomes very different from the universe of possibilities that an improvement focus provides.
Essentially this individual or group has engaged in a design process and as such has embarked on a journey that, by definition, will have a uniquely different ‘right answer’ for each group that takes this path.
A design process often begins with a relatively clean slate and has no preconceived answer built in. This is a wholly different and much more complex process then improvement and yields wildly different results (potentially).
If redesign is the approach taken to educational change then the next series of questions needing to be asked include:
What is the purpose of education?
What is learning? What is education? Who’s responsibility is it for a learner’s learning?
If we had an education system why would we want one?
A follow-on question that needs to be answered prior to beginning any educational change process determines the human vantage point.
Question: Are human beings born good and ‘learn’ to be bad?
or
Are human beings born bad and need to be made good?
Again, the significance of this question may not be apparent at first glance but the answer to this question begins to get at some very core beliefs about human beings and human nature. The beliefs we have about human beings and human nature determine our approach to learning and significantly impact our ability to ‘see possibilities’ for human potential.
The ‘universe of possibilities’ available to an aspirant for change will be shaped by their beliefs about human potential. These beliefs will color one’s approach to learning. In addition, there is a lot of research on the brain and how humans learn but our beliefs will have an influence on how we view this research and how we might utilize it.
May 2024
I’m surprised I didn’t include another philosophical question (or perspective) I believe is critical for anyone making changes in schools and schooling. That is whether you are committed to and come from a place of
Win/Win vs Win/Lose
Are you committed to Win/Win transactions or are you ok with Win/Lose transactions?
The answer to this question will influence the ‘universe of solutions’ (the solution space) and be relevant to all the questions above. Similar to the last question in the article above, knowing which one of these perspectives (or beliefs) you have will influence the ‘universe of possibilities’ available for solutions. Said another way, this belief will influence the ‘solution space’ and help change agents understand more of the implications implications for the solutions they develop.
Practitioners with a commitment to win/win transactions will lean towards, look for and find solutions that are generative and potentially less destructive. They will look for and find solutions where all stakeholders win.
Practitioners who believe in or are committed to win/lose believe for someone to win someone else must lose. These practitioners will look for and find solutions where one or more stakeholders lose. Changes made from this perspective have a tendency to lead to further complications down the road.
