IDTALK4ED LIVE EPISODE #210 - "Exploring the Future of Learning" (Tim Logan)

Welcome everybody to a brand new crossover episode. Yes, I said it, a crossover episode of Idane Talk for Educators Live, the show for the unsung heroes of education. I'm your host Kwame Sarfo Mensah, and if this is your first time tuning in to the podcast, I welcome you and I hope that today's episode is one that'll have you coming back for more. And if you're a returning listener or viewer of the podcast, As always, I welcome you back and hope that today's episode is one that you find informative, enlightening, and as always, insightful. So before we get into our special event, just a reminder for folks who are on YouTube, please hit that red subscribe button so you can get future notifications on new episodes of the podcast. If you're listening from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast, make sure you subscribe there as well. And then for those who would like to help us continue to build this platform and bring on awesome guests like the one we have today, you can do that in 4 different ways. If you are on Cash App, you can use the handle $IDTalk4Ed. If you're on Venmo, you can use our handle @KwameSM. If you are on PayPal, you can use the URL paypal.me/kwamism. And for now, we are still on Patreon, but real soon we're going to be moving our membership site to that DaneTalk website, and you'll get more information about that soon. But in the meantime, if you are on Patreon, you could become a patron and get some behind-the-scenes footage of the podcast, and you'll be able to get some perks as well. And of course, for future episodes and to check out past episodes, you can go to our main website at identitytalkforeducators.com. And today is a special day because I just found out that identity— that Learn to Relearn— see, I can't even talk today, I'm so excited. Learn to Relearn has been awarded an Epi Award. For Best Education Book in Commentary and Theory. So the IPPY Awards is a major independent book award ceremony that happens annually, and to get an IPPY is like the equivalent of getting a Grammy or an Oscar or any of those major entertainment awards. So it's a huge honor. And I know that this would not be possible without the support of you all. So for those who have been spreading the word about the book, for those who have been purchasing copies of the book, for those who have been sharing testimonials about how the book has impacted their practice as teachers and as school leaders, thank you, thank you, thank you. And please continue to spread the word so we can grow our community. You can do that by having somebody order a copy of the book today for themselves. Or if you have already read it and you love what you read, leave a 5-star review on Goodreads, Amazon, or wherever you listen, wherever you leave your reviews. And then of course, you can go to our main website for the book, learntorelearn.com, to learn more about the book today. Thank you again. Thank you again. All right, people, so We are now gonna go into the main event. As I mentioned before, this is a crossover episode. This is actually going to be the second one that we're gonna be doing. The first one that we did was with Jen Court, and I'm sure you all enjoyed that. So this is gonna be our second one, and I'm gonna bring on my co-host for today. Who's going to help us set the tone. So let's bring on Mr. Tim Logan. Hey, hey, hey, Design Podcast. Welcome, Tim.

Good to see you, Kwame. Special day, I hear. Pretty special day. I'm loving the red carpet you've got behind you. This is like in honor of your Oscar-winning moment, right? No, this is massive. This is huge.

I didn't think that. I didn't think it like that. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

No, congratulations. It's a really, really like Yeah, an amazing accolade and well deserved.

Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, so Tim, please let people know about Future Learn Design Podcast, which is an amazing podcast if you're not subscribed to it already. But I want to give you a chance to share a little bit about this.

No, thanks Kwame. I mean, it's great to be doing the crossover, and I've done also done one other crossover episode previously on the channel, so it's kind of a new thing for me too. But no, just, it's been a real pleasure to be able to have these conversations for the last 5 years on the channel. So it started, yeah, just around the pandemic. I guess everyone, everyone started a podcast in the pandemic, right? And not everybody carried on. Not everybody was crazy enough to carry on like digging in and doing week by week. You know, it's a, it's a lot, right? It's, it's a big commitment. And the thing that has kept me going is just being able to talk to amazing, um, amazing people who are doing incredible work across education and beyond, I would say. So one of the things I really want to be doing with the channel, with Future Learning Design, is bringing perspectives into the education space which are a bit less schooly, let's say, a bit more outside in terms of systems change or complexity or, you know, artificial intelligence, all sorts of things that bring kind of some different perspectives into the conversation, partly because I, you know, I really feel strongly that we need some radically new type of thinking about the kinds of institutions we live and work and learn in, dominated by the kind of schools and universities and colleges that we have come to know over the past few hundred years. But for me, that's really not the only way that we can do education, right? There is, there is something much more generative, much more open and loving. And as you, you know, as you say, allows people to bring their unapologetic selves into the space. And I just don't think we've got that currently. The way that we've currently structured schooling and formal learning institutions are not that, right? For all sorts of reasons, which maybe we can get into. But so really, yeah, that's been the kind of mission of the podcast for the last 5 years, trying to explore what that means and what kinds of alternatives, alternative approaches are already happening and kind of alternative ideas we might want to explore in order to work together as teachers, as leaders, as young people to try and co-create something better.

Yeah, and thanks for sharing that, Tim. And just let people know, Tim did mention that he started podcasting during the pandemic, so as we were talking about our respective podcasts, we discovered that we started around the same time. So that's true. Tim just celebrated his 5th anniversary for the Future Learning Design Podcast, and And of course, you all know that we just had our 5th year of Identity Talk Educators Live celebrating 200 episodes. So both major milestones. So congrats to you on that.

And to you. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's interesting. Yeah. No, just, I mean, exploring the connections as we've been exploring. I think it was super interesting having some pre-conversations about, you know, where are the connecting points and where might we explore together on this? So No, I'm super excited about having the conversation.

Yeah, for sure. And then of course, before we get into the nitty-gritty, I always like to lead the conversation with a very simple yet open-ended question that I ask everybody who comes on here. And that's simply, who inspired you to want to become an educator, Tim Logan? Why are you here today?

It's a good and deep question, right? It's, um, yeah, everyone's got their own little kind of their own journey towards that. Mine, I guess, was growing up in a household of teachers. My mum and my dad were both teachers.

And nice.

And I— this is in the, you know, in the east of England, growing up in the, you know, in the late '70s, '80s. I never thought I would become a teacher. It was always something that I understood that they had committed their lives to it in a way. My dad then deviated from that and went into kind of more computing, early computing stuff with the BBC Micro and early computing. But there was always a sense that that was a really important value in our house. And also, interestingly, it was a religious household. So growing up in a kind of— my parents had spent quite a bit of time doing, you know, religious work in different ways. They'd spent quite a bit of time living in Kenya before I was born. And the way they talked about that was some of the happiest times of their lives, but they were teaching there, but also kind of there as part of a church ministry as well. And so there's a real kind of growing up in this sense, like quite a lot of tension actually, interestingly, around both of those things, around the religion and the education, as I came to learn, come interested in philosophy and anthropology and these things that, you know, opening up to some of the colonial dynamics embedded in all of that, right? Kind of interesting, education and religion as kind of weapons of colonialism at the same time as being these, you know, a real commitment to some core important values about what it means to be human, about what it means to learn and grow as a human. So yeah, I guess growing up with some kind of interesting tensions around those things. And then personally, I did a lot of youth work with young people in different spaces, kind of starting in more, I guess, more church-based communities, but then in working with quite disengaged young people. And then my, my, I essentially, I realized that the youth work wasn't perhaps the career path that was going to actually, you know, when you start realizing those questions of how am I actually going to make a living and maybe have a family one day. And, you know, so I, I actually came to formal education as quite a pragmatic choice of like, well, I kind of need to get a career. I'm not sure I can keep doing the youth work thing. What happened quite quickly, which was interesting, was once I trained as a teacher I then essentially carried on doing the youth work thing, I would say. So within— I trained as a secondary educator in, you know, in middle and high schools, and really I carried on working with those most disengaged young people, particularly 14 to 16-year-olds who just really didn't want to be in school, like from rural populations in the UK, or, you know, you know, also in, in some city contexts where they just didn't— they weren't being served by the formal education system. Maybe they'd failed, they dropped out, they wanted another, another chance. So lots of work around skills-based curriculum, a lot of kind of social-emotional support, I guess, coaching, all of those, you know, those things that you do as an educator which are much more around how to support young people be in the right emotional and head, you know, and personal headspace to learn. Um, which, you know, for kids who have been through a lot of trauma or a lot of disengagement through their life, marginalized communities, that was, you know, that, that was a lot of the work actually, right? Not actually kind of teaching maths or teaching, you know, sociology, which I also did, but actually a lot of the work is just, is that kind of readiness to learn, building relationships, right? So it, it felt like the youth work stream kind of continued a little bit for me. And yeah, then I really discovered the more critical aspect of like, you know, this is not working for a lot of kids, and maybe, maybe we should look at why this isn't working rather than trying to support the young people. Obviously we want to do that, but also asking the bigger questions of why is it not working for so many young people kind of led me into, as I went through senior leadership in schools and then went freelance, it led me into really kind of leaning into those questions of how could we enable some more generative spaces that weren't so exclusive or exclusion— excluding, right? So, so yeah, I guess that's a little bit of a whistle-stop tour of how I came to be here.

So as far as the beginning of you thinking about how we can create these generative spaces, did that start when you were in your freelancing phase? Because I know for me, you start to think about ways in which we can do this thing called education differently, but you don't really go into the deep dive until you're fully removed from that traditional primary, secondary school space. So for you, when did that start for you, that thinking?

Yeah, that's— it's a great question because I think when you're in the institutional spaces, like, the possibilities of what like what is possible to think and do in those spaces are quite constrained by the way the space works, right? The timetable or the way the roles and responsibilities in the institution work, etc. Absolutely. So it does kind of limit, in a way, limit your imagination about what you think is possible until you start seeing what else is happening out there. So I guess, yeah, probably I was thinking about how we might do learning better, I would say, how we might innovate on kind of approaches to learning while I was in schools. But really the deep dive into what else is happening out there in home education networks or in unlearning contexts, unschooling, a much broader look, that didn't happen until I got outside of those formal institutional settings for sure. And I would say I've learned a ton by doing the podcast, actually. It's been an incredible space, just speaking personally, of learning for me. I don't know if you feel the same, but it really has. It started— the podcast for me started around the questions of innovative curriculum or pedagogies, or, you know, and actually even then I can almost see across the 5 years I've been doing it, the questions that I've been asking The kind of bigger framing themes of the questions I've been asking have got bigger and wider over the 5 years as I've learned more and more about just how deep some of the challenges are, right? It's not just the case of technical solutions around new curriculum or new pedagogies. There's some really fundamental assumptions built into the systems that until you start going really deep into them, which is easier when you're outside of them, It's really hard to kind of go quite deep enough to ask the right questions.

Yeah, and I think with the COVID pandemic happening, it forced us as a global society to rethink the way that we even do professional learning as educators, because you have to think about it. And I'm pretty sure it was the same way in the UK. Prior to the pandemic, we're probably in these big halls or in a classroom in our school institution where we're receiving a top-down type of professional learning experience that doesn't allow for input or doesn't allow for the teachers to tap into different modalities that allow them to learn and process information. But then once I got into the podcasting space, similar to you, I realized this could be another avenue we can take for professional learning. And I can't tell you how many times I've gotten testimonials and messages from colleagues and friends in schools who have said, Hey Kwame, we're actually using one of your podcast episodes for our professional learning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey Kwame, we're using this and we're pairing it with the text that we're reading for our PLC. That wasn't the case 5 years ago. We weren't doing this 5 years ago. We were very much text heavy. So as we're thinking about innovation, not just from a professional learning standpoint, but also with our students, I'm curious to know from you, what are some of the dangers that arise when innovation disregards things like power, privilege, and equity? And what are some things that we can do to avoid making those mistakes?

Yeah, so, I mean, again, another— it's a massive question, right? I think I'm interested in— I mean, I was, you know, looking at the books the amazing stuff that you've written, your amazing work, it really felt to me like there was, as you were kind of, you know, looking at your original book about shaping teacher identity, it was like, it really kind of raised some questions for me about who can I be when I'm in these spaces, right? And there's something about, I had a really great conversation with an amazing woman called Ida-Rose Flores just earlier this week, and I'm putting it out on the podcast next week, And part of that was about how the scripts and the scenes of the schools that we're in separate, do all this, do this incredible job at separating aspects of ourselves, right? So as you're talking about what's your identity as a teacher, my question there is how much of what you can, who you can possibly be, is actually constrained by the school scripts and scenes, right? Like, you know, you, you have to show up at this time to teach this lesson, and the way that the very rigid, you know, she was talking about separate, the way we separate young people from their family at a particular age, right? And then we separate obviously kids into different ages, etc., and grade levels. We also, there's a separation of like the professional from the personal as well somehow. So the idea that, you know, you show up in this professional role How do you maintain that professional role and actually maybe showing aspects of yourself and your own personal emotional state or identity or whatever is somehow sometimes frowned upon in these more rigid professional spaces? So I guess I'm saying that in the sense that the way we then do innovation in those spaces is often heavily constrained by the separateness that has already been kind of normed and, and built into the DNA of the system. So like, how it's possible to shift those systems often isn't in the, the more radical ways that we would like that would speak to power and privilege and equity, because there are only certain things that you can that there are limits to the innovation that are possible because of the way the metastructure of the overall system has been built, if you know what I mean. So it's like, it's a real challenge actually to do innovation kind of pragmatically inside a school setting in a way that really speaks to these questions, right, of power and privilege and equity. So I think, I mean, in a way, people like Zaretta Hammond, who I've had on the podcast, who's just amazing, and you and others and Kevin and, you know, critical educators are doing, I think, that's some of the most important work for me around what, where, how innovation can happen in spaces that are where at least there is a calling out of some of those power inequalities. In order to bring the right people together into the conversation so that, you know, there's many different perspectives on how the school needs to evolve right now, or, you know, taking young people's voices seriously, taking the voices seriously of not just dominant culture. There's a reflexivity that needs to happen about like how much can we self-reflect on, yeah, maybe there are some pretty kind of challenging power structures built into the scripts of this institution that we all live and work in every day. How do we become aware of those things while we're having the conversation about how the curriculum needs to evolve, or how the timetable might change, or how we might do project-based learning differently, or whatever? So I think it's really important to have some real honesty about how you have and hold those conversations, and who's in them, when you think about where does the school want to go, right? And whose perspective is actually driving that? Because often, as you say, from a professional learning model, often it's a top-down model of, you know, the leadership have decided that this is where we're going, or the district has decided, or, you know, so there's that idea of bringing many voices into the direction of the innovation is often even a challenging thing to do.

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Yeah, and I think that's what makes this situation so complex and nuanced, because like right now we're talking about teachers, right? We're talking about the institution of a school, so we're looking at it from a real macro— micro level right now. But if we want to go at a macro level, we have to even talk about our teacher prep programs, we have to talk about our colleges and universities, right? Because the way we were trained to become teachers 20+ years ago is very different from how teachers are getting trained now. And actually, let me take that back. I don't think it's that much different, which is the problem.

Yeah.

And that's where the innovation has to come in, because if we're talking about this word innovation there's a resource perspective that we have to look at where we're looking at AI, we're looking at other emerging technologies, other forms of pedagogy, other forms of approaches instructionally. But then there's also the, the mindset. And I feel like the mindset has to be the one that we have to prioritize because we have AI already. We have all these innovative ways of doing learning in a different way. The problem is there isn't the buy-in that should be there. The investment isn't there from every educator who is charged with the responsibility of teaching our young people. So then I'm curious, and I've thought about this a lot, how do we get our teacher prep programs, so not just our colleges and universities, but also our accelerated programs to catch up to the times that we are in? Because I think that's still a question that we have to answer.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I'd love to ask you a question on that in a moment, but just to answer that, I think deep work that you talk about in the book, right, for example, you know, the, the unlearning and relearning continually evolving teachers' practices as a reflexive professional and— or take that back, a reflexive human in a classroom with other humans, right? It's not just about being a professional. I think that's part of what I feel really passionately about. This is about how do we show up in spaces with other humans in a way that, as you say, you are open enough and the conditions are such that you can be challenged unlearn, relearn, all of those things that we need to do in order to call out some of the things that need to be called out, but also keep responding to what is needed now, right? As the new technology comes in, as the AI comes into the space, or how we honestly and openly reflecting on how we should respond to that based on big questions about the things we care about, what our deep values are about, what we hold true to as an organization or as a you know, as a community. There's some guiding, there's something really strong that needs to guide people and hold people in that reflection about, so what do we do now? Like, there's no script about how we have to respond to transformative technologies like AI, for example, that calls on all of us to be doing the work of saying, well, like sharing perspectives on it, helping, having other people help us see the things we are not seeing ourselves. Through dialogue and through, you know, just, just through that continual process of learning, which I think seems critically important to anything staying current, particularly with the speed at which everything's moving, right? Maybe just to come back to you, if I may, to ask you a question that— yeah, I'm conscious that this isn't a very practical or useful question because we work with the structures as they are. But my question is, like, do you feel like the structure of the institutions that we live and work and learn in every day, do you kind of limit the possibilities just in, like, based on some of the things I've already said? But like, for example, I was listening to someone talking about the fact that schools demand the kind of invisibilization of certain identities, right? They demand, they almost demand the erasure of identity to the theme of your channel, right? They actually demand people to leave their personal own cultural questions and belongings, or, you know, whatever you want to call it, at the door of the classroom when they come in. It's like, oh no, we're only here to learn academic content. Who you are as a person is actually unhelpful if you bring it into this space. It creates noise that is unhelpful to the business of academic learning, which is largely what we prioritize. So I guess, yeah, my question is, do you feel like there's something in the structures of the schools that we are just— are there that we have to work with right now that is actually deeply unhelpful to the kinds of conversations we want to have, kinds of more generative educational environments we might want to create?

Man, that's a big question. I think the first thing— no, but this is a really good question. The first thing I will say is the way our education system is structured right now is how it's supposed to be structured. When you think about the advent of formal education, it did not account for Black and brown people. I think that's number one. You can even go back to the eugenics movement and how that was used as a way to create a hierarchy of intelligence when it comes to Black and brown people versus white people. So there's a history documented that lets us know how this education system was structured. So when you think about what's happening in our world contemporarily is not a surprise because these are things that are remnants of the history. We think about Jim Crow and how they had the segregation of Black folks from white folks in the States, but she also saw that in the UK as well. They had their own version of that as well in the UK. We think about indigenous people Why were boarding schools created? Boarding schools were created so that young indigenous folks could be taken away from their reservations, and they could be stripped from their culture, stripped from their language, stripped from their traditional regalia, and forced to assimilate to a westernized culture that is foreign from who they are indigenously. And this still happens today in the form of dress codes, in the form of hair policing, right? Right. In the form of English-only laws, which still exist in some international schools, believe it or not, which I believe is very much oxymoronic. We're an international school and we have English-only policies. And we're not honoring the different home languages of the students who are coming into that space. But that's a whole nother conversation. So I would say in order for us to pursue and push for the change that we're looking for systemically, we have to interrogate the very infrastructure of formal education, which does require an unlearning, which I talk about a lot in my book, Learn to Relearn. We have to really interrogate and ask ourselves, why are certain things the way they are? Why is it so important for us to be in compliance to protocols and guidelines that are inhumane, that are counterproductive, that are antithetical to humanity, why is there such an allegiance to that mindset? And the only answer I can think of, Tim, is because that's what's been ingrained in us. We grew up in those similar systems where you just did what the teacher asked you to do. Nobody gave you the agency to question or even investigate why that's even a good choice or not a good choice.

Yeah.

And I think part of it too is just culture. I have two parents who grew up in Ghana, West Africa, and there was a huge priority in terms of education. But also there was a thing about making sure that you respect your elders no matter how wrong they are. So now we're not teaching our kids mutual accountability, right? And we think about— and I love talking about Paulo Freire because The Pedagogy of the Oppressed pretty much provides a playbook for how we can do education differently that's a bit more co-creative, that allows for the teachers and students to have interchangeable roles, right? Whereas like, as a teacher, I can be a student and learn from my students, and then the students can be the teachers and they can teach me something. So there's an exchange of knowledge because we come with different funds of knowledge that we could tap into. To our benefits. He was telling us that years ago, many, many years ago, before any of us were born. But yet— and this goes back to what I said before about the way that we are trained as teachers— how many of our institutions require us to read Paulo Freire in the education, like, teacher training program? How many of those institutions are saying, hey, I want you to go ahead and read Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Not too many. Yeah, yeah, not too many. And there's a reason why, because the answers are in that book.

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, I, I'm with you, man, 100%. And I would also say though that it's quite— it's a difficult thing to really pursue that line of inquiry and then have to work in the structures in which those cultural codes of domination and erasure are built into the codes of the structures, right? That's kind of where I'm coming from. It's like, yes, we have to do that because that's what exists, right? The schools that we have now are the schools our young people, our own children are in, right? Like literally now, this minute, in France where I'm living and where you are. It's, you know, that's the reality. So we have to work with that. I'm always conscious of that. And at the same time, this is kind of the question that's really motivating me now is what other kinds of spaces can we co-create that might one day become, become well established enough to start replacing these structures in which, as you said, all of this stuff is encoded into these schools, that they're actually, I think, largely unhelpful structures, as you said, of like, of deep conditioning. We just— one of my favorite people I've had on the podcast, Marie Baptiste, an Indigenous scholar, just amazing woman, and she talks about marinating in Eurocentrism, right? The schooling system has marinated us all in Eurocentrism, and it's because it's a colonial construct, right? It's a colonial industrial construct, and whether you want to whether you want to dismiss what I'm saying as wokery, whatever, it's just, it's a fact, right? It is a fact. It was created at a particular cultural moment in a particular geographic location, which built into it all of those codes of, you know, what does it mean to be a good person? What does a good society look like? And it was built on all these concepts of hierarchy and disembodiment and all of this stuff. And so I think I'm increasingly questioning those institutions, right? Like the scripts in those institutions. I sound like a broken record now, but like, how do we— I guess, all right, here's a different way of thinking about a different question. Where do you see other ways of learning together in community in spaces that are not inside the school? Because that's one of my other, my other questions is this idea of educating our young humans to become, you know, to become fully human. That happens in all sorts of spaces, not just in a school, and we've somehow been led to believe that the only place where learning happens is in a formal learning institution, right? What about the churches? What about the school, you know, the, the out-of-school clubs, societies, sports? Um, I don't know, like, where do you see those kinds of, that kind of learning happening in, in more, more in community?

Yeah, and I think you started to answer your own question. Like, like the church. No, this is good. Well, This goes back to what you said, Tim Logan, about schooling versus education, right? This is where the difference lies. When I think about schooling, and you probably agree with me when I say this, that's more about compliance, that's more about adherence to norms and protocols that you don't bother to question. They're just ingrained in the school's culture because that's how things have always been. And that also stems from the dominant culture, which you just referenced, right? Education happens anywhere and everywhere. Education can happen at home. If you got books at home, you could You could show books to your children, read books to them. They can read books to you. Education can happen in libraries. Librarians are educators. They're directing us to literary resources that we can access so we can gain information that we may not get from our brick and mortar of a school.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna say libraries. We can also say the churches as well, the mosque, whatever faith you practice, because our worldview is informed by our faith. And a lot of those principles, those moral principles, those ethical principles, they seep into the way that we look at society. So we have to look at religion, right? We also have to look at recreational teams, recreational organizations, nonprofits. There are so many areas, Tim, where education is happening right now. We got influencers who are on social media providing social commentary on these very issues that we're speaking of. Right? They do it in their own way. They do it in their own way.

Look at what you said about your podcast channel, right? Being a source of professional learning for educators. I mean, you are one of those individuals. Exactly. I mean, it's absolutely— people are finding it where they, where they need it, which is super exciting. Yeah.

And then also, Tim, homeschooling too is on the rise. You're seeing a lot more parents pull out their children from formal educational institutions in order to take control of their educational experience, whether it's the parent that's the teacher or they're able to find a, a tutor or a team of teachers that can come to the home to provide that learning and supplement. And there are actually many examples of virtual schools that are functioning in that manner where you see different volunteer community facilitators come in, right, to provide some learning, to teach whatever course they feel is necessary. It's not just your traditional math, science, social studies, history, humanities courses. We're talking about courses that are responsive to the needs of their immediate communities.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Courses that speak to their knowledge of self, courses that speak to their identities that they bring to the table. You know, that is, that's what's there, and we had those indigenous ways of educating back then. You go across any historically marginalized community, they'll tell you some ways in which they provided education in a non-formal way. We got to get back to that.

Love that. Exactly. It makes me think of the Saturday schools in the UK, the supplementary schools, like African Caribbean migrants who got together, and it was like, clearly it wasn't working in the formal schools. Either they were being excluded from the formal schooling or or not, but there was a significant amount of harm, you could say, or erasure that was happening in those formal institutions, so they established these supplementary schools. But what I find interesting about that is even the language of school, we keep using the language of school, right? They were called supplementary schools, so maybe that's not an issue. But I agree with you, it's like these kinds of spaces have been have existed in communities, particularly in marginalized communities, forever, in order to create spaces where the things that we value are honored, right, continue to be honored even if, in spite of, in the shadow of this eugenic thing that you've got going on, as you said, right. I mean, I love that you brought in eugenics. It's a really, it's a It's a controversial topic, right? When you bring it up at a dinner party, it's a tricky thing. You get some funny looks. But I think, and I, you know, this is, this is just what I'm learning from other people who know a lot more about it than I do, but I feel like it goes so deep into the DNA of what formal education institutions are about and are built around. That so many educators across the world aren't just simply not aware of how deep those roots go, right? So for example, any conversation about measurement in education has to acknowledge where those conversations have come from. And to your point about intelligence, right, and intelligence testing, you know, Francis Galton was the person who coined the term genetic— eugenics. And he is also the person who, you know, who created the intelligence, the IQ test, right?

That's right.

And a whole bunch of statistical, you know, amazing statistical innovations. You're a math teacher, right? You know, statistics. A lot of the statistics come from people like Francis Galton, who simultaneously is the person who coined the term eugenics. And so much of the kind of the weaving of those things together that we measure people in order to rank them, in order to put them into a hierarchy, in order to say who's better and who's worse, who should be in and who should be out. Like, you can't separate those things. So anyone who brings in the conversation about measurement into an educational space I think has to acknowledge that history. And I'm not saying we don't measure, I'm not saying we don't assess and measure, like, sure, there's a role for doing that in a thoughtful, critical, open way. Oof. There's accountability structure, blah blah blah, all of that stuff, but at the same time you've got to acknowledge where this history comes from. So yeah, I love that you brought that in.

Yes, and Tim Logan, and this is actually a perfect segue into a question that I have for you regarding metrics and accountability systems, because we know that for the longest time we've been brought up on standardized tests, which has been even more of a conversation over the past quarter century. We've talked about grading systems, we've talked about different ways to measure intelligence, to measure academic competence. But we've come to realize that a lot of these tools of measurement are done in a vacuum and do not account for the identities, particularly of marginalized student communities. So for me, my question to you is, how do we move away from those metrics and accountability systems that do create that erasure of identity and don't account for the communities in which the students are coming from?

Again, brilliant, brilliant question. I don't know the answer to it, if I'm going to be completely honest, right? I can— I definitely have some, some thoughts about it, but moving away from those things, again, it's like such a deep set of conversations and deep work, right? Because because those things are built right into the, the DNA of the system again. But I guess one of the questions is, why do we need them? What is it that they provide for us? Like, the outputs of the metrics and the accountability systems, whether it's like, you know, even down to professional goal setting and, you know, KPIs for teams in schools, right? From an organizational management perspective, All right, just so that people know—

I'm sorry, Tim, I didn't mean to cut you off, but just so that people know, KPIs, key performance indicators. So yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, folks aren't familiar.

I appreciate that. In a way, all of those things are used as quantitative proxies for something else. It's like, because we don't trust ourselves in the messy reality of what it means to be, you know, what it means to bring our full selves into the space, we want to somehow cut through that and find clean— problematic term— you know, measures that we can trust that will tell us the things that we want to know, like how much have young people learned. It doesn't tell us that at all, but we create this as a proxy just so that we can then continue with the system, continue with the decision-making that then needs to come off the back of having that data, right? Do I give this professional a promotion, or do I give this young person, you know, what grade do I give them? Do I promote them to the next grade? Whatever the decisions come off the back of, so it's an instrumental use of this quantitative data. And so there's something about the move away from that that requires a much more multidimensional approach that takes seriously The context I'm in, the way I show up, like the way I can demonstrate skills and competencies, like how, you know, I don't know, let's take an example of like oracy, right? You know, my communication skills. How do I show up and demonstrate those things in a space with other people? That can't— you can't just turn that into a nice quantitative measure that gives me a 7 out of 10 for public speaking or whatever. This is a really contextual skill that it's like, well, who is my audience? Who am I speaking with? How was I sensitive to the dynamics in that space? Like, it brings in a whole bunch of nuanced questions that just the idea of communicating with other people in a room requires. Then if we want to assess that, I think the term measure is actually really unhelpful. But if we want to assess that, then the receiving of that, the feedback that is then given to that young person who's trying out their public speaking skills needs to be nuanced. It needs to be largely qualitative. It needs to be like another human taking them seriously and saying, "I heard what you did there. I really like the way you did this. I think perhaps, you know, maybe you could think about—" other ways to approach this, which I noticed, you know, it has to— then the assessment process has to become more dialogic, it has to become more of a conversation somehow. And again, like I said at the beginning, I'm not saying I have an answer to how that should be done, because again, that's also really contextual. But— That's right. Part of our need for the quantitative measures is that they level up into an effective efficiency logic of the broader system. Like, I can't take the time to give that rich feedback because I don't, A, I don't have time, it's just not practical, and B, I can't put that in the spreadsheet of the mark sheet that then needs to go. I've got to like compress that data down into a number because that's what my manager has asked me to do, or that's what the system demands of me. So there's like so many layers why that kind of that compression of the data is essential for the continuing efficiency of the system to keep functioning. And so it's like, you can't ask about changing the assessment system without really asking about what do we value and what are the structures that take seriously what we value somehow.

Yeah, for sure. A lot of great commentary there. And as we approach the hour, I think it would be great for us to culminate this conversation with this question. And it's all about the future of education. So right up your alley. If you could make a bold shift that's going to change education in these next 5 years, what would that one bold shift be? That you could think of?

Yeah, nice. It's tough. In a way, loads of things need to happen simultaneously at many scales, right? So of course it's a really difficult thing to answer in some ways, but in another way, I would say maybe one of the boldest shifts would be something about having the courage to trust our humaneness and our intuitions around taking seriously the ways that people are showing up in spaces and thinking that is educational work, right? Not having to be— having to prove that we've done the job of successfully educating someone by constantly being obsessed with the outputs of that process, like exam grades or, you know, or, you know, project outcomes or whatever it is. But like, the bold, the bold shift is something for me around really taking seriously that the process is the thing that we want to be doing. Like, the conversations is the learning, the feedback process, the exchange so like, how do we gather in a space? That is the process, that is education. And so having the courage to take that seriously rather than just say, well, we can't fully trust that bit until we've got the concrete outcomes that I can show and prove and say, we arrived, we did this. Right? Because it's like, it is a constantly evolving process. It has to be. That is what learning and being human is about. And so, yeah, that's a bit of a vague answer, honestly, but it's a tough one because it's not one thing, I think. But it is something around trust. Trusting ourselves. We're doing the work, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right, Tim.

It's not just one thing. Like we've been mentioning for this past hour, there are a lot of things that have to happen at the same time in order to make other things work. Right. But for me, if there's a shift that I believe can be done, a bold shift that can be done, I would say it will be around getting teachers to reframe their mindset as far as who they are, right? I feel like when we first come into the formal education system as teachers, we are viewed as employees, right? We view ourselves as employees. As opposed to commodities. We don't come with this expansive view of what it means to be an educator. And I believe that if we all came into it with the view of what education can be, right, understanding that, hey, I don't need to be in a physical space in order to educate students. There are other avenues I can take that will achieve the same outcome or goal. If we can get more of our young teachers coming down the pipeline to see that they have more power than they realize, then I believe that we'll be able to agitate some of the issues that are still pervading our school systems. I believe that, but it's gonna have to come with the change in mindset, and that comes with understanding who you are, understanding what your morals are, understanding what your non-negotiables are, as not just as educators but as humans. Yeah. What will you allow to happen and what will you not allow to happen. You have to draw a line somewhere and still come out of it with your integrity in the process. So yeah, that's probably another big lesson.

Integrity is a big word, right? Integrity is a big word. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it doesn't always— it's not always the thing that is encouraged, actually, right, in the spaces we're in. And so that takes courage, 100%. No, no, I love that. And if I may, maybe one of the other things that— I know the question wasn't two things, but maybe if I may. Go. I wonder also about how do we connect and empower the other spaces, the other learning spaces that we've talked about. Yeah. So that there's a strengthening of confidence and resource and, you know, and just ability to do more of that in those alternative spaces, right? So to have people take seriously that all of those alternative learning spaces, regenerative learning spaces that are happening in community, new ones or ones that have been there for 50 years, but often they've been struggling in the shadows of the kind of mainstream system. I wonder about how to empower, how to connect and share the learning across that network, because it's happening in every country around the world as I see. There are, there are small communities trying to do things differently everywhere. So what would happen if we connected, enabled some sharing across that network? So I don't know, that's just a wondering that I have.

Yeah, and I mean, this is one thing that I always like to say about these conversations. We're not going to be able to solve all the world's problems in one hour, so we do have to embrace non-closure. That's it. When it comes to these very highly complex and nuanced issues, but we gave it one hell of a try today. I love it. Yes, we did. And I appreciate you And I appreciate you, Tim, for coming to my arena in this space to just share your brilliance, share your perspectives and ideas. And I want to make sure you have an opportunity to let people know how they can connect with you on social media, and then also talk about Future Learning Design again. How can people tap into Future Learning Design podcast?

Yeah, thank you. No, I mean, in the spirit of this conversation, I really— and I so appreciate everything you're doing, and that really is the spirit of the channel, I hope, is that this idea of where, you know, all of us are better than any of us if we get together and think these things through. That's right. Collectively leverage the collective intelligence. I think that's a— that's got to be a key, key principle that we have more spaces for. So yeah, I really hope that the Future Learning Design Podcast channel is somewhere contributing to that. So yeah, you can find it— find us on goodimpactlabs.com/podcast is where it's the home of the podcast. And then obviously you can find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all of those various channels. So yeah, I would love to hear from anybody who's interested in the questions or you know, wanting to add into that collective intelligence. So yeah, thank you very much. I so appreciate it. Thank you.

And listen, y'all, this is why we're going to be doing more of these crossover episodes, because there are so many phenomenal podcasts out there that are pursuing these issues and figuring out ways to solve them. And Future Learn Design Podcast is one of those podcasts. So make sure you all tap in. Subscribe, follow Tim, reach out to Tim, engage with them, because the dialogue is what's going to lead to the solutions. And on that note, um, Tim, Deb, any final words before we wrap up here?

No, just, just congratulations again on your well-deserved award, and absolutely amazing. It's an amazing book. I'd encourage everybody to go out and buy a copy. I'm sure most of your listeners already have a copy, but mine may not, and they you really should. It's a brilliant, brilliant book, Learning to Relearn, and it's a critical text in, you know, it's a vital piece of the conversation, right? It has to be. So, you know, thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for the channel, and, you know, really just lovely. I look forward to future collaborations, I hope.

Yeah, likewise, same here. You're doing phenomenal work on your end, and we're going to keep this thing going. And for our listeners today from both podcasts, We thank you for being a part of this experience. And as I like to say, I wish you all good morning, good afternoon, good night, wherever you are in the world. And we are going to do this again another time.

Peace out, everybody. Thank you.