Student Agency - A Conversation with Larissa Raymond and Dr. Jayne-Louise Collins

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

You want to be able to offer this sense of joy in the learning for adults as well, and they are just hungry to slow down, the freedom to think, to play around with ideas, because it's such a locked-down paradigm and a deprofessionalising place to be in that we're actually marginalising the potential that the system has with all these amazing people in it.

Hi everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Tim Logan. This week's conversation is with Dr. Jane Louise Collins and Larissa Raymond from Ed Partnerships International. Jane Louise is a co-director and lead designer and researcher at Ed Partnerships International. Jane Louise's work is focused on educational research and building learning capacity in organizations through a partnering approach. She has had extensive experience in partnering with a range of education systems in schools across Australia to build connected leadership capacity, creating conditions for regenerative change and in turn flourishing and hopeful cultures of learning. With Larissa and other colleagues, she has completed a 2-year qualitative research project exploring learner agency in partnership with young people, their teachers, and principals, which has resulted in the publication of a series of papers and a conceptual framework, starting with learner agency as a living ecology. Larissa is a designer and leader of professional learning at Ed Partnerships International. She recently designed, researched, and published the outcomes of a longitudinal research project exploring the structural, material, and cultural challenges encountered by a secondary school when conceptualizing and enacting learner agency. This was co-written with Anne Clunan, called Beyond Student Voice: Navigating Challenges in a Time of Neoliberalism. This conversation is the introduction in a series of short podcast spotlights on schools around the world who are putting many of these ideas into practice. In which we speak with young people, teachers, and leaders about enacting learner agency in their schools. These will be coming up in future weeks and feature many exciting schools from around the world.

Hi, Janice.

Hi, Tim.

How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

Yeah, I'm going okay. Thank you.

Hi, Larissa.

Hi Tim, how are you?

Good. Nice to see you. Just thinking back to that LinkedIn post, Novak Djokovic, it was the whole COVID thing, right? And that's what sparked it for me was that idea of him making a choice that people didn't like. Right. And that kind of, well, he's, is he exercising agency there? I think the general consensus seemed to be that he was, but it was a kind of self-oriented, maybe a bit egotistical, it kind of agency rather than a broader network-type agency where you're looking at the different context of the situation you're in and how it's going to affect the people around you. And that's what sparked the connection for me between the work you do in relation to that idea of sovereign agency, relational and ecological agency. But I think it was also coming off the back of, it just seemed like there was a lot of people talking about student agency, but not not necessarily in a particularly deep way. So essentially I'd love to first think about why is it coming up a lot now?

Yeah, I think that's a really great question about why agency. And I think that one of the things that we're noticing in particular is the language around the student voice and agency, which I think that we would like to perhaps reframe in terms of learner agency, which is about, you know, agency for all, meaning adults and young people. I think is one of the things I think that one of the reasons perhaps it's coming up as well a fair bit is this idea that I think that at the moment we really are in this very strong neoliberal paradigm, and I think that's where the sovereign agency is situated in terms of this sense of it's very individualistic, which is interesting, you know, when you're talking about that example that you just gave, that it is this real individualistic sense which sits in the sovereign agency, which is about, you know, this freedom to act however I choose and however I want to be, which is really interesting when you think back to Biesta's work as well about freedom and what that actually means for us. And I think that that sense that in that sovereign agency is about, I can do what I like whenever I like because it's all about me, which is the individual. And then I think at a system level, this individualistic view of sovereign agency sits in that neoliberal paradigm because it's very much about, you know, we've got this really strong performative rhetoric now. It's very outcomes driven. And I think that because positions people as where you are responsible for your learning, you are responsible for improving your grades, we've set these things up and now it's up to you. So I think that, you know, because we have such a strong focus now on outcomes and performance and that marketization of education, that I think is partly one of the reasons in this accountability paradigm that we're situated in And I think then when you say about why it's coming up and then the problematising around that, when we go back to that example that you gave before in terms of the tennis player and that sense that we do have a very simplistic notion of agency, so how do we expand that? And actually it's extremely complex and therefore we do have to go into that space of complexity and even the reframing around the language in terms of Yes, there's this freedom to act, and it's an activation of will and desire to be in the learning, but also it's in community and for community. So it's actually about the individual within community and for community, which is not about the self. It's actually the self within that endeavor for community. I think that's two things in that space. And then Jane Louise may have some more to add to that as well.

Yeah, there's loads in there I'd love to pick up on. Yeah, brilliant. Jane Louise?

I think it's an interesting question, why now? I think everyone's trying to claim agency. I think it's probably emerging in the research and it's emerging as a trend within educational discourse, so everyone wants a bit of that. However, I think how you understand it depends on the ground on which you stand, and I guess that's the paradigm you might come out of. So it doesn't belong to one particular paradigm, but can absolutely be appropriated by, as Larissa has just mentioned, the Leo-Nibral paradigm of performativity and competitiveness and the individual. And I think that's where we get that idea that sense of even— I've heard teachers talk about this, that it can be misunderstood or interpreted as a sense of entitlement. And I guess when you're entitled to something, other people lose out. And I think we've kind of come to this space where no one loses anything. In fact, we all gain something because it's actually a partnership. It is about the person but in relationship with and what happens in that relationship. So I think in our work, Larissa and I have certainly moved to this understanding of agency sitting in this ecology. So it's a highly connected and dynamic understanding, and it's quite a challenge to say what it is when we're talking with teachers and leaders because of the habitual way of understanding sometimes our practice is it has to be a thing. But actually, it's something that emerges. And that's not quite comfortable for a lot of us if we want a solution to something or we want a quick fix for something or agency will do this for us. It actually requires quite a shift in stance. It actually asks quite a lot of the adult and the young person and family and community. And I think it's quite disruptive of identity because it starts to shape or shift and shape who we are are in the space, who we are with each other. And I think if we kind of understand it as an ecology, then we're very dynamically connected to each other. It's very relational. And it's quite nested. You know, we find ourselves in many places, and we're highly dynamically connected. So the relational piece is quite important here. And I think when teachers say, well, what is it? It's quite a challenge sometimes to have the conversation. Well, it's actually about the relationship. It's how you position young people. It's the language you might use with them. Them. It's the way you create a space for them to come in, to be safe, to be vulnerable, to reveal something other than what they might have already revealed to you. We're inviting them in not to leave anything at the door, actually. We create conditions where they come in. And I think one of my, my kind of sense is that, you know, we're looking for solutions to kind of fix things. You know, the possibility of our future of education is with the reimagination and possibility that young people offer. I think I was reading, I think it's Max van Manen's work, you know, the gift of the child is the gift of the possible. And in that child, we see what could be possible for ourselves as adults. And, you know, not everyone wants to engage with that narrative. They're kind of still in the solution, let's fix this, let's do something that sits with our school improvement plan. It's very hard to find a place for this narrative within a school improvement plan because it's quite an emergent place.

I love what you were saying, Jane Louise, about the kind of ground on which we stand and the positioning. And it, it's very rooted in how we are, how we relate, and how we frame the problem. And as, as you both said, the paradigm within which we are standing is incredibly pervasive, right? It really affects the way that we address or even speak about this question of learner agency, right? And I mean, you said, Larissa, voice, you know, voice and choice, right? This is the phrase that always comes back. It's like voice and choice. And that's just a heuristic just to kind of point us in a direction of this thing called agency. But I like what you're saying about the fact that it actually emerges as a result of a shift in focus onto the relationships rather than onto the child themselves. And that's a major mind shift, I think, for people.

Um, well, it just makes me think of something I was reading. Maybe it was in that post, Larissa, on the narrative of systems or something, where, you know, it actually asks more of us than it's going to ask of the other, because it actually asks us to reflect on who we are and our and I know in my shift in understanding this work, things became revealed about my positioning of young people that I wasn't aware of until I started to reflect deeply on the language I was using, the way we invited young people into our spaces, which are very adult spaces. Would young people choose to be like this, or is this us setting it up for them? So actually this idea of, I guess, what we kind of think about as a journey of being and becoming in the world, And I guess, you know, picking up on what Biesta says, what does the world ask of us? You know, this idea of being and becoming in the world and what does it ask of us? So the idea, where do we start? I think we actually have to start with ourselves in self-reflecting. Who are we in this space to come to a sense of what we value and to determine to what extent our values are aligning with our language and behaviors. And if we do that with each other, we kind of start up a different dynamic. We're more inclined to listen, we're more inclined to ask questions, to seek that understanding. It's quite a change of perspective.

Definitely. I think maybe if we can just stay in that current paradigm for a minute as well, just to kind of help people understand a bit more what are some of the ways that people speak about it, or perhaps the reasons in which people are moving towards this, even if it is, yes, within this current neoliberal paradigm. But there are some motivations, I think, from many, many people to move towards something which is, for example, more empowering, right? A word that gets used a lot. Some people hate it, some people love it. It's like it doesn't really mean very much, but it kind of feels right. It feels like we want to shift some of the power back to the students themselves, right? Rather than this—

Yes.

Large standardized system that they have been existing in, surviving, let's say, for a long time. And there's, you know, engagement, or as I said, voice and choice, project-based learning stuff, bringing agile into education. All of these kind of moves are trying to give a bit more responsibility, self-regulation, self-efficacy back to the student. And I think it'd just be interesting to hear your reflections on those moves. Because it's happening. A lot of people are trying to do this work, and a lot of the schools we've been speaking to are trying to do this work, and they have to do this work within the current paradigm.

Absolutely.

They can't wish that something else was the case, right? So yeah, I don't know what your reflections are there.

One of the great points that you raised, Tim Logan, is about power, which I sort of wanted to chat to, was that idea that I think As we said before, you know, this— I think one of the critical things, I guess, in terms of what's possible now and what are the things that we're sort of delving into is kind of, I guess, from that ecological perspective is recognising that whatever we do, it has implications on other aspects. So everything, as Jane Louise had said, is shaped by and is shaping the other. So I think it's that awareness. So it's a kind of wherever we start is where we start because that's where we are now. Today. And I think that's exciting to know that these things shift and shape and that they're always co-evolving. And as you know, we talked about, they're in partnership, they are in that very much in that relational space, and they shift and are shaped by who we're with in that time and in that space. So I think it is that opportunity to start to look at some of those, the cultural nuances, which is language. So we are starting to notice our language and what is our language signaling to the other, either the young person or my colleague in the education setting. What are we noticing about the spaces, so the physical spaces where we come together, so even kind of bringing that lens over it, what are we starting to notice about how we're physically positioning each other in these physical spaces that have traditionally been called classrooms. And also with that material, what are the materials and the resources that we use in these spaces, to what extent does that enable opportunities for the way young people are positioned or are positioning the adults. So I think it's looking at those aspects as well. So it really is those cultural material, those structural elements. And I think, sorry, going back with the power, is that I think one of the things that we're noticing, which I think is a really powerful reframing of language, is around productive power. And so Nelson, a researcher in New Zealand, Emily Nelson, talks very much about this idea of productive power in the sense that the power doesn't sit with you or me, it sits in the endeavour. So this is the thing that we are trying to understand more deeply collectively. So the power is situated in that thing. So me, the young person, I bring this to the table that will support us. You bring this as the adult learner. Jane Louise brings that. Someone else is bringing something. And all those offers are unique perspectives. They're all highly valued and they bring a different dimension that enables us to have a a deeper understanding collectively as to how we can go forward. So I think that's something that we're really noticing a shift. And in that shift too is like we notice, you know, sometimes as you were saying earlier, language is getting thrown around at the moment like co-design. And again, co-design in this agency space can be really misunderstood. It's actually quite complex as well. And I think that one of the challenges in the agency space is that we've sort of being feeling that, oh, is that about me, the teacher stepping back so the young person can step forward? Whereas productive power is actually we both need to be there. We both have a unique offer and it's a really critical, important one. So it's not about stepping back or stepping to the side, it's stepping in together and recognising that there are different perspectives and different offers that take us forward. So that's one thing. And I was also just going to add in there was that the other thing I think that's really important that we're seeing is this idea of staying in dialogue. So it's not just engaging in dialogue with the young person, it's staying in the dialogue. And I think that in our research that we've noticed that young people in particular have said they really do not like it when they're asked things and then they don't know what goes on afterwards and no one comes back to them. And then they're like again positioned in certain ways where they've lost trust, they are disengaged, they are annoyed, but it's like, how do we stay in dialogue with each other And I think that we're finding a real strength is in staying in that dialogue. Things become revealed, as Jane Louise said, and emerge, and those are the things that shift and shape and strengthen us as a collective going forward.

I think going back to what I think your question, Tim Logan, is, you know, where do we start now? We've got a system in place, we've got structures in place that we're not going to dismiss overnight. So, and we want to be hopeful and optimistic in this space. So I think just picking up certainly what Larissa was saying is that agency or the conditions for agency are created in the encounter with that young person between each other and with adults. So when we work with groups of schools in some of our professional learning, the very first thing we invite them to do is have learning conversations with young people where they sit down with them. They don't they don't send off something to fill in, they actually sit with them. Sometimes it's one-on-one, sometimes it's a group where, and the nature of the question signals something. So it signals I'm genuinely interested in you as a young person, not just as a maths learner, but as a person. And I think the kind of question you ask, the way you sit down with them, the time that you take, the follow-up the next day to see, oh, how are you going about, you know, whatever, they are such powerful signals in the life of a young person. I mean, just, you know, the other day we're talking with some secondary schools, the teachers had conversations about being maths learners and great maths learners. Well, not only did they learn about how they feel about mathematics in their school, they learned about the ways a particular young person was having to care for the health of a person in their family, the way that the young person was the sole translator for their family. They learned all these other things and created a very, you know, you could say a unique connection that goes beyond just who you are as a student. And I guess, you know, where do you start? And for me, you start in every encounter you have with the young person, the language you choose to use, the way you position yourself with them, kind of how you— I guess that idea of seeking deeply to understand them. And I guess in that is a reveal of yourself. So it's not all about just finding out about them. It's actually a reveal of yourself as well. So I don't, you know, whether it's problem-based learning or inquiry-based learning, or you should, you know, you teach humanities and geography all in silos, you've got opportunities Communities for this. And I think for us, that's often quite a significant catalyst for change because you're inviting young people to reveal something about their experience or the perceptions of the community. You can't unhear it. And if you choose not to do anything about that in partnership with the young person, what does that mean? So I kind of think it's absolutely possible, no matter where you find yourself, you are able to create some spaces where you can together, I guess, strengthen the realisation of agency for young people and for yourself as an adult in that space too.

Yeah.

I think just building on what Jane Louise said too, I think that when we were circling back to what is agency and so forth, I guess we would talk about this idea too, agency as a way of being. So if we conceptualise agency as a way of being, then we can ask ourselves, how do we want to be with ourself and how do we want to be with others? And again, that's that sense of it's taking it beyond the individual.

Yeah, that's a really interesting point, I think, because what came to mind while you were talking, both of you, is the kind of— it's like, yes, but what do we do? There must be a solution. There must be things we can do. And a lot of agency, actually, even the word itself and the kind of discourse around it is about action. It's about how do we, what do we choose to do, our will to act, all of those things. You know, many of the things you've said, it's not often seen to be about being. I completely agree with you. I think it, I think it absolutely is a different way of being and a different way of relating. But we still get drawn into this kind of dead end of, yes, but I'm teaching tomorrow, what do I do pedagogical move do I make to bring more agency into my teaching, into my classroom?

Yes, I think that is traditionally the way that we have perceived things as teachers, and that— and I think this is where it gets back to, as Jane Louise was saying, this is really about identity in this space as well. Who are we in these spaces today, and who do we want to be tomorrow? And we know that's shaped by the past with that projective outlook, but enacted in the present, I think is a big aspect of this agency as well. So it really is disrupting identity as who do we want to be as the adult lead learner and the young person in this space and how do we want to be. And I think though, you know, we often talk about being comfortable with being uncomfortable and I've actually been thinking quite a lot about that lately in that sense of it's much easier to say than do and be and it actually is really, really difficult because it really is uncomfortable, it feels unsafe, feels vulnerable. Well, you are very vulnerable, you're very exposed, you're very on edge, and you don't know. And it's sort of like, well, we need to create the conditions where, you know, everyday ways of being with each other where we can embrace it but hold each other in that space as well. And I think that's where this way of being is in service to the other. You know, we are very much situated in this space of these relationships of how do we want to be in order for others to come safely into these spaces. And I guess we talk about agency as the quest for the authentic self, you know, so how do we create the conditions so that the young person can bring their full self to the space and we can too as the adults. And that's why I think in that relational space it really is, you know, the kindness, the ethic of care, the joy in being humans, you know, and the fact that, you know, we cannot be the teacher and the student but Larissa and John, whoever that is. But yeah, I think that is the space, and I think it is through that space and trusting that, which is the really difficult part because it's not our usual ways of being, that that's where the clues will come to the design for learning. I think it actually is in the partnering with the young people. They are always giving us clues about how they want to be in spaces, and I think the more we can believe in that. And as Jane Louise said, it really is about— it sits with us as adults in terms of our belief in the capacity of the young person in the being and becoming, in the here and the now. And I think that's one of the things we often say, oh, a really little person, to what extent can they? And it's like, well, it's actually about our belief in them today. Absolutely they can when we believe in it and we create the conditions for it. And I was going to add in there too, it's not linear. And I think we're very used to linear, and that's why I think the ecology offers us something more, because it's really messy work. This is really messy, and everything is constantly in flux and flow and shifts and shapes in time and over time.

I think what you said there about being vulnerable is really interesting, because I think you can, you know, as a teacher, I remember situations where you, you want to provide that space for the young people you're working with. And you do, you start to, and then you get this kind of rude awakening, like the bell goes and then they go off back into this other space, which is completely different. And it's like this deep kind of cognitive dissonance of those two, the contrast between those two worlds. And actually as a teacher in that context, you're also trying to create those spaces, but then you then have to go out into a staff meeting or do your duty at break time. And then, you know, there's this kind of, it felt to me like, as you said, in order for it to ripple and actually develop into something, it has to be done together as a whole organization. Otherwise, and that's not to say therefore you can't start moves, you know, in small ways. But I guess what I'm saying is it's really challenging to, and even more challenging perhaps to kind of step into that vulnerability, knowing that everybody else around you is still in this world of the other paradigm, right? The neoliberal competitive, let's just get these kids where they need to be. And, you know, it's that, yeah, there needs to be support for each other to do that. Otherwise it's even more difficult to start.

I think we often talk about it, you know, where's it, it's going to seed somewhere. And the seed is in the person. And that person is in many places in the system. I often sort of think about that. So an experience in one space, what travels to a new space is the person. So what does that person bring into that space? But I think that idea of when things are compartmentalized and very locked down, the architecture is quite strict and linear, and time is locked, it pushes such— but this is a pushback onto that. So we're breaking down silos, we're breaking down compartmentalized. In fact, what we're doing is actually letting the complexity of their system, what already exists, emerge in that space. We've actually locked it down. We've kind of diminished its possibility. So I guess this work of agency, um, it's kind of careful what you ask for because this actually is a disruptor and it will break— it has the potential and possibility through people to break down some very structured and hierarchical kind of environments. But we, you know, where do we start? We start with our ourselves with our group of kids in that one space, then I move into another space with other adults, how do I engage there? So in a way, I guess that's the hope that we have, this idea of seeding this work. But I think the idea we offer in our work, we often have connected leadership teams. So there is a connected leadership team of whole school leaders, team leaders, classroom teachers, because actually they need to be able to work together in a connected leadership fashion to create the space within their communities and to maybe kind of carve out places where this work can happen in pockets even, but with a, with that view that this is something we're going to undertake. So it's kind of a multi-level approach. We are not going to ever be able to roll it out, which is the language we often hear, or deliver it. So we actually kind of need to think about other ways of change. And often that change, which is much more emergent and it's seeded in people, And I guess one of the other things, you know, it's not a place of certainty. The certainty will come by closely observing and paying attention to what emerges. So I often talk about leadership from the unknown. It's not a known place. We've got a sense of what is possible. It's not like a free-for-all, but we have to be very attentive then because we're not actually reaching right down to that goal that after week 8 we're going to be here. We've got a sense of what our aspiration is around this work, whether that be in the teaching and learning spheres, you know, school and change. But where we go is actually determined by what we recognise next, and you have to be so attentive to that, which does mean slowing down. It does mean observing and listening closely. And as leaders or adults in the space, we have to be in the space. You can't do this outside, so to speak. Actually need to be present too. So the idea of being present in the space. So as leader, you are listening and hearing and noticing where is the challenges for adults, where are the challenges for young people. So we're constantly creating the conditions for this. So it's a very— it's about being actively present and being very attentive to. So you're kind of leading out of that space rather than leading from, and, you know, a landmark that's 8 weeks down the track that you've already named and put a pin in that place. We're not actually heading for that. And I think that is kind of the agency work in the small pocket with our young people, in the big place with our adults in schools and teachers. It kind of has that feel for me anyhow.

Yeah, I completely agree, and I think that the idea of slowing down, noticing, which I've, you know, you don't notice things when you've got this tunnel vision for this 8-week 8-week goal, you don't notice things because I'm only looking at that 8-week goal. You don't, you're not attending in a way that is more expansive and, and open to what's actually happening. And as you said, that active presence, and it's all completely antithetical to where we started, which is what's the answer to fix student agency, to give them more voice and choice so that we can fix education, so that we can, you know, solve all our problems. Done. You know, it's that pace of trying to find that solution. And of course, giving all students purpose and passion and more agency, there's something important underlying all of that.

But as you said, just got to slow down and look around because it's like, in a way, we've actually given you permission in this space, you know, to slow down. You've got the freedom to think a little bit differently. There is such joy in that. And I think, you know, I've been, you know, when you talk to teachers that you want to be able to offer this sense of joy in the learning for adults as well. And they are just hungry to slow down, the freedom to think, to play around with ideas, because it's such a locked-down paradigm and a deprofessionalizing kind of place to be in that we're actually marginalizing the potential that the system has with all these amazing people in it. We've actually marginalized that. So kind of that idea of how do see the possibilities here and notice them and kind of say, well, what does this offer us?

Would you say, because, you know, I can hear people saying, yes, but, you know, yes, but I've got a maths curriculum to get through. Yes, but I'm preparing them for this. You know, all of the, all of the things we know. Would you say that some of this work is possible without radically changing the actual kind of practicalities of what we're doing? We're still teaching maths. We're still going through, you know, we're It's actually about a different way of being in a classroom, of relating to the students. And of course, we're under pressure as teachers to cover and to get through things. But there's almost like a— I don't know how to describe it. It almost feels like you can create time by slowing down in the way that you are in a class, your presence in a classroom, rather than just Yeah, I would flag though, and we have that all the time, I would just say check your assumptions.

Who says that this has to be this way? Like, we would have people in our context saying, oh, we've got to cover the Victorian curriculum. Now tell me, who says that? It's kind of a narrative they like to— I mean, this sounds— they like to take on. It suits the purpose of what they're doing. So, you know, actually it's about challenging some of the assumptions we might hold. So where does it say you have to cover the curriculum in the way you're talking about it? Well, actually it doesn't. So there's kind of some assumptions that, you know, the timetable, who says it needs to be out 75-minute blocks? It looks like this. It actually doesn't.

You've—

we've constructed these constructs. And I think sometimes we need to challenge that by saying, just check these assumptions we're making here. It's become so habitual. It's been taken as the gospel, but actually we kind of need to break down some of those. So it kind of is a bit of a pushback as well.

I think too, I was sort of thinking about what you're saying there too, Tim, in terms of that, you know, that we're all busy and we've got this curriculum and so forth. And like you're saying, yes, absolutely, the rigor in the learning matters, but how to create the conditions for rigor where actually young people, we are activating their will and desire to be an active participant in their learning, you know, rather than this, we're covering the curriculum but half the kids disengaged and not turning up today, or they are but they're not really here. One of the things that we're noticing that's been really supportive of schools is some of the documentation as well. And that documentation can be audio, it can be, you know, it's multimodal, but they can often be spaces that we can then come back to continue the dialogue around, you know, I noticed, Tim, you were saying XYZ, can you tell me a bit more about that? And, you know, that's signalling something too, but You know, we've got these artifacts that we keep coming back to, to understand more deeply and using those for that disruption and shift to that transformation as well.

Yeah, interesting. So that, I guess that shows a valuing of that input from that person, whether it's a colleague or a student over the course of time, not just in the moment, because, you know, you perhaps some, a cynic might say, well, you have, you're in dialogue, so you have to kind of be playing the game, but actually coming back to something after a time really shows that you've taken time to look at it, value it, and come back to it because there's something important you want to go deeper into or explore more.

I think it helps us to stop these assumptions as well. So we're staying true to the authenticity of what's been said or what the thing is, rather than saying, I think what Tim meant was this, so therefore he's actually fine with that. 'Yes, it is his responsibility, you know, blah blah blah,' which goes back again to this— it's a collective endeavor, you know, it's the co-space that matters.

That responsibilization you used at the beginning, I mean, that idea of just pushing it back onto the individual because it's their education, so it's their responsibility to get what they need. Actually, no, the responsibility and the power and everything actually is in the relationality between the people in the space. It made me— I don't know whether you know Ivan Ilich, the book Tools for Conviviality. And it just— that came up for me recently listening to a different conversation as a reminder. And it's not a new idea, right? This is the idea that actually the thing that we're trying to create, you know, as he says, it's like tools for conviviality. How do we create a convivial space where people can interrelate in a way that is meaningful and important, and they can bring their full selves there, all of those things you've said. But therefore it also needs a degree of pragmatism because we have to work in the current context, the current situation now, you know, the observation, for example, you know, people are talking about completely alternative spaces of learning, right? Radical progressive schools, democratic schools, etc. Brilliant. And you know, that works for some people. It works for some families, some learners. It's still quite marginal. It actually— the vast, vast majority of our young people and our colleagues are in spaces which are institutional systems, you know, within the system, etc. So there, there's a pragmatism that I think I always come back to, which is like, if this is an urgent challenge for us, if there's something deep and I think quite profound and important underneath it because of all the crises we're facing. What are our moves that we make now within that context?

Yeah, I think for me, you know, it's this idea of nested systems. So we exist within, we are the system, like it's not a them and us.

We are actually it.

And I think if we're talking about creating the conditions for agency for adult young people, you know, in our nested kind of communities, we have to seriously ask about some of the positions within our systems that have power. And when things aren't going well in the system, who do they point to? The teachers and the principals. You know, there are some amazing leaders in schools and teachers in schools who are doing their best to create great environments for their young people, but they are constantly, you know, being stretched and pushed by very different paradigms. So I think we can keep asking this of teachers and principals and leaders in schools, but something does need to happen in that nest that we are in. So I think it's going to take courage. I think there's lots of people speaking into the space, but it's quite crippling as well, and it's not great for people's, you know, a sense of themselves, their emotional and social well-being, to be in a space which constantly putting pressure on them to get their results up, but they also know and been told that this agency work is really important and they want to go into those spaces and they want to kind of create these conditions, but the measures that are coming in from the outside or the, the boxes that have to be ticked, they've got their eye on very narrow measures and those measures will be attended to. Our school will be judged if we don't get our NAP plan up, our school will be judged if we don't get our ATAR up. It takes a very courageous school principal and authorities around them to push back on that, they often leave. So I'm not, I'm just want to just mean like—

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I think, I think that is a description of the reality of the challenges in the system, right? And as you say, of course we talk about the system, we are the system, but there are some dynamics within that system which push in one particular direction rather than another, right? And I think so that what the direction that we are talking about is not one that is currently supported actively by the system.

The levers they pull are very different and have a kind of punitive, and you know, you could say do damage to what we're trying to cultivate here is the humanness, the social capacities, you know, what it means to be human. If to learn is to be human, in community with each other, well then these levers are really problematic.

Yeah.

I think that I just need to say that because sometimes I feel like—

Completely. But I suppose my reflection on that would be one of the intentions of this series of interviews with young people and with teachers and leaders in schools is to say that people are doing this work now in different contexts. With different challenges, but they are doing this work. So one of the intentions of this is to then support them by highlighting that.

Yeah.

Shining a bit of a light on that, allowing people to reflect on it and hopefully sparking some more questions in the minds of other school leaders, principals, maybe policymakers to say, what are the important questions that we ask when we're trying to create these conditions? Cause that's really, to me, what it's about. It's not about what do we do? It's about what conditions, from what you, from everything you've said, it feels like it's about what conditions do we create that will allow these things to emerge. And you know, that's what people like Dave Snowden are talking about in relation to the affordances of a context and all the, the collections of narratives in a context and the how much agency is in a context. Those are the conditions which allow these important things to emerge out of relationality. And I think if we can spark those thoughts for people, brilliant.

Yeah.

And that's it. I mean, each of us is in that space of being advocates for creating spaces for those voices to come to the fore. And I think that's kind of our work and you can't, everyone, you know, people like us are doing it for whoever they find themselves in the system. And I think, you know, it's amazing work and it does spark conversation. And it does kind of get some momentum, which is fantastic. Yeah, really good.

I wondered too, like, as you're talking, I'm sort of— reminds me of Carlina Rinaldi's pedagogy of listening and her work with Reggio. And, you know, this idea of being open to the unknown, thinking about a principal that I've been working really closely with for quite some time now. He is incredible at being open to the unknown. And being open to receiving what comes and that sense of holding, holding off judgment and jumping to conclusion and jumping to solution. Idea of I'm starting to understand something. Who do I need to keep talking to and listening to in order to understand something more deeply? And I think it is, you know, our schools, like we're saying, we're all trying to do really exciting things and our intent is so joyful. I think, and exciting in terms of we all want the young person to be, and ourselves to be, the full flourishing self in all aspects of their learning lives. And the other thing I wanted to add in here, Tim, was also that idea of, as we're talking about education, is really thinking about this is, you know, it is a social endeavor, and that idea of where are our communities in these spaces as well. So that's also what does this mean for us as a learning community with our families and carers and the young people who they're, the adults they're connected to their lives.

Yeah, that's an interesting additional dimension, isn't it? Because you are, as you said, you're asking people to bring their full selves, but their full selves is not an atomized individual. Their full self is their network, their people, their, their community as well. And yeah, no, I, I think that's often we, especially in France, you feel this very strongly that they take the child off you at the door and that's that. You are nothing to do with their education. Then it's like, That's our responsibility as educators. We'll take that. Thanks very much. You know, and I think there's to honor that kind of connectedness and relationality. It can't just be that we've severed them from their family and their community.

Yeah.

Interesting. One of the things that challenges me, and maybe that's just the nature of it being, being marginal at the moment, but I've, what we want to do, or I feel I want to do is invite those people. And I can think of examples of them from schools I've worked in who have absolutely no inclination towards conversations about vulnerability, relationality, bringing their full self, then they don't want to go there, right? For whatever reason. And I'm not, you know, it's not for me to say why or whether what's better, or they just don't want to go there. That kind of conversation is a woo-woo marginal kumbaya conversation. You know, those, you know what I mean? It's We put all that work into this bucket. And I think that's a real issue for these types of conversations because very quickly they sound airy-fairy, right? And we don't even have the kind of vocabulary for it.

But absolutely. But that sense that again, what would it mean if we don't?

Like we look at the mental health of the world.

Completely.

It's dire.

You know, like we look at what's happened in COVID and we know what is happening for our young people in terms of disengagement and mental health. For young people and adults. And so when we're saying, oh, this is that fluffy kumbaya sort of thing, it's like, well, actually it's not. This is our mental health we're talking about here. And how— and if we're going to save the planet and this regeneration, it's actually— this is the space that we perhaps haven't gone.

And it's now, if we don't go there, what does this mean for us as a community? Yeah, dialogue. Dialogue is one of the ways of being we talk about. Dialogue has to hold, well, I think it needs to hold everybody. If it doesn't hold everybody, it's actually missing something. So I think my sense of when we talk about being in dialogue, dialogue needs to hold the variety and diversity and to keep in dialogue with that person who may have a different perspective or stance than I have, because that's where the learning will happen. I need that difference. I need that absolute full-on cognitive science person. I need that person who's very in the emotional social space to be here in dialogue with me. And I think as soon as we ostracize or people can't find access in, we're poorer for it. So I think it does come back to understanding what dialogue is and how dialogue needs to hold spaces where everyone is included, even those who have we find most challenging, how do we hold the space? And I think one of the risks here, this can sound all really, we're all very happy and it's all gonna be really nice, is super challenging. We will have the marginalised voice, the voice that has never been heard before, angry voice, the frustrated voice. We will have people who bring things that don't sit with, they'll bring racist points of view and they'll bring derogatory things into the the space because we've opened it up. So it's not, it'll be quite challenging and it'll be uncomfortable and sometimes we'll want to close it down. So I think the idea that this is all kind of nice and everyone wants to have these really nice happy conversations and we're going to feel really good, it's actually, some of it's going to be uncomfortable. Not only just being uncomfortable with what we're hearing, how do we kind of sit with the voice that is angry and frustrated and says a whole lot of things that make me feel very uncomfortable here. Now, if we marginalise them, agency's gone. They're actually expressing agency in a way that may not feel kind of okay with me, but their expression is the result of something, and it's probably been deep marginalisation by the current kind of way the world is, and you start opening it up. So I think, you know, the fluffy kumbaya thing, there's kind of real challenging work when we're in this agency space, because otherwise, if it's easy, there are voices on the outside that aren't at the table because it actually does need to be quite challenging and hard. So yeah, that's my kind of—

that's good, that's good. It's like if it's easy, it's not real enough.

No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much. Brilliant, brilliant.

That's all right.

It was an amazing opportunity to talk with you, Tim, and get to know you. So thanks for that opportunity.

Fantastic. No, amazing. Thank you so much.

All right, bye-bye.

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