Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership - A Conversation with Jennifer D. Klein

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

But she said, what if we started to see each one of the schools that's trying to do this and is doing it well as a data point in a larger argument for what needs to change in education that goes beyond one country or one school and is really about what it means to do human development today in turbulent times.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Tim Logan, and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. Educational leadership is a tough challenge at the best of times, with many pressures from all sides, but particularly now with so much shifting, high levels of uncertainty, and polarizing issues at play, it's arguably an even rougher sea to navigate. In such a context, my guest this week has done an amazing job of gathering vital insights from 67 education leaders around the world, herself included, to bring some collective wisdom to bear on this subject. Jennifer D. Klein is an author and former head of school with extensive international experience and over 30 years in education, including 19 in the classroom. Jennifer is motivated by her belief that all children deserve a meaningful, relevant education like the one she experienced herself, which we talk a bit about in this conversation. She also believes that giving them such an experience will catalyze positive change in their communities and beyond. Jennifer's latest book, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership: Doing Right by Learners Without Losing Your Job, came out in September last year. And her previous books have been incredibly popular amongst teacher leaders internationally, including The Landscape Model of Learning with Dr. Capono Sciotti, a previous guest on the podcast from episode 205. She's also written The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K-12 Classrooms Worldwide Through Equitable Partnerships, which she published in 2017. You can find links to much more of Jennifer's work in the show notes. Firstly, maybe you could just say a little bit about how the book has landed so far. I know it, it, you know, came out in September, huge congratulations. And I know it's a ton of work and getting to that point. And there's lots to be said about your previous work as well with fantastic and wonderful people like Capono. And so there's, there's all of that, but really focusing on the time we're in now and just the book having landed. Yeah. Maybe just say a little bit about the book itself and what's been your initial feelings and experiences of having it published? Because I know you were perhaps slightly worried about how it might be received.

Well, I will say, I think I'm always worried about how my work will be received. And writing has the unfortunate element of not having immediate response, right? You know, a theatrical presentation or musical presentation, you can see immediately how the audience is responding to every little line, right? Or every, you know, every note because of the way they look in the audience. Writing is a much a more solitary process, and the, the feedback comes really slowly, which could be challenging. So, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership is— I've described it a couple times as my love letter to educators and students around the world, because I do think it's a book that looks at educational leaders in lots of different parts of the world. 67 interviews interwoven with my own— or I should say, 67 interviewees plus my own experience as a head of school outside of Bogotá for 3 years. And it really is interweaving their stories to share this story of sticking by what kids need, right? Like, real— the subtitle of the book is Doing Right by Learners Without Losing Your Job. And I actually don't think the book contains all the secrets in the world to how to keep your job, but I do think that the framing is important because it's a reminder, like, there are leaders everywhere who are trying to really stick by what they believe in. And those are— include things like student-centered and student-directed learning, and they include all sorts of equity work and inclusion work and identity responsive work, amazing things happening, right? But those leaders are also facing a lot of resistance, and some of that comes from inside their communities, some of it comes from outside their communities, whether that's political or, you know, the culture of the school or the parents and what they expect out of a school. And so the— I think, you know, basically this book is meant to offer some strategies, right? Here are the stories of the resistance that these leaders faced and the strategies that they used to try to address them. And so So I like to think that the book really— and my editors at Corwin said the same thing— that this is a book that meets the moment, right? That really did come out at exactly the right time because in the US especially, we're being curtailed so much in education, not just by cuts in funding for public ed, but also in these culture wars that continue to happen and what's appropriate to teach in school and whose kid matters and, you know, who— what does it mean to really include all children, and how do I feel about that for my own kids, right? And of course, a government that has made it illegal to put DEI on anything— diversity, equity, and inclusion, right— on anything, at least in the public sphere. So that creates ripples into international and private schools as well. So in terms of how it's landed since it came out, I would say I'm a little disappointed because I don't feel like it's getting the attention that it deserved. But I'm also not surprised because I do see a lot of fear in educators right now, and especially in leaders who are just trying to keep the ship upright. And if they lose their jobs, that's the end of that, right? So I think there's a lot of fear at the moment that may be impacting how it's landing. But I mean, I think in the long run, we keep having conversations about the fact that this is a book that we— I hope will have a long life, a long shelf life, as it were, and will continue to be read into the future because it really is intended to be a roadmap for how, how leaders can ensure that they're doing right by kids and doing what learners need first and foremost, regardless of the noise and the chaos that might be pushing back around them.

Yeah. So interesting. I mean, I definitely had, as I was reading it, I definitely, I mean, it felt so resonant with the moment, but I also had the question of how much was it for a US audience and how much it was, as you say, rippling globally. And so, I mean, I know, you know, a lot of your interviewees are all around the world in all sorts of contexts. So, How, how do you see it in those terms globally and with a US focus?

It's interesting you ask. You know, my first book was on global education because I have been a global nomad in my life and I've lived outside the US and Latin America for, I think, a total of about 9 years in a variety of different places. So I, I do come at things, I think, more naturally from an international perspective actually. However, so many of those international schools, if you're talking about the international schools that are using a model from another country, right? Sure. The American schools, the British schools, the French schools in other parts of the world, any that have any ties to the U.S. government are also impacted by U.S. policy, right? Because the Office of Overseas Schools is part of the State Department. And so there's always that challenge as well. I think I actually had to work pretty hard to make sure that I still— that I had the public school voices in there, that I had the U.S. voices in there, that I was in a lot of cases extrapolating from what leaders outside the U.S. were more courageous about sharing. Um, and and extrapolating into here's what this is looking like in the US, or here's how we see this show up in the US. Far more of my anonymous folks were inside the US. That's a perfect example of the kind of pressure that they're feeling. And so I'm trying to, you know, strike a balance, find the right balance. I mean, I think the trends that we're seeing in education are happening everywhere. The US is not the only place that's sort of retreating from these movements towards something better, right? These, you know, retreating from inclusion, retreating from, Even special education support, you know, things like that. It's terrifying to see and it's terrifying to think that this is not just a US problem.

No, absolutely. I'd love to come back to the fear question because as I said to you, we did an episode recently on love and what love has to do with education. And there really is, there's an episode somewhere that's about what does fear have to do with education? Because it feels like there is a lot of, from all sorts of points and maybe we could get onto that, but just before we do, I'm curious because you mentioned the culture wars and it's something I'm really, I mean, almost kind of voyeuristically fascinated by the culture wars in education and how they kind of manifest the culture wars more broadly, right? But I was interested in the fact that in your subtitle is this word right, you know, doing right by learners. And so I'd be really interested to hear what your take on that is. Like, how do you articulate that in a way that doesn't just perpetuate a polarizing culture war. Because I think that is part of one of the challenges we face is sometimes there's a claim from progressive educators that one day these kind of, these nasty traditionalists will see the light and they'll come towards us to do this more open student-led thing. And I think I do see that caricaturing sometimes. And I just, because I loved, you know, you in the book, you talk about these really unhelpful false dichotomies and false binaries that persist everywhere. And so, yeah, I just wondered how you hold that in terms of like the use of this word right, like doing right by kids.

I love that you're asking that question, Tim, and I think it's an essential question to ask, actually. I'm not going to suggest, and I don't believe that the book suggests, that I think there is only one right way, but I will say that right from my perspective is that it's good for learners. Right, that it's something that supports their growth, that ensures that young people thrive. If we center children in our conversations about policy, we are so much more likely to make choices that are good for them, that benefit them now and in their futures, that help them feel like whole human beings, that help to cultivate all the elements of who they are, that help them to grow in areas of weakness and really, you know, dig deep into things that matter to them, use their talents every day in the classroom, as opposed to sitting compliantly and being talked at, right? And then taking a test. And so I guess I do have a sense of what I believe is the most right. I do believe in an education that centers learners, but I don't think that it's necessarily a polarizing approach to say that what kids need is what comes first, because that's not in itself a political statement. The political piece of it comes in when we make decisions about which books we're going to read and which, you know, or which are going to be in the library, or which, which histories we're going what to teach or which curriculum we're going to include. You know, the story of the Tulsa Massacre was one of the stories I told in the book. I don't even remember where, but, you know, teachers in the state of Oklahoma had been working for over a year to develop a curriculum that was going to really take a deep look at the Tulsa Massacre, just to mark the 100th anniversary of the destruction of what was basically Black Wall Street and a really thriving economic Black community in Tulsa. And before they could even roll it out, it stopped, right? It was stopped by the legislature. That's not something we're going to teach in our schools. That doesn't feel right to me. Why would there be anything right about kids knowing less about the history of their community, of their city, of their parents, their grandparents? You know, these are young people, many of whom had family members who passed in that, in that massacre. So my point being, I, I worry that we do end up simplifying what we mean by polarized, right? So we simplify it down to that dichotomy of it's either going to be this or that. Having spent a lot of years enmeshed in Buddhism, that doesn't strike me as the way to approach it, right? I, I don't think that that's what it's about. I do think that that idea of the middle path is an important one. And even just writing the book, I had to get really comfortable with leaning into some of those conservative voices and even admitting pretty openly in my own narrative, I think I got angry much more than I meant to. Right. I think that rather than sitting down and really trying to lean in with curiosity and understand where other people were coming from, that I just got mad. And part of that was because I was hired for a very particular purpose as a head, a very particular shift, right, towards something more student-centered. So I, you know, I think the falling into the dichotomies— the word right, from my perspective, is about what helps the learner to thrive for our times. And that's the center of it, really. Yeah. I'd love to come back to that fear question though too, if I can.

No, let's, yeah, let's dig into that 'cause that drives a lot, right?

'Cause I do think that that's where a lot of the resistance comes from is fear, right? But it's actually a combination of love and fear is what I came to conclude. And I say that I was working with a leadership coach while I was running Gimnasio Los Caobos in Colombia. And she shared a story at one point about a Buddhist teacher of hers who had indicated that the only two core natural emotions of the human being were love and fear, that everything else spins off from that, right? All other emotional states or ideas spin off from either love or fear or a combination of the two. And when I look especially at caregivers who are struggling with the way a school is doing things, it is a combination of love and fear. It's a very— I mean, they love their children. They're leaving their hearts on our doorsteps every day when they drop their kids off at school or when they, you know, put them on the bus. That's— a huge act of trust and faith in the educator to take care of their children. And there's a great deal of fear for their well-being. There's a lot that— I mean, and I think that fear just grows every day, right? Like, we look at climate change, we look at global conflict, we look at the economy, we don't understand AI still. All of these things that we're struggling with. For caregivers, I think there's just a constant gnawing fear about whether their children are going to be okay. Right? Are they going to be educated the way they need to be? And whether it's inclusion or student-centered thinking, you know, these kiddos, there's this question of whether they're going to be able to get into college. That's where it really raises its head. And that's why you see less innovation often at the high school level, because the perception is we've got to drill and kill our way through this, right? But that overwhelming fear is valid, right? This is the fear that my child won't get into college because you did something different. When I made the suggestion that we get rid of grades at Caubos, it was an immediate explosion, right? I was in ungraded schools my whole childhood. I am so grateful for that, so grateful. But there was an immediate explosive response because how will they get into university without a grade that shows what they can do? And how will they possibly do well on national exams if all they're doing are projects, right? Because you're not doing that drill and kill that we experienced ourselves as— from the parents' perspective, that approach to education we experienced ourselves ourselves growing up is what we know and what we recognize. The other side of that coin, of course, is that there are parents who are poorly served by their own education, parents who know that whether or not they went to university, they were failed by school. And those caregivers are our biggest allies as leaders because those are parents who can say, I understand your perspective, and here's what's happening for my kid, right? Or here's what's happening to me, or what happened to me.

Yeah. It, it's interesting though, because not always are they the allies, right? Because I think there's also a fear that drives a, a resistance to change because there's a sense of, in order to, as you say, you know, you wanna get to the next step, you wanna get to college, but also you just, you need to be able to function in these, however broken systems they are, you need to be able to function in them. So you've, you've got to almost learn to play the game in these broken systems. Obviously broken is a, is not an unvalue-laden word there for me, but you know, but I think that's important because there is a fear that's bound up with that as well, that it's not just about what's best for my child in terms of their thriving and flourishing in who they are, what kinds of things they are passionate about, what skills they have. It's also how will they meet the world when they then go into the world and maybe, yes, are presented with some from people who don't always think of them in their best interests and systems that are potentially not functioning very well and judgments that will be made very quickly. All of those things which are not ideal conditions that we would want for our kids or our adolescents and adults, young adults, but they are the reality of the world in lots of places. So there's almost a kind of, no, you've just gotta toughen them up somehow to get them ready for this world that actually, you know, will often push back on them. And I think there's some fear around that that actually keeps us away from some of the more student-centered approaches.

Yeah, I agree completely. And I do think that this is a major challenge. I mean, one of the things that I often find myself telling people is, so they're going to suffer in the world beyond the schoolhouse, so you want to make sure they suffer for the 14 years they're in the schoolhouse too? Like, why would we—

Exactly.

Why would we prioritize toughening them up during the years of formation, right? Like, I don't see that as good. And there is actually a lot of psychological research that suggests that our ideas about grit are actually mostly BS and that growing up in a situation that's constantly challenging like that is actually not good psychologically for your health and well-being. But I think the, you know, one of the stories that I really appreciated that was shared by a leader was the story from Denise España in Hawaii. And she talked about working in a school that's largely Indigenous Hawaiian youth, very, very high percentage, as well as high percentage of Indigenous teachers, Hawaiian teachers. And she actually signaled almost exactly what you're talking about. She said, we want them to know themselves. We want them to have this confident cultural identity that they have spent their early years forming and understanding who they are, the history of their place in the world, of their families, of the history of the, you know, in general, right? All of these things that they need to be able to learn so that they graduate in 8th grade, I think in her case, with a confident cultural identity. And we have to absolutely prepare them for that real system that's out there because otherwise, how will they ever— And this is what I loved about her response. She said, "How will they ever change policy?" if they don't know how to work the system. And I thought that was a really powerful way to frame it, right? That we're not just talking about kids surviving difficulty outside of the schoolhouse and, you know, we shouldn't coddle them too much inside school, but we also don't need to make them suffer for 14 years. But that if we do that right, if we do that well, not only will they have this understanding of themselves and of the broader systems that they're going to have to grapple with and that they may already be grappling with in their families, but they're actually going to be the leaders that get us toward policy change because they're going to know how to work those rigid systems, if you will, right? Or those conservative systems in a way that leads us to something better.

Yeah, no, 100%. And I mean, in a way that makes me think of your middle path idea, which comes up a lot in the book. Because I've always struggled with this. There's something about this idea of a middle path. Path that is often presented as a weak compromise. And I think there's something really interesting there. I remember David Didaugh in his book, What If Everything You Knew About School Was Wrong or something. But there's something really interesting in that of something related to what you just said from Denise, like how can it be something that is alive and moving to shift with the way that things shift as a middle rather than just a kind of a weak mix of a bit of that and a bit of that. And therefore we end up with not a very, whatever the word is, I don't know whether it's strong is the right word or, or a kind of an integrity in that middle path, which is, has its own inner strength and drive or movement or whatever it is. But there isn't just a diluted version of what are seen to be the two alternatives, right? Again, it's like that binary, unhelpful binary, But it's like, that's why this middle is super interesting to me.

Yeah, I think, well, I get you completely because I've often had people on both ends suggest that they think the middle path is too much compromise for either end, right? That that's what we're talking about is you gotta give up all these ideas in order to get to that middle. I would describe the middle maybe as sometimes perceived as sort of beige, whereas the edges are bold colors, if that makes sense. Like there's that feeling of, you know, that it's somehow, it's watered down what's possible. Possible somehow. And actually, that's always been my perception of the concept of the melting pot in the United States. Even as a young child, I hated the metaphor of the melting pot because what it suggested was that all these incredible different cultures come into this place and then they get watered down and blended together until they don't have any individual identity, like a soup or a stew, right? So then why— like, that's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about building a salad where every single individual individual identity is recognized, right? That's much better. So, but to go back to the middle path, I don't think it's about compromise. I think it's really about what you were just saying, right? It's about recognizing we work in systems that still function in a particular way in education, and to simply stop complying with that would be disastrous, particularly in schools of choice, right? Which would be the international or private schools where families can decide to go elsewhere and they take their money with them, and then you've got, you know, the economy of the school to worry about. But I really do think that the middle path is recognizing all perspectives. I mean, that goes back to the global educator in me, right? It is recognizing all perspectives, including those at the extreme edges, so that we understand how to work within systems that still exist, right? And I used to say this all the time to parents at Caobos, like, it would be irresponsible of me as a head of school to do anything with your children here that hurt their ability to work within that system, right? So obviously, if we don't prepare them in a way that will get them into university, that's a failing of the school, no question, right? That is the way the system still works. I wish it didn't. I refused to take the SATs and still found an amazing place to go, but that is the way the system still works in general. So it would be irresponsible of us not to prepare for them for that. And Capono put it in an interesting way too, and he said— this is in book as well, that if— that as we're innovating in any school, whatever that innovation looks like, that we have to make sure we don't start to tank those metrics that people value more than what we're saying matters, right? So in other words, if we've got great SAT scores or great college entry data, right, we don't want to destroy that in the process of innovating because then it suggests that the innovation hurt it, right? So you have to recognize, no, no, we're still going to do that preparation because that's the way the system still works, and we recognize there is something better, so we're going to find ways to weave that in effectively. So for me, it's not a compromise. I would love to be way to the extreme of progressive ed, and that's certainly where my own upbringing comes from and where my own head comes from. But when I'm working with teachers and schools and leaders, I am really, really conscious all the time that that is not their reality, right? And that they do in fact have to ensure that they're preparing kids for the reality of things, right? So that it is that middle between the two extremes.

Yeah, it's super interesting 'cause it makes me think of last year I was in Singapore and Andreas Schleicher from the OECD was talking about this and basically saying, you know, we recognize that there needs to be a broader set of competencies that we're working towards. And of course the standard academic ones are important, but then there's this, so this is broadening, and there's sometimes an implication in that, that you basically don't have to compromise. You can have it all. And that's what you're saying about you don't want to tank the SAT scores because people value those and they are, they still do have a certain kind of value in the world. But there's an interesting predicament to say we don't have to compromise on anything. We can have it all. And that was my slight question for Andreas at that point. But I also, just cuz you brought in Capono, I think there's something really interesting you know, harking back to your landscape book about this kind of more ecological. I loved you, I remember Capono talking about being a protagonist and you had that in the landscape book, you know, so everyone's kind of their own protagonist of their own learning and that, you know, the educators are bringing in their own priorities and the parents are bringing in their own priorities. And as you say, they're trying to navigate all of that at the same time, which is a very alive process. Progress, but it's not one of we'll all regress to the mean and we'll all just get to some kind of beige average that we're just gonna kind of proceed from there because that doesn't feel good for anyone, right?

No, it definitely doesn't. Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, I think, and Capono and I talked about this a lot, the idea of the protagonism of the learner being at the core of everything really is an equity suggestion, right? I mean, it really does. It's framed by this idea that every individual is unique and brings something different to the world, to their own lives, right? And that they deserve to be treated and recognized that way. But when we put in that ecological piece, I think it gets really important. First of all, we've separated ourselves from nature so much as humans that I think it's often hard for us to even see ourselves as a part of the natural world and the biological functions of ecosystems. I think it's actually surprising how much difficulty we have with that and how much we choose to go visit nature in certain moments, but then feel ourselves separated from it the rest of the time. And yet, when we look at the biological world, it's very clear that diversity helps. That in the long run, we wouldn't exist if it weren't for diversity. No species on this planet would exist were it not for diversity, right? So, so if we can really frame it that way and recognize, look, we're not going to come to one agreement and thinking of it from the political political perspective as well, right? That we're not going to come to one agreement. We're going to explore as many perspectives as we can and try to understand why they exist, right? And understand every child in that same way. I used to do a lot of work, and I still do a fair amount of work, around bringing Palestinian voices into North American classrooms and was part of a major initiative around that a decade and a half ago. And I, and I wrote about it a lot in the Global Ed Guidebook as well. And I, that was one where, yeah, I did have very strong opinions on one side of a political spectrum. I'm very much pro-Palestinian rights and pro-human rights in, in basically any context. But what does it look like to teach that in a school when it's such a polarizing topic? We have to come in with agreements. We have to build a, a culture of safety in that classroom so that every child can be the protagonist of how they see it and how they they want or need to explore it and are not invalidated for their perspectives, but are— their eyes are open to other ones as well, right? So when you— I mean, I'm going bigger than, than the landscape model here, right? That idea that every child is different, that every child, you know, not only deserves to work from a place of talents and assets, but to be treated as someone with talents and assets. And educated that way. You know, I, I just think human cultures— I think human progress and development is always made better by a diversity of perspectives and experiences and cultures and all of those things. And so when we can see school that way rather than a road toward uniformity, which unfortunately is what we look for a lot, like everybody needs to be able to answer these specific questions on this exam them in the same way. When we're, you know, moving toward uniformity, I really do think we're going to suffer for it in the long run. Humans will suffer for it in the long run. There's a huge, huge risk that we're taking if we don't try to do something more personalized, more centered on the learner.

No, I 100% agree with the uniformity point because I think, yeah, there's a lack of resilience to, you know, to the point of toughening up, right? There's a real lack of resilience in a monoculture, right? If everything is the same, blame that there is a, like a clear lack of resilience and the diversity brings in also the resilience. And the other piece I think I'm always fascinated by is there's something also about our obsession with arriving in education. Like we're trying to get somewhere. And so whether we're trying to get to agreement of polarized political views to this fixed point, or whether we're trying to get to college or whether we're trying to get to the right answer, what— there's always— we're obsessed with getting somewhere. And I always just think, where is— what are we trying to actually get? Because once we arrive there, we're already moving towards the next place. Or, you know, there's this constant movement happening in life because that's just how we are as humans. We continue to, you know, we're moving towards one goal and then, you know, we adapt and move towards the next one, or we— things shift and our priorities shift. Life changes. Changes. There's a constant movement happening, but we're, by being obsessed with getting somewhere, I feel that really limits our imagination about some of these questions because then it's like, oh, well, they've got to get to this answer or they've got to get to these colleges because these are acceptable or they've got to get to, you know, and it's just a really interesting problem I think that we face and it throws up then really big challenges for the leaders and teachers in those spaces to hold hold that sense. And I actually think a lot of that is coming from fear. It's driven by a fear, right?

Agreed.

It's like we want to get to certainty. The destination is certainty and fear of not being in certainty is uncomfortable. It's, I don't know, it's like it's really complex nest of dynamics, I think. But I think they really hold us in a lot of these challenging conversations, I I think.

Yeah, absolutely. I— yeah, Robert Landau put it beautifully. There's a line in the, in the first chapter about another educational leader about the greatest impediment to better education being the people who already have one, who've already been educated, in other words. Because I don't think this problem exists among the young people until they've been inculcated into seeing the world that way, right? By their— usually by their caregivers or their educators. And I, you know, I agree with you. And I think it's also short-term destination thinking, right? And you signaled that, right? Because as soon as we get there, we're worried about the next destination, right? And it's very short-term thinking, which is also harming us as a species on this planet to not think forward further, to not think historically as well, that seventh generation thinking that indigenous cultures have been doing for thousands of years that we seem to have lost in modern society. I think the— this idea of arriving somewhere is really tricky. And I do think, too, even when we're talking about arriving somewhere through education, aren't we talking about every person arriving where they will thrive? Right? I mean, mind you, my father— I grew up with a father who described his job as the golden handcuffs, right? 'Cause he was the child of an artist and a musician, and he made the choice to become an accountant. So, he called his job the golden handcuffs because he had made the choice to make a better living so that he could raise children, right? And give them more of what they needed that he felt he hadn't been given himself growing up. All of that is completely valid. And yet, I felt locked growing up, even though I was going to progressive schools, with this very ominous, consistent pressure to go to college, to find my career path, to do all these things. Now, I've kind of gone the other direction most of the way through. I mean, I— I— was educated through my master's degree, but I keep reinventing myself over and over and over and trying new things and taking on new projects. It's not about uniformity. It's not about one unique destination that we always have to strive for. There was a story that I was thinking might be valuable to hear. I was just sharing this with somebody yesterday. So I was in— I would have been in kindergarten, so I was about 5 years old in a progressive school, the school in Rose Valley founded by Grace Rotzel in the 1920s. I unfortunately did not know Grace Rotzel. She was way before my time. And I was in a progressive school and nevertheless came home from school one day and asked my parents whether I was developmentally disabled. And my father looked at— I mean, from the way he retells the story, he was stunned by the question at And he said, "Why on earth are you asking me that, Jennifer?" And my response was, "Because I never have the answer the teacher's looking for, and my answers to things are never the same as my peers." So, already at 5, I was highly aware of that uniformity, right? That there was only one right answer, that there was, you know, that even my peers would see me as weird if my answer was different, right? So, that's not just a pressure from the educator. Or the families, right? It's also pressure at the peer level. And of course, my, you know, thank you to my father, his response was, "The fact that you're even asking the question is evidence that you're not, right? That you are highly, highly intelligent." But then they had to make that choice to say, "What are the kinds of schools that Jennifer will thrive in?" Because they didn't want me in schools where the, you know, my perspective was going to be the wrong answer, and I was going to get a slap on the wrist or a bad grade because I saw things differently. They wanted me in schools where people would say, "Ooh, what an interesting way of seeing things, Jennifer." Jennifer, tell me more. So I think, I think when education really, again, focuses on the child, focuses on who they are, what they're good at, what they need to get better at, but with full recognition that who they are and their identity and their— the history of their family and their neighborhood and their community and all of those things, that all of that matters, right? That we're not just churning something out on a factory line, right? We're working with humans, we're developing people, and we're not turning them into something. We're trying to bring out the best them.

Yeah, absolutely. But I would also say, and valuing them there and then for their contribution in their place where they are, because often we do this displacement thing as well of like, you know, building potential and growing into your fullest potential and all this kind of this development and growing language, but actually part of it is how do we help people somehow value the child in front of them and the moment that they are in with that child in front of them, you know? So it's a present orientation, you know, it's quite interesting. We displace into the future often. Yeah. Can I just clarify that experience at 5 was in, was at Rose Valley School. So even that's fascinating to me because even that was in a so-called progressive school that there was still this, this ecological communication coming through from all of the messages around you of the other, you know, your peers and the, just the environment that there were right answers that you had to find. And it's just interesting to me that even in those contexts, it's, it's still there, right? Still very present.

Absolutely. Well, and I, that experience, that teacher was wonderful. I, I wouldn't say that the teacher was doing anything wrong. I think it is just the prevailing norms of the culture. Of any school at the time anyway.

Yeah. No, it's super interesting. And I also think, I know we haven't gone deep into it, but I'm fascinated by your own experience of your own education because I think that that's also always very interesting to me how long these kinds of models have persisted. And yes, they are somewhat marginal to the so-called, in inverted commas, mainstream, but they persist, right? And they really do persist. And these amazing people like Grace and Arnie Langberg, I know you've mentioned, and then just obviously the people that people, you know, the Deweys and the more well-known people that people have heard of. These models and Montessori, they persist in pretty much all countries around the world, but there's something there that won't go away. And there's some interesting hope in there for me is like, you know, how to leverage some of that persistence and kind of enable it, as you say, to bring it into other spaces where it may take more root as people see more need for it. I think that's what the other piece that's happening now, perhaps that in the turbulence, right, that you talk about in the book, there is a recognition that I don't think things are gonna get less turbulent. There are different reasons why they're turbulent politically and climate-wise and all sorts of things, but I don't think things are gonna get less turbulent. So maybe the situations are inviting us into to learn a bit more from people like Grace to bring more of those kinds of approaches in. In that will hold us as things get more turbulent somehow.

Yeah, yeah, I hope that that's the case. I agree with you that it— I mean, this is not a new movement, right? I said 1929, I think, was when the school in Rose Valley was founded. The Open School here in Colorado, and my experiences with Arnie, that's a younger school but still one of the first alternative public schools in the country. And yet even today, I find myself getting more and more angry, to be honest with you, with the fact that even today most people think that that kind of an education belongs in an alternative school and that it can only work in an alternative school, that's a perfect signal of why the system is not working right now, right? Because if it's so rigid that we can't respond to the real kids in front of us, then that's a problem, right? I hope that this becomes a growing movement. And I'm going to go back to Denise España in Hawaii because she made this comment about how we were talking about data, which is actually my least favorite conversation when it comes to education. But she said, what if we started to see each one of the schools that's trying to do this and is doing it well as a data point in a larger argument for what needs to change in education? We haven't banded together before in that way. We've got the systems like Montessori, right, that are kind of part of a network, or PYP, right, the Primary Years Programs and IB, right, that where you've got around the world there's a network and a system that's working towards something a little bit different. But I think her point is really powerful. What does it look like when we actually start paying attention to each other, working together, networking, and, and seeing each of our successes as data points for a much, much larger argument that goes beyond our borders, that goes beyond one country or one school, and is really about about what it means to do human development today in turbulent times, what it means to prepare learners for turbulence without making them suffer the whole way through their pre-K-12 experience, hopefully, and really set them up as much as possible to succeed in a world that we can't even envision because it's changing so quickly.

Yeah. No, I love that. I mean, that's beautifully said. And I just, finally, I would say that's partly why That's why I've shifted the language of the podcast to a new kind of education is emerging rather than we want to transform education somehow. Actually, it's already happening. It is already happening all over the place in all sorts of different ways, in all sorts of ways that don't necessarily look like each other. But that's what's interesting. I think there's the really diverse ecosystem of people who are responding saying it's not working. And the response to that is not the same. The same everywhere.

Yeah, well, and I think that's because every context is different. And I think that's exactly, you know, I, I can see why we created standards. I do understand, I get that, right? That this idea that we need to make sure that every school is reaching a certain level of quality of education, sure, that makes sense to me, right? But when we start to standardize too much, it suggests that there is only one pathway, there's only one right. In, in my opinion, it's a terrible mistake. I think there's there's a, an opportunity here to think of education as much more multifaceted, to think of humans as diverse and multifaceted, and to see that as a gift, not a challenge to overcome. And, you know, I even— this urge that I see often in educators to fix the child rather than to fix the environment. Do you know what I mean? In the classroom, to say this kid isn't doing this right, so they need to be fixed somehow. Rather than to say— and I say this without teacher blaming because I, I love teachers and I do believe teachers are doing the best they can— and what does it look like to let go of some of those biases? Like, what does it look, look like for the child if we can take a step back and recognize that, that humans are different? And so I think personally that local control and community schools is more the answer than anything. That's something that I've written about before. I, I really do think that Every school, if it understands its own community and context well, can do it better than any federal system can tell them to do it because the federal system isn't in the neighborhood with them. They don't know what the actual realities are. So I'm a big, big believer in the older models of community schools that respond to the actual community that they work with.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. I mean, it's so important and I agree there's something very local and relational about the thing we're talking about. And so it is really hard to hold with the scale. But, but also wanted to say what you said about the teacher blaming feels so important as well, because just like we're trying to, sometimes we fall into the trap of wanting to fix the child, then we get locked in the trap of wanting to fix the teacher who's doing the wrong thing, even though the environment in which the teacher is in, everything in that environment, all the incentive structures are pointing towards towards trying to fix the child, right? So it's like these nested environments, which are all communicating the same kind of mechanistic ways of working. So you almost can't blame, I mean, no, there's agency in there, isn't there? But you, you know, it's very difficult to blame a teacher because they are being so incentivized by a particular kind of environment in which they work. I mean, the whole thing's a systemic problem, but anyway, sorry, I'm not gonna, absolutely, we're not gonna fix it now, but.

Well, but I, I will respond to that if you don't mind. Because I've been doing some work in public education in a district in Texas, and one of the things that's come up is exactly that. There is a movement to modernize school buildings. This is public ed. And to modernize the education that happens inside those buildings simultaneously, which is a really, really great movement in this particular district. And the state of Texas incentivizes is high test scores on the state test through a major bonus. So if a teacher gets all their kids to a certain level, they're going to get this huge financial benefit. Here we are trying to convince the teachers that other teachers' kids matter too, and that it's not just, "These are my kids and I'm going to make sure they succeed, but I don't care about those other kids in the room right next to me," right? Like, all children are our children in this community. Getting them to make that mind mindset shift when they know that they can get more money at the end of the year because their kids did better. Like, those are the systems that are working directly against what we're talking about, right? And I think the blaming piece— I mean, parents blame leaders and teachers, leaders often blame teachers, teachers blame students and parents often, right? And the blame game is just another dichotomizing. It's a deflection of my responsibility to to grow, and my responsibility to recognize that every child is different, every teacher is different, that, that we are generally doing the best we can. That's another one that I've struggled with over the years. I've often felt like I was dealing with an awful lot of teachers who didn't even want to grow or get good at what they do. And I had a leader at one point who— I was obsessed with some of those teacher movies, you know, like The Poet Society and The Freedom Writers and stuff. Right? And I had mentioned this to my mentor, who was the head of school where I was teaching in Denver. And I, at the time, I was teaching Dead Poets Society in my English class. And she said, 'Oh God, I hate those movies.' I was like, 'What? You're an educator and you hate those movies?' She's like, 'But in every one of them, what you've got is one star teacher who gives a crap.' Exactly. But you've got one teacher in an entire community who sees the children fully. Right? That's not the reality. And what she said was, in every educational community, it's actually the reverse. Like, 99% of the teachers in that community are trying to do the right thing for their students. And there's maybe one or two— there are a couple, maybe— who are not, who don't want to grow. So growth is hard, right? We also have to recognize that and support that growth in a meaningful way, just like we would do for kids. The very same conversation we're having about what learners need, young people need, people need is what teachers need. They need to feel what it's like to be educated in a different way, in a more thoughtful and humanizing way, an equity-based way. And as they understand it that way and feel the difference and feel like they're being treated less like cogs in a machine and more like individuals, the better they're gonna teach.

No, absolutely. And what, yeah, what are they curious about? What are they interested in, right? To your 6-year-old self, right? And again, a slightly uniform professional environment, sometimes we might be liable to say, you know, it's fine to, for the young people to have choice. We wanna move towards that. But we, we struggle with giving the professionals, the educators in the room, the same level of, and clearly none of it's easy. Hence why we need a book, you know, distilling the wisdom of all these amazing leaders that you've been talking to. And I, I mean, just to say, I think that's one of the most powerful things about about the book is that they are personal stories of real people doing the work. Because, you know, I sometimes am conscious of that sitting on a podcast talking about it, right? It's like the people who are doing the work, who are really working in those relational environments where it gets really hard and really tense and there's a lot of fear and all of the things we've talked about, that's where some, some openings I think can come is when you listen to the, the kind of the different wisdom that as it shows up in different places and reflect and learn from that. So I think that's a super powerful aspect of what you've done with the book. So yeah, thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I, that was certainly the intention and I, I don't think any one of us is in a position anywhere in the world to say this is the one and only right way to do education. But I think when we can ask for, listen to, believe the stories of leaders and teachers who who are finding their ways towards something better and are, you know, even those who— I mean, there are a bunch of people in the book who lost their jobs too, right? Who died on the right hill, if you will. And that's a part of it too, when you stick by your convictions, when you believe in— when you have a vision and you believe in it and you stick to it and you aren't willing to compromise. But we got to do something, right? We've got to do something that makes the world a little bit better. And I think story— you know, I'm a creative writer too, right? I have a background in poetry and fiction. And so I, I also find myself thinking about what moves us as humans.

Yeah.

And I don't, unfortunately, don't think it's most of the professional development that teachers get, and I don't think that it's most of what's out there, or a lot of what's out there in educational publishing. The idea of drawing in the story, the individual, the human, I think that's what moves the heart. And that came up a lot as an argument from the leaders too about how we help to move a community's mindset is like, let's get the stories, let's get the teachers' stories, the kids' stories, let's, help anybody who's resisting hear it from a human so that they understand it less as a system and more from that individual level.

I love that because it also, the stories also hold the complexity of the context in them.

Yes.

And that is key, right? Because if otherwise we are just doing this reductionist move again and turning things into parts and that we can just direct.

Yeah.

It's like holding the complexity is part of everything I think we've been talking about in this conversation, right? Somehow with love and with the heart that you were just talking about. So no, thank you for doing it. It's amazing work.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

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