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Interview 3
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From the course by Commonwealth Education Trust
Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Planning for Teaching and Learning
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Commonwealth Education Trust
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From the lesson
Innovation and Change
This is the final week of this course and we appreciate your perseverance! This week you are going to have the opportunity to think about designing more innovative learning environments for young people. You will see how teachers are planning intellectually and socially engaging practices for learners. You will also extend your thinking about the growth mindset by exploring the notions of perseverance and grit, a quality that is highly correlated with adult success. As well, you are going to think about the important role that both trusting relationships and professional networks play in your development as a teacher. We encourage you to think about the ways in which you are contributing to strengthening relational trust in your settings.
Meet the Instructors
Dr Judy HalbertCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Dr Linda KaserCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Professor John MacBeathProfessor Emeritus
University of Cambridge, UK
[MUSIC]
Well, this is our final discussion after six weeks.
Let's try and reflect, I think, on some of the key ideas that have come
up, and I'd like you to say something about three things I've written down here -
one is about disagreeing in not disagreeable ways.
So, maybe we'll try and practice that one shortly.
And also dissonance is good.
So, we can disagree.
And we're going to do some watchful listening.
So, I like all of these three concepts that you
use, and they kind of run through all of your work
don't they? They're something that you've really internalized.
So, how do you get-- I mean, these are pretty challenging
and in some sense, it's quite radical ideas, aren't they?
So, in your work with schools, with teachers, with principals, with young people,
with parents - I guess you work across the whole range -
how do you try and introduce and embed those kind of key ideas then?
>>Great questions. >> I'll take a first stab at it.
As you said, we're lucky that we get to work on multiple levels.
So, we work with parents, with teachers, with principals,
and with district leaders, and with ministry colleagues as well.
And I think that what has worked for us is that we've been pretty consistent
around some important messages for a long time.
And, people know that if they're asking us to be part
of something, that this is going to the basis from which we come.
So, going back to, you know, our three big goals,
every learner crossing the stage with dignity, purpose and options,
that has come not just from Linda and I, but it's
coming in partnership with the schools that we work with.
And then, as they own it, it becomes their language.
And so, it's really been interesting to see how sticking
with a message, keeping it consistent, and then people think it's their own.
And that's great.
The same with the notion of learners
leaving more curious than when they arrived,
again, we've been working with that idea a lot.
And it was, you know,
it's been really fun to hear those
words come out of other people's mouths and thinking it's theirs.
And we're going, "Great,
you know, that's terrific."
So, I'd say that consistency around the message at different levels.
>> Now, I mean it's a great question because like you
we've been in a variety of settings where
people seem to take pleasure in the disagreeing
that's kind of a put down, rather than a
search for practices and truths that might be helpful.
In our context, one of the things that's really
helped in the province of British Columbia, is we
do have, quite uniquely, a framework for social responsibility
that talks about what young people should do when they
communicate in appreciative ways.
Not with tolerance, but with an appreciation for
diversity, which is a different kind of stance.
And that's been really fun to kind of tease each
other as adults and say, at the highest level of
accomplishment of this notion that we are really going to
take responsibility for each other and work in a social setting.
And, what does that behaviour look like?
And what does it sound like?
And it sounds like putting your ideas on the table, not personalising it,
you know, exploring in a curiosity-driven way rather than a egocentric-driven way,
believing that there's probably some truth in
a different perspective other than your own.
That's what we want for young people.
So, when those guidelines go up on the screen
or, schools are taking that very seriously.
I think that is a Canadian value, that we want to live in this way,
when we're at our best.
We haven't always historically done that, but that's what we want now.
And I think that having something that you can use
both at the - you know, we talked about the language of
students and learners and pupils - at the level
of learning for every single person involved with the learning process.
Can we agree that we are going to aspire to these things?
If that isn't enough, then I think what we try to do at least, the contribution that
I think our networks and programs can make with our graduate students,
is just making sure that we always model it.
You know, and that's not always easy,
because we, you know, we read a
lot, we think a lot, we go to
the International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement, and
meet people like you and listen and think about it and bring the ideas back,
and struggle with some of the ideas. And saying how can
we make-- I mean, that's why we love the innovative learning environment
initiative so much, because learning is being constructed in very different
ways in a one-room Swiss schoolhouse to, kind of, some of our experiences.
And you are forced
to think, and that's really good.
So, I think modeling those processes and saying, you know, we're exploring this
so that people can genuinely see how curious we all are.
Curious in both senses.
Curious people
but inquiring people.
I think that helps to create that culture.
>> In all three of your talks,
you refer to different countries, different places,
different schools, different models, and you've been
around a lot and seen different things.
At times - I mean, this key idea being respect for other people -
at times do you not get, actually, a little irritated?
No, you're talking absolute rubbish.
How do you handle that kind of--
because dissonance is what it is, isn't it?
How do you deal with dissonance
when it's something that's just so wrong?
>> Yeah, I'm just going to
say quickly that what I would say, in that
situation is, you know, "I'm not sure that we will ever agree."
And probably if I feel that it's more in the rubbish category,
"You have some reason to believe that." And if it seems disrespectable,
for reasons, let's say, of, you know, gender, or
somebody's position in the hierarchy.
then I probably would choose now to walk away.
In earlier parts of my life I tried different strategies, they didn't particularly work.
Now, I use systematic ignoring.
>> Systematic ignoring, that's a good one, yeah.
>> Because in a sense you're like
your life is short and you've gotta make it valuable.
So, find the best people, take their ideas.
>> Yeah, I totally agree, and
you know, we've been influenced--
I've really appreciated the work of Margaret Wheatley.
And one of her books is Walk Out Walk On.
And it's knowing when to say, that's enough.
And you know, the best time to leave a relationship of any
kind is when you've done everything that you can to make it work
but to know when to say okay, we're done,
and so that's part one. The second is the notion of perseverance.
And again, Margaret Wheatley has a beautiful book on perseverance.
And you know, we really listen to those messages, and, what
she really says is, look to one another and keep your head above water.
And uses, you know, a wonderful metaphor of
a river, but I think that where I've got
my strength to persevere and to thrive really, is working in partnership.
And finding people-- Exceed was one place, when I first found that there was a
whole community of people who cared about quality
and equity and learning and improvement and effectiveness.
I didn't feel lonely anymore and so, you know,
working with Linda has been a gift and I think it's
given us both strengths to persevere. >> Do you disagree?
>> Absolutely.
>> We disagree frequently.
And usually, you know, before we're going into, you know, a session, even
before we came into teaching this course, we'll have some, you know, huge fight.
>> Nothing too injurious, I hope.
>> No, no.
But we'll really, you know, duke it out around the ideas and the feelings,
and you know, the anxieties, and then come to an agreement -
alright, this is, you know, our points of agreement, and
let's just focus on that and not worry about the rest of it.
>> Do you ever disagree, publicly that is,
when you're onstage, you're leading a session, you disagree?
>> I think sometimes when we teach our graduate programs, because
the group size is, you know, you can wrap your arms around a group of 20 or 30.
And I think that's healthy, too,
just to say that's my perspective.
We try to identify whether it's a personal perspective or,
you know, kind of more of a
professional and grounded perspective from research.
But we enjoy that.
But I wanted to loop back to something you
know, that you were asking.
I think I mentioned before that one of our deans says, you know,
I want you to argue a sort of a joyous disagreement process.
And I think it's really good to bounce ideas off each other.
I think from a, you know, critical thinking perspective, you have to do that.
I think it's the way that you approach it though.
You know, that you can really love
somebody as a person and feel that their ideas,
their mental model isn't as useful as another,
and that's something that we can cultivate.
And picking up on Judy's idea of perseverance, I think sometimes not that
you hear something with which you would disagree, but I really remember a
moment in which this learning elder from an indigenous tradition, she was talking
about science and about how indigenous people
that knew that certain plants were good
for medicine.
I said to her, "Lorna, how did you know
what the plants were for?"
And I like to tease her, because she looked at me with real
exasperation, and she said, "Linda, the plants told us what they were for."
And, I remember thinking for months afterwards, as I was driving
or walking, okay, this is, you know, a very different
world view, and it was certainly a moment of dissonance for me, because I just had
never thought about looking at nature in a non-western way.
>> You talk about how important it is
for, you know-- you say dissonance is good, disagreement is good,
joyful disagreement and so and so.
So, in a sense because those are core beliefs that you're transmitting, you
have to be able to model some of it as well,
and be up front.
But maybe it depends very much on the context that you're talking about.
>> I think that we found, you know,
it's easy to talk about dissonance and disagreement.
Linda and I have been working together for, you know, 13 and 14 years now, so
we've got a lot of trust and we know that at the end of the day if
we duke it out over some ideas or we get
upset, that there's going to be a tomorrow and it's going to be fine.
That's not necessarily the case in schools.
And, I think that it's a false assumption
to think that people are comfortable with disagreement and dissonance.
I had to work hard to get to that place, and
what what we found is that doing small modeling, you know, using some protocols,
providing the safe container for teachers to put their ideas on the table
and to talk about them, knowing that
there's boundaries around that has been incredibly helpful.
I think, you know, that may be a gender thing,
I think that women sometimes have a harder time arguing
about ideas because they feel it's a personal attack either
on, you know, the person they're talking to or on themselves.
I see, you know, men are often more comfortable with that and
it's just okay, and we need to make safe for both
men and women together to focus on ideas, and not to do
it in a way that slights the person, but really makes it okay.
>> I think that's an interesting and somewhat contentious point, actually,
because I think there's a lot of research that says women actually
are able to cope much more with dissonance or ambiguity.
That men, as a kind of a macho thing,
you know, whereas softer, quote, feminine kind of aspects -
obviously men can have feminine characteristics, too -
but the more feminine characteristics are
to be able to listen a little more
and to disagree a little
more positively, than often is a very masculine trait, you know.
>> You know, I take your point.
And I think, you know, my observation was just from working, particularly
with elementary schools that are primarily
staffed by women, that sometimes maybe that's
just, you know, my experience, but regardless of whether it's men or women,
I think we need to create the conditions where it's okay, and
where we've got some protocols at the beginning until
it becomes a more natural way for us to interact.
>> Just one of the last things that has been
a continuous strand through all of your 24 lectures,
lots of continuous strands actually.
That's one of the lovely things about it, you keep coming back -
you talk about spirals of inquiry and you come back in spirals all
the time. But among the many, many metaphors that
you use - crossing the stage or grit and all of these things -
what you have done is tried to really explain those things to people
who don't come from North America,
because these are kind of North American metaphors.
Often a lot of them are, aren't they?
And I think one of the, the powerful things
is for people to be able, whether they're in Africa, South America,
wherever they are in the world following this course,
that these metaphors are actually unpacked a little,
but I think they're very, very powerful metaphors.
And they obviously mean, you know, they mean a lot to you,
working in metaphorical ideas.
And that seems to me one of the great strengths of storytelling.
Storytellers always
have great metaphors, which are very powerful kind of things.
So, any sort of last-- if you had to say kind of any one thing -
putting you on the spot -
that you'd want to say to people, here's something I want
you really to take away from this whole series of lectures.
What would be the one key idea, if you'd like?
I like to pose easy, simple questions.
>> You know, I think I would say, embrace the spiral of inquiry.
And I think, for us, because we worked, you know, for a big chunk of our
career without having a framework, you know, with
the best frameworks we could find at the time.
And once we came to agreement with Helen
that this seemed to make sense, we've been field testing
the spiral of inquiry in a variety of settings -
in Australia and England and Canada and a couple of weeks in the States.
And we found that it does resonate with
people, and I think that's given us a confidence
to say, whatever the sequence of the stages are,
these are all intellectually respectful things to be doing.
Find some meaning in it and
see if you can drive your professional learning
through that kind of thinking because you
can't be engaged with that unless you're curious.
We deeply believe in curiosity as a way of getting that.
And for adults, and for parents, and for family
members and for people in other countries where they've lost,
you know, where they've lost both of their parents but
their grandmother or grandfather is taking care of them, curiosity can
focus well, can take you a long, long way
in having a really rich and
meaningful life regardless of your economic circumstances
and keep that spirit alive.
>> And I think my final word is, it's similar to
Linda's, but if we think about the questions at the
heart of the spiral of inquiry, it's what's going on for
our learners, how do we know, and why does this matter?
So, my message and my invitation would be to listen to your learners,
and to really try to see the world from their experience.
And we talked, you know, a bit about
assessment for learning, but that's really at the heart of
it, is building from what the learner knows and
needs to what it is that we're going to do.
And that's turning planning on its head in some ways.
So, I'd say that our students, our learners are an invaluable resource of information
to us as teachers, if we listen to them.
>> The spiral of inquiry, maybe it was Lao Tzu, I think, who thought
of the spiral of inquiry and the deed is done, the mission accomplished, and return
to the people and the people will say at the end of the day, we did it ourselves.
>> Exactly.
>> I think I got that quote slightly wrong, but I got the spirit of it.
And that's very much what you are doing.
>> Yeah, from the Tao of Leadership,
and that's exactly what we're thinking about.
What we're trying to do.
>> So, thanks very much.
It's been a very rich and very inspiring
time to spend with you as learners together.
And I'm sure that
this course will have a huge resonance with people
across many countries of the world who are watching.
>> Thank you.
It'd be an honor if that happened, thanks.
[MUSIC]
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