Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today: Education - Our Children - Their Futures

[00:00] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:05] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:14] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Richard Gerver. Richard is an internationally renowned educator, public speaker, and change expert. The author of three books, he is a former teacher and principal, and currently advises governments, corporations, and other large organizations on leadership, change, and innovation. And he's the author of Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today, Education, Our Children, Their Futures, a book we're here to talk about today.

[00:43] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:45] SPEAKER_01:

Richard, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:47] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you very much for having me, Justin. It's great to be here.

[00:50] SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's a pleasure to speak with you. And I wonder if we could just start by getting into the main idea or the main message that you're putting out into the world with creativity. Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today, a book I will note has a foreword written by someone who is very familiar to our audience, Sir Ken Robinson. So talk to us a little bit about the message of that book, why that resonated with Ken Robinson to the point that he was willing to write the foreword. And yeah, let's let's get into it.

[01:14] SPEAKER_02:

Okay, well, I'll tell you the truth. It was his idea. So I met Ken just at the formative time of my tenure as a principal. And we met before he became Global Ken, as I now call him. We met by accident. I met him at an event where I started telling him about some of our plans for what we wanted to do in our school in the UK.

[01:36]

And he very quickly became a friend and mentor to me. Over the years, as the school experienced success and transformation and change, which we can get into in a while, he eventually said to me, you know, Richard, you've got to write this down. You've got to write down what you're doing. Because I, like a lot of principals, I think, busy in our jobs, a lot of school leaders. You just get on with the job. Right.

[01:57]

And we all think that what we're doing is just our jobs. And I was no different to any other school leader or teacher anywhere else. I got my head down. I was passionate about my kids and my community. And we were just doing what we felt was right. But having someone like him and it doesn't have to be a Ken Robinson, it can be, you know, that external pair of eyes and ears.

[02:18]

say to you, you know, some of what you're doing is really important and special. You need to write it down. So the book really came out of that. Initially, it was just a personal journal. It was just a way of me remembering as we were going along, the decisions we were making, why we were making those decisions and the results of those decisions. And as I came to the end of my tenure in the school and the school, you know, really thanks to the efforts of the community became incredibly successful and and I hope a bit of an inspiration for people.

[02:50]

It was at that point, I thought, hey, you know, this basically is a book, it's real, it's not theoretical, it's not ideological, it charts both my own passions for why we needed to do what we did. But then it goes into telling the actual story of how a real school transformed itself. And so that's where the idea from the book came about. And that's what I became really passionate about, you know, it was the authenticity of not another thought leader talking about leadership in education and how and why we should transform it, but about a real community who develop real clarity of vision and purpose and transform that vision and purpose into something that became tangible and powerful and transformative. And that's really what I hope the book sets out to achieve for people that I'd be honored, you know, for them to read.

[03:41] SPEAKER_01:

And as an aside, I think that's true. You know, you alluded to the fact that that's true for just about every school leader. You know, every school is on a journey, is doing good work on behalf of kids. And even if someone doesn't really want to write a book, doesn't see that in their future, seeing yourself as a leader who is also a storyteller and also as someone who is responsible for getting the word out in the community. It may not be that someone's time as a principal turns into a book, but it may be that they are intentional about getting the word out to the newspaper and to the community about what's going on in the school, about the transformations that are happening in kids' lives. And I wonder if we could learn a little bit more about your school.

[04:23]

When you became principal, I understand there was some significant work to be done, some significant challenges.

[04:28] SPEAKER_02:

Oh, absolutely. Look, and I want the audience to know that I am not one of those people that would cast himself as a hero leader. I often describe my appointment as the school principal at my school as an accident. I turned up, I was actually seconded at the time, working with local government on developing some programs on trying to motivate or re-motivate demotivated boys, particularly with reading and writing. And this was a school that I was asked to target and get involved in our program. So I went along there in that role, walked into this place, you know, like many people do if they're hunting for a house and you can see many, many houses.

[05:09]

And for no apparent reason, you walk into one and you just feel you belong there. Well, that happened to me in this school. So anyway, I went into the school, fell in love with it. Luckily the school, well, luckily for me, the school hadn't had a substantive principal for 18 months. And it turns out had had eight principals in the previous 10 years. So I fell in love with it, went back and applied for the permanent job and went to interview and was thrilled to get the job.

[05:38]

Luckily for me, the only reason I think I got the job was because I was the only candidate. The reason I was the only candidate was because the school was considered to be so poor, the UK government were going to shut it down. The only person that didn't know that at the time was the applicant you're talking to now. So, yeah, there was definitely some substantive problems. You know, it had been in a 10-year cycle of decline. Standards had been dropping like a stone.

[06:07]

Staff turnover was high. You know, all the problems you see in a struggling school. Pupil absence was high. Discipline problems were pretty much at a peak. But there was just something about the place when I turned up there that, you know, I'm not sure it's really particularly easy to describe. I just fell in love with the place and the people.

[06:28]

And there was something in my instinct that said, you know what? I think I could do a job here.

[06:32] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And this was your first principal role?

[06:34] SPEAKER_02:

It was. Yeah. And like I said, you know, at the time, I wasn't necessarily looking for a job as a principal. I was in my early 30s, very early 30s. I'd just taken this short term role. trying to create this really interesting program.

[06:48]

So it wasn't even as though I was looking out for it, you know?

[06:51] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Richard, take us through a little bit about what happened next. So you stepped into this role, not knowing that the school was going to be shut down if things did not change quickly, knowing that there were some great things happening, but also a lot of turnover and a lot of challenges. What happened over the next couple of years to really turn things around in that community?

[07:08] SPEAKER_02:

Well, the first thing to say, I think, at this point is taking on that challenge. Again, I don't think it takes a great deal of heroism. And I'm sure some of the listeners might identify with this, that in hindsight, I think taking on a struggling school as a principal is actually a lot easier task than taking on a successful school, particularly if you're wanting to create change and transformation, because I took on this school and it knew where it was in the world. You know, it didn't have kind of a false representative view of what it was and where it was. Um, And so, you know, when you take on a school in that condition, pretty much convincing people that change and transformation is necessary is far, far easier than trying to convince the school community that sees itself as successful, that continuous change and transformation is important. So what we were able to do was strip it right the way back.

[08:02]

And I went back to asking some very fundamental questions of the staff. You know, this was a group of people who I believed had at one time in their lives, been really passionate about teaching, had been really passionate about working in that community and with those students, but over 10 years of having stuff done to them, you know, experts coming in, telling them to do this and this and this endless new initiatives. All of them focused purely on academic outcomes. What I saw was a jaded group of people whose kind of passion had been submersed under tons of concrete, you know? And so for me, it was taking it back and trying to help those people rediscover, I think, both their passion and more importantly, a real sense of purpose. So it was about asking very simple and in hindsight, what may appear to be daft questions.

[08:54]

And there were two questions in particular that began our journey. The first was to say to the community, look, what do we want our students to look like as human beings when they leave us? So in other words, when they move up to the next stage of their education journey, could educators at that stage identify our kids because of their behaviors and outlook and attitudes, you know? So we talked a lot about what kind of people we wanted to create. And we developed that into something that we then later called our pupil profile. And our kids left our school at 11.

[09:27]

You know, if at the age of 11, our kids are going to be these kinds of people, what do we need to explicitly invest in them from the earliest years of education through to the day they leave us? So that became a really interesting and quite empowering conversation. And I saw the lights switch on a lot of staff because in a way it got back to their passions. My argument at the time was if we have clarity around that, we understand where the academics and the curriculum sit. But if all we do is deliver endless programs and systems, we never have a kind of clarity or collegiality about what we're seeking to achieve together. So that was the first question.

[10:08]

And the second question, which in hindsight may sound really daft to you, Justin, and it was actually it came out of being terrified. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners, again, will will identify with this. You know, you get an appointment as a principal, your first job as a principal, and you go through a whole flow of emotions, don't you? In the days and weeks that follow that appointment, you know, you go through euphoria and excitement. You even start walking down the street differently, hoping people can see in your gait and behavior that now you've made it to being a school principal. And then day one comes, right?

[10:42]

Day one comes, you turn up at your school, you sit behind your desk and suddenly it hits you that the buck stops with you and everyone expects you to have the answer. And that's a mildly terrifying moment. And then you have your first full meeting with your staff and you walk in And they're all sat there, you know, a different range of body language and behaviors. You've got what I call the ones that suck the energy out of a room, the alpha teachers, all of those, the complexity of that stuff from politics. And you walk into that room and you know what you should say to them. And that room intimidates you.

[11:16]

Well, it did me. I walked into that first meeting and I know I should have been talking to them about standards and examinations and what have you. And a couple of those teachers were sat there and they'd seen off these eight school principals. You know, these people were teacher assassins. They killed school principals' careers. And I remember walking into that room and the only thing that came out of my mouth was a question that went on to have a profound impact.

[11:41]

And it was this. How do we turn our school into somewhere as exciting as Disneyland? Now, what was interesting about the layering and point of that question was, If you want kids to learn, if you want kids to care, you have to make it matter to them. And we got into a really interesting discussion really quickly, which was, you know, Disneyland is not necessarily the easiest place for kids to be. It's often hot. You have to queue for hours to get on a two-minute ride, you know.

[12:10]

But what is it about that place that makes kids want to go through the hard stuff because there's something exciting at the core of it? And you can see very quickly how almost accidentally, that question became fundamental to how we transformed our schools. So those were very much the two founding principles of what we went on to try and achieve.

[12:30] SPEAKER_01:

So it sounds like you really started with an outcome in mind. What kind of people do we want our students to be when they leave? And then what kind of experience do we want them to have while they're here so that they become that kind of person as a result of working with us as their teachers and as their school?

[12:48] SPEAKER_02:

Exactly right. And by the way, the other thing that has always been really important to me and I'm passionate about and I hope comes through the pages of the book is the fact that although I never taught the three four five year olds in education I was always privileged enough in my school to have early years settings and what I learned through most of my teaching career was the incredible power of what great early years education looks like and how much often the system the higher up the system you get the more that how underappreciated the incredible skill and insight of early years education is and And so what I also wanted to do was find a way to really learn lessons of that and pull that kind of ideology and practice right the way through the school to the age of 11. So really, yeah, the things for me were about richness of experience, creating depth of context and purpose, and having absolute clarity about the three-dimensional development of our children, not just the academic and intellectual development of our children.

[13:50] SPEAKER_01:

And I think it's worth asking at this point, what was missing from that? Because educators are so ready to articulate that when they're asked. And I think it's easy to overlook the fact that you did something profound in asking those questions. What was it that had crept in and taken the place of what everyone truly wanted for students? What had pushed that out?

[14:11] SPEAKER_02:

I suppose pressure, pressure externally. And over 10 years, that perception of ownership and professionalism had bled out of the school community. Teachers, when any school goes into a cycle of decline, inevitably, particularly if the leadership isn't strong and coherent and consistent, confidence bleeds out of teachers. I think as a profession, we're almost so passionate and caring on the whole about our students and the job we do, We also lead this very fine line where a lot of us are always on the verge of feeling inadequate because we care so much, if that makes sense. And I think it doesn't take a lot of tip on the wrong side of the line for teachers to lose confidence. And particularly if you start to feel decline and things aren't working, you know, you tend to be dominated by those external voices.

[15:03]

You tend to take on board the systems and the structures. You're in that endless search for the silver bullet. You know, just give me the answer. Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. And I think that transference of ownership was really what was missing. And that had led to a lack of confidence and a lack of coherence.

[15:21]

Different teachers in different classes with different year groups were grasping at the nettles of new ideas and systems and structures being handed down to them. and trying to create the right atmosphere in their classrooms and deliver what they were told to deliver. But there was no context for it. There was no foundational understanding of why teachers were delivering what they were delivering. And you know, you and the listeners will know as well as I do, it doesn't matter what age our students are, they are incredibly adept at understanding if we are in control of what we're doing. And if children sent that we don't understand the foundation of context, then they tend not to buy in as deeply as we'd want them to.

[16:06]

And I think for me, really spending time before we got into systems and structures and new processes, just drilling down into the foundational aspects of what we were seeking to achieve gave us such a strong springboard that then over the years that followed some of the innovation and creativity and dynamic learning that we created was only possible because we'd spent real time and energy drilling back down into those foundational principles rather than just trying to fling new ideas on top of a problem.

[16:42] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think it's so important to acknowledge and to recognize that there are very few schools anywhere that are not doing anything. If you find a struggling school, often they've been doing a lot to become a not struggling school, but it's often the accumulation of all of those efforts that have really left people exhausted, that have led to the turnover that you mentioned. It's not that we're sitting still and just kind of biding our time. It's that we're overwhelmed with things that are not producing the results we wanted. So I think that's just something to really pull out of what you said there.

[17:14] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think that feeling of being overwhelmed is something that so many of our colleagues feel no matter what situation they're in and it always stems back to me to our passion our passion as educators is both our greatest strength and perversely our greatest weakness because we're so desperate to do the right thing for our students we almost allow ourselves to become overwhelmed in the pursuit of perfection

[17:41] SPEAKER_01:

Well, let's get into some of the specific takeaways. So looking back on your experience working in this school and identifying some of what worked and what made a difference for kids, what are some of the big lessons for schools that you've put into the book, Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today?

[17:56] SPEAKER_02:

Well, really the success of our school and what we developed came through some core principles. The first is that learning has to matter to kids. So one of the commitments we made to each other was, No matter what you're teaching kids, no matter whether it's complex mathematics, whether it's, you know, teaching kids to tell time or understand the importance of basic grammar, scientific principles, you have to make the learning matter. So in other words, one of the interesting challenges we set ourselves was at Grange, we're never going to teach our kids anything they don't think is important. Now, that doesn't mean you ditch the hard to teach stuff. It almost makes you think like a marketing executive.

[18:39]

you have to make it matter. You have to find a way to root that learning in our kids' realities. And that's where experiential learning comes from. So for example, if we were teaching our kids about the history of food, kids would design a restaurant that sold food through the ages. If we wanted our kids to understand the importance of grammar, we would use film and television to show kids how you express grammar in the mediums they understood so that suddenly a paragraph became cohesive and intelligible to a child of seven or eight years of age. So the idea for me of making sure that you make learning matter, not by kind of telling kids, if you do well, we'll give you a certificate or a citation or we'll reward the class with a treat or whatever, but actually making the learning matter.

[19:29]

Because I think one of the principles we all understand as educators is kids aren't lazy and there's not a child born that doesn't want to learn. But one of the great skills and art forms of great teaching is to make that learning matter. Because if you make learning matter to a kid, they'll jump on board. And I think one of the things we have to fight against is particularly the older our students become, the more we rely on their understanding that learning matters because it's in order to take a test or an exam, which will open a door and that kids should be motivated by that. And of course, the reality is, Going back to early years practice, the reason we learn so much so phenomenally young is because we're engaged in experiential and contextual learning. So I think that's hugely important to me.

[20:17]

The second thing I think that is massively important is to assume excellence in teachers rather than assuming competence. And the same bleeds down to our kids. You know, I think a lot of time education policy and the way we're managed is founded on the very kind of traditional Taylorist view that teachers are incompetent unless they are highly programmed to deliver. And the same is true of students. You know that students are fundamentally lazy unless we make them learn. And of course, the truth is, that we need to assume that our teachers are outstanding, that assumption of excellence, that they want to deliver great things for their students.

[21:00]

And rather than overmanage them, we need to give them the time and space to do that in the same way that we need to give our students time and space to learn. So in order to create improvement in our schools, we need to have faith and trust and not stifle opportunity development and learning by over-managing on day one, that we only put frameworks and scaffolds in place for teachers and students if they're struggling, that we don't set, if you like, a glass ceiling too early. And we have to create a culture of professional trust. So those, I think, were the fundamental core values that certainly were the foundations of what we worked on at Grange and are certainly the core principles and thinking behind the book.

[21:44] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Richard, let's talk about how you went from leading the school through that transformation over a seven year period and turn that into the book, starting with some kind of big picture ideas and then getting into the specifics that you took away from your school community. How did you represent that in the book as it exists today?

[22:01] SPEAKER_02:

Well, what I really wanted to do was convey in the book that idea of narrative from idea into practice. So the book is split into two sections. The first 12 chapters of the book are really focusing on the conversations, the thinking, the principles behind what we did, what motivated us to do what we did, and some of the research and academic follow-up that gave us insight the confidence to believe we were on the right path. So we really explore the whole element of what should a classroom feel like? How do we transfer ownership to students? What are the principles of making learning matter to kids?

[22:43]

real engagement in conversations about, so what kind of behaviors, skills, and knowledge do our kids need for the future? So that's really section one. It's more than theoretical because really it came from real conversations between real practitioners. But then section two, which was really the bit that I really wanted to add and feature to make sure the book had a real authenticity, honesty, and reality to it. So the final six chapters of the book are all about how we took that thinking and those conversations and turned it into real practice. So the second half of the book not only deals with the big thinking of what that looked like in practice, but right down to, if you like, the everyday detail of what a timetable looked like in Grange, what planning structures were like in the school, so that it really takes people through that whole process.

[23:37]

And I guess the overriding feeling for me about the book is it's not a model that I would ever want, expect anyone to take on and go, right, that's the answer. But the reason I've written the book I have the way I have is because I want to create a sense of process. So people in their own schools can use the process to devise and develop. their own responses, if you like, to the challenges that we all know are out there. So it's the journey. I know that sounds like a terrible cliche, but I wanted the book to feel that way and not as a Bible, not as a diktat, but to help people understand how they can define and refine their own processes to achieve their own

[24:23] SPEAKER_01:

Very well said. And I think that's the challenge that really all school leaders face in terms of making this our story, making this not just a collection of buzzwords, a collection of initiatives that we have to somehow make sense of, but really making it a coherent story and a coherent journey that we go on as a school community. I mean, I think that's the bottom line for all of us.

[24:44] SPEAKER_02:

I absolutely agree with you. You know, at the end of the day, we've got to stop waiting for the knights in shining armour to come over the hill, give us permissions or give us the answers. Because the truth is, as school leaders, as great practitioners, the answers are within ourselves and our communities. And the greatest challenge for us all, under the immense pressure that we feel, you know, whether it's funding, whether it's outcomes, whether it's intervention, the one thing we have to gain from each other is the strength and confidence to know that as professionals, As deeply passionate people in education, we are the ones that hold the truths that can create the answers and solutions for our kids. And actually, what I really desperately want is for us as a profession to regain that confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Because we're the people that can truly transform our schools and with it the lives of our kids.

[25:39]

And I think if we as a profession can regain that confidence in ourselves, then the benefit for our students in the long term is seismic. we're the ones that create the stories to argue for the future.

[25:51] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Richard, very well said. And if people want to get in touch with you, find out more about your work and follow you online, or maybe talk to you about speaking at an event, where's the best place for them to find you online?

[26:01] SPEAKER_02:

Two ways. There's my website, which is richardgerver.com, and my Twitter, which is simply at Richard Gerver. I'd be delighted to hear from people. It's great to connect. And The more of us out there shouting out loud, the more powerful we can become.

[26:16] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Richard, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[26:19] SPEAKER_02:

My absolute pleasure.

[26:21] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me, Justin. And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[26:27] SPEAKER_01:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Richard Gerver? Boy, what a dynamo, huh? Richard was a blast to speak with, and no surprise that he is increasingly speaking at large corporations and events around the UK, the US, all over the world. But I think what he...

[26:47]

focused on at the very beginning and really throughout our conversation was the importance of just getting in touch with what we care about as educators, with what we really want for our students. Because it's very easy for us to get pulled into conflict with teachers or performance issues with teachers that we have to address or challenges with students and the difficulties that they face in life. But if we get crystal clear on what kind of people we are trying to help our students become and focus not on all the buzzwords, not on all the initiatives as the most important thing, but really on how we should be as a school in order to create that kind of outcome for students, that kind of experience for students where they become the kind of people that we envision. So, for example, if we want students who are creative thinkers, that should be our starting point.

[27:39]

That should be our touchstone as we make decisions. How can we help students become creative thinkers? Or if we want to develop students with empathy, that can be a cornerstone for us as we build curriculum, as we make decisions, and as we prioritize our resources. So I want to encourage you to check out Richard's book. Again, the title is Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today, Education, Our Children, and Their Futures. And in that book, Richard takes you through the story of his school and lessons for our profession.

[28:11]

One final point here that I think Richard hit on very well, but that gets overlooked too often in our profession, is that this is a profession. And the sense of autonomy that educators feel and the sense of control that educators feel over whether they are able to achieve their goals, whether they are able to pursue those goals in ways that have integrity to them. I think that's one of the things that we've really lost sight of in the press to implement initiative after initiative after initiative. If at the school level educators don't feel like they have any control and they just have to implement someone else's priorities, it stops feeling like professional work. So I also want to encourage you to think about autonomy as a key part of our definition of professionalism and look for ways that you can maximize teacher autonomy.

[29:03]

We're definitely not in the independent contractor era when it comes to public education. None of us think that we can just kind of do our own thing. But the more we can give teachers a voice, give teachers a seat at the table in making those big decisions and not just making teachers implementers of decisions that come down from on high, that is a core part of professionalism that I want to encourage you to take with you.

[29:27] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.