Rebecca Winthrop: Learner Engagement is Key to Transformation
What if the success of our education system was measured by how well it engages students in their passions rather than standardised test scores?
How might the dynamics of a classroom change if students, parents, and teachers all had an equal say in designing the curriculum?
In this episode of the Learning Future podcast, Louka Parry talks with Rebecca Winthrop, a senior fellow and co-director at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. They discuss the technical setup challenges before diving into the main topics. Rebecca shares insights into her dual roles as both a director and researcher, highlighting her focus on transforming education systems and engaging students.
The conversation touches on the importance of understanding and addressing student disengagement, the need for system transformation versus system strengthening, and the role of power in education reform. Rebecca emphasizes the necessity of co-creating new education purposes with input from all stakeholders, including students, parents, and educators.
They also explore the idea of shifting from compliance-oriented behavior management to motivation-based approaches and the impact of teacher mindsets on student engagement. Rebecca stresses that while engagement is crucial for learning outcomes, it must be supported by a system that aligns with the true purpose of education. The episode concludes with Rebecca's reflection on the transformative power of education and the potential for systemic change when all stakeholders are involved.
Get in touch at hello@thelearningfuture.com; and find the transcript at our website www.thelearningfuture.com.
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Louka Parry (00:00.75)
Hello team and welcome back to the learning future podcast. It's been quite a while since actually we released one of our conversations with these amazing educators from around the world. And so what I wanted to do in this episode is I guess just a bit of a retrospective, a bit of a reflection on season seven, which we entitled education transformed and a bit of a look forward into what we're going to release for season eight. And we have again, some absolutely phenomenal.
educators, designers, innovators, thinkers, leaders that will contribute their perspective on what might be needed for us to truly enable a human centered, thriving environment for our learners all over the world. And so just to go back a bit into season seven, and this was a fantastic collaboration, actually, with the international think tank Salzburg Global Seminar.
of which I am a fellow multiple times, and it is an incredible organization set up in 1947 to try to bridge divides, to enable leadership, and in some ways reconstruct the intellectual architecture of Europe post -World War II. And it's work they continue to do in connecting people all over the world. And it was for that reason that we actually began season seven with Dominic Regester, who is the director of the Center for Education Transformation at Salzburg Global Seminar.
And Dominic is one of those wonderful, wonderful human beings who is in some way so astute and so considered and he has just the most beautiful British accent as well. And he's also a dear friend of mine. And so Dominic kind of set the scene for where we are in terms of the transformation of education, not the improvement of an old model, not trying to fix what's broken, but actually how do we consider all the aspects of what education is, take them apart and then...
put them back together to actually end up with something that is different, not just at a surface level, but different at a level of depth. And so Dominic really surveyed the scene and he has a wonderful vantage point there. The United Nations actually ran a transforming education summit in 2022. And that was a fantastic moment because it really put education onto the agenda post COVID. And again, Dominic.
Louka Parry (02:26.734)
was involved in a number of events that I saw there as well. So that was kind of where we started. And then, you know, there are 20 episodes in this season and they're all pretty remarkable and different. In me just going back and looking at them all. You know, be it speaking to the director of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education, Peace and Sustainable Development, wonderful man called Dr. Ananth Duryapa. And he spoke about the power of cognition.
as an economist, he also talked about the kind of Kahneman work of system one and system two, thinking fast, thinking slow, especially because their work really is centralized on social and emotional learning and how that becomes imbued into education systems. A fantastic episode. After that, we spoke with two fantastic leaders, I think, at the forefront of kind of the role that technologies can play in humanizing education. And that's our friends.
John Goodwin, who's the chair of the Learning Economy Foundation and Chris Purifoy, who's their CEO. And again, they spoke a lot about this idea of what a learning economy is and how we are moving into this space where it's no longer about a single institution. It's really about these transferable credentials. And how do you have effectively a passport that you can take with you and that you can enhance across a life of learning? I mean, really profound conversation with those two.
After that, we spoke with Gavin Dykes, who's a wonderful educator and now contributes to the Education World Forum, which is the event that gets the most education ministers to attend in the world. And again, he spoke a lot about how we work together, funny enough, how we collaborate. And again, that's the core of some of these global packs, be it on climate and net zero, either Paris Accord or be it on biodiversity, you know, the Vancouver Accord, you know, how do we actually look at the future we want?
and then try to work together to bring about really some fantastic high level global work from Gavin. And then we spoke to one of my favorite Australians, Professor Frank Oberklaid. He's a pediatrician and a public health expert. And he's just, again, if you've listened to this episode and what we've titled it centering child wellbeing, because hLouka Parry (00:03.662)
Mic check one two, mic check, mic check.
Louka Parry (01:29.486)
Thank you.
Louka Parry (01:57.966)
Hello. Hi. Great to see you. Let me just get this so I can, so I can hear you. Great. So I just say some, say some lovely words again. Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you in person. Testing one, two, three.
Louka Parry (02:21.678)
the work? I think yeah. Can you hear me? Are the levels good? Haven't got to yet.
Louka Parry (02:32.622)
No, I'm so sorry Rebecca, we'll sort this.
Hello, I hear you.
Louka Parry (02:43.854)
Is that your mic? Can you hear me? No. I have to go the full podcast. You can hear me, correct? Okay. Great. We're halfway there.
Louka Parry (03:08.942)
Now, let's see, any love? Aha, I hear you. Do you hear me? No? No? I don't know. You hear me? I can, Rebecca. All right. We got that. Success. Yay. We did it. We did it. Excellent. Excellent. Totally. It's lovely to see you. It's been lovely to see you too. I guess. How are you? Yeah, well.
Yeah, really well down here in Oz early morning sun's rising. I was going to say you look like you might have some sunshine coming in, isn't it? The crack of dot. What time is it? It's 7 a Yeah, it's the crack. Yeah. Okay. It's not too bad. All right. Not too bad. Five minutes and the sun will be up above the horizon here in Sydney, which is lovely actually. It's been a beautiful. I was afraid it was going to be like 5 a or something. No, no, that's I tried to give up those ones. You know, I'm in my last year of my thirties, Rebecca. And so I'm now like, all right.
I'm the four or five. No more five AMs. There's so many. You must be the same with all the global work. You know, it's just constant. I mean, I, yeah. And Australia is really hard for us. You're good in Asia, but yeah, great. Yeah. It's so true. I've got all my East coast friends. It's always a challenge really. But, yeah. Tell me a little, I'm just going to.
press record and then we'll just have a jam. really cool recording. But yeah, just give me a sense of what's been what's been on your mind for the last little while. I mean, we'll jump into the podcast in a moment. But you know, okay. Okay. Because I was going to ask you, what's this about? I'll tell you about that. Yeah. Because I know, I know this one is C. Weaver at large, you said, and then we can do another one on the book. And then I was this morning, I was like, I actually have no idea what he wants to talk about. So
You want me to just tell you what we're working on? Well, what, what we'll do, I'll give you the frame. So the idea here, so, so the learning future podcast, right. Listen to by educators, school leaders in particular is kind of the audience. Obviously Australia is our largest listenership. but of course Anglosphere blah, blah. yeah, but yeah. And really kind of the first question, Rebecca is always like, what's something you're learning at the moment? And then we kind of, we kind of go from, I have listened to a couple of your podcasts.
Louka Parry (05:36.75)
Yeah. Yeah. So I know the learning question. Learning question. And then really what's the big idea that you're exploring at the moment kind of folds into that. And of course you could talk about transforming education systems, which of course I was at the launch of, I think at the UNGA a couple years back with David. That was wonderful. And I think it was the 20 year anniversary at that point as well, I think, if I recall. Yes. Yes. All these wonderful things are happening. But you know, I think, you know, like a question that really is the center of all of
All of this, all of my work really, maybe even my life, Rebecca, not to get too profound, but it's, you know, what's it going to take? What does it take? Like how does true transformation take place? And, you know, precisely, I kind of, what does that mean for self leadership and the kind of the inner journey, just as much as it was it mean for external skill development and disposition, the way we kind of transition our education systems. That's the whole AI piece. I just got back from South by, which you at? Yes. well I missed you both days.
I think that was wonderful. And I went to the interactive and just, you know, I like all the emerging tech and the conversations and possibilities there in that space, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, I think, well, you tell me, you know, the center is huge. I mean, it's not huge, but it is big. And we have many, many people many interesting things. Yes. So we are sort of really digging in on like, what does transformation really mean? It's not like we have one.
one definition, we're all marching toward it. We're trying to kind of co -create. I've come to really thinking about it as it's more than system strengthening. So it's less about changing the visible elements of a system and more about changing the invisible. So I think we're through a lot of discussion and debate and dialogue because we're researchers, right? Who work to change practice and policy. So we have some evolved thinking there.
and then thinking about what that means. So looking at, we have people looking at teacher mindset and what do they, we're a lot of work on beliefs and trust between families and students and teachers. And I personally, I told you I'm a big deep dive on student engagement. And I don't know if we want to maybe save that for the second one, cause that's what the book is about, but we could certainly.
Louka Parry (07:59.182)
review that, but that's where my purse. So, you know, I've got two roles, really. One is running the center. So that's across the plot. And another is my own research. So I literally have two titles, sort of director and senior fellow, because you're not allowed to run something at Brookings unless you also do the research. That's just basically what the deal is. So, in my work, it's really thinking about
sort of the role of student agency and student engagement. Yeah, great. Which is the book. So I'm not sure how much you want to deep dive. Well, I think, when's the release for the book? January next year. So it's off a bit. Okay, that's okay. I tell you, I'm full in it because we have to turn it into the publisher, then it leaves our hands in like two months. Yeah, wow. Wow. So to me, it's... Yeah. Well, you can touch on it if you want.
I would go, yeah, Rebecca, well, it seems to me, let's not be inauthentic. I think it's kind of what's in your field of awareness right now. And clearly it's going to be putting together the thinking around the book, even if then what we do is another one that aligns with the launch so that we can kind of promote it. That would be amazing. Because by January, you know, so many things. God knows what's going to be the world. Who knows? It's also post the US election. my goodness. Who knows? gee whiz. We could even go there if we want.
Well, let's let's I'm just thinking thematically. Let's double click on like a lot of the listeners probably will not have heard of Q or C. How do you call it Q? I call it CUE, but it can be any CUE. I'll call it CUE. The center or CUE. Many people call it Q. We'll stick to it. No, the Q's got different connotations nowadays as well as the whole other problem.
So maybe you could take us into that work for a little and then, but I'd love to go straight to where your mind is at. And I think, look, cause the people listening are usually practitioners. And so they're the ones in the school systems, you know, in the trenches, exactly. Right. And so on their mind is like, well, there's a disengagement epidemic happening in Australia. Yeah. And the U S too. And our conversations with, with leaders, you know, I was having one yesterday and, it's just like the year sevens that have come through that were
Louka Parry (10:19.406)
years two and three during COVID. Now, you know, there's all the impact there. And I saw some work from the Hoover Institution that looked at the $31 trillion impact on the American economy because of the impacts of COVID and the shutdown of schools specifically. So there's that whole quagmire to kind of wade through if you want to. But I think kind of an overview of the work of CUE. Talk about the family work. I think that's so important. You know, a lot of
You know, people are like, well, how do we, you know, we've realized schools aren't designed to engage families largely. Right. That's for sure. In fact, they're, they're designed to keep them out. It wasn't meant to be. Not engaging. And then I'd love, I'd love your commentary on what you're discovering around the engagement piece, because for us it's not voice and choice, you know, it's agency and it's co -design. I think if I recall your three P's, you know, was it power? Right. Purpose, pedagogical core, position. Yes. Yeah, precisely. And then.
And I still show those slides, by the way, in our work from the paper. Because I think we leaders always get so excited about the next piece of tech or they've been trying to sold the next piece of tech often. They've got a beautiful performing arts center. Don't get me wrong, all for that. But you're going to spend 50 million Australian dollars on building a thing. What's the accompanying support for the pedagogical core?
And it's just never, it's never there as far as I know. Cause it's the hardest bit. So anyway, we can, we can kind of go after all that. So we'll start, I'll just, I'll do a small bio, which I'll probably pre like, we record at the end based on the thematics of the combo. And then, we'll just jump in and say, what's something you're learning right now, Rebecca, take us on that. And then like, what's a big idea and you could say family engagement agency, and then see where we end up.
Okay. Sounds good. I'll, I'll just follow you. Well, I think I'll be following you and keeping up as best I can. Rebecca. Every time I describe you, I'm like, Rebecca, she's so prolific. I mean, no one's got two roles. I think it's putting up. Well, that's why we're required to be. I tell you, geez. They keep you moving. that's fantastic. All right. We'll go for the, we'll go for this one. Okay. And have fun.
Louka Parry (12:37.902)
Hello friends and welcome to the learning future podcast. I'm of course, Louka Parry. It's great to have you back with us today. We have a wonderful guest. Her name is Rebecca Winthrop. She's a senior fellow and co-director of the center for universal education at the Brookings institution. Her research focuses on education globally with special attention to the skills young people need to thrive in work life and as constructive citizens. she has authored numerous articles, reports,
books and book chapters. She's currently writing one at the moment, which we'll hear about. And she has a PhD from Columbia University. What you'll hear in this conversation really is a wonderful education thinker who is positioned in a unique way, someone that understands both at kind of governmental and intergovernmental levels what might be needed based on her research and the research of the amazing team at the Center for Universal Education. Rebecca, it's great to have you with us.
Lovely to be here, Louka. I can't wait for this conversation based on our pre -chat as well. Really exciting. Our first question here always at the Learning Future podcast is what are you learning right now? What's kind of forefront of your mind in the work that you do in the life that you live? The work that I do in the life that I live. Yeah, you know, just a small question. Starting backwards, starting backwards in the life that I live, I have two teenage boys. So.
I am really learning how to apply all the things that I study. And that, you know, just cause you know it and you research it doesn't mean it's easy to apply all this know -how in your own personal life. So anyways, that's fun. They're wonderful kids, but they are full of life and all sorts of boundaries. So,
That's one thing in life in sort of more professional work area. Although I have to say that I do cross over in the book that I'm writing, I'm testing out a lot of these strategies on my own kids. Half of them that I thought were great, they're like, well, that's so stupid. I'm like, okay, out, it doesn't work. But I've been thinking a lot about and learning a lot about for the...
Louka Parry (15:02.638)
book that I'm writing with my colleague Jenny Anderson about how to engage students and keep them engaged as they get older. Because, you know, kids come to school excited. They love school. They're happy. They're thrilled. It's fun. It's interesting. And have you heard of the Jenkins curve? John Hattie made this, right? The face. It's great. He asked, you know, he's a teacher.
educator and asked 3000 teachers across the US, you know, what year do you teach and do kids, do you think you're, how many of your kids think love school, your students? And it just was like, start time is like, yeah. And yeah. And yeah. And that it tracks so closely with how the engagement student engagement data that I've been looking at and pouring over, which is like, they start out engaged and like,
By third grade, it's just sort of like down downhill. So I'm, I'm learning a lot about, you know, really what is going on? Like what, what's, what's happening and how can we turn it around? I'd love us just to talk about that. I think everyone listening can kind of feel this epidemic be it kind of still the latent impacts of COVID and kind of the impact, you know, lockdowns and that entire human chapter.
But also something around the design features that, and this is something that we're really curious about as well, is what are the features of systems, the features of even learning experiences that actually are less kind of behavior management compliance oriented and more kind of motivation design or motivation architecture. And so you talk a lot about the pedagogical core through your transforming education systems work with David Sengeh.
And I was lucky to be at the launch of that a few years ago in New York city. So it was great to see that happen too. And this idea around that being the center of what a school is for. If it's sometimes we lose sight of the pedagogical core and we end up focused on maybe, or just like one aspect of it. So the resource aspect, we just go, we're going to like focus on just the learning environment and how aesthetic it is rather than what's really happening in the confluence of all these factors.
Louka Parry (17:23.502)
So yeah, what do you take us into the engagement bit first? And then I think we'll come up to the kind of center. So led, cause there's so much going on there too. Yeah. What do you, what do you think? What are you discovering? What do you think's needed? I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that, teachers and school leaders have a massive job cut out for them and that it's possible, but just barely.
And like you kind of have to be a superhero. And personally, I think all teachers are superheroes because they tend like the function they perform in society, they educate the next citizens, they take care of our children. They are incredible. But the structure, it's more that the structure in which they're trying to do their work is limiting them at every turn.
which is how I got into this whole idea of sort of thinking about transforming systems. But I think disengagement, it's a wide mix of things. I mean, stuff that I'm learning, it's a wide mix of things. It happens in all schools everywhere. We're fine. For this book, we interviewed 100 kids in the US and they're often with their parents, but we also did a nationally representative survey of 80 ,000 kids.
and also a national representative survey of their parents with our partner Transcend Education. And all types of schools, the most high -end, expensive, elite private schools that have incredible amenities, you find kids are disengaged there. And also all the way through normal sort of, you know, actually what I often call the sweet spot for schools where it's heterogeneous mixed SES, which is where kids often do best.
frankly, for many reasons, disengage there, also disengagement in sort of the communities that have the least financial resources and maybe the least sort of opportunities for enrichment. And so it's like an equal opportunity problem. The impacts of disengagement, however, we're learning are not
Louka Parry (19:44.27)
felt equally. So it affects all kids, kids get disengaged from high income parents, middle class, low income, any type of ethnic background, girls, boys. And, you know, there's slight variation, certainly in our sample of 80 ,000 kids, a little minor difference between girls and boys, but not that much, even between ethnic background, not that much, very small percentage points. And so it affects every kid, but
the impact of when you get disengaged is not felt equally, particularly across socioeconomic status. Because kids who have parents who have more resources, more time, so often middle -class or upper -middle -class parents, they get second chances. They may get disengaged, they may sort of start losing their way, or I don't know if they're losing their way or they're just reacting.
to a system and making a rational choice and we lose them along the way. Yeah. As a great, author that, I like talks about, you know, we, they didn't lose their way. We lost them. And though those kids get second chances through tutoring, through parental intervention who have time and, and maybe the literacy skills, right. To track what's going on.
or their kids go to school and the language they speak so they can interface with the teachers and advocate for their kids or they can move schools to a better fit, right? So there's all these reasons that the impacts of disengagement are more proportionally felt by kids who don't have those resources, kids who have parents who are working
multiple hours long jobs who might not speak the language of instruction, a whole wide range of reasons why they don't have the resources to give these second chances. And also oftentimes those kids, if they do start getting disengaged and then you start seeing it in their grades, et cetera, those parents want those kids to succeed in school absolutely, but then they often make a
Louka Parry (22:06.254)
choice, right? Like, well, they often need help at home. They might need to take care of a sick relative or younger siblings or, you know, there's just a lot of needs out there. And I think that it's another thing I'm learning is, which I've known, but again, this research has really brought to the fore, you know, just how much school leaders, educators really, really take the time to figure out what's going on in your kid's life. Do not assume.
We talked to so many kids who had these stories and were late, you know, they were all this stuff at home and they weren't great at school. And then they were acting out and you know, they were seen as a real problem. when really they had problems at home. so anyways, those are so the, I'm not, I could go on for an entire podcast. I think there's going to be a few themes that, that do, do weave through.
So this idea that the impacts are not equal, even if we see kind of reflected in the general population data, a lot of similarities. I guess one question I have then is kind of the hypothesis that engagement is the thing that we should focus on. And I mean, I kind of take it as a given, but I guess we should have the conversation, you know, because if it's, I've often reflected on this, but as soon as I saw the curve where year nines were, you know,
the lowest and you think talk about, you know, and teachers and everyone goes, that group of unites, we've got a really challenging so often, you know, and then it kind of spikes again, as people, as move through, I wonder how much of that can be attributable to just the prefrontal cortex being reconstructed, I, adolescence and how much of it is system. I mean, I don't even know if we could ever discern that, but I'm, I'm just really curious. cause clearly engagement and, you know, self -determination theory and kind of
motivation science. I mean, things I'm very curious about, like the, that I think are way better than compliance oriented behavior management, like, you've acted out, you must be punished, you know, rather than being, you know, go sit, have a detention instead of, okay, restorative justice, for example, which might be more useful for the school and for, but it pays more resource intensive. I'm curious, like, is it the right, is it the right
Louka Parry (24:25.294)
to be targeting? What's your view? It's a very good question. And I have been working on this book for the last three years and so have been really boring through a lot of the data. And I am very convinced. Okay, great. Because for a couple of things. So there's a couple of things to respond to you there because you brought up some really interesting thoughts. So first point, is engagement really
an important thing. It's not of course the only thing, but is it a really pivotal thing. And I've looked at all the data and it really is how engaged a child is in their learning, which by the way, could be in school or out of school. Yes. Is really the, is really the thing that translates between the context they're in out of school activity, classroom, family environment. And
their outcomes, their learning outcomes. Learning how to be a good sister or brother, learning how to take care of their neighbor, learning piano, knowing algebra. It is in research terms, the mediator. It is the thing that translates. They're sitting in a classroom, they're sitting in a piano lesson, whatever. They're out with their church group.
know, could be anything really. What are we trying and we're, you know, adults or their peers are trying to imbibe some type of lesson. It's their level engagement is what makes it happen and stick. Because engagement is multi -dimensional. It's, you know, it's emotionally, how are they reacting? Because learning actually is, emotions are very tied to learning. Learning is not
is not just cognitive. This is why I'm not so worried about generative AI just taking over humanity because we are not just cognitive big brains. We are thinking feeling, we're thinking yes, but feeling and it's very tied to thinking our feelings. So it's how emotionally they're interacting and how they feel in the context. Like if they're sitting in a classroom and
Louka Parry (26:53.966)
they are feeling stereotype threat. Like they are the only kid in that classroom that is whatever, you name it. They could be, you know, in the US, let's say they're the only recent immigrant child who doesn't necessarily speak language and a sea of kids who've lived here their whole life and are citizens. If they're sitting there and thinking, I don't belong,
how do I feel here and they're feeling tenuous, it's going to be hard to cognitively engage, like really grapple, do the deeper learning cognitive exercises they need to do. And then they may stop sort of the things they need to actually make the learning happen, paying attention, taking notes, turning the pages of the book, asking a peer for a question, right? So it's not a...
researchers called a multi -dimensional construct. So it's kind of all those things wrapped together, which is why it's such a powerful explainer. Anyway, so that was my first point and I totally forgot what the rest of that. No, that's, that'll come back up. But I love this idea engagement as the mediator. And I mean, cause it's an operating assumption, I guess, but I think having that asking the question is super important because there are, I think views where the locus, you know, the responsibility is not, it is placed on the student.
to motivate themselves. And I think there's, you know, and I think the other context is like, it's all the teacher's responsibility to motivate students, which is also problematic. It's somehow, it's this beautiful, the craft of education. It's a dual. It's a dual thing. And kids, and really it's also, you know, for any school leader, it's about the environment. A school leader and classroom leader, teacher, the environment that kids are in. But kids have to come to the table too.
but often they're reacting to their environment. I don't, because, that's my second point to your point about like it goes down. Is it, you know, what's going on in adolescence? Why is there so much disengagement? I mean, they are learning something. They just might, they are learning something. They are deeply engaged in something.
Louka Parry (29:16.974)
It just might not be what we educators want them to learn and be right. So I think it has less to do with sort of adolescent brain development. Well, actually, I think it very much has something to do with adolescent brain development. My point is, adolescence is a huge time of,
you know, massive sort of surge in brain development akin to sort of early childhood. Researchers used to think, no, it was just early childhood. Then you kind of pittered along and grew a little bit, but adolescence is huge. And they are firing in all synapses. And I think they might be more, they certainly are more susceptible to the world around them, to social cues, to their place, their identity.
And so if they might be just reacting a lot more to the fact that they are not given in a traditional sort of academic, you know, high school is a lot more about specialization. I mean, plenty of schools do this beautifully. They're just often the exception rather than the norm. So I think it's more to do with that mismatch of what adolescents need and they do get engaged.
Whatever video games, their girlfriends or boyfriends. you know what I mean? What, you know, they can engage in all sorts of things, making art, travel, the best coffee shops, whatever. I don't know. It depends on where they live. Skateboarding, hiking, you know, world of warcraft. So they are learning and engaged. We just are not providing them.
enough of what they need, I think in the high school secondary ed years to keep them that engaged. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think framing that as behavior problems doesn't seem to really be the solve. I think it's kind of a short -term reaction, for our work in education systems rather than going, I think thinking kind of more, more multi -dimensionally and almost fractally to go down. Okay. Well, what's actually
Louka Parry (31:41.294)
required here, what are the root causes of this so -called problematic behavior? And I learned this as an educator in the Outback Rebecca, you know, working in first nation communities where, you know, what I was trying to teach, I thought was very engaging and dynamic. And, you know, I'd bring all my, every ounce of my pedagogical toolkit, you know, the guitars, the singing, that's whatever. But even, even so, it wasn't necessarily what the young people wanted to learn at that particular point in time, as I would discover if, as they
potentially walked out of my classroom mid -lesson. So, you know, it was a real baptism. That's a bit of humbling experience, I'm sure. my gosh, I was so humbled. Like, I know a few things. So I just think it's really, it strikes me still. I think in the context where I've worked and now working alongside schools and systems, governments, less as of a researcher, more kind of field work, communicator type.
but getting opportunities to speak to wonderful people like you. So the distinction I think between schooling and learning is one that we can fight all the time. And I almost in most of my talks, I kind of bring it to the floor. I say, I just want to make a discernment here between schooling, education and learning. Learning being an intrinsic human trait, which effectively we are born with, much as we're born with a universal grammar for language acquisition. Schooling is a completely fabricated construct that's useful for our
economic and civic systems. So and that's what we should be critiquing is the schooling system, not learning processes, because learning is kind of what makes us most human. Right. And so I guess this, you know, and the frame that I've heard from from a few different theorists, Professor Sandra Milligan at University of Melbourne, it's like we need to kind of embrace the language of learning and move away from the grammar of schooling because as you said in the beginning, you know, the invisible parts of our schooling systems are the things that
we need to bring into consciousness and reimagine and redesign. i.e. behaviour your management processes or, you know, classroom constructs or simple like an overemphasis on cognition, not paying attention to the social and the emotional dimensions, which I think really speak to the whole point around adolescents. They care deeply more than ever about the social context when you know, you're 14 and you're trying to work it out. Where do I fit in? Who am I? You know, you care probably less about.
Louka Parry (34:08.141)
you know, some worksheets in a way more about having conversations with your friends, which is what we lost during COVID as well, which is another, another kind of non enduring impact. I think of that. So is that, so when you think about all the research that you've done and, and even some of the research that's happening across the whole center for universal education, like where are you seeing the kind of embracing of that distinction of learning principles being imbued into the way that we quote unquote school.
And I think about the wonderful work you've done on family engagement at schools, for example, some of your own work on, you know, we're talking about here agency, you know, you're, and then, yeah, you're so many different things. I know it's a big, big reflection, but, what, what are you seeing as kind of the emerging paradigm, I guess, for like a new education system or a new school? Ooh, that's a biggie. well,
First off, I think I like your distinction. And I think it's a useful one between sort of the institution of like, school that we have today, and education, which is the practice of education, you know, passing on knowledge and traditions and norms to our young, which we've had for ever since, you know, humanity existed, and in more formal, you know, ways and China.
ancient Greece, you know, for thousands of years. And sort of the process of learning, which is humans are hardwired to do and kids are hardwired to do and adults too. But kids are really primed. I think that I think that's helpful. And it gets to one of the things you've you mentioned about invisible visible because, you know, I've done
a lot of work on education innovations over the years, which actually led me to, gosh, how are we really communicating with the main stakeholders who are accessing the innovations, which are students and families and parents and educators themselves, the main people, stakeholders in the system.
Louka Parry (36:26.383)
don't often have a huge voice in how the system is designed and run. So one of the things throughout sort of that learning journey that I've been on is really realizing that so much of what people think school is, is just inherited. And now I think it's true for families and communities of what they think a good school looks like.
And I think it's true for school leaders and educators, like that's how school looked because that's how we went, what it looked like like we went to school. And that's how we're doing now. And this is the bell schedule and this is our curricular standards, et cetera. And actually, even in policy, you can, you don't have to, you can do a lot to change sort of how a school is organized and run.
without changing any policy in most countries. And I'll give you a great example. There's this organization that I'm very fond of, because I think they're really pushing the envelope and great work called Big Picture Learning. And you know them. I do know them. They're great. So for your, you should have them on if you have them already, for your listeners.
there are many countries they started in the U S but basically their high school, model and, you know, I've visited their schools and in the U S and they're a nonprofit that helps schools take, take their model and sort of tweak it. Every school is slightly different, but the gist is in high school, kids go to school three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, usually, and they do their courses where they
They are learning. They are knowledge acquisition because knowledge is important. You do want kids to know how the world works and what is photosynthesis and you know, like why the science behind global warming and all sorts of things and how bills become laws. Like this is important. Like it's not, this is an important part of becoming a, being able to live in the world and be an active citizen and be able to, you know, choose your path, right? But two days a week,
Louka Parry (38:52.398)
they apply their knowledge on the job. And what they do is they pair kids, kids choose every semester, they choose an internship where it's a work site in the community. Could be a business, could be a nonprofit, could be their parents, mosque, whatever. And they work there two days a week and then on site they have a mentor.
the teacher calls the mentor and says, what are you know, gets feedback and then they, they digest what they learn on the job. So they're applying their knowledge and they're learning so much about the world and how things work and they're choosing, they're choosing what to do. And those kids have so much agency. They know how to advocate for themselves. They are engaged and
there's plenty of public schools in the US who are using the big picture learning model. They're a public school with public school teachers and public school funding. Nobody had to pass state laws or get special school, you know, like they just did it. So a lot of what I think needs to change is just our mindsets. How we think about our work and what is
possible and what isn't like a lot of things are probably possible. They just didn't seem possible because no one ever did it that way. Now some things you do, you do, you know, look, a lot of schools also, especially educators have a lot of stuff that they are required to do. So they have, you know, they're kind of, you know, talking about being squeezed from the top and put pressure from the bottom, which is the parents saying.
Why aren't you a good job? And I will say family engagement. I was working on lots of education innovations and there were many innovations like, it's not in the big picture learning space that I ever ran into, but others like it that ran into parents being really concerned about this innovation because it looked weird. And it wasn't really the parents' fault because we in the education community don't communicate with families and parents about what good teaching and learning looks like.
Louka Parry (41:15.246)
Yeah. And so I, I really realized that that is a huge missing piece of being able to change the grammar of schooling. And in fact, there's been lots of studies over the years in the U S in particular, I'm thinking of that has shown that sort of parental norms about what good quality education looked like is holding back bigger change. And again, this is not
parents fault. It's because we in the education system, I put myself in there. I just started. I mean, I've been education work for 25 years, my whole career. And I, you know, the last five, six years I'm working out with parents. So like, what was I the other 20? So I put myself in that. Yeah. Yeah, we're, we, it's not something that we train our professionals in the sector to do. Yeah. How to communicate outside the school walls. That's so profound. It is absolutely right.
And I guess the reflection, it's often the system isn't designed to bring families in easily. It's often designed to keep them in the front office. So it's kind of beholden sometimes on the educated community, the leaders to play that role. But you're absolutely right. I mean, this question, like, what does a good education look like? I think it's such a critical question for, I think it is actually a reeducation campaign in some ways.
Because we are just so, so many of our biases are implicit when it comes to education. And of course the education of your own children has an even deeper kind of conception of, well, absolutely my kid, you know, and that's, that's beautiful because it comes from a loving place, but it can be challenging. I want you to talk a little bit about mindset, Rebecca. because I'm curious to, you know, I think about a dear mutual friend of ours, Tony McKay.
who always says, you know, we are the people that we are waiting for. And it really gets me every time I'm like, okay. Yeah, that's it. I need to act and use my agency and my skills now to be that person rather than waiting for the kind of hero fallacy. but I wonder about mindset when we think about like, what does a good education look like? That's a, that's kind of a mindset consideration, especially you're some of your work on teacher mindsets, which is, you know, am I an instructor or am I activator
Louka Parry (43:38.862)
designer. And I think about some of, John Hattie's work with whom I studied at Melbourne university, and instructional leadership masters. So I kind of got, you know, got all the pieces there, but I'm really curious. I think, you know, how one, one question that I'd like to ask, you know, especially when you employ an educator is like, how does learning happen? Because asking that question reveals the assumption as to how they will teach.
You know, right. What's, what's your kind of your reflection on mindset? And obviously we've got Carol Dweck's work and growth mindsets now, gosh, 15 years old, perhaps. Yeah. Where do you think we're at in the, in the kind of state? I wonder if mindsets I should be more clear because I think what I've learned is it's really about sort of the beliefs we hold to. I love your question that you have asked educators. How do you think learning happens? What is your beliefs around how this happens? So.
When we are looking at how do you transform systems like grammar schooling, there's many, many fine researchers and theorists have talked about the grammar of schooling. And I have been very influenced by a systems thinker named Danella Meadows, who actually came out of the environmental movement. And
what I really learned from her and she was really talking about like where are the leverage points for system change and she said look you can spend your life tinkering around she didn't use these terms she had opaque terms but basically sort of the visible element excuse me the visible elements of a system and that that they're important to do and I would call that systems strengthening
So how do you shift your staffing and hiring and promotion? How do you shift your budgets? And those are all things that, even feedback, how do you shift student assessments? Although I feel like assessments has a particular place in education, but still, how do you shift assessments and feedback loops? And you could do those to really strengthen
Louka Parry (45:59.758)
system to make it work better, particularly for kids for whom it's not working well. And I think a very large part of our broad global education community, you know, many systems around the world, people are focused on that. And that's good to do. It's not bad to do. It's good to do. But there's another type of thinking. And that's where the trans system transformation piece happens, which is what's the purpose of education?
who has the power to decide and whose voice is at the table to talk about the purpose of education. And if we agree collectively on a purpose, what would education look like to make sure kids deliver on that purpose? And once you get there, that is shifting a system, transforming it all together.
Assuming you come up with something different, which is why you would even do if you're perfectly happy and it works beautifully for everybody and you're getting all the skills you need then don't touch it. Leave yourself. Leave your school. Don't mess around with it. But if you are struggling with anything, you know, you might want to go there. And one of the things we've done and you talked about these three P's, which is, you know, it's a broad framework. The thing about transformation, which is really think about
the purpose of a system, think about the power dynamics whose voice is at the table to figure out what that purpose is. And then once you figure that out, you have to align your pedagogical core to it, which is the heart of what happens in education. And that is the pedagogical core, the interaction between an educator,
a student, the materials and any other resources like the curriculum and a resource could be online learning platform or something. And it doesn't have to be in a classroom, it could be outside under a tree, it could be in different contexts, but that has to be the interaction between those things. So if you have a curriculum that's new and gets changed and it doesn't change the interaction between that curriculum and the student,
Louka Parry (48:16.622)
the teacher and the student, nothing shifts. It's not going to have an impact. So the pedagogical core, you really have to align that to whatever the purpose is, and then really do that system strengthening to sort of align the different components of the system, which is where an assessment would be helpful that supports what you want to achieve. And we found we did a lot of research with many colleagues in my team. Emily Morris is one of my
colleagues who I work with on this, even just asking what's the purpose of education? What does a good quality education look like to teachers, to parents or caregivers and to students and seeing if they're even on the same page and invariably they're not. We've done this in 14 different countries. They are often not on the same page, including in Australia. And it is very interesting to see that often it depends a little bit on
SES, but often parents and kids are more aligned and teachers have a different perspective. And when we ask about the purposes of education, it's really fundamental. It's not like, do you want what skills you want to read? It's sort of like, why send your kids to school at all? Is it to help them become better citizens? That's sort of in the education theory. That's one big purpose is it to help them get
go on to higher learning college or some sort of post -secondary, that's an important purpose. Is it to get a job? It's the third purpose. Is it to, is it self -actualization? Basically, we don't use these fancy terms, but you know, is it to build self -awareness and responsibility and understand myself? And yeah, I have to say a lot of parents, it's higher learning and a lot of teachers.
It's sort of, you know, what we would coin social emotional learning and civics. And often they don't meet up. So that was, I've obviously I've read the paper, Rebecca, but you've just so beautifully framed, you know, the difference between that, the visible, the system strengthening and the invisible, the systems transformation. And that's just, it's really dropped in for me. So thank you very much for that.
Louka Parry (50:42.222)
I'm just on what you've just said too. I think I'd love your reflection on the piece around power because it still seems to me that the system strengthening piece can kind of have kind of can happen is happening with existing power. Lots of people are people are good work and it's hard work and nobody it's not it's not that it's easy. I shouldn't say because it's strengthening. It's easy. It's still hard and important. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's kind of like a split screen view somewhat.
What kind of best and next, but I wonder about the power piece. Cause I guess the hypothesis I hold is that we can't really transform unless we're willing to like, let go of power. I don't even think it's at every level, intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, even maybe planetary. Cause I even think I think the whole notion around being in control, really, if you think, if you sit with it long enough, it's kind of not never true.
complex adaptive systems, for example, would tell us that we're actually never really in control. It's just kind of an egoic state that we go, it's an illusion. And it helps us feel safe in a world that is, seems desperately out of control. Cause it is, cause it's entropy, it's kind of chaos. It's, it's complex, it's evolving and it's emergent. And so I wonder when, when you think about systems transformation and some of the work that we're trying to do here in Australia and with our colleagues, it seems to me that the power shift is a really significant.
aspect, you know, not power over, but power with. So if your example of having some students, some parents and some educators all come together, I think what's also happening there is there's like a kind of a dissolving of the old power structure to say, I teach you, listen, you know, I teach you learn, from one that we're all learning together, we're all redesigning together. What, what's your reflection on the role of power in trying to get us to the
I think it's really important. And in fact, you were there when we launched this report that outlines these three P's purpose, pedagogical chord position, which is aligning the rest of the components of the system behind your pedagogical chord. And we had heavy debate and robust discussion inside CUE with many of my colleagues, but also outside, who critiqued us and said, look,
Louka Parry (53:08.59)
who critiqued me and my co -author and said, look, you're missing a fourth P in its power. Like you and so we've, we've, we've added that back in and they were right. They were totally right. Because the point about defining a purpose, if
you know, you can't unilaterally define a new purpose of education. Like we have a current purpose in our current. We have a current purpose and the system works. I think you say this too, like the system works really well for what it was designed for, which is to really to sort and rank and see which kids could go up, should go on to higher learning and which kids should go off to do other types of roles in society. And that's what it was designed for. And
That's what it's doing. So if we're not okay with that, and you know, we have evolved over 150 years of universal education, with the idea that every kid should get to go to school, not just a certain few, which is sort of the name why we call the center the center for universal education. And said, no, actually, every kid should be able to have all the options and be able to, you know, leave school.
able to choose their path. Then we probably have to redesign the purpose of our system. And we can't do that without bringing everyone else with us. It doesn't, that is different, I think, from saying everyone has to play all the roles in a system. I don't think, I think teachers have deep expertise, are professionals. And frankly, I couldn't do their job. It's so hard.
Like it's so hard. And by the way, it's one of the things that will not be automated by chat GPT. So teaching is the new future, along with caregiving. So encourage all your kids to go into teaching. They'll be making much more money than coding, for example. So it's not that parents should be teachers.
Louka Parry (55:24.078)
you know, and teachers can't know every kid the way a parent knows. And so it's more the co -creation of a new purpose and then figuring out what your roles are within that and how you can work together to support that purpose. But I think that co -creation of the purpose is where you have to let go of power. Like if you, there are some beautiful case studies we've done. If you and your, when you were teaching the Outback, and maybe you did this,
I don't know, let me ask you. When kids left the class mid, you're giving it your all, you're singing them a song, whatever, and they would leave. Maybe that's why they left Rebecca. No, I doubt it. Were you able to sit with them and say, why are you leaving? What's happening? What's different? So we have great case studies of not individual teachers, but districts who've done that with certain kids, certain groups of
kids in their district do not show up and engage. And they literally work with the whole community, what's going on, what's happening. And they redesign sort of how they think about their purpose of school in their district in the US we have, this is actually Canada I'm thinking of with indigenous community members. And that process of letting them in was transformative. And the kids all of a sudden showed up mainly it's cause they saw themselves in that.
Ed system, whereas before they didn't. And, and actually the 21st century skills and a lot of sort of indigenous, sort of priorities that were put on the table. There was a lot of connection. Absolutely. It's, isn't it fascinating? well you've taken me back into kind of my brand. Yeah. What did you do? Well, I mean, I actually think my reflection now, Rebecca is first point.
We always talk about innovation, but I think it's equally remembering what it means to be human, like deep humanity, as well as innovation forwards, outwards, also like deepening downwards, inwards, into a community level, local, which is not a word I like, but you know, they have a kind of connection for two. and in, in our case, you know, in the outback, my reflection is we could have done so much more and being so, and reinvented. We were, I was.
Louka Parry (57:50.702)
We were as a team too wedded to what a school needed to look like. That said, we also won awards for innovation because we started, we created, you know, initiated men that had come back from men's business. We actually said, okay, we're going to create a specific program for you because they didn't, they weren't going to just roll back up now as men and be taught by technically a boy or a girl, depending on the, you know, depending on the cultural framing. And then, so we had to adapt and respond.
And we'd started to do increasingly Bush trip. We started to reintroduce first language as a linguist myself also back into it. This is the worldview and this is what actually is needed. And if I had my time again, I would have just been like, okay, we would have sat down with the elders, which we did do. And we came up with a bilingual vision for the school when I was the school principal. Right. And so there you are. You're sharing power. Well, everyone learns on their journey, but that's sharing power.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was precisely that. And at its worst, it was just a Western institution, plonked in a community. It's still there, some good work. But at its best, it was a community school and it had actually the name of the peoples in the name of the school, Arnangu school. And so at its best, it was fully representative of the desires and the dreams of that community. And so that was my own journey to go on, obviously, as an educator and leader.
was to realize, okay, I actually know way less than I think I did in the Dunning Dunning effect. But it just actually completely set me up to be able to do what I do now, which I think is to challenge some of the implicit assumptions that we all operate on. Back to a piece around mindset, power, beliefs. And I remember seeing, you know, I came across Meadows through your work, you know, and looking at the lever, the places to interface in the system. And of course the strongest, but hardest to change.
beliefs. What do I believe to be true? And often you don't need to shift curriculum or assessment to shift beliefs, actually. Interesting. Well, I feel like there's going to be a pretty big part to Rebecca when we get to it. All right. It was lovely to talk to you. I've got a final question. I want to hear more about your experience in the Outback. we could definitely have that conversation.
Louka Parry (01:00:17.166)
My final question for you. You should do a whole podcast with some of your old colleagues. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. Going back, what did we learn? How many ever many years that would be so cool. And really seeing how that was formative for you guys and what that led to your own journey. Gosh, Rebecca, I see. I see why you're as prolific as you are. We've covered some ground. We've got some really amazing ground.
in this conversation, I'd love you to leave us with a reflection. You know, what do you want to kind of resonate from all the themes that we've covered and from this kind of moment that we find ourselves in education?
I think my takeaway for myself as a parent for in my work as someone who studies this work, but works very closely with education system leaders and practitioners in the education community is we all have more power than we think. We do. We, can change things. So that's what I'll leave you with. Thank you, Rebecca.
for joining us today on the learning future podcast. Absolutely delightful conversation. My pleasure.
Louka Parry (01:01:33.998)
Rebecca, that was fantastic. It's so good. fun. Anytime. That was so fun. my God. You should really do that podcast with your own right about flicking back. Is it so cool? So formative for me as a, as a, and you know, futurist, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And you can, you know, you can bring readers listeners in a little more to like what it was like to teach. Yeah. What, what, what were you ? Cause at the end of the day you did share power. Yeah.
we did become a feature, I think of philosophy, my beliefs around what it's right, our education can, and we will operate way more in the system transforming space. And others are more system strengthening, but I think it's not one or the other. Yeah, beautifully. I'll let you go. Thank you so much for your time in the evening. My pleasure. My pleasure. And I will talk to you soon.
Good luck with the book. I'll let you know when this comes out via email. Yeah, do all set. I'll share it on social media. That'd be fab. That'd be fab. Thanks Rebecca. Give it the great work. Take care. You too. Bye now. Bye. Bye.