the challenges of innovation
Recently I looked back through previous publications of trends in education reports. I found myself vaguely remembering some of the ideas and strategies for use in the classroom – and plenty of buzzwords that were offered as a way of revolutionising education throughout the world. I reflected on several professional development cycles or workshops where some of these trends were in focus and thought about the significant budget expenses to update technology that didn’t ultimately affect how teachers taught in the schools I have worked in. I don’t think this experience is rare. (Don’t buy smartboards). There is an understandable reluctance when staff and stakeholders consider the prospect of education reform or initiatives to improve educational practice. Frequently, the next big thing in education comes and goes without moving the needle in terms of impacts on student learning or motivation.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why the education profession is slow to adapt to change. More precisely, I’m wondering why the profession seems to lack internal mechanisms for continuous development. Even in schools which offer in-service training, workshops and professional development, these initiatives seldom seem to inspire broader change. They are often met with a certain amount of cynicism from the teaching and instructional staff. When curriculum frameworks or innovative ideas have value for student development – what are the limiting factors for introducing these innovations into broader teaching practice? Are other industries similarly slow to adapt and view the prospect of change with similar levels of scepticism?
Leaving aside the specifics of the change or development project, continuous improvement mechanisms are fundamental to a business's ability to adapt and thrive under rapidly changing external circumstances. Why should the educational system be any different?
The concept of education and what constitutes a quality education is deeply complex. It is challenging to develop professionally unless the institution has articulated a clear and compelling strategy. Perhaps this is easier in a business setting where end measures are more quantifiable – profit margins are not constructs like " education “. And although there must undoubtedly be a robust debate about the ways and means within a corporate setting, I suppose the end goals are more mutually understood than in an educational environment with conflicting perspectives about what constitutes quality education. What is it that we are trying to achieve? In most settings, the consensus in a school building is out of reach, let alone a local or national system. Why should this be so? Since education operates in complexity and throughout various domains, change initiatives can seldom simultaneously hold and account for all these domains simultaneously. Reimers writes about the multidimensional nature of the educational system in his exploration of government reform projects:
In undertaking [these] reforms, governments have followed strategies that reflect a cultural, psychological, professional, institutional or political understanding of the change process, often depending on more than one perspective but seldom with a fully multidimensional view of the process. In some ways, these reforms have seen the process of change through one eye, sometimes two, but seldom accessing the kaleidoscopic perspective. (Reimers, 2020, p. 43)
With this perspective, it is no wonder why many educational initiatives fail to fundamentally change the experience and outcomes for the students these initiatives serve. I can think specifically of my project, where the inherent aims of the reform and its value for students were, for me, self-evident, but did my colleagues (or indeed the students) agree? Maybe. But I failed to establish the environment which might facilitate dialogue and consensus building. This same failure is abundant in local, regional and national reform initiatives. These reform initiatives almost inevitably fail to account for all simultaneously, leading to a lack of strategic coherence, which “is often elusive” (Reimers, 2020, p. 9). I wonder how many policymakers and educational leaders make the mistake of assuming that the benefits of a particular improvement program are self-evident to educators and stakeholders or need supporting data on a specific metric of success to prove the value of the program but are unable to articulate the broader complexities and strategic purpose of the initiatives. This elusive strategic direction must be fundamental to any meaningful reform initiative. What is it that the change is aiming for? And why is it so rare that educational change drivers find it difficult to articulate these aims?
“in complex environments such as education in which a multitude of actors are collaborating through formal and informal channels, the sheer amount of feedback and interactivity can seem impossible to navigate effectively” (Blanchenay, Patrick; Burns, 2016, p. 162)
I think this is a crucial point. Many individual actors in educational changes fail to appreciate the system's complexity and how the processes interact. The educational initiatives operate in so many domains simultaneously – pedagogical, political, organisational – that expertise and capacity for change are distributed in ways that make meaningful reform unwieldy to manage. I am reasonably sure that most teachers are unaware of these competing drivers and nearly as confident that most educational leaders don’t fully account for them. The relative success of the given change project is much less about the idea itself and much more about the ways the initiative is coherently managed and the extent to which the organisation has the mechanics, personnel and will to carry the change project forward.
In the early stages of my teaching career, I was in pursuit of the next big thing in education - something that might revolutionise the ways that students learn and develop. This stage mostly ended – I now understand – with the failed project I discussed at length in an earlier posting. The project was a valuable lesson in that the change process – collaboration, management, feedback and strategic purpose – is far more essential than any one idea or curriculum. It’s more difficult, less romantic and certainly less exciting to admit that educational development doesn’t come with a breakthrough model, brain research, or new technologies. It comes from continuous growth, ongoing reflection and the ability to generate shared visions and collaborative effort. This is far more challenging. Educational innovations and broader reforms require conviction, action, coherence, and strategy across impact domains.
Change knowledge is not a disembodied set of facts but rather a deeply applied phenomenon in the minds of people. Moreover for this knowledge to have an impact it must be actively shared by many people engaged in using the knowledge. There are more examples of such shared use in evidence, and if it continues to spread we may have the breakthrough required for change knowledge to have an enduring place in the field of education reform. As always the route to achieving such a critical mass is not to wait for it to happen but to be among those promoting its use even if those around us seem disinterested or against it. Large scale successful reform occurs in a thousand small ways during the journey. Don’t go on this journey without being equipped with an active and open ended grasp of change knowledge. (Fullan, 2007, pp. 39–40)
Blanchenay, Patrick; Burns, T. (2016). Policy experimentation in complex education systems. In Governing Education in a Complex World (pp. 161–186). https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264255364-10-en
Fullan, M. (2007). Change Theory as a Force for School Improvement. In Intelligent Leadership (Vol. 6, pp. 27–39). Springer Netherlands.
Klinck, P. (2007). Observations on Leadership: Linking Theory, Practice and Lived Experience. In J. M. Burger, C. F. Webber, & P. Klinck (Eds.), Intelligent Leadership: Constructs for Thinking Education Leaders (pp. 13–25). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6022-9_2
Reimers, F. M. (2020). Audacious education purposes: How governments transform the goals of education systems. In Audacious Education Purposes: How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41882-3
