TransformED: The Case for Education Transformation by MG Publishing

A Bookazine Edition with

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be (1954)The–inevitable.”HannahArendtCrisisinEducation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors and the publishers would like to thank ETS, QFI, Lego Foundation, Big Change, and Microsoft for their support for the Salzburg Global Seminar program that led to this book, and everyone who participated in the program.

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TransformED THE CASE FOR TRANSFORMATIONEDUCATION MANAGING EDITOR SHANE SZARKOWSKI SENIOR EDITOR DOMINIC REGESTER SERIES EDITOR ADAM RATZLAFF AUTHORS ALEX BATTISON ALISON FRANCOCATHERINEBERNADETTEBELLWOODTEELEYCAIREENGODDARDCARINEALLAFM.MILLETTCRYSTALGREENDOMINICREGESTERELOÏSEHAYLOREMMAGREENEVAKEIFFENHEIMFRANCOMOSSOMOSSOCOBIÁNGERHARDPULFERGILLIANMCFARLANDGLYNISSCHREUDERHUGOPAULJANINEA.JACKSON JENNIFER GEIST JENNIFER MANISE JESSICA HAXHI JOANN MCPIKE JORINA SENDEL LASSE RAJDEEPMICHAELMAVIELISALEPONIEMIHANNAUNGCONETTLESNOAHW.SOBEPATRICEJUAHCHOWDHURYROMANASHAIKHRYDERDELALOYESHANESZARKOWSKISUCHETHABHATTRACEYBURNSVISHALTALREJA PUBLISHER ANA C. ROLD ART DIRECTOR MARC GARFIELD A Bookazine Edition with

UNGA 77 | 7 Transforming Education Requires Transforming Ourselves 48 By Jennifer Geist | Carine Allaf A New Social Contract and a New Grammar of Schooling 50 By Noah W. Sobe The Beautiful Risk of Education Innovation 54 By Crystal Green | Lasse Leponiemi Transforming Schooling by Educating the Heart and Mind 58 By Ryder Delaloye Transformation in Education in South Africa’s 60 Western Cape By Glynis Schreuder The Case for Global Competence in Education 62 By Jennifer Manise Responsive, Contextualized Education Is a Human Right 64 By Romana Shaikh A Gift to My Younger Self: Building the Classroom I Never Had 66 By Franco Mosso Cobián Inspirational Leadership Can Usher in a Better Future of Education 68 By Alex Battison The Future We Want for Education 72 By Joann McPike | Alex Battison | Eva Keiffenheim | Franco Mosso Cobian | Vishal Talreja TABLE OF CONTENTS

n May 2022 a group of educators, policymakers, academics, and education activists from around the world met at Schloss Leopoldskron, the home of Salzburg Global Seminar, to take part in a five-day program called Education Futures: Shaping a New Education Story – part of Salzburg Global Seminar’s Education for Tomorrow’s World series.

INTRODUCTION A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY TO RADICALLY RESHAPE EDUCATION

BY DOMINIC REGESTER 8 | TransformED

The Salzburg program was convened to support growing global momentum for radical transformation in education systems. There has been a lot of analysis and discussion about the ways in which education systems around the world are no longer quite fit for purpose, along the lines of “analogue approaches for a digital age” or “nineteenth century inputs when we need 21st century outputs.’” There has been reform and innovation, but most education systems remain fundamentally the same as they were at the start of the 20th century in terms of assessment, subjects, and pedagogy. The Salzburg program was convened partly in the belief that there now exists a compelling but small window of opportunity during which significant transformation feels possible. This win dow of opportunity exists for two reasons. The first of these are our recent collective experiences of multiple and convergent so cietal, climate, and health crises. In the years immediately before the pandemic many countries were beginning to address long overdue recalibrations of structural inequalities around race, gender, and inclusion. The climate crisis is affecting more and more communities around the world. The pandemic shone a very harsh light on inequalities between and within many countries and communities. In different ways all of these acted as catalysts for fundamental conversations and new thinking about the purpose of education. When 90% of children around the world were out of school what were the things that they really missed and how can everyone involved in education work to make sure those things get more attention in schools in the future.

The first output from the program was the Salzburg Statement on Education Transformation, which was co-authored by all of the program participants and which follows this introduction. The statement was published in May 2022 during the Education World Forum in London and helped inform the UNESCO Futures of Edu cation Commission statement that was published in June during the Presummit to the UN Transforming Education Summit.

The other massive factor contributing to this window of opportunity is the 2030 agenda and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, which in many contexts are focusing political attention on progress, or lack thereof, toward meeting SDG targets. These twin lenses of the recent past and the near future give hope that there is a real opportunity for long overdue education transformation. This was the focus of the discussions and work ing groups during the Salzburg program.

This was very much the spirit of the Salzburg Global program and one which is reflected in this essay collection. ***** About the author: Dominic Regester is a program direc tor at Salzburg Global Seminar and a senior editor at Diplomatic Courier. UNGA 77 |

This essay collection is the next outcome from the Salzburg program. Some of the essays are individual pieces and some are the results of the working groups that were formed in Salzburg. Many of the Salzburg participants will also organize education conferences and seminars over the next few years and we hope that the ideas that were first discussed or refined in Salzburg, and which are now part of this book, will be visible and further developed in other events. Education Transformation will be a collective effort and one that will be best advanced without indi vidual or institutional ego. It will be necessary to harness many kinds of collective intel ligence and new collaborations if we are to help design educa tion systems that will best prepare young people for the century ahead. Margaret Mead, anthropologist and chair of the very first Salzburg Global Seminar program once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

Education Futures: Shaping a new Education Story

In May 2022, 51 Salzburg Global Fellows from 20 countries came together to ask bold and challenging questions about education:

• What kind of societies are we aiming for and how could transformed education systems help us to get there?

• What would an education system look like that support ed all learners to build the capabilities, skills and knowl edge they need to transform the world?

• What do we need to change within ourselves to facilitate this process?

• What are the conversations and questions that are re quired to initiate long-term transformation?

The first output of this collective effort is the following call to action for policymakers, learners, educators, and parents to intervene in education systems to bring about fundamental and lasting transformations. This is not a blueprint as every system will transform in different ways, but this is a call for everyone who has power, agency and voice to use it to build the educa STATEMENT EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION

10 | TransformED

he COVID-19 pandemic and multiple societal and eco logical crises in recent years have revealed the cru cial importance of education around the world. What is more, they have created opportunities for profound education changes. These crises have clarified para mount lessons about equity and access and have highlighted the importance of technology in providing learning continuity. They have showed how vital it is to engage students, teachers, par ents and caregivers, and communities in school, and provided further evidence that fostering self-knowledge, learning the skills to manage relationships, regulate emotions, appreciate differing perspectives and building resilience are just as important as lit eracy and numeracy. These crises have showed us how our edu cation systems can evolve, and ultimately transform, to support all students to thrive.

FOR

CASE FOR ACTION THE SALZBURG

• What if every system could harness innovative pedago gies and seek ways to embed them into practice so that learners could develop the full breadth of skills needed to thrive in today’s complex world?

• If you work in government or education networks, re commit to the achievement of SDG 4.7 to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sus tainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promo tion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizen ship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

•

tion systems that are needed for human and planetary flourishing this century.

• If you have power, agency and voice, acknowledge that this will be different to other people’s and use your opportu nities to include those who might be left out of the process.

Key questions to help with thinking about education trans formation:•Whatif

• What if each of us could contribute to and conduct na tional conversations with education stakeholders, particu larly young people, about the Purpose, Power and Practice of education systems so that mindsets can begin to shift?

• What if each of us could harness insights and evidence from previous and current reform and transformation ef forts to inform better policymaking?

• What if learners could organize with peers to take an ac tive role in the learning process and life of your institution?

• What if every school could improve parental engagement to build stronger learning ecosystems for young people?UNGA

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each of us could learn from other education systems that are already transforming in ways we admire, ask questions of them and look for opportunities to work together?

If you have power, agency and voice, use it to advocate for the kind of education that will help all young people thrive and become active citizens.

from the May 2022 program Education Futures: Shaping A New Education Story leaned into global re search by Big Change and UNESCO’s Futures of Education initia tive. The reports act as starting points to ask the right questions. Contextualizing and identifying actions is a collective effort.

The experiences of different crises in recent years and the Sus tainable Development Goals target of 2030 have created a re markable window of opportunity for education transformation in the next few years. There is a collective responsibility to seize this moment and transform education systems, so they enable all learners to de velop the skills and competencies necessary for thriving in the century ahead.

A Global Momentum For Education Transformation Education leaders, policymakers, and funders in every context are making decisions about how to transform learning and edu cation. This moment offers an unparalleled opportunity to step back, ask big questions, and think differently about what to aim for and how to get there.

12 | TransformED

A growing global consensus for education transformation is emerging to prepare young people for their futures and our sights need to be set on transformation, not reform. While re form starts with processes and improves the system, trans formation begins with values and mindsets and changes the purpose of the system. Reform results in a better version of existing systems; transformation results in different systems. To equip every young person to thrive throughout life, we must focus on transformation and less on reform and incre mental Salzburgimprovement.GlobalFellows

• What if schools could provide every student with a ho listic and interconnected view of the world, its challenges, and solutions by encouraging them to think globally and act locally?

• What if educators were positioned alongside learners as central to education policy and systems transformation?

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Three drivers begin to indicate a theory of action, directing decision makers to the places to intervene in education systems at sufficient depth to bring about fundamental and lasting chang es. These drivers of transformation emerged from research with global pioneers and changemakers. They are not linear and indi vidual but very much interlinked and need to work together to support transformation towards more equitable, sustainable, and learner-centered futures.

Drivers to Transform Education Systems

Redefine the goals and outcomes of the education system to reflect the challenges and opportunities of the future. Engage stakeholders in defining the purposes of education, so it reflects communities’ values and priorities. POWER Expand who has voice and agency by investing in educators and learners so they can make confident decisions about learning and education. Enable a wide range of stakeholders to take part in decision making. PRACTICE Unlock innovation by enabling those working in education to create and share learning innovations with the greatest potential to transform the system and reimagine pedagogical approaches.UNGA77

PURPOSES

Reports

| GERHARD PULFER | GILLIAN

lobal education systems are working for some chil dren, but failing to allow many to thrive. Even before COVID-19 threw us off-track on SDG 4, some 258 million children were out-of-school, while 53% of children in school in low- and middle-income coun tries were not acquiring even basic literacy and numeracy— which only represents one aspect of education. Even across higher-performing education systems early data suggests the gaps have widened over the last two and a half years.

AND

SPACE BY

COVID-19 has affected foundational learning, as well as widened pre-existing inequalities along country, gender, urban-rural, and citizenship status. Children facing intersecting adversities are left even further behind by the existing education systems. These deep systemic issues mean that a root and branch transforma tion of education is without an alternative. However, the com munities the education system fails most rarely have a voice in redefining their education requirements.

IN THE

Against this background, it is important to recognize that the outcomes of a transformative education agenda largely de pend on who is able to sit at the table and meaningfully par ticipate in the discussions. Power, agency, and voice shape content and process, which in turn shape outcomes. This is also recognized by the UN Declaration on the Right to Development , which states that “The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development.” Accordingly, a transformative education agenda can only be meaningful if it reflects the aspirations of the communities and societies im pacted by the transformation—particularly the most marginalized among them.

REBALANCING POWER PARTNERSHIPS EDUCATION ALISON BELLWOOD MCFARLAND

• Shifting from a culture of monitoring and outputs to a culture of trust and respect.

There is an inherent tension in offering the purpose for a trans formative education agenda on the one hand and in rethinking power, agency, and voice for such a transformative education agenda. We are one voice among many. We are not representa tive and we acknowledge this tension. Our subsequent offer on purpose and process is thus meant to ignite participation and discussion, rather than to be prescriptive or authoritative. It is in stead a set of relevant principles, questions, and tools for a process that enables meaningful participation, power, agency, and new partnerships for all.

Conversations around power are inherently fraught with conflict and can leave everyone feeling judged or inadequate. It is thus necessary that when we enter into these conversations, we are able to center ourselves and reflect on our own values and ways of being. We can only do that when we slow down and take a pause. This does not mean we are moving slowly or not invested in progress. A moment of pause and reflection will help move the process much further along than if we try to rush it. Any shift in power is a process of rebalancing. This requires that we meet each other where each one of us is at and move forward together. It also means recognizing that each one of us are at dif ferent points on our journeys and we cannot judge where some one else might be, even if their views are different from ours. It implies openness to different ways of expression-including arts.

• Shifting from capacity building to mutual learning.

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Principles: A three-year vertical case study on promising partnerships for Education in Emergencies has identified 5 guiding principles for rebalanced partnerships:

• Shifting from coordination to organic communication.

• Shifting from power imbalances to self-reflection through awareness and interrogation.

• Shifting from saviorism to care, kindness, thoughtful ness and empathy.

If you are the person that is holding space for a conversation on power, you will, by default, have more power in the group. In such a context, it is very important that you have clarified for

Realizing Power, Agency, and New Partnerships

18 | TransformED

and the group what the boundaries and scope of the conversation will be. Examine your own privileges and ensure that you are not only the appropriate person to hold the conversation, but also how deep you want to go with the group. It is likely that the conversa tion can trigger people or resurface past traumas. As such, it is very important that prior consent is established for the boundaries of the conversations so that everyone can feel safe and comfortable.

Model Shifting power is a process. In acknowledging this, we realize the need for a model to guide interactions and decision-making processes. The model has three parts—each framed as a question. The central question on “Values” is the starting point and the anchor from which the two other questions extend. Taken together, these three questions give us a way to plan, act, and reflect on our way of working.

This is an invitation to pause and reflect about the values on which we are operating. Our values guide our decision making, and by taking this step, we are acknowledging and clarifying them. Being the anchor question, we suggest returning to this question during interactions with others and reflecting on reac tions and judgments. In the way we listen and react to others, in how others listen and react to us, we may recognize when we are projecting our beliefs and perceptions on others. Over time we will become more aware of our own power and privilege. Who is here? Who is not?

What can I expect from rebalancing power and partnerships?

As this model is a way for us to continuously practice shifting power, we expect that the ways in which we listen will change. Our aim is always to include diverse voices, build agency, and challenge ourselves to shift the balance of power. This requires us to remove all barriers to participation, take risks, be creative, allow for an iterative process, and let go of our needs for perfec tion and control. It is not something that will happen in a sin gle event or at a specific point in time—rather it is an invitation to see ways we can rebalance power in our organizations, our communities, our schools etc. At every step we take as educa tors, organization leaders, and change makers, we need to ask ourselves: can we also step aside and give space for those with whom we wish to create change?

The education system has a wide and diverse set of stakeholders. A critical step in shifting power is to be more aware and intentional about who is actually informing decision making. Who is present and actively being heard ‘in the room’ or ‘at the table.’ And equally important: who is absent? This step is about challenging ourselves to invite and empower a wider group—particularly those who are often marginalized—to speak from their experiences and express their needs and the challenges. We must scrutinize whose voices are being heard and whose voices are not at every step of our work. As we answer this question, we can learn more about which values and beliefs are guiding us consciously and unconsciously.

How do I listen and step aside?

As the study on promising partnership models for Education in Emergencies revealed “the sometimes intangible and difficult to

What are the values I am operating from?

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***** 20 | TransformED

“The success of any relationship is bound to trust and respect between the two parties. Once these two things are true, you can proceed. There shouldn’t be any patronizing like, “I am the boss; I am the leader.” (Interview with field based teacher on relationship with Education Partner in the Global North; Promising Partnership Models for Education in Emergencies, p. 108)

quantify, but significant impact that personal relationships and the roles of particular pivotal individuals have on the success of Education in Emergencies partnerships.”

This mutual trust, respect, and ongoing participation appeared to counter power imbalances that might have emerged in other partnerships. (Promising Partnership Models for Education in Emergencies, p. 172)

Through acknowledging one’s own position of power and engag ing in efforts to alter power dynamics, we argue that anyone and any organization has the potential to be a good partner. (Promising Partnership Models for Education in Emergencies, p. 173)

Behaviors that appear to reduce power asymmetries include selfrefection, openness to change, trust and respect for partners.

The study focuses in particular on those partnership-based ini tiatives that participants considered among their most success ful or promising and shows that rebalancing power for the future of education has the potential to improve success and sustain ability of initiatives, as well as trust and mutual respect. This trust in turn allows for greater transparency in goals, activities, and decision-making processes.

Yet, with all the tangible benefits of rebalancing power and partnerships in education, we should not overlook that it is not only a means to an end, but also a value by itself. It is simply the right thing to do, as outlined in the Declaration on the Right to Development.

Gillian McFarland is a senior civil servant at the Department for Education in the UK Civil Service. Mavie Ungco is the Chief Operations Officer of Teach for the PatricePhilippines.Juah is a communications consultant at Salzburg Global RajdeepSeminar.Chowdhury

About the authors: Alison Bellwood is the founder and director of the World’s Largest GerhardLesson.Pulfermanages and coordinates the work of Porti cus around Education in Displacement.

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is a senior advocacy and communication specialist for the LEGO Foundation. Romana Shaikh is the Chief Program Officer at Kizazi. Suchetha Bhat is the CEO of Dream a Dream. Tracey Burns is Strategic Advisor and Distinguished Research Fellow for the National Center for Education and the Economy.UNGA77

| GLYNIS

As education experts and practitioners, the members in this group work directly with preservice and in-service educators.

LISA HANNA JESSICA HAXHI JANINE A. JACKSON MICHAEL NETTLES SCHREUDER TEELEY

he Sustainable Development Goals and Rights of the Child identify critical education indicator targets intended to en sure the quality of life for children and all learners. Among the targets are increasing the supply of qualified teachers and fostering international cooperation for teacher training and development. As we emerge from the pandemic and move closer to 2030, we have the opportunity to renew and recommit ourselves to achieving these goals, rights, and targets. To ensure progress, we recognize that key components of education systems must be transformed. Although learners will always be at the center of education, educators must be positioned alongside learners as central to education policy and systems transformations.

EDUCATORS ARE ALSO KEY TO TRANSFORMING EDUCATION POLICY AND SYSTEMS

BY RYDER DELALOYE

Many of our schools have struggled to find qualified educators and we have witnessed the daily challenges educators face and qualified people leaving the profession. As we aim to reach UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 to increase the supply of qualified teachers globally, we have reflected on and identified the following challenges in our own education systems: Attracting and preparing educators

| BERNADETTE

22 | TransformED

Recruiting highly qualified, motivated, and energized people to become effective teachers is a global challenge with regional and national variations. Furthermore, prep aration programs are often incongruous with the needs of teachers in today’s environment. From the very first day of employment, educators are on a rollercoaster—often working alone in a fast-paced, brand-new context with lit tle daily support or input.

Education systems perceive teachers as being passive play ers, not active leaders outside of their classrooms. Teachers, in turn, often wait for the system to give them guidance.

Empowering educators

The SHANARRI wheel emerged in 2006 as a tool for gauging wellbeing in young people and became enshrined in Scottish law through the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act of 2014.

Retaining educators

The Scottish experience recognizes that the SHANARRI Wheel has had a significantly positive effect on the wellbeing and success of learners. Similarly, the Educator Wheel ultimately seeks to create a landscape in which every educator feels that they are prepared, well, secure, represented, growing, valued, autono mous, and in an inclusive environment. These areas constitute the eight domains of the Educator Wheel.

Benefits and implementation of the Educator Wheel Educators

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This tool provides a means of self-reflection and an advo cacy tool for educators throughout their career. It shifts the assessment paradigm so that educators assessUNGAtheir77

While some departures are inevitable, many can be linked to factors that can be managed, such as working conditions, ongoing support, professional development, and purposeful empowerment.

Given that the challenges facing educators may be context-spe cific, any sort of framing tool needs to encompass a broad frame work while driving the conversation in specific contexts in order to empower educators with common language for professional expectations; define drivers that attract, prepare, empower, and retain educators; encourage administrators, policymakers, and other stakeholders to appreciate the value of educators.

The SHANARRI Wheel is embedded in Scottish education, and it puts learners firmly at the center of education: Caregivers, educators and young people are familiar with SHANARRI language and terminology and are encouraged to use this to consider and describe their own position. This approach has had a ripple ef fect throughout Scottish education and forms the basis of edu cation policy and planning.

The SHANARRI Wheel, a system-wide tool used in Scotland for mapping student wellbeing served as a model for creating our own Educator Wheel—a tool that allows educators to describe their experiences.

While many educators experience similar challenges, they may not have a common language or framework to articulate the most salient challenges to their supervisors or to each other.

Growing: Educator happiness, creativity, and innovation can only take place when professional and personal growth is en couraged and cultivated.

For school leaders, policymakers, and other stakeholders, this tool can be used to reflect upon the extent to which the education landscape is positioned to attract, prepare, empower, and retain transformative educators.

• To what extent do educators have the autonomy, time, and resources to pursue professional growth that match es their needs?

• To what extent do educators agree that their professional and personal growth helps to cultivate their happiness, creativity, and ability to innovate for their learners?

• How appropriate is educator workload?

• To what extent do educators feel empowered to be creative and explore or implement new pedagogies in a supportive environment?

24 | TransformED

Autonomous: The professional autonomy of educators must be upheld and protected, giving them the freedom to explore and use pedagogies that promote creativity and innovation.

A statement of expectation and guiding questions for reflection are offered below for each of the eight domains.

professional and education environment. With common language and an understanding of what to expect as pro fessionals, educators can advocate for transformation. Education leaders

The Educator Wheel: A framework for discussion, reflection and strategic growth

• To what extent do colleagues and school leaders know, understand and value what educators do?

Valued: Every educator has a recognized set of knowledge, skills, and strengths that are unique and is regularly given opportuni ties and encouragement to play an active role in determining the direction of their learning environment.

• When decisions are being made, how are educator voic es and opinions heard and taken into consideration?

• What is the relationship between agency, safety, and inclusion in the context of school and education?

• Where and how can educators seek support in exercis ing their autonomy?

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Represented: Representation allows educators to express their ideas and concerns and validates their role in the teaching and learning process. Represented also refers to the extent to which educators proportionally represent the community they serve.

• How can schools and systems create more educatorfocused inclusive practices in various contexts?

Included: Inclusivity refers to interacting with a heterogeneous group while respecting uniqueness in an empathetic, bias-free way. Educators have a right to work in an environment where they are truly and fully included as their authentic selves.

Well: Every educator has the right to be well and strengthen skills and practices related to wellbeing.

• To what extent do educators at my school reflect the demographics of the community being served?

• To what extent are educators allowed, encouraged, or expected to participate in decision making, education policy task forces and commissions at the school and district level?

To what extent are educators’ personal and professional emotional, psychological, physical, and relational health promoted and engaged in the learning environment?

• How dependable is the process for educators to report that someone or something is affecting their ability to feel safe and secure?

• How is the profession attracting new educators and making the pathways to certification easy to under stand, accessible, and equitable?

• To what extent are educators—both new and experienced—welcomed, mentored, and supported for growth from their first day and beyond?

•

• To what extent are educators given opportunities to mentor, lead, and be celebrated?

• To what extent is wellbeing supported through ongoing and embedded professional development?

Conclusion The Educator Wheel can be used as a basis for discussion at multiple levels: it is a self-diagnostic as well as system diagnostic tool. For individuals, it provides a framework for self-reflection and identification of development needs. It empowers educators to articulate their attitudes and experiences by providing an accessible and collaborative framework and a recognizable common lexicon. For managers and supervisors, it can be helpful for tracking not only the position and progress of individuals, but

Prepared: In order to thrive, educators must be prepared to plan and instruct engaging lessons, assess progress, and authentically connect with students within their specific school context.

26 | TransformED

To what extent do educators feel physically and emo tionally safe and secure in their teaching environment and interactions with colleagues, administrators, and students?

Secure: Every educator must feel safe and secure in their teach ing environment. Security and change are not mutually exclusive.

• To what extent is the culture of the learning environment one of caring, compassion, dedication to wellbeing?

Janine A. Jackson is a doctoral student in psychometrics at Morgan State University.

The Educator Wheel promotes the transformation of education systems into mutually beneficial teaching and learning environ ments that function cohesively and effectively for educators at all stages of their careers. Thereby, the Educator Wheel contrib utes to increasing the number of high-quality educators who enter and remain in the profession and provides systems with information about how to create education environments where both educators and learners can be successful. *****

Lisa Hanna is Deputy Director of Scotland’s National Cen tre for Languages (SCILT).

also the gaps and emerging trends within the wider organization.

While it might not be possible to make all necessary changes in one year, the Educator Wheel can be used to identify priority areas for improvement. Regular use is recommended to ensure that educators’ voices are central to the educational landscape and decision-making processes.

Jessica Haxhi is the Supervisor of World Languages for New Haven Public Schools in Connecticut.

About the authors:

Ryder Delaloye is the Associate Director for the Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning Program.

Michael Nettles is the Senior Vice President and the Edmund W. Gordon Chair of Policy Evaluation and Research, ETS. Glynis Schreuder is currently the Acting Director in the Directorate Curriculum FET in the Western Cape Educa tion BernadetteDepartment.Teeley is Chair of the English Department of the Lawrenceville School.

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| HUGO

| JENNIFER GEIST | EMMA GREEN 28 | TransformED

Afundamental shift in our collective mindset is required if we are to transform education to best serve youth as well as society on the whole; the voices of young peo ple are pivotal for true transformation. Young people are the primary stakeholders in our education systems, yet they are conspicuously missing from conversations about what they need, what they want, and how they envision their own futures. We—those with power to shape outcomes—need to en courage the inclusion of young people to voice their ideas and opinions and to actively influence the design and implementation of their own education. This means that youth are not just listened to, but also heard—and that their voices shape outcomes. Each country has a different education story—with differing economic, social, and political factors influencing how the vari ous systems are designed and function as well as who and what these systems serve. We recognize that elements of the system often lead to inequities in quality and access to education and that not all stakeholders share the same goals. Education has become an industry. As such, the user experience should form the basis of the design. Take for example the concept of reverse mentorship. We often talk about mentorship and automatically assume that the adult holds the wisdom. Turn this around, and imagine how valuable it would be for each adult who is navigating the education land scape to have young person to guide and mentor them! Imagine how mind expanding it would be to have an empowered, fully valued, youth perspective on policy decisions, program design, and content selection! We call upon adult readers of this paper to find a youth and ask them to mentor you. Or if you are a youth reading this, perhaps you would be willing to find an adult and offer to be their mentor. By doing this, we shift the narrative as it will quickly be realized that youth have the answers and wisdom that adults are desperately seeking. It is a revolutionary idea to allow students to have power in the learning process. Transformation means transformation for everyone. To create real change, we need a different approach than what was used JORINA SENDEL PAUL

YOUTH MUST PARTICIPATE IN EDUCATIONAL TRANSFORMATION BY

Education transformation concerns everyone in society, therefore it is important that everyone is represented in the decision-making process. Youth are plural and diverse. It is important to include the great diversity of youth in order to reach as many people as possible. This includes ensuring representation across many sec tors and levels—including countries, cultures, religions, genders, and ages. It means including subgroups, especially those at the margins, in the actual design and planning of programs. Before planning a decision-making process, reflect on the people in volved in the process. Who is making the decision? Who is this deci sion going to effect and influence? Look at the discrepancy between decision makers and the people impacted by the decision. If there is a discrepancy, work to change it. Invite everyone to join the decisionmaking process and ensure that the participation is accessible.UNGA

Simplicity When transforming education and centering youth voices, it is important to remember to keep it simple. It is not about over complicated strategy or tactics, it is about remembering to ask the youth what transformation they want to see and then allowing them to have a hand in creating it. When we talk about teachers and learners, we invite you to apply a reverse mentorship approach to the classroom—remembering that the wisdom and the answer is in the room.

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For years, different stakeholders have talked about the necessity of educational transformation and the steps required to move forward The involvement of young people in decision-making and action is invariably one of them. Good initiatives already exist, but it is time to make them systemic. If each stakeholder sincerely embodies this commitment in their actions, they will practice what they preach. The power of words is revealed when the person who delivers them also embodies them.

to create the existing system. To pursue this goal, we propose seven keys to inspire a shift to the collective mindset toward one that includes youth in transforming education. It is impor tant to know that these are ideas for immediate and practical application—meaning, that there is no hierarchy of importance and all points contribute equally to the process, working in tan dem with one another.

Practice what you preach

Representation

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Community We are convinced that it is necessary to form communities of young people so that they can express themselves in a confident and representative way. By bringing young people together as a community you provide them with a critical opportunity to understand their own diversity, but more importantly, this collec tive dynamic gives them the confidence and courage to present their ideas to governing bodies and decision makers, which can be intimidating to young people.

The way young people feel comfortable and creative in a meeting might differ from that of policymakers, and if you are wondering how or why, just ask.

Involvement

Creating a space that allows for everyone to get out of their comfort zone and be challenged with new ideas and approaches from different subgroups is critical, and indeed, transformation al in itself. Adult leaders, teachers, and facilitators may need to evaluate their own need for control and willingness to listen with an open mind. To truly involve youth, from the first step onward, ensures that no idea gets lost and that everyone’s view has the chance to be heard. Adults must be able to recognize the positive value of this approach. For example, it does not make sense for adults to guess at the topics that are of interest to youth because they simply cannot know. We are suggesting that when planning programs of any kind, adults include youth in the pro cess and actually integrate them into the critical conversations— rather than added as an afterthought.

Involvement of young people is not just representation, ensured by simply inviting young people to meetings. Raising one‘s voice as the only young person in the room takes a lot of courage. To ensure that young people are fully able to participate, it is essen tial to engage them in the entire process—from the first steps of planning an event, a program, or even an assessment. This enables every voice to be heard and each idea an equal chance to develop.

As with all efforts at inclusion, lowering barriers to engagement is key. Because adults do control education resources, they must take the lead to organize participation for young people. Keep in mind that young people are often not used to attending con ferences or other events and may require preparation and sup port—including allowances for absences and late work—in order to be able to participate.

Many community building tools exist today and have proven their worth. These tools include processes such as establishing goals and agreements as a group. Building trust through dialogue, boundary setting and positive feedback loops. The value on deep listening can be reinforced through intentional practices and of course modelling by adults. Building on these tools, it is important to create a learning community for all young people with appreciation for individual identity as well as collective learning that will allow them to grow personally and in turn, impact the evolution of the education system that they are a part of.

Conclusion If you are an educator, we invite you to cultivate a new mindset of shifting power to students and allow them to be advocates of their own learning. If you are a student, we invite you to speak up about your own education, ask for what you need, and advocate for the type of learning that works for you. No matter yourUNGAposi77

Commitment is the willingness to do something you believe in. All stakeholders in the field of education transformation have their own ideas and ideologies. Progress is made if everyone is spending their full energy on their responsibility. If you are con vinced that youth involvement plays an essential role in the pro cess of education transformation, think about what you can do to authentically involve young people and then follow through.

Commitment

Commitment does not need to be difficult. Create a commitment group with other stakeholders and state your pledge. This will in crease accountability and follow through. Actions and efforts for social change are ineffective without full commitment. To fully commit to something, it is important to be clear about your own values and opinions.

Transparency Transparency is essential for trust and growth. It is important to allow youth to know which parts of their learning can be influ enced and which cannot. As an educator, ask your students what they want, what they do not like and find out why. Explain to them what can be changed and what cannot, and why. This allows for transparency in both the teaching and the learning pro cesses and shifts power to the students. There may not be much that can be changed, but when students understand why deci sions are being made, there is bound to be more buy-in, a higher level of commitment, and a more robust level of engagement.

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About the authors: Jorina Sendel is a Board Member of Lern-Fair. Hugo Paul is a member of the Youth Council of the Learn ing JenniferPlanet.Geist is a global education consultant. Emma Green is the Trauma Response Coordinator within the Safe and Healthy Schools Bureau at the Public Educa tion Department in New Mexico, USA.

tion in a learning environment, ask yourself “what can I do today to shift the power to the students?”. The key words for us are: simplicity, representation, commitment, transparency, community, and involvement. The tools of collec tive intelligence and participatory education exist and have been proven in many schools. Let us use these same tools in decisionmaking processes on a global scale. We know the tools, we know how to use them, we just have to apply them to transforming education to include youth voice.*****

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At Salzburg Global Seminar’s Education Futures: Shaping a New Education Story program—hosted in May 2022—this working group imagined best-possible future education systems and what needs to be done to get there. The group agreed that to go where no education system has gone before, requires to dream boldly. Central to this dream for the group is the idea that we must ensure every child develops the capacities to flourish – and doing so requires we empower young learners to choose their own fates. Imagining a better future into being Hence, futures thinking—considering what a best-possible set of future education systems might look like—was at the heart of the work. To accomplish this, we utilize the Three Horizons mod el, first conceptualized by the International Futures Forum. The Three Horizons model encourages to think about three discrete points in time: • Horizon 1. Today, where certain systems, norms, and ways of thinking about the world hold ascendance. Some of these are productive and good and some have effects we can identify as being unproductive in reaching a future we want. In the first horizon we can WORLD” FOR A YOUNG EDUCATIONLEARNER-FOCUSEDTRANSFORMATION ALEX BATTISON KEIFFENHEIM MCPIKE MOSSO SZARKOWSKI

| VISHAL TALREJA 34 | TransformED

“SHAKE THE

| SHANE

| JOANN

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R ecent debates revolve around transforming education rather than simply reforming education systems. As recently as the June UNESCO Transforming Education Pre-Summit, main stage events highlighted the impor tance of listening to young learners about what the future of education should look like. Yet even when we as a broad policy maker and educator community acknowledge the need to give young people agency in deciding the future of educa tion, too often those young people remain on the sidelines. They play a small role in the conversation rather than having a seat at the decision-making table and a meaningful opportunity for cocreating their future.

• Horizon 3. This is a putative future state where we’ve largely achieved the main traits of the best possible education systems of the future.

also identify the beginnings of disruptive trends—new ideas, new norms, new technologies—which may help bring about the future we want.

Empowering young people to imagine their own future

The best possible future set of education systems, we have come to believe, will be largely defined and co-created by young people themselves. Our job, at best, is to identify the required infrastructure for accessible and empowering education which can be shaped by young people in different cultural contexts to best suit their needs. To realize this third horizon, incremental improvements aren’t enough. We need to transform education, not only for, but with

We’re afraid for our children. But if you ask young people, they’re optimistic. They acknowledge life is not a zero-sum game and are willing to take on life. So, what if we challenge fears of change? What if we bust age hierarchies? What if we do not compare but collaborate? If we all work together, we all win.

• Horizon 2. This is a transition period where some leg acy systems are departing and some disruptive trends are becoming more mainstream. Both of these upend embedded ways of doing things which can be painful, and those disruptions should be anticipated and miti gated to the extent possible.

In discussing what traits of the first horizon are harmful and what traits we think ideal systems of the future could hold, the group arrived at a pair of connected insights. First, many of the issues with our systems today arise from external sets of norms (being a good citizen, being a great worker, excelling at certain quantitative understandings of knowledge) being imposed on learners. Moreover, education systems are exclusive, ineq uitable, and leave out a large section of learners entering the education system as first-generation school goers. Education is defined by a narrow set of outcomes such as academic excel lence or attainment of jobs leaving out the immense potential of education to create and shape societies of the future. Education is outmoded and is no longer serving our societies and the planet with its complex challenges.

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Some disruptions are already underway in this transition period. New models of learning are emerging and led by young people. These include movements to save our planet, new ways of learning using technology, and new ways of being together through peer learning platforms. Every continent has schools designed to give power to learners over their own development.

young people. Giving learners more power is at the heart of edu cation system transformation.

Youth-centered transformation isn’t new, but to date it hasn’t gone nearly far enough. Despite best intentions, adults are dic tating the conditions of reform on behalf of youth. What we need instead is a youth-guided change.

Shaking the world The Education Minister of Sierra Leone shared at the Transform ing Education Summit in Paris how important it is to “believe in young people.” Sierra Leone is putting its money where its mouth is with the launch of its Youth Advisory Group—which gives young learners a direct say in education system design.

This is an encouraging program, and it resonates with what this working group agreed is a best-practice approach to empower ing young learners to be in control of what their education future looks like. To build trustful relationships we need to stop dictating or even leading youth. What if instead we created forums that youth will own and create for themselves and us? With this goal in mind, this working group advocates for (and is exploring the launch of) an initiative to create these forums and help bring young changemakers to a larger stage. This initiative would create spaces in which young people are empowered to exercise their own agency and leadership. They will be enabled to become change makers at nearly any age by being given resources, safety, and the time and space to envision and discuss they changes they want. For purposes of that discussion, this initia tive would create platforms for young learners to speak their truths from in front of already established education stakeholders. Those stakeholders include parents, teachers, school administra tors, academics, community leaders, and policy makers. It is the

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Some governments are recognizing student agency as part of their policy of teaching and learning. Yet, young people are embracing change much faster than we adults can.

belief of this working group that when given the opportunity to listen to young learners in a meaningful environment, stakeholders will start to see how much they can learn from and trust these young change makers. This in turn will prompt more established stakeholders begin to listen and bring these younger perspec tives into play. These forums will scale led by young people and one day be all over the world. These forums will give current powerholders the vision for education and thus for societies of the future. The more we, as adults, listen, the more we will learn about our role in creating a world where all young people can thrive. In listen ing, we can work with young people to transform education that works for them. What if we allow ourselves to dream idealistically and crazy with young people leading this dream? You must imagine a future be fore you can create it. This initiative is radical and upends tradi tional—even evolving—ideas of education. It will Shake the World. *****

is an independent associate for Big Change.

EvaCollege.Keiffenheim

Vishal Talreja is a co-founder of Dream a Dream. UNGA

Joann McPike is the founder of THINK Global School.

Franco Mosso is CEO and Co-Founder at Enseña Peru. Shane Szarkowski is Managing Editor of Diplomatic Courier and Executive Director of World in 2050.

About the authors: Alex Battison is Senior Deputy Head at Lord Wandsworth

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Essays

The pandemic wreaked havoc on quality and equity in education for learners at all levels throughout the world. It’ll be years before we know its full impact on students’ academic, cogni tive, and social and emotional development, in part because that impact is ongoing. Despite that uncertainty, three things are absolutely clear:

mong the many aphorisms attributed to Winston Churchill is the expression, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Churchill had postwar challenges in mind, but it’s a fitting bit of wisdom for addressing the structural flaws in education that were pushed to crisis point by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Schools, districts, institutions, and entire education systems were woefully unprepared for the specific conditions of the pandemic;

THERE’S

AND THAT’S

• Our systems of education have long been structurally ill-equipped to prepare students for success in complex societies;

• And systemic transformation, rather than incremental reform, is the most promising path to the equitable, high-functioning education systems required by 21stcentury societies, economies, and workplaces.

Given the likelihood of future mass dislocations, whether from viral pandemics, environmental catastrophes or political con flict, the longer we wait to rebuild education, the more devas tating the next event will be. We cannot let this crisis go to waste.

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As a core component of education, assessment is also overdue for transformation. Thanks to advances in the learning sciences and the development of such educational technologies as artifiA CRISIS IN EDUCATION, A GOOD THING BY CATHERINE M. MILLETT

As goes education, so goes assessment

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One of the breakthrough insights of recent research on learn ing is evidence that different students learn differently. Another is that learning occurs in a variety of environments and modes including synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, and virtual. The pandemic illuminated and hastened both of these dynamics.

Meanwhile AI, data analytics, and other digital tools have shown spectacular ability to generate, sort, and organize data on indi vidual student learning, both in and out of the classroom. These data can support personalized teaching, learning, and testing in ways that was simply not possible before.

At ETS, we are undertaking research on how to ensure studentcentered, competency-based, and culturally and socially rel evant teaching, learning and measurement that accomplishes several purposes: 1) create opportunities for students to pursue paths of learning suited to their learning styles; 2) develop the means by which they can demonstrate and memorialize their learning; 3) account for and leverage students’ linguistic and

We have long known that standardized assessments are limited in what they can tell us about individual student learning and, as a result, in their ability to support teaching and learning. In fact, the more we understand about personalized learning and students’ different learning styles, the greater our ability to design tests that give each student an opportunity to dem onstrate their skills and knowledge based on their learning and communication styles.

For test developers, the challenge is to combine the insights and the technologies to design assessments that can advance teaching and learning, monitor student progress, empower student engage ment and individual agency, and support system accountability.

To be sure, these trends were underway before the pandemic struck, at ETS and within the assessment industry generally. But the pandemic has ignited the urgency.

Today, assessment is in position not only to undergo transfor mation alongside teaching and learning, but to help shape the transformation and the future of education.

As for equity, if personalized learning is possible, then every student stands to benefit with no opportunity cost to any other student.

cial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, that transformation was already underway when the pandemic struck.

Student centered Educational technology is ascendant today, but it is not vogue. AI, for instance, goes back 70 years at least, to the Turing Test. Still, as promising as it is, and as central to classroom learning and measurement as it is likely to become, edtech is not educa tion; a school is not a technology market; and a student is more than a computer user. The foundation of education is the stu dent–teacher relationship, with the student at the center. History has given us the opportunity to undertake real transfor mation in education. It is an exciting prospect. But it requires a continuing sense of urgency. Given the stakes for us all, I hope that if and when things truly return to normal post-pandemic, education and assessment aren’t among them. We cannot let this crisis go to*****waste. About the author: Catherine M. Millett is Senior Research Scientist and Strategic Advisor Policy, Evaluation, and Research Center (PERC) for ETS.

cultural diversities; and 4) measure and support development of the social and emotional skills critical to success in society.

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How to build public demand for system transformation has been one of the questions explored by the CatalystsLearning Alliance. This ambitious group includes organizations from India, Uruguay, Australia, Bermuda, USA, England, Canada, Spain, and Kenya.

“To build public demand for change we need to unpick some of the hidden assumptions about what education even is.”

-Cal Lindsay-Field, Australia Education is everyone’s business and redefining the purpose of education is one of the most powerful levers for transform ing systems. Therefore, developing a broadly shared vision and purpose is crucial. However, there aren’t many spaces that unite parents, teachers, young people, employers, and the community to talk about what education is really for and how it should change for the future.

ransforming education systems is impossible without involving the broader public, including young people. Hence, building public demand for change and for par ticipation in reimagining education is essential .

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Have conversations about the purpose of education

The following actions emerged from the Learning Alliance’s deep-dive calls and open forums with people from diverse contexts. These intertwined actions can help in engaging a broader public in meaningful ways.

To build public demand for profound system transformation, we need equally big education conversations . It’s essential to bring different stakeholder groups together to surface hidden assumptions, reveal privately held beliefs shared across groups, and to ask big questions such as “What purposes do learning and education systems need to serve if humanity and our plan et are to flourish?”

BY CAIREEN GODDARD AND ELOÏSE HAYLOR

HOW TO BUILD PUBLIC DEMAND FOR TRANSFORMING EDUCATION SYSTEMS

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Learning First in Bermuda, for example, offers entry ways that range from participating in an empathy interview to signing up to a transformation team. Edúcate in Uruguay conclude their programmes with community showcase events. Mónica Nadal, Fundació Bofill, Catalonia emphasizes: “It’s about making peo ple believe the little changes they make matter”.

Bridge the tangibility gap “How do you build a sense of what’s possible? One of the biggest barriers to the type of change we’re talking about is a sense of it being doable, achievable. You often hear ‘it couldn’t happen here’ - how do we close that tangibility gap?”

“In order to move to a space of shifting behavior, we had to first create a space of listening and validation and trust”

-Tom Beresford, working in Bermuda

-Vishal Talreja, Dream a Dream, India

Education systems are often perceived as unchangeable, and many stakeholders lack a sense of agency. Policymakers, school leaders, educators, learners, and the wider public need to be encouraged and supported in developing both the mindsets and skill sets to effect change. Lowering the barrier to entry by providing various participation pathways is a key step. Once a broad range of stakeholders immerse in new ideas it stretches the sense of what’s possible, making change more tangible.

Invest in the emotional infrastructure

Vishal, from Dream a Dream, India summarizes what’s needed to provide this emotional infrastructure: “A big part of our work is creating our own capacities of facilitative leadership, our capacities for working through our own biases and prejudices, and our capacity to show up with love and empathy every time we show up in the system.”

You can’t have systemic change without personal change. Changing ourselves this deeply happens in spaces that provide emotional safety. If we wish to move to a space of shifting behavior, it’s a prerequisite to make room for listening, validation, vulnerability, and trust.

”Process is where the transformation happens?”

When connecting conversations across different contexts, mak ing space for surfacing differences and remaining aware of our own biases and prejudices is essential.

Acknowledge how process equals transformation

-Hayley McQuire, Learning Creates Australia

The outcome of reimagining education systems can provide a direction, but the process is what enables real change. Hence, designing a process that is aligned and integral to the transfor mation is central.

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“Our views of education are often shaped by our own experience and/or that of our own children. That can be a place of fear and hope, and requires real bravery to step beyond that and believe and act in different-Caireenways.”Goddard, Big Change, UK Organizations that lead the way in building public demand for education must invest in continual self-reflection.

Connect conversations across different contexts and continually self-reflect

Immersion in communities can support a deeper (grass)rooted understanding of local value systems. The team from Zizi Afrique spends regular 3-day immersions in rural communities to ground their catalytic work across Kenya and East Africa.

Annie Kidder, from People for Education, Canada offers a help ful way to think about the process design: “How do we ensure that we are truly hearing from different perspectives, not just building another echo chamber?”

Different political ideologies don’t always surface right away but are forceful when they do. This can manifest in division in attitudes towards data and “what counts.” It’s fundamental to center those who’ve been least heard in the current systemincluding first nations and indigenous communities, those left behind, the students - and normalize this as our way of working, rather than as an outcome or an objective. Inclusive and supported dialogues are needed to surface values and beliefs about education and to shift mindsets.

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About the authors: Caireen Goddard is Director of Impact, Big Change. Eloïse Haylor is Network and System Change Lead, Big Change.

*****

BY JENNIFER GEIST AND CARINE ALLAF

“Transformation begins with values and mindsets and changes the purpose of the system.” –Salzburg Statement for Education

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OneTransformation.cannotspeakabout education transformation without acknowledg ing the interconnectedness of today’s world. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the interdependency of our universe. As we look ahead at transforming our education systems, we must think globally and holistically—not about specific contexts in vacuums. In an increasingly global economy, fluency in a second language not only benefits the individual, but also enhances their cultural competence. The study of language and culture can foster understanding across borders and cultures and bring youth from across the world together in a way that no other activity can. In our increasingly interconnected world, students and educators are

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION REQUIRES OURSELVESTRANSFORMING

G lobally, language learning is currently seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than as a compulsory part of the curriculum. Without major shifts in how we perceive the purpose of education, a true education transformation cannot take place. According to the Power Language Index, English is the most powerful language on earth—more than twice as powerful than its closest rival, Mandarin Chinese. What are the implications of this fact? The answer is political, social, environmental, and even philosophical. The rise of English as a common language has connected us across the globe and made communication and cooperation possible in ways that were inconceivable 100 years ago. English has been viewed as the ‘uni versal’ language. At the same time, linguists estimate that of the world’s approximately 6,900 languages, more than half are in danger of dying out by the end of the 21st century, with around 1,500 at particular risk. carry deep cultural knowledge and understanding of how the world works. Diversity of thought, both ideas and approaches, are expressed most accurately in their original language. Dominance of any one lan guage threatens linguistic diversity, and like biodiversity, our ability to thrive as a species depends on our ability to access and apply all knowledge to the pressing issues of our times. In this sense, a truly equitable, future-forward education system must also be a multilingual system that allows all mother tongues to flourish. For these reasons, it is essential that learning a second language be a key part of a new education story.

About the authors: Jennifer Geist is a global education consultant for Qatar Foundation International. Carine Allaf is the Senior Programs Advisor for Qatar Foundation International.

*****

seeking more nuanced views of other peoples and cultures as well as connections with peers that offer a deeper and more meaningful under standing that goes beyond news headlines or sound bites. Research shows that foreign language study in the early elementary years improves cognitive abilities, positively influences achievement in other disciplines, and results in higher achievement test scores in reading and math. In addition, the study of another language deepens our under standing of our own language and fosters an appreciation for the chal lenge of learning a language. Tolerating foreign accents and empathiz ing with the lived experience of immigrants are increasingly important mindsets for today’s globalized world and are essential if we are to build a peaceful one. Early language learning can teach young people to love difference well before they learn to fear it. Yet, learning additional languages is not compulsory globally and where it is required, it is for older ages and grades. To truly transform education systems, every child should be able to learn an additional language before the age of five. Research shows that children who learn another language before age five use the same part of the brain to acquire that language that they use to learn their own mother tongue. In addition, the length of time a student can devote to learning a language also allows them to have a deeper connection to a different culture as they mature. In a highly globalized world, in which national borders are increasingly permeable and the migration and movement of peoples is becoming the norm, language and cultural competencies are ever more essential. Learning a language, studying about another part of the world, and un derstanding how to work with peers both in person and virtually, are all essential educational outcomes for today’s secondary school graduates. Relationships built on curiosity and collaboration are the building blocks for collective problem solving, particularly when addressing today’s com plex global challenges. Language, and the stereotypes that often accompany them, need not be a barrier to global cooperation and a healthy planet. On the contrary, we propose that language learning holds a key to fostering a world of appreciation, cooperation, and progress. Students should grow through their education systems to be able to converse and move in and out of two languages. Imagine what a powerful change in the world that would bring.

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alling for a new social contract for education recogniz es that there is an existing implicit and inherited older contract. One feature of that old contract, the 2021 UNESCO futures of education report explains, was a narrow conception of education as limited to certain ages and certain institutions.

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The concept that there is a “grammar of schooling” derives from the work of American historians of education David Tyack and Larry Cuban. It has been helpful to many over the past 25 years for describing enduring, commonplace features of schools such as age-graded classrooms, the standardization of instructional time, and the division of learning into school subjects. In fact, each of the dimensions of education examined in Part II of the Reimagining our futures together report has an older way of doing things that the Sahle-Work Commission recommends moving away from. In pedagogy this is to depart from batch lessons delivered by teachers. In curricula it is to no longer bureaucratically organ ize learning through grids of school subjects. It is to move away from setting up teaching as a solitary practice that relies on the competence of a single individual to organize effective learning. It means moving beyond universal architectural, organizational, and procedural models that make schools similar regardless of context. And, it means thinking in terms of broader educational ecosystems that transcend narrow conceptions of who learns, when, and where.

The idea that characteristics like these form an underlying “grammar” to schooling has also been useful for explaining why NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT AND A NEW GRAMMAR OF SCHOOLING NOAH W. SOBE

A new social contract clearly must be built upon a more expan sive understanding of education that welcomes and embraces learning available in all times and all spaces—and for learners of all ages. This means going boldly beyond the school. Nonethe less, even as we work to unlearn old ways of organizing schooling, schools remain. And for all the protections and guarantees they provide, schools need to remain, albeit transformed.

Despite their ideals and organizational commitments to merit, few school systems actually do fairly assign opportunity. And the fact that education systems the world over fall so short from this aim rankles. It rankles precisely because, for many, success at assigning opportunity on the basis of merit would mean justice achieved. 77 |

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schools seem to be difficult to change. Harvard professor Jal Mehta recently sketched the problem well—arguing that despite strong movements for equity and justice, despite advances in the sciences of learning, and despite widespread commitments to harness schools to better and different futures, we are often working within a structure that works against us. As others have too, UNESCO’s new report offers a new and different vision of what should transpire on each of the five dimen sions mentioned above. But we cannot change how we do school without also changing why we do school. Stanford sociologist and historian David Labaree has proposed that the grammar of schooling has two key features: it is organizationally efficient in one way or another, and it meets some larger social purpose. In other words, according to Labraree, school ing needs to be doable and worth doing But what was “worth doing” about the old grammar of school ing? In the US context this was quite simply: meritocracy. The grading, sorting, and comparison of individual merit that the traditional grammar of schooling enabled could only become the juggernaut that it is today because it fed (and was fed by) cer tain political and business ideologies of the last two centuries. Radically egalitarian in principle, and thus aligned with a certain kind of democratic spirit, meritocracy supported a technocratic rationality and provided a comprehensive vision for how society ought to be organized. The logic of meritocracy provided the broader social purpose for schooling—in the United States most notably, but also in some twentieth-century socialisms. Of course, not all school systems have put such a high value on merit. Some may prioritize communal discipline or rights-based approaches to opening up opportunity. However, propelled by the legacies of colonial edu cation systems and global actors with strong commitments to building human capital, such as the World Bank and the OECD, the ethos of developing individual talent has arguably become a feature of schooling for many across the globe.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on UNESCO’s Futures of Education Ideas Lab. Republished with permission. *****

About the author: Noah W. Sobe is a Professor at Loyola University, who was previously on leave to act as a Senior Project Officer in the Education Research and Foresight program at UNESCO.

As Michael Sandel, among others, has argued, meritocracy has be come one of the tyrannies of our current times. It generates mas sive elite entitlement and problematically individualizes “failure”. Moving to other social purposes that make schooling worth doing does not mean abandoning meritocracy’s two core elements of expertise and leadership—though they do need to be updat ed. Today we possess a much-enriched understanding of the breadth of humanity’s knowledge commons. We are aware that the organizations, communities, and societies most successful at ensuring their own and others’ flourishing are those that ensure that “expertise” is as widely distributed as possible. Likewise, we have a much broadened understanding of “leadership”. We rightly see agency, the ability to shape one’s world, as broadly distributed among many social actors. What will make school worth doing in 2050? The answers—and they are likely to be multiple—need to come from shared, collective dialogue and action. Some of the latest research on education reform reminds us that the how, what, when and where of schooling chang es when those changes and stakeholders’ beliefs and values about what education should accomplish are made to converge.

According to the Sahle-Work Commission, we now face a set of existential challenges. Our human survival, our humanity, the living planet Earth—all are at great risk. Our interdependencies are a fact; but clearly we need to get much better at working togeth er. The hopeful message of this report is that we can rise to the challenge, that building individual and collective capacities to transform the world together can become compelling reason for education to be “worth doing”. Mobilizing a new social contract for education around principles, ideals, and affects that support participation in transformative change promises to help us fash ion new grammars of schooling.

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THE

The following three examples of education policies create pos sibilities for teachers and students without the risk of failing out of the system. 1. Avoid dead-ends Education systems need to be organized so that there are no dead-ends for learning between education levels. There need to be life-long learning opportunities, established through policy that can be recognized by employers. In well-organized systems, multiple learning pathways lead to learning opportunities that are recognized and credentialed by governing bodies. A system without dead-ends reduces the risk to the individual student and teacher to innovate

he UNESCO 2030 agenda emphasizes the need for a collective re-commitment to education as a public good. Education as a public good means that respon sibility to safeguard the right to quality education for every child should be shouldered by public institutions. This requires policymakers to take continual actions that ensure education remains relevant, especially amid the complexities and ambiguities of a changing world. We cannot afford to have schools that systematically create ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’ Rather, education should create possibilities for every child to flourish. Changes are needed in the ways policymakers approach innova tion and risk in education to reach this aspiration.

In our annual HundrED Global Collection of leading education innovations, we have observed that most of the innovations im proving education as a public good are nonprofits. They work in a blind spot between the public and private sector. We see this gap as an opportunity for policymakers to create enabling condi tions for experimenting culture through innovation.

Teachers and school leaders need to be empowered to exercise pedagogical leadership. School and district-level decisionmakers must take the responsibility to provide the resources and

BEAUTIFUL RISK OF EDUCATION INNOVATION CRYSTAL GREEN AND LASSE LEPONIEMI

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2. Leadership is important at all levels

Education policymakers should ask themselves, “Education policymakers should ask themselves ‘will those in any and all kinds of employment after they finish compulsory schooling reflect on their education and think it was meaningful.’”Clearly stated poli cies allow for flexibility and professional autonomy for teachers, while providing additional support in the process of adapting and changing the skills, practices, and environments of education.

Policy can create the structure for schools and teachers to be able to take the risks required to innovate. Creating experiment ing culture demands a move away from what Pasi Sahlberg has termed the Global Education Reform Movement, that increases standardization in education publishing, relies heavily on high stakes testing and accountability standards drawn from new public management strategies, what Stephen Ball has termed Neoliberal Technologies of the market, management, and perfor mance, or what Kristiina Brunila has called Precision Education Governance. Innovation in education is a move toward professionalization of teaching with a public and shared, rather than individual, assumption of risk.

Innovation requires an acceptance of complexity and ambiguity. This is the same kind of orientation toward effort and uncer tainty that is also required for learning to happen. The curiosity of the student to learn what she currently does not understand, and the effort required to reach mastery in a new subject can be facilitated or squashed by the learning environment. Likewise, the agency of the teacher to implement a new innovation in the classroom is mediated by education policy.

3. Education policies are formed for tomorrow

Good education policy creates conditions for trust between education stakeholders. We need to be able to trust that teachers have pedagogical competence, the administration is providing support, and there is trust between the community and the schools.

Although policy can create enabling conditions for change, change in education is executed through innovations. However, it is important to understand the difference between ideas and innovations.

structures necessary for teachers to try new things. At the same time, leadership in innovation means taking the responsibility to dialogue about experiences and knowledge gained through us ing novel innovations.

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Ideas are suggested plans of action that might work. Innovations have been tested and tried; they can be replicated, adapted, and iterated with similar kinds of results.

Systems designed to help every child flourish depend on ena bling factors. Such systems allow learning and innovation to be ever unfinished work—for the individual and for society as whole. We recognize here the varying capacities of public institutions to create such enabling conditions. In highly competitive education systems, parents and other stakeholders can be extremely reluctant for teachers to innovate if innovation means deviating from the standards. This is especially the case when test scores determine students’ possibilities for further education and future social mobility.

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We end with an invitation to act. In education, there is currently an over-reliance on ideas. What is needed is continuous innovation and risk taking. Enough reimagining—It’s time to act on what Gert Beista calls the beautiful risk of education. Let’s create space within public systems that support the crea tive and continual work of innovation in education—to ensure that education as a public good is as dynamic as the societies to which it serves. *****

About the authors: Crystal Green is the Head of Research for HundrED. Lasse Leponiemi Is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of HundrED.

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TRANSFORMING SCHOOLING BY EDUCATING THE HEART AND MIND RYDER DELALOYE

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In order to accomplish this shared vision for a peaceful and compassionate world we need to do one thing—prioritize the education of the heart and mind. Educating the heart and the mind ensures that all students develop the competencies that lead to awareness, compassion, and engagement. We also know that this is achievable because people of all ages around the world are taking steps to rewire the traits that constitute their brains. The brain has an amazing capacity to change and develop throughout our life span. Neuroplasticity enables us to shape and change our behavior towards ourselves and others. Just as we can grow our physical abilities through strength training, we can also grow our emotional and cognitive abilities to cultivate resilience and compassion. Numerous fields of research and scientific evidence have shown this to be the case. These fields have coalesced into an interdisciplinary field known as the ‘science of compassion.’

A t every level the purpose of education is to form future citizens (local, state, or national). Regardless of the cultural differences that exist between countries, they all share the pursuit of creating citizens who are resil ient, kind, aware, ethically discerning, engaged, able to engage in systems thinking, and compassionate. Schools and education can be transformed to prioritize the education of the heart and the mind. Education can serve as a vehicle for helping students develop the knowledge, skills, and behavioral traits that they need to foster personal wellbeing and to promote the wellbe ing of others. The purpose of education is to create a society filled with citizens who can lead their nation or community into the fu ture. This vision for society is one in which citizens demonstrate emotional regulation when they face adversity, understand how their actions affect themselves and others (both now and into the future), and are attuned to the personal and prosocial benefits of kindness, gratitude, empathy, and compassion.

As individuals develop the capacity to promote a meaningful experience of wellbeing, they simultaneously engage in nonharm. Students can be taught through experiential learning to recognize the mutual interdependence that they share with oth-

ers. This is achieved by having them expand their in-group association through the recognition of their shared humanity. On the basis of appreciating interdependence and recognizing com mon humanity, individuals can begin to understand the impact of their actions on themselves and others. The growth of ethical discernment through the training of the heart and mind allows for both the expression of non-harm and for compassion to arise naturally through everyday actions.

The cultivation of personal wellbeing can lead to far reaching societal transformation. The United Nations Sustainable De velopment Goals (SDGs) outline the ways in which society can transform to foster a sustainable and equitable future. Achieving each of the SDGs requires broad governmental commitment and personal action. The competencies developed through the education of the heart and mind correlate with the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development as identified by SDG 4.7—which includes the promotion of human rights, gen der equality, peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and the appreciation of cultural diversity. Schools must play a role in fostering personal transformation if we are to achieve these goals.

The aspiration to educate the heart and mind is becoming a reality through the global implementation of Social, Emotional, and Ethi cal Learning (SEE Learning). SEE Learning is both an educational framework and curriculum that builds competencies in students through insight activities, reflections, and engaging learning experiences that help students practice ethical discernment, awareness and attentional training, systems thinking, trauma and resilienceinformed care, and compassionate responses. As a global program SEE Learning is being adapted into different cultural and linguistic contexts to meet the needs of educational institutions across the world. This freely accessible education program is based out of Emory University and has affiliates around the world. A growing community of global SEE Learning educators and practitioners are working to implement SEE Learning to support the educa tion of the heart and mind. SEE Learning is empowering and giv ing voice to different stakeholder groups. Putting this vision for school transformation into action can create a more peaceful and compassionate world for all. ***** About the author: Ryder Delaloye is the Associate Direc tor for the Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning Program. UNGA 77 | 59

S outh Africa’s Western Cape is one of nine provinces operat ing under the national Basic Department of Education. With massive inequality and differing educational opportunities, redress and equity have been key educational drivers since 1994. However, initiatives to minimize inequality and maxi mize education outcomes across society remain elusive in South Af rica. COVID-19 brought this reality into stark relief—especially when schools were closed, but teaching and learning had to continue. The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) acknowledges that education and schooling are in constant need of transformation, not only in the curriculum space, but in all spheres. Numerous changes and innovations were implemented in recent years, but the pandem ic accelerated the trajectory of transformation.

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The social contexts within which learners live and teachers teach have a profound impact on the psyche and physical well-being of teachers and learners—which in turn impacts learner outcomes. Recognizing this reality and acknowledging the responsibility of school ing to reach the poverty and inequality reduction targets stipulated in the National Development Plan, WCED developed the Transform to Perform (T2P) Strategy at the end of 2017. T2P is driven by the de partment’s vision of “Quality Education for every child, in every classroom, in every school in the province.” The strategy aims to move learners, teachers, and officials towards a positive mindset, providing learners with hope for the future. To support T2P, the WCED adopted six values: Caring, Competence, Accountability, Innovation, Integrity, and Responsiveness. The strategy aims to transform thinking, pro mote knowledge and understanding, and impact character-building, social cohesion, and nation-building.

In support of the T2P strategy, the core business of the Further Edu cation and Training Curriculum Directorate is serving schools, teach ers, and learners in Grades 10 to 12 and exploring ways to integrate the ideals of the T2P strategy into different initiatives that make qual ity education a reality. One such initiative is a partnership with Telematic Services at the University of Stellenbosch to broadcast lessons for identified subjects via satellite to learners across the province. The Telematic Schools Project was piloted with ten schools in 2009 IN EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA’S WESTERN CAPE GLYNIS SCHREUDER

TRANSFORMATION

and has grown and evolved over the years. Currently 145 schools in the Western Cape and a further 1,300 schools across South Africa are part of the project. Coupled with satellite broadcasts, the lessons are livestreamed to enhance the footprint. The power of this initiative is magnanimous enabling of all learners in the country who may not have access to quality teaching or lessons presented by experienced teachers. This initiative is particularly beneficial to learners in rural areas where schools have difficulty sourcing the best teachers and where internet connectivity is often a challenge. Broadcasts take place on week days after school hours and are not meant to replace the teacher, but rather to consolidate and revise key concepts learners may have difficulty with. The broadcasts are synchronised with the topics be ing taught in the classroom. An unintended benefit is a Teacher Professional Development component where teachers are exposed to alternative pedagogies—enhancing their own teaching practices.

All lessons, workbooks, presentations, and other resources used by presenters are available on the Telematics Schools website, enabling learners to access resources at no cost.

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The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Curriculum, ELearning, and Teacher Development directorates of the WCED to reimagine their support. During the early stages of the pandemic when South Af rica was in a hard lockdown, officials in the Curriculum directorates designed lessons for every subject and every grade on a weekly ba sis. These were distributed to teachers and learners via WhatsApp. Quarterly revision materials were designed and distributed in the same way and made available on the WCED Eportal. The province has prioritized the implementation of a strategy that focuses on STEAMAC (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math ematics, Agriculture and Coding/Computing). The intention is to transform schooling by offering combinations of these disciplines to prepare learners for post school opportunities in academic, vocational, and occupational pathways. Like other education depart ments worldwide, the WCED along with the National Department of Basic Education is currently exploring ways of strengthening the curriculum to make schooling more relevant and meaningful—en hancing the life chances of all learners. It is essential that the sys tems explore curriculum redesign, teacher development, pedagogical approaches, integration of ICT, and the relevance of curriculum offerings which are critical to the transformation agenda.

About the author: Glynis Schreuder is the Acting Direc tor in the Directorate Curriculum FET in the Western Cape Education Department.

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BY JENNIFER

THE

My two daughters were close to completing their education and I knew that the priorities of the system sometimes eclipsed a teacher’s expertise, enthusiasm, and flexibility. I also knew that the standards demanded a deep dive into some topics in high school, World War II for instance, with little room for others, such as World War I, Vietnam, Korea, and the two Gulf Conflicts.

If we consider transforming all essential aspects of the education system post-COVID-19—including content knowledge, civic preparedness, developing social and emotional skills, and em pathy—we must also deeply embed global competence into the education systems of the future. The OECD says global compe tence “… requires a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values successfully applied to global issues or intercultural situations. Global issues refer to those that affect all people, and have deep implications for current and future generations. Intercultural situations refer to face-to-face, virtual or mediated encounters with people who are perceived to be from a differ ent cultural background.” Global competence includes explor ing ideas, learning to take different perspectives, communicating effectively to different audiences, and taking appropriate CASE FOR GLOBAL COMPETENCE IN EDUCATION MANISE

Their projects sometimes lacked connections to real-world ex periences and connections to their community, their country, and their peers around the world. It was a solid education, with amazing dedicated educators, but I wanted authentic opportunities for them to make global connections. Why? Because that is the way life is! There are no borders in science, math has its own language, and reading novels penned by authors from other continents creates a richer understanding the hu man condition.

re we satisfied going back to the way things were in education before March of 2020? That is when schools in my district and across the United States shut down for varying lengths of time due to the spread of COVID-19. I remember early meetings with superintendents across the globe talking about their efforts to get technology in the hands of students that would allow them to continue their schooling from home—it was heroic. At the same time, I hoped school would never be the same.

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About the author: Jennifer Manise is the Executive Director, Longview Foundation for Education.

action on matters of global significance. Rather than adding a global competence course to a curriculum, it is best when it is infused across disciplines. The community nature of school requires that intercultural competencies be mastered by educators and education leaders in addition to being taught to students. While many educators have been cultivating their own global competence, the concept is new to many others. When it is introduced in classrooms and schools, research shows a more engaged student body. In tegrating global competence across content areas ignites stu dent interest. Determining algorithmic solutions expands from abstract to highly relevant when plotting a contagious virus’ potential spread. Virtual and in-person exchanges can broaden students’ horizons when considering careers and further studies. Students have tackled and solved issues of local and global significance in their coursework and projects in schools around the world. Using tools like the Harvard University Project Zero’s Global Thinking Routines can take a conversation from a lo cal context to examining worldwide implications in three questions: Why does this issue matter to me? Why does it matter to my community? Why does it matter to the world?

This model of global competence is not built for competitive success, but rather conceived with the idea of collective suc cess. We all need these skills to contribute to a healthier world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. When we consider the complexities of achieving the goal of transforming an education system—of reimagining structures, redirecting resources, building public will, and shifting infrastructure—we must keep global competence as a central pillar of the vision. It is relatively easy to make such a declaration, but enacting such a vision through the system is far more challenging. It involves taking a coordinated approach and holding ourselves accountable. It demands patience and clarity of purpose and requires iterative feedback as the system evolves. The overwhelming global challenges humanity is facing exist already. Doesn’t our generation owe it to the next to give them the skills they need to work together to solve them? At the center of all of those skills is global competence.

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CONTEXTUALIZED

RESPONSIVE, EDUCATION IS A HUMAN RIGHT BY ROMANA SHAIKH

Like millions of school going children around the world, Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik are passive recipients of an outdated, op pressive education system. These systems pursue a narrow def inition of success for all children regardless of their context. These systems disregard the complex, multi-generational chal -

W hat’s the common link between 16-year-old Huda growing up in the over-populated, undersanitized slum of Mumbai in India; 11 year-old Ishmael selling rice on the streets of Moyamba after school in Sierra Leone; and 17 year-old Hrusik at home with her grandmother in Armenia?

So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?

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When morning comes for each of them, they will walk to school where they will sit down to read and write, some of them in a language that is not their home language. They will take tests that will determine if they have met expectations for their grade level. They will be told how important it is to know how to calculate the circumference of a circle, to have a balanced diet, and to go to college. The truth of the conditions they are growing up in, their daily struggles, their inner conflicts, are ig nored. The responsibility for making their way to a “better life” is placed squarely on their tiny, overburdened shoulders.

Huda struggles to sleep every night. The sounds of altercation: screaming, doors banging, and babies crying rings loudly. The sounds compete only with the thumping of her heartbeat. “Why does he have to drink every night?” That familiar pit in her stom ach echoes this question that she has spent years attempting to answer. At the same moment in time, Ishmael trudges home, clutching his pocket that holds the money he earned from the day. His tiny body is hungry and tired, his mind on high alert. “God please guard me till I reach home and give this money to father.” Somewhere around the world, Hrusik sits silently as his grandmother cleans up the kitchen. He stares at the wall while the television drones on. It’s been more than a year since he lost his older brother and father in the war. The grief of the loss, the dread of meeting the same fate, and the crushing loneliness make the burden too heavy for his young shoulders to bear.

They need an experience of education that is connected to their current reality and context. They need an education ecosystem that accepts and validates them as they are, which is designed to respond to their poverty, trauma, and marginalization. They need an education system that understands that context must become the basis which informs the purpose of education sys tems. Most importantly, they need an education system whose guiding value is love, dignity, equity, inclusion, and joy for the whole child with their traumas et al. It is Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik’s human right to experience this kind of education. *****

If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be designed to respond to the context of the lives of young people. So, what’s the common link between Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik?

About the author: Romana Shaikh is the Chief Programming Officer for Kizazi.

When Huda goes to school, she is not permitted to wear her headscarf, humiliating her religious traditions and risking her ability to attend school. Ishmael is regularly found standing outside class as punishment for not completing his homework, his truth that he was working all evening dismissed. Hrusik spends the day in perpetual silence and his teachers have decided to just… leave him alone.

What do Huda, Ishmael, and Hrusik need to thrive?

Millions of school systems the world over continue to separate the student from the rest of their life, in so doing dismissing the whole child. If school and life were integrated instead of frag mented, Huda would have the space to take pride in and cel ebrate her identity and religious traditions. Ishmael would get a warm meal and time in school to complete his classwork. Hrusik would be supported in working through his grief and fear, to perhaps add his voice to the global issue of war. If the purpose of education was for every child to thrive, schools would be de signed to honor and love the whole child.

lenges that young people and their communities are experiencing everyday. In standardizing what education is foundational and what isn’t, schools fail to prepare youth to navigate their current life experiences or to confront the systemic inequities they will surely face.

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In 2018, I came across the concept grammar of schooling, developed by historians David B. Tyack and Larry Cuban. It said there are deep design features within the schooling system that over time—and these are my own words—acquired a quality of being sacred and untouchable. They are so transcendent that they are no longer even visible to us. This is a big blind spot when we talk about transforming education.

Let’s take a moment to explore this through some questions. Have you given serious thought as to why students should be in grades arranged by age? How about organizing learning in subjects? What about the idea that all students should spend the exact same amount of time learning each concept? Finally—and my personal favorite— why must we rely on grades and rankings? These may make education convenient, but for who? For what purpose? Do these design features fundamentally help students thrive, and if not why do we continue?

Building the classroom I never had With this in mind, I decided to create the classroom my inner child never had, and throw out the window some of these sacred features. It is a virtual classroom (no in person!? Heresy!) where you can find students grouped from fourteen to seventeen years old, some of whom are formally in their first year out of high-school. The regu

66 | TransformED I can still taste the fear I lived during my high-school years, es pecially during history class, where memorization was the paramount learning practice. I had a tough choice. Should I quietly (God forbid openly) rebel against that system—perhaps learning in a different way, on my own? Or should I lower my head and accept that I had neither choice nor voice in that classroom? I chose the latter. Then there is today. Marlly is my student. At fifteen, she attends public high-school in Peru. She told me last week, “my teacher, she is alright and all, but I’m really scared of her. You can’t imagine Franco, I had to wait for two weeks before I could tell her about what I wanted to do for the school”. Inside my thirty-five year-old mind I asked myself why, after twenty years, kids still live in fear of their schooling lives.

A GIFT TO MY YOUNGER SELF: BUILDING THE CLASSROOM I NEVER HAD BY FRANCO MOSSO COBIÁN

*****

About the author: Franco Mosso Cobian is CEO and Co-Founder at Enseña Peru.

UNGA 77 | 67 lar experience in my classroom is multicultural; students come from every culture across Peru. Nothing brings more joy to me than seeing them together, deepening their sense of self and taking part in build ing a safe environment. Belonging. We have a motto: “no grades, no rankings, just growth”.

Our system shifts power and purpose in favor of the students. At the beginning of the year they familiarize themselves with transferable skills such as design methods, personal well-being, curiosity, re search, systems thinking, analyzing inequity, creating stories, building curriculums, facilitating groups, thinking ethically, and developing a purpose. They decide on a portfolio of projects to make our country better over ten months, and pursue those projects through a combination of personalized mentoring, group meetings, peer support, and their own will. The power that I might have held from creating an adult-driven standard curriculum is shifted toward my students because they decide why to learn, what to learn, how to use and ex pand their competencies, how to use their time, and how to tell their story. They invariably choose a higher purpose for their education: to be a good person or to spend time positively impacting others. Our ten-month student leadership program is in essence a challenge to structural issues around practice, purpose, and power in Remembereducation.how

Marlly—who is in our student leadership program but feels fear inside her regular classroom—wanted to do something for her school? Several months ago I asked her what project she’d like to build. What moves her? She said, “I am moved by teenagers who suffer daily because of the bad things that happen to them on the internet, and I want to create a curriculum to teach my peers in my community how to defend themselves.” Thinking about that purpose—crafted by her—she got up, went to the teacher she feared and proposed that she—a fifteen-year-old, typically powerless within a school, but now with her own power and purpose—could run a pro gram of cybersecurity sessions for their peers. The teacher accepted.

A month later Marlly texted me and said “I already facilitated my first session. It didn’t go as planned, but I liked it.” Now she is chal lenging her leadership, working to expand the program to all the classrooms in her grade. Her actions transformed me too. I see her becoming a courageous, kind woman. But for the time being, with just a bit of a mind shift, and a little magic dust, she is learning dif ferently. And she loves it.

What challenge does transformation present?

BY ALEX BATTISON

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ur world is evolving at a breakneck pace, but our global approach to education has evolved only slow ly. For a whole raft of reasons, this has left many call ing for a transformation of our education systems to better enable individuals and societies to flourish.

To meet these challenges, school leaders need to develop the ability to emotionally connect with others (individually and col lectively) and mobilize a vision throughout different networks. This empowers us to make sustained and strengthened change through collaborative action.

Educational transformation is incredibly difficult to achieve for two1.reasons:Human emotion makes change a tricky journey. Our apprehension about the future, alongside personal per spectives on the specifics of any particular context—can mean that even small change is daunting.

In the knowledge that much more detailed reasoning in support for this transformation is being discussed elsewhere, as a cur rent school leader, I want to speak to the leadership required from those involved to enable such radical change.

What sort of leadership is required in our schools?

To begin this journey, school leaders must start with a sense of purpose—a clear, powerful call for action that all stakeholders can connect to. There are many ways to formulate a purpose, but the most effective method I’ve encountered is comprised of six different elements:

INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP CAN USHER IN A BETTER FUTURE OF EDUCATION

2. We live in a complex ecosystem of power relations, com petition, and agendas—much of which are steeped in his tory, tradition, and self-preserving rhythms of existence.

5. Character: five or six character traits that reflect the behavior of the organization regardless of context, e.g. radically optimistic.

6. Greatest Imaginable Challenge: something extraordinary that could result from this journey, e.g. to create the future of education.

4. Beliefs: five or six one-liners the organization truly be lieves in above all else, e.g. Act with compassion at all times.

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Using such frameworks as the foundation for any movement, leaders who inspire transformation then get to work on shaping the pur pose. They share it, steer people toward it, and sustain it—powering through challenges. Through their passion, they inspire people to be the best team players they can be, while also nurturing engagement, well-being, and performance amongst their teams. They possess fundamental character traits of integrity, confidence, and courage that provide moral and ethical strength, and inspire respect.

2. Spirit: a maxim that encapsulates our pursuit of that dream, e.g. ‘to infinity and beyond!’

3. Learning: co-creating an environment where individuals have opportunities to learn, grow, be challenged and

3. Focus: what to concentrate on to achieve the dream, e.g. ABC (Ambition that there is something better, Belief that we can do it, Courage to take risks and make it happen).

2. Recognition: genuinely recognizing and valuing the contribution of individuals.

Leaders also have a responsibility to mobilize that purpose through a network of different stakeholders. Inspirational leaders can energize belief, commitment, hunger, and action by at tending to the four pillars of organizational peak performance:

1. The Dream: a mesmerizing vision (rather than a tedious mission statement) that connects with all stakeholders and could be achievable if the stars aligned, e.g. Apple talk about ‘making a dent in the universe!’

1. Responsibility: by enabling and encouraging others to take responsibility and make decisions in a climate of trust, leaders create leaders using clear, time-scaled and authentic delegation; intervention rather than interference.

Such leaders are also visible, taking time to connect with col leagues face-to-face with genuine interest. When given respon sibility, they take charge to get things done while also doing the right thing. In classic leadership practice, leaders spend around 50% of their time checking facts and assessing data, 30% on discussion and consensus, and 20% on execution. Inspirational leaders turn this on its head, swinging the balance toward 20% assessing, 10% deciding, and 70% execution. Their days are spent on the tactics, not strategy, to make the organization’s purpose come alive. For transformation to occur, we need this leadership from our school leaders—indeed, I would argue we need this leadership across society. An inspirational approach that places the nur turing and love of people at the center of everyday action, con nects them to purpose, tells a story, fosters self-belief, and em powers others actions. ***** About the author: Alex Battison is Senior Deputy Head at Lord Wandsworth College.

TransformEDflourish.

Learners can fail fast—fix fast—learn fast, creat ing a psychologically safe environment where appropri ate risk taking and ideas are encouraged with routinely kind, honest, and specific feedback loops employed.

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4. Joy: enabling individuals to feel valued, content, and joyful wherever possible in their lives. Compassion is also central to such a leader’s approach and is shown through their concern for others. They speak frankly and honestly while maintaining respect and empathy. They encour age collaboration and value diversity, involving and engaging colleagues where appropriate to turn decisions made into the stories that the organization tells, whilst working with others to collectively imagine new ideas. Groups influenced by this lead ership feel like a family and perform like a team. The pace is de manding, frequently leaving colleagues breathless—but those who are connected to the purpose take joy from the journey.

Learning happens anywhere. Learning centers are fluid and change based on community needs. Within these learning centers there is a feeling of safety, trust, dignity, and respect towards the guides and the students.

THE FUTURE WE WANT FOR EDUCATION BY

Students know life is not a zero-sum game, but abundance. They are not compared to each other. They don’t compete, but collaborate. That if you thrive then I thrive and we thrive. They feel supported in their challenges. Failure is non-existent if you learned something. JOANN MCPIKE BATTISON KEIFFENHEIM COBIAN TALREJA

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| EVA

The students learn to self-assess, how to give and receive feedback, and how to resolve conflicts, both internal and external.

e want children to love learning and feel enthu siastic when coming to their place of learning. Their teachers are now guides who light sparks and fan the flames of curiosity.

This a vision for the future of education systems cocreated by the authors. Their goal is to envision what an inclusive, ideational infrastructure for education sys tems around the world could look like where learners are empowered and at the center of their respective systems. These are guiding principles agreed upon by this cross-cultural group of experts, which they believe can be embraced cross-culturally. -The editors.

The students are asked what they are curious about, what they want to learn. They are given the support and guidance to follow their chosen learning path.

| FRANCO MOSSO

| ALEX

| VISHAL

Students learn to value their individuality and their role as an ac tive, contributing member in society.

The students are never left wanting anything. They’re joyful, engaged, they feel cared for and creative. They see they feel seen and heard. Their questions are respected and responded to with curiosity. They’re allowed to be still. Students are empowered and able to feel Whenintrigued.theyfeel lost or frustrated, they recognize this because they’ve been asked to get out of their comfort zone. But they feel supported in this. When their emotions ebb and flow when they feel confused, they feel supported most of the time and feel able to ask for help.

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When a student ‘chooses’ to leave their chosen ‘formal’ educa tion they do so knowing that they’re still learning, and are enthu siastic about continuing to learn and help those around them. There is no longer a fixed definition of success. Indeed, we no longer use the word success. It’s deemed old, antiquated and even offensive. We now use the word “thrive” or some other word that encapsulates one’s growth into the best version of themselves.

Technology is a useful part of their life. They use it as a tool, it serves them, not rules them.

Learners feel heard, and their opinion matters. As does everyone else’s. They listen and they enjoy listening to everyone’s opin ions. They can rethink and unlearn. They doubt what they know, remain curious about what they don’t know, and keep an openmind. They don’t feel scared if they don’t know something. They enjoy not knowing.

They know how to care for their social, emotional, and physical health. They listen to their bodies, they take the time to show it the respect it deserves. Students feel excited. It will be another month or another year of contributing to another person’s life. They have questions about the future, but at the same time, they feel hope.

Learning guides are respected and valued in society. Given the recognition and admiration of their communities for being the ones who are taking on the privilege of guiding the children. Teaching others is regarded as one of the most privileged and im portant positions in society. Learning guides are lifelong learners themselves, do self-development and thereby lead by example.

As our children move through the world, they maintain a sense of curiosity and compassion and humility, a sense of wonder and a sense of awe travels with them. A knowledge that they sup ported physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, and it never leaves them. They know that the community they are in wants them and supports them into becoming the best version of themselves. And they themselves want to be a valuable and helpful member of that community. *****

EvaCollege.Keiffenheim is an independent associate for Big FrancoChange.Mosso is CEO and Co-Founder at Enseña Peru.

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About the authors:

valued for all aspects of their personalities, their strengths are celebrated, their challenges are supported. They can ‘re allowed to feel goofy and silly and just be children.

Vishal Talreja is a co-founder of Dream a Dream.

Joann McPike is the founder of THINK Global School. Alex Battison is Senior Deputy Head at Lord Wandsworth

StudentsTransformEDare

Intelligence is broad and is accepted in its diversity. Every occupation is seen as valuable and important and teachers and guides are brought in, in order to validate and encourage and prepare. Learning centers are the center of the community where every body is supporting it and playing a role.

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