This Transcript is AI generated.
[00:00:00] Matt Hall: Hello and welcome back to Principled from MSB.
[00:00:07] Naomi Ward: This season offers international school leaders a provocation to think differently about the future of education and their role in the creation of this future. It's an opportunity to continue thinking seriously and deeply about the legacy that school leaders leave behind through concerted action in the present.
To frame this provocation, we will be bringing together the latest research and thinking about futures focused leadership, alongside insights from interviews with experts from across the international school sector and beyond.
[00:00:39] Matt Hall: Each episode, we will explore a different domain. And in the following episode, we will put the thinking through its paces with a panel of school leaders, some highly experienced, some new enroll and some emerging.
We're so pleased to have you join us. Okay. Delighted to be back and continuing our journey through. Our futures focus paper. And this week we are looking at pedagogy assessment curriculum, no small topic, and I'm really pleased to welcome, um, welcome you all. Please go ahead and introduce yourselves.
[00:01:11] Elsie Solomon: Hi, I'm Elizabeth Solomon, also known as Elsie.
Um, in terms of who I am, I'm a mixed Anglo Indian Jew of Baghdadi and Ben Israeli descent. I was raised between Bombay, London, and Jerusalem. Proud post colonial child of three cultures. I began my teaching life as a lecturer of post colonial literature in Israel and Palestine. I then taught at the University I'll be English and INS in Japan and China.
I work at the ISF Academy in Hong Kong and I've been here for 14 years. I lead the international mindedness PLC here. I have 20 plus years of IB teaching experience, but interestingly, In regards to our topic today, I'm also an exam author, IB exam author and team leader, uh, and doing my DEIJ certification with ALOC at the moment and have been involved in the international, uh, school anti discrimination task force, uh, focusing on governance and humanizing pedagogies.
Um, I'm a mother of twins who are doing their IB diploma, currently doing their last year, and I'm watching them. Being crushed under the assessment wheel of the IBDP. Uh, so I have that added perspective to bring to the table.
[00:02:32] Dariush Saheli: Hi, so I'm Darius. Um, I started my teaching career in and around Bolton. Had the opportunity to then teach in and around Worcestershire.
I've had some experiences across the UK setting. Went international with my family, young family, to the south of India. And now I find myself in Brunei, Dar es Salaam. And, um, for me, I think my whole career and just sort of philosophy and life has been one around the, you know, liberation and that sort of bigger purpose of education.
So, you know, just reflecting on the topics today, curriculum, the assessment, and all of that. I think these sort of underpinning philosophies do have to be talk to boot. I'm married, got a lovely wife who keeps me supported and checked and balanced, two lovely children, um, mum from Glasgow area, dad from Iran.
Pleasure to meet you all.
[00:03:39] Tia Court-Smith: Hi, it's lovely to meet you both too. I'm Tia, I was born in the Bahamas, I then went to school in Belgium in a French speaking area. And started in the IB program. And then my family went through a separation. So I moved to the UK to a teeny tiny town in the Southwest where having an accent was a really unusual thing.
And I was growing up at a time in the UK when section 27 was really influencing the curriculum and what teachers could or couldn't say about sexuality. Um, I never thought I could ever be a teacher. To me, they were people that were doing the most amazing things, helping people to learn, which I really admired.
And I went through a real crisis of confidence, actually, and anxiety. in thinking that all these older people who are doing all these amazing things must be so much better and smarter. And that must be an infinite curve that increases for your whole life. Um, so I threw myself into some travel and I booked a ticket on my own and I went to New Zealand on my own and use my phone card to get back in touch with home and then decided that, uh, veterinary science, even though my animal relationships were better than human, was absolutely not for me.
The pathway for me. So I changed over a holiday, upset everybody, went to do biomedical sciences at Liverpool University, and then spent a good period of my professional career trying different things. I've been a green grocer. I've worked in HR. I've been an artist. I set up a deli with a business partner.
The list is, uh, it goes on until I eventually found what I really, truly loved, which was helping people to learn whether that was through the training in the workplaces I was at, or the little girl that I got to tutor and work with. So I retrained, I worked in the North West of England, um, and was moving into SLT, and then it came across my radar that international teaching was an option.
And I thought, like everybody else, mostly, that I meet here, two years and I'll head back to the UK. And at the end of two years, I was, uh, thoroughly enjoying being in a school that really cared about and put value on the things that I did. I then eventually met my partner and fell in love. So now I consider my family to be in Thailand and Bangkok, and I feel really lucky and really privileged to have been invited to come and meet you all today.
Thank you.
[00:05:59] Matt Hall: Wow. Thank you. What a lovely smorgasbord of cultural experience and perspectives. Um, half an hour is not going to be enough, um, but we'll do our best. Well, in this episode, we are exploring this, this domain, um, and you know, we've acknowledged that it's hard to separate out these separate out these domains, the more recordings and discussions that we have.
Uh, but I'm really looking forward to this round table because we're exploring this idea of future fit pedagogy and curriculum. And I'm going to start just by picking up one of the questions in the paper, actually. Um, and just throwing it into our round table, which is in your experience, what assumptions about what good pedagogy looks like exist and, and how might we, or how are you challenging those assumptions in your setting and your work?
[00:06:52] Elsie Solomon: So I'll start, I've written down three radical dreams and I'll, um, focus in on one. Um, this is my radical dream. Number two is that assessment will become. An exercise in joy and love and not pain inspires learning and not be entrenched in a fear of a number. So I'm referring to the marks and the numbers that are often attached to assessment.
And I feel that that is an issue and I keep challenging it. Uh, it's very hard to get students to detach from the number if there, there is a number. That's something, um, that I actively fight against. And I'd love to hear what other people think about this radical dream. Do you think there might come a day where a student thinks of an assessment and is joyful and excited about it?
[00:07:55] Tia Court-Smith: Great question. I think I would share in your dream, Elsie, in, I really hope that. That is a possibility because why, why couldn't it be? And it goes back to me to thinking about, well, what's the purpose of assessment? It should be something that helps us to get better. It should be something that helps us to become more aware of what we know and what we don't, and how we can develop skills or improve, and to have that opportunity to be in a safe space where that's the only purpose is not comparative.
It's not something that's a judgment against somebody's worth would be absolutely phenomenal. So where do we see it? Um, and when I was listening, I think I was, I considered a group that we have at the moment that are trying to do that. There's some brilliant teachers in my school who have decided to get together.
And to talk about effort rather than a grade or a number for a qualification. And even for that, we have a one, two, three, four system like lots of schools do. And to really break down, well, what does it mean and why is it important? And to develop with the students a more descriptive and rubric based form.
So that it's not being reported with numbers at all. And same as you, the same kind of resistance because of that expectation, I think, from students and from families, that this is the way that schools work. And actually the freedom from that is a brilliant thing.
[00:09:20] Dariush Saheli: I'm not trying to be purposefully contentious.
I'm really not. Um, but I, I mean, I, I delete, I idealize the future much like yourself, you know. I think we can be so much more process oriented than we are now. It feels like we're still, um, stuck in a loop of, sort of, uh, industrialization, in which we all must conform to a level of productivity, and instead of this productive sort of orientation has led us in such a way where, yeah, we've got metrics, and, kids should be assigned numbers and the sort of great scientific thinking of Frederick Winslow Taylor.
But at the same time, there's this little working class lad in me that says, and I'm sorry, I, I was a preemptive, but when I was talking about this sort of philosophy of liberation, there is that little guy in me that said, you know, knowledge, you know, there's, when we talk about these assessments and sort of the, the progressive, That the need for progression and progressiveness that obviously is driven from the needs of the learner and the leads of the needs of learners are changing, but at the same time, we can never overlook the fact that potentially even more fundamental to the needs of learners.
is the fundamental right that the learners have to the right of knowledge. And this is sort of where my brain just gets sort of profoundly in a loop, you know, um, knowledge liberates, it helps that whole social mobility piece. And it's just such a difficult balance to imagine a future in which Um There's less pain, which we would all hope, but at the same time, we meaningfully sort of function and that, you know, transmit knowledge to such an extent that can be applied and used and all facets of society.
[00:11:35] Matt Hall: I hear the tension Darius. I'm curious, curious to come back to Elsie because I think my observation is that your Elsie is not saying that this isn't a future of knowledge where we don't value knowledge. Um, I want to go back to that original dream around it's the relationship between knowledge and, and numbering and quantifying.
I'd love to hear a bit more about what that dream looks like as you. Envisage it, Elsie.
[00:11:59] Elsie Solomon: So I'll build on the tension that Darius, you mentioned, and I feel like this tension is this pragmatic pull of, and a theoretical philosophical pull. The pragmatic pull is, uh, I call it the colonial chokehold of university requirements, and then that dictates what parents and boards want versus students and good teachers actually need.
So this tension is, we're standing in the middle of that tension. We can't change universities, right? But we can change what we do, at least at school level. Um, so what that might look like for me, perhaps I can envision a student who will know how to stand and have a nuanced conversation in a time of polarization.
A student who knows to unlearn as much as they know how to learn. A student who's culturally agile, a student who has full pride in who they are on many different levels at many different intersectionalities and can stand within dissonance and listen to multiple sides critically, use that knowledge.
Without knowledge, we're not going to have anything. Knowledge is the base of everything. Critical thinking is, is built on, on that. But I imagine that student who can do all of those things, somebody who's not living in fear or limited by what they're expected to produce in an exam, but that the learning itself, assessment for learning, we all know that term, right?
Uh, used and abused. But I don't see joyful assessment for learning, where's that?
[00:13:56] Dariush Saheli: When you're saying that, you know, obviously all parts of me agree. But even in those sort of, those sort of, I don't know if we would call them objectives, the things that you were just sharing there, they sort of resonate from a behavioural perspective if you had to root them down.
And then that behaviorism is almost, in essence, oriented towards positivism, and then it's how do we marry that with a greater, um. Goal, which we want to achieve, which is highly constructivist in the sense that, you know, we've got kids who can really unlearn and learn. So really like how do we imagine a future where we marry positive, I can't even say it, positiv, positivism.
in constructivism to create this sort of utopia. You know, because that's kind of where we're at. How do we create that? You know, we do have to marry those both. To envision the, to envisage such a condition where assessment is in that lovely balance, and I want to see the same things as you've just listed.
[00:15:11] Tia Court-Smith: I think the unlearning was really interesting to me, and in the same way that. It was prefaced with that architecture of, well, it's the university that's the goal. It's the driver. It's that phase of education before we get there. And I face that question too. Well, how can we change what's required at university level, or can it be changed and should it be changed?
And I think that's a really idealistic, but important goal, I believe, for secondary education to engage more with tertiary and to look at where can we change things and how do we work together? Because As an adult working in a school, I have to unlearn a huge amount. I have to, in order to be able to look at better ways, different ways to do things.
And is there any adult in the world now that is not doing that constantly as part of their life, their professional life? And the world of work changes so much faster than schools and education. So do we not have that responsibility collectively to acknowledge that and to not sit within our silos of primary, secondary, university, and beyond?
How to do it? There's another question, but I think that would be a great direction
[00:16:22] Naomi Ward: to head in. So I was just wondering whether people in universities are having this conversation too? It seems like, no? I love this language of like radical and I'm aware that radical means, you know, pulling up by the root and, and dream and imagination and reimagine.
I'm wondering where the cracks are, where you're already doing this and seeing joy, dreaming, imagination
is really serving the students and their futures. And, and I really take your point Darish about, um, the pragmatism that education still needs to. But can these two coexist? Um, so yeah, where are the cracks and what are you, what are you doing there?
[00:17:13] Elsie Solomon: Working with students as co collaborators or as I like to call them, co conspirators.
I now plan my assessments with them. We create rubrics together. I then bring them to the team. The engagement level has changed significantly in my classes where I've managed. I don't always succeed. There isn't always time. But this top down approach by flipping it and saying, Okay, this is the book we're reading.
What kind of assessment do you think will best help show your knowledge and understanding and analysis of this? And asking them, Thank you. to co conspire with me to create the best learning experience. And standing back, I don't stand in the front anymore. I'm on the side. They talk, they tell me. And making space for that, flipping that power dynamic, I think I want to talk about power positionality.
If we don't acknowledge how the universities tell the high schools and the high schools tell the middle schools and the middle schools tell the primary schools and the primary schools tell the secondary You know, the kindergarten, which definitely happens here. We have, uh, kindergartens that train, you know, toddlers.
For international schools, train them to get into, you know, there's a track, um, and this, this hierarchy, that top down hierarchy that we have. One of the easiest ways to do it for me, because I'm still in the classroom, okay, um, is, and I've learned to do this as I've grown with my own twins, um, seeking Darish was speaking about, you know, for them, with them, alongside them.
and being open to being educated by them. And that took a lot of unlearning for me to do, okay, um, and feeling very confident in myself to be able to do that. But I'm speaking, I'm a leader who's speaking from the classroom. And this is what I've been doing, stepping back, letting them step up, and only stepping in towards the end to consolidate everything.
That, it's not perfect. I don't often get to do it because then I need to get it to my team in time for approval. But the engagement levels in my classroom have changed ever since I have my students go conspire with
[00:19:47] Matt Hall: me. Elsie, I'm really curious, because people will be listening to this and thinking, well, I couldn't do that.
My head wouldn't let me do that. My school group would say, I have to deliver the curriculum in a particular way. It's mandated. It's mandated. Um, with the caveat that I know from the work we do often, those are built in assumptions that we create for ourselves, right? But perception is reality. People who are listening to this will think LC must work in a really supportive school where the teachers are allowed to do whatever they like.
And, um, and, and I've, I've no, no, you don't need to talk about your employers at all, but I'm curious about the, the mindset that's taking you to a place that says I'm doing this in this space now with, the resources that I've got rather than waiting for the entire system to change.
[00:20:37] Elsie Solomon: I have that autonomy in the classroom.
I think most teachers do have some autonomy. The content gets delivered, the skills are tested, the rubric is checked, but the space is the students. I think it's about respecting and centering the students. There are many different ways to do that. Simply put, uh, you know, um, I think, uh, Bell Hooks defines being oppressed as the absence of choices.
So then where is student voice and choice in our assessments? So is it then not a form of oppression?
[00:21:23] Naomi Ward: I'm wondering what's coming up, Tia and Dharish, this, this sense of power, you know, in relationship to knowledge, in relationship to assessment. I
[00:21:37] Tia Court-Smith: think personal and professional for me. So I was right back to being that child who was in awe of the teacher that knew everything. And in that place of actually internalizing that and that becoming a real sense of anxiety for me, which was an unusual reaction.
I know. But this idea that that's what growing up and learning is all about is we will continue to get better and better. And that position of authority and power, you know, impacted me when there was no representation of anybody that, um, kind of resembled the feelings I was going through as I was coming to know my sexual identity and my sexual orientation as well.
And so the barriers that come from that position. And that authority place really resonated on a personal level. And I think for me, that's where I know now I have a job in school where the sign outside my door can mean that people coming into my room are automatically in a very different place. And I have to bring that awareness into those conversations.
And when I meet the children and the staff and the parents. and make sure that I do everything that I can to acknowledge it and address it and listen. And I see fantastic things professionally. I've got teachers that really do innovate and create in the classroom. But Matt's also right. If there's an assumption that this is how I need to do it, it's in my training.
It's what my previous school wanted. Other people are doing this in a certain way. Am I out on my own? The professional culture needs to be there to encourage that to take place. So we've done a lot of work, um, with my leadership team and my deputy in examining that professional culture. I think where I see in abundance the joy of learning, it's in our programs that are super curricular, co curricular, extra curricular.
Where that removal of the idea of this summative test at the end really does mean that students are leading and some of our most popular activities and events and programs that were on in school were created by the children and passed on 234 years and the numbers are phenomenal on the Learning is huge.
And then if I look at examples that excite me, I think it was reading recently that New Mexico have changed what the requirements are in order to graduate, and they're putting in the option of having these capstone projects which seem like exactly what I think the dream would be or could be. That there are educational places looking at what do we want our learner profiles to be as graduates and then finding these opportunities with frameworks and challenge and rigor and I would argue probably in some cases exceptional opportunities beyond any nine a star distinction star point score that you'd find in a set out curriculum to have children connect with community to connect with workplace to choose the things that they love and that they enjoy And to go through a process of sometimes producing a product, but that might be a project or a community of practice, or it might be a podcast in order to demonstrate their learning and to gather that feedback and to keep getting better and that.
Thoroughly excites me.
[00:24:51] Matt Hall: I just want to nudge the conversation into where Tia's taken us, which is into curriculum, because we started with assessment, um, but I'm, I'm curious to also hear about, and again, I always approach this with the, um, I'm the listener, I'm hearing this, um, all sounds great and a bit theoretical.
Um, give me some more, give me some more ways in which I might start to address the curriculum in my school that. Makes it more future focused.
[00:25:24] Dariush Saheli: I want to help you here, Matt, by, um, not fully answering your question, but then coming on to it, I'm looking at it. Like I was very fortunate enough to be in a room with Stephen Heppel online once, and I just seen him.
This is one of these world leading thought leaders and here he is. And he's produced stuff about the futures of schools and, uh, and he's just sitting there in a. In a little, in a little room with some Lego, as he's speaking to us. And I'm like, here's this heavyweight, just sitting playing with some Lego.
And when you talk about curriculum and how you can maybe, uh, You know, one of the most radical things for me is play, and it is at the, it is at the highest form of taxonomy, when you're considering play as research, evolution. We had to somehow do something that was unexpected. That's it. To not be continually iterating the same thing that we had already been doing.
So, if you look at the curriculum of the everyday early years, what is one of the most, I think, radical but best things and most highly, like, the thing that's inspired me the most is, is getting in the early years where, I'm not going to say there's no planning. But the planning shifts into an Anna F.
Grave moment, and in the moment planning, where kids are constantly learning through a Reggio inspired play, where the environment is the teacher. And I mean, you could sort of say, well, how do you bring play throughout the other key stages? And if we are talking about radical, you know, even if you think back to the sort of Pink Floyd days, Play must have been one of the most radical things you could have ever imagined in a school.
And here we are, here I am here, saying that the way forward is play. It has to be through play. How do you bring play into the secondary school? You could argue that, you know, the Waldorf experience in, like, the Germany and stuff, well, it produces these wonderful kids, but they kind of go off to uni. But how do we bring through play in a way that it would be appreciated?
And I think I think it's just, as teachers, you're sitting there, you're about to plan something. I think one question you can just ask yourself, in a small way, and I'm not saying you have to be radical here, but if you just have a sort of a lesson plan, you're looking at something that you're going to be doing, as part of a quite conventional approach, just ask yourself, how could I bring in a couple of minutes of play here?
That's just one small step. How can I bring in a couple of minutes of play? And if you can do that, that's like, at least two steps forward in my book. It's two steps forward. towards imagining something that we, that we don't have, see or feel now.
[00:28:33] Naomi Ward: I really love that Darius, you didn't answer the question, which is disruptive in itself, right? There's a sense of like, so what's the curriculum? And you're saying it's an act of creation.
[00:28:46] Dariush Saheli: It is. Well, I was just looking at some, I actually had to do a little essay. And you know what I can say, academic literature would suggest that Even, uh, trying to define the curriculum as a futile endeavour.
Don't know who said that, but I just read it. Um, so my answer to you, it is a futile endeavour. It could be the narrowest sense possible. It could be the widest possible definition. But I think what it is, if we can just get back to it, is, yeah, being creators of play where kids feel connected.
[00:29:23] Elsie Solomon: I'm just loving everything you're saying.
This is music to my ears.
[00:29:27] Matt Hall: We're always stuck for time, unfortunately, um, so let's, um, and we could, we, we could talk about this. I mean, season four is kind of writing itself as we go through this, uh, this series, because I feel like we're scratching at the surface. Um, I guess I got a question to finish, which is, I want to check in on your optimism.
Stuff can feel heavy. I think we've used some, explored some big topics briefly today. Um, but you're in it, you're, you're there with kids every day. Are you hopeful about what awaits them and what's possible for them, Tia?
[00:30:09] Tia Court-Smith: Yes, I think I'm hopeful because of how difficult and overwhelming it can be. And when you talk to the children, they are so connected and so aware because of technology and all the other changes that just weren't there a generation ago.
And that can be a really scary thing. You know, they're aware of conflict, they know that the planet is going through a period of climate change. Is it possible to fix that? How would we do it? What does it look like? But they're also, if you reframe it, really connected and really aware. And things are changing around schools.
So there is no choice in my view than education needs to change. So I'm hopeful that it will and that it can and that the ways in which people are working beyond institutions like schools will help to shape that. I've seen differences, I've realized now that despite all the things I did before going into schools and education, it's been about 20 years.
And I could do with reconnecting and making sure that those experiences are there for our children too. And there's lots of ways to do that. What's actually life going to be like? How does it need to be different? Why will it be different? What are those benefits and using those parents now that are experiencing work in a different way than lots of the teachers did, or lots of the leaders did at schools to help, to make sure that we do things better.
[00:31:36] Matt Hall: Thanks. I'm curious about our Elsie and Darish. What's your, what's your view of the future?
[00:31:42] Elsie Solomon: Um, I agree with Tia, this generation has given me, the current generation gives me the most hope. I, I, um, mentor a Gen Zer. There are people, uh, who are very frustrated with Gen Zers because they question everything and they do everything their way.
And I love it. They disrupt me and everybody else around them. I am the most hopeful I have ever been because I feel that they know that they must question everything. They asked why incessantly. They will grind you down till you start to question yourself. I have hope with this generation for the first time in a long time.
Um, you'd request patience, a lot of deep breathing. But if you know your stuff and you're working from your heart, um, it's never a problem with the Gen Zers and, and I'm, I'm, I'm here for it.
[00:32:43] Matt Hall: I think we may have a Gen Zer on the call in the form of Darius, do we?
[00:32:49] Dariush Saheli: I don't know. It would make
[00:32:50] Naomi Ward: sense.
[00:32:53] Dariush Saheli: So when you asked this question and I just typed in the chat box, Donald Trump, I don't know, just first thing that came to my head.
And then I saw your eyes roll. And then I turned my camera off. So for me, do I have hope? Such a big question. I think, you know, I've got an, I think the one thing I love is working with the children. As I see that in some ways I got into this teaching career. I don't think I would be happy in any other career.
At least I feel like these guys are at the, these guys are the trailblazers in our evolutionary story as a species. And I'm getting to just sort of hopefully guide the spirit and inspire them, at least at the minimum, inspire them a little bit. Whether I guide them or not, I don't know. But I just feel whenever I'm with the children, There is certain hope, and I do relate it back to our species and, and our journey across evolution.
We are literally, right now, flying around space in a ball of rock. Um, we've got to have hope. We've got to have hope. And these kids are the future. Then again, I do live in the real world. And uh, right now America, I believe, has been made great again. So, there is always that real time balance where I'm having to just check in on my, my, my little, uh, expectations, reality, stoicism and hope.
I'll do what Elsie said, deep breathing, stoicism, a bit of Vibhasana, happy days.
[00:34:38] Naomi Ward: Yeah, it feels real, it feels really real that it fluctuates, right?
[00:34:42] Dariush Saheli: Yeah, it's part of the human experience, isn't it?
[00:34:46] Naomi Ward: Some days we feel hopeful, some, some days we feel complete despair.
[00:34:49] Elsie Solomon: Yeah.
[00:34:51] Naomi Ward: And, um, I love what you say about heart, breathing, regulation.
Um, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing where you are truthfully. What a great conversation. Thank you.
[00:35:03] Matt Hall: Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us today. Um, really appreciate you making the time and look forward to continuing the conversation another time. I hope
[00:35:19] Naomi Ward: so many provocations in that conversation and a reminder that this is, this was always our intention to catalyze conversations within your school and curious to know which question or which thread you are going to follow and we would love to hear from you and to let us know. So I'll, so I'll throw that out to you, Matt, which thread is it that you want to Pull on a bit more, um, in this inquiry.
[00:35:49] Matt Hall: Well, I wasn't expecting that question. So thank you staying, staying true to the way we're approaching this. Um, there's a kind of a macro theme here, which I think is so continuously illustrated in the paper and then brought to life by the conversations we're having. Which is when you go to Elsie's example of, you know, dream to go big.
This is what imagine, imagine a world like this. I find it equally liberating and, um, limiting because it feels too big. It feels too. And I sense that in the call is a bit of, well, that's never going to happen. Come on, get real. Um, and yet the invitation here, as I say, and the thread I want to follow is that ability to hold both to hold that what's possible alongside, what are we doing now?
And what can I influence in the work that's immediately at my feet? And I think I heard all three of them doing that. So there's a kind of gritty reality about what might be challenging about moving to a different form of. Pedagogy assessment and curriculum. Um, and if you, and if you get stuck in there, well, it will never be like that.
You'll, you'll not do anything. So what, what can I affect? And I, you know, Elsie's lovely example of the influence she has on her classroom. Just one really good way of illustrating that for me. So I guess that's the thread I want to continue in my own way is, yeah. How do we want things to be different, but also what can I do now?
[00:37:26] Elsie Solomon: Hmm.
[00:37:27] Naomi Ward: Yeah, I was. Really wanted to ask Elsie was, where was the joy when, you know, Shaz, yeah, what did you see that joy? I'll have to ask her. Yeah, it's interesting as I listen to you, those are almost the meta skills that we want young people to cultivate, right? Holding ambiguity, ambivalence, negative capability, you know, we don't know, and we don't know how.
So can we experiment? And I'm always, and I keep thinking about power and that it's the power structures and kind of the coloniality actually, that's pulling us back to, it has to be this way. And actually we're kind of decolonizing ourselves a little bit if we say, why? And I think that awareness of our own process and conditioning Is essential to progress and I could witness all three of them were on that way ahead on that, on that journey.
[00:38:37] Matt Hall: There's a, um, feels apt given. We've just speaking to a Glaswegian. There's a great line in a song by a band, Glaswegian band called Admiral Fallow, where they just repeatedly say, um, it doesn't have to be this way. And the title of the song is we're all old fools now. And that's, that's, it's getting absolute to that point.
If we carry on accepting that it has to be this way, then you just end up an old fool and, um, you're right. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be this way.
[00:39:07] Naomi Ward: Another provocation. And now you have to sing that.
[00:39:11] Matt Hall: See you next time.
[00:39:12] Naomi Ward: Yeah.
[00:39:17] Matt Hall: You can download a free copy of our paper, Futures Focus Leadership for International Schools, by signing up on our website, makingstuffbetter. com. And don't forget to like and follow Principled so you don't miss an episode.
[00:39:32] Naomi Ward: You've been listening to Principled from MSB. The podcast was produced by Emily Crosby Media, with music by Lucy Farrell, released on Hudson Records.
[00:00:00] Matt Hall: Hello and welcome back to Principled from MSB.
[00:00:07] Naomi Ward: This season offers international school leaders a provocation to think differently about the future of education and their role in the creation of this future. It's an opportunity to continue thinking seriously and deeply about the legacy that school leaders leave behind through concerted action in the present.
To frame this provocation, we will be bringing together the latest research and thinking about futures focused leadership, alongside insights from interviews with experts from across the international school sector and beyond.
[00:00:39] Matt Hall: Each episode, we will explore a different domain. And in the following episode, we will put the thinking through its paces with a panel of school leaders, some highly experienced, some new enroll and some emerging.
We're so pleased to have you join us. Okay. Delighted to be back and continuing our journey through. Our futures focus paper. And this week we are looking at pedagogy assessment curriculum, no small topic, and I'm really pleased to welcome, um, welcome you all. Please go ahead and introduce yourselves.
[00:01:11] Elsie Solomon: Hi, I'm Elizabeth Solomon, also known as Elsie.
Um, in terms of who I am, I'm a mixed Anglo Indian Jew of Baghdadi and Ben Israeli descent. I was raised between Bombay, London, and Jerusalem. Proud post colonial child of three cultures. I began my teaching life as a lecturer of post colonial literature in Israel and Palestine. I then taught at the University I'll be English and INS in Japan and China.
I work at the ISF Academy in Hong Kong and I've been here for 14 years. I lead the international mindedness PLC here. I have 20 plus years of IB teaching experience, but interestingly, In regards to our topic today, I'm also an exam author, IB exam author and team leader, uh, and doing my DEIJ certification with ALOC at the moment and have been involved in the international, uh, school anti discrimination task force, uh, focusing on governance and humanizing pedagogies.
Um, I'm a mother of twins who are doing their IB diploma, currently doing their last year, and I'm watching them. Being crushed under the assessment wheel of the IBDP. Uh, so I have that added perspective to bring to the table.
[00:02:32] Dariush Saheli: Hi, so I'm Darius. Um, I started my teaching career in and around Bolton. Had the opportunity to then teach in and around Worcestershire.
I've had some experiences across the UK setting. Went international with my family, young family, to the south of India. And now I find myself in Brunei, Dar es Salaam. And, um, for me, I think my whole career and just sort of philosophy and life has been one around the, you know, liberation and that sort of bigger purpose of education.
So, you know, just reflecting on the topics today, curriculum, the assessment, and all of that. I think these sort of underpinning philosophies do have to be talk to boot. I'm married, got a lovely wife who keeps me supported and checked and balanced, two lovely children, um, mum from Glasgow area, dad from Iran.
Pleasure to meet you all.
[00:03:39] Tia Court-Smith: Hi, it's lovely to meet you both too. I'm Tia, I was born in the Bahamas, I then went to school in Belgium in a French speaking area. And started in the IB program. And then my family went through a separation. So I moved to the UK to a teeny tiny town in the Southwest where having an accent was a really unusual thing.
And I was growing up at a time in the UK when section 27 was really influencing the curriculum and what teachers could or couldn't say about sexuality. Um, I never thought I could ever be a teacher. To me, they were people that were doing the most amazing things, helping people to learn, which I really admired.
And I went through a real crisis of confidence, actually, and anxiety. in thinking that all these older people who are doing all these amazing things must be so much better and smarter. And that must be an infinite curve that increases for your whole life. Um, so I threw myself into some travel and I booked a ticket on my own and I went to New Zealand on my own and use my phone card to get back in touch with home and then decided that, uh, veterinary science, even though my animal relationships were better than human, was absolutely not for me.
The pathway for me. So I changed over a holiday, upset everybody, went to do biomedical sciences at Liverpool University, and then spent a good period of my professional career trying different things. I've been a green grocer. I've worked in HR. I've been an artist. I set up a deli with a business partner.
The list is, uh, it goes on until I eventually found what I really, truly loved, which was helping people to learn whether that was through the training in the workplaces I was at, or the little girl that I got to tutor and work with. So I retrained, I worked in the North West of England, um, and was moving into SLT, and then it came across my radar that international teaching was an option.
And I thought, like everybody else, mostly, that I meet here, two years and I'll head back to the UK. And at the end of two years, I was, uh, thoroughly enjoying being in a school that really cared about and put value on the things that I did. I then eventually met my partner and fell in love. So now I consider my family to be in Thailand and Bangkok, and I feel really lucky and really privileged to have been invited to come and meet you all today.
Thank you.
[00:05:59] Matt Hall: Wow. Thank you. What a lovely smorgasbord of cultural experience and perspectives. Um, half an hour is not going to be enough, um, but we'll do our best. Well, in this episode, we are exploring this, this domain, um, and you know, we've acknowledged that it's hard to separate out these separate out these domains, the more recordings and discussions that we have.
Uh, but I'm really looking forward to this round table because we're exploring this idea of future fit pedagogy and curriculum. And I'm going to start just by picking up one of the questions in the paper, actually. Um, and just throwing it into our round table, which is in your experience, what assumptions about what good pedagogy looks like exist and, and how might we, or how are you challenging those assumptions in your setting and your work?
[00:06:52] Elsie Solomon: So I'll start, I've written down three radical dreams and I'll, um, focus in on one. Um, this is my radical dream. Number two is that assessment will become. An exercise in joy and love and not pain inspires learning and not be entrenched in a fear of a number. So I'm referring to the marks and the numbers that are often attached to assessment.
And I feel that that is an issue and I keep challenging it. Uh, it's very hard to get students to detach from the number if there, there is a number. That's something, um, that I actively fight against. And I'd love to hear what other people think about this radical dream. Do you think there might come a day where a student thinks of an assessment and is joyful and excited about it?
[00:07:55] Tia Court-Smith: Great question. I think I would share in your dream, Elsie, in, I really hope that. That is a possibility because why, why couldn't it be? And it goes back to me to thinking about, well, what's the purpose of assessment? It should be something that helps us to get better. It should be something that helps us to become more aware of what we know and what we don't, and how we can develop skills or improve, and to have that opportunity to be in a safe space where that's the only purpose is not comparative.
It's not something that's a judgment against somebody's worth would be absolutely phenomenal. So where do we see it? Um, and when I was listening, I think I was, I considered a group that we have at the moment that are trying to do that. There's some brilliant teachers in my school who have decided to get together.
And to talk about effort rather than a grade or a number for a qualification. And even for that, we have a one, two, three, four system like lots of schools do. And to really break down, well, what does it mean and why is it important? And to develop with the students a more descriptive and rubric based form.
So that it's not being reported with numbers at all. And same as you, the same kind of resistance because of that expectation, I think, from students and from families, that this is the way that schools work. And actually the freedom from that is a brilliant thing.
[00:09:20] Dariush Saheli: I'm not trying to be purposefully contentious.
I'm really not. Um, but I, I mean, I, I delete, I idealize the future much like yourself, you know. I think we can be so much more process oriented than we are now. It feels like we're still, um, stuck in a loop of, sort of, uh, industrialization, in which we all must conform to a level of productivity, and instead of this productive sort of orientation has led us in such a way where, yeah, we've got metrics, and, kids should be assigned numbers and the sort of great scientific thinking of Frederick Winslow Taylor.
But at the same time, there's this little working class lad in me that says, and I'm sorry, I, I was a preemptive, but when I was talking about this sort of philosophy of liberation, there is that little guy in me that said, you know, knowledge, you know, there's, when we talk about these assessments and sort of the, the progressive, That the need for progression and progressiveness that obviously is driven from the needs of the learner and the leads of the needs of learners are changing, but at the same time, we can never overlook the fact that potentially even more fundamental to the needs of learners.
is the fundamental right that the learners have to the right of knowledge. And this is sort of where my brain just gets sort of profoundly in a loop, you know, um, knowledge liberates, it helps that whole social mobility piece. And it's just such a difficult balance to imagine a future in which Um There's less pain, which we would all hope, but at the same time, we meaningfully sort of function and that, you know, transmit knowledge to such an extent that can be applied and used and all facets of society.
[00:11:35] Matt Hall: I hear the tension Darius. I'm curious, curious to come back to Elsie because I think my observation is that your Elsie is not saying that this isn't a future of knowledge where we don't value knowledge. Um, I want to go back to that original dream around it's the relationship between knowledge and, and numbering and quantifying.
I'd love to hear a bit more about what that dream looks like as you. Envisage it, Elsie.
[00:11:59] Elsie Solomon: So I'll build on the tension that Darius, you mentioned, and I feel like this tension is this pragmatic pull of, and a theoretical philosophical pull. The pragmatic pull is, uh, I call it the colonial chokehold of university requirements, and then that dictates what parents and boards want versus students and good teachers actually need.
So this tension is, we're standing in the middle of that tension. We can't change universities, right? But we can change what we do, at least at school level. Um, so what that might look like for me, perhaps I can envision a student who will know how to stand and have a nuanced conversation in a time of polarization.
A student who knows to unlearn as much as they know how to learn. A student who's culturally agile, a student who has full pride in who they are on many different levels at many different intersectionalities and can stand within dissonance and listen to multiple sides critically, use that knowledge.
Without knowledge, we're not going to have anything. Knowledge is the base of everything. Critical thinking is, is built on, on that. But I imagine that student who can do all of those things, somebody who's not living in fear or limited by what they're expected to produce in an exam, but that the learning itself, assessment for learning, we all know that term, right?
Uh, used and abused. But I don't see joyful assessment for learning, where's that?
[00:13:56] Dariush Saheli: When you're saying that, you know, obviously all parts of me agree. But even in those sort of, those sort of, I don't know if we would call them objectives, the things that you were just sharing there, they sort of resonate from a behavioural perspective if you had to root them down.
And then that behaviorism is almost, in essence, oriented towards positivism, and then it's how do we marry that with a greater, um. Goal, which we want to achieve, which is highly constructivist in the sense that, you know, we've got kids who can really unlearn and learn. So really like how do we imagine a future where we marry positive, I can't even say it, positiv, positivism.
in constructivism to create this sort of utopia. You know, because that's kind of where we're at. How do we create that? You know, we do have to marry those both. To envision the, to envisage such a condition where assessment is in that lovely balance, and I want to see the same things as you've just listed.
[00:15:11] Tia Court-Smith: I think the unlearning was really interesting to me, and in the same way that. It was prefaced with that architecture of, well, it's the university that's the goal. It's the driver. It's that phase of education before we get there. And I face that question too. Well, how can we change what's required at university level, or can it be changed and should it be changed?
And I think that's a really idealistic, but important goal, I believe, for secondary education to engage more with tertiary and to look at where can we change things and how do we work together? Because As an adult working in a school, I have to unlearn a huge amount. I have to, in order to be able to look at better ways, different ways to do things.
And is there any adult in the world now that is not doing that constantly as part of their life, their professional life? And the world of work changes so much faster than schools and education. So do we not have that responsibility collectively to acknowledge that and to not sit within our silos of primary, secondary, university, and beyond?
How to do it? There's another question, but I think that would be a great direction
[00:16:22] Naomi Ward: to head in. So I was just wondering whether people in universities are having this conversation too? It seems like, no? I love this language of like radical and I'm aware that radical means, you know, pulling up by the root and, and dream and imagination and reimagine.
I'm wondering where the cracks are, where you're already doing this and seeing joy, dreaming, imagination
is really serving the students and their futures. And, and I really take your point Darish about, um, the pragmatism that education still needs to. But can these two coexist? Um, so yeah, where are the cracks and what are you, what are you doing there?
[00:17:13] Elsie Solomon: Working with students as co collaborators or as I like to call them, co conspirators.
I now plan my assessments with them. We create rubrics together. I then bring them to the team. The engagement level has changed significantly in my classes where I've managed. I don't always succeed. There isn't always time. But this top down approach by flipping it and saying, Okay, this is the book we're reading.
What kind of assessment do you think will best help show your knowledge and understanding and analysis of this? And asking them, Thank you. to co conspire with me to create the best learning experience. And standing back, I don't stand in the front anymore. I'm on the side. They talk, they tell me. And making space for that, flipping that power dynamic, I think I want to talk about power positionality.
If we don't acknowledge how the universities tell the high schools and the high schools tell the middle schools and the middle schools tell the primary schools and the primary schools tell the secondary You know, the kindergarten, which definitely happens here. We have, uh, kindergartens that train, you know, toddlers.
For international schools, train them to get into, you know, there's a track, um, and this, this hierarchy, that top down hierarchy that we have. One of the easiest ways to do it for me, because I'm still in the classroom, okay, um, is, and I've learned to do this as I've grown with my own twins, um, seeking Darish was speaking about, you know, for them, with them, alongside them.
and being open to being educated by them. And that took a lot of unlearning for me to do, okay, um, and feeling very confident in myself to be able to do that. But I'm speaking, I'm a leader who's speaking from the classroom. And this is what I've been doing, stepping back, letting them step up, and only stepping in towards the end to consolidate everything.
That, it's not perfect. I don't often get to do it because then I need to get it to my team in time for approval. But the engagement levels in my classroom have changed ever since I have my students go conspire with
[00:19:47] Matt Hall: me. Elsie, I'm really curious, because people will be listening to this and thinking, well, I couldn't do that.
My head wouldn't let me do that. My school group would say, I have to deliver the curriculum in a particular way. It's mandated. It's mandated. Um, with the caveat that I know from the work we do often, those are built in assumptions that we create for ourselves, right? But perception is reality. People who are listening to this will think LC must work in a really supportive school where the teachers are allowed to do whatever they like.
And, um, and, and I've, I've no, no, you don't need to talk about your employers at all, but I'm curious about the, the mindset that's taking you to a place that says I'm doing this in this space now with, the resources that I've got rather than waiting for the entire system to change.
[00:20:37] Elsie Solomon: I have that autonomy in the classroom.
I think most teachers do have some autonomy. The content gets delivered, the skills are tested, the rubric is checked, but the space is the students. I think it's about respecting and centering the students. There are many different ways to do that. Simply put, uh, you know, um, I think, uh, Bell Hooks defines being oppressed as the absence of choices.
So then where is student voice and choice in our assessments? So is it then not a form of oppression?
[00:21:23] Naomi Ward: I'm wondering what's coming up, Tia and Dharish, this, this sense of power, you know, in relationship to knowledge, in relationship to assessment. I
[00:21:37] Tia Court-Smith: think personal and professional for me. So I was right back to being that child who was in awe of the teacher that knew everything. And in that place of actually internalizing that and that becoming a real sense of anxiety for me, which was an unusual reaction.
I know. But this idea that that's what growing up and learning is all about is we will continue to get better and better. And that position of authority and power, you know, impacted me when there was no representation of anybody that, um, kind of resembled the feelings I was going through as I was coming to know my sexual identity and my sexual orientation as well.
And so the barriers that come from that position. And that authority place really resonated on a personal level. And I think for me, that's where I know now I have a job in school where the sign outside my door can mean that people coming into my room are automatically in a very different place. And I have to bring that awareness into those conversations.
And when I meet the children and the staff and the parents. and make sure that I do everything that I can to acknowledge it and address it and listen. And I see fantastic things professionally. I've got teachers that really do innovate and create in the classroom. But Matt's also right. If there's an assumption that this is how I need to do it, it's in my training.
It's what my previous school wanted. Other people are doing this in a certain way. Am I out on my own? The professional culture needs to be there to encourage that to take place. So we've done a lot of work, um, with my leadership team and my deputy in examining that professional culture. I think where I see in abundance the joy of learning, it's in our programs that are super curricular, co curricular, extra curricular.
Where that removal of the idea of this summative test at the end really does mean that students are leading and some of our most popular activities and events and programs that were on in school were created by the children and passed on 234 years and the numbers are phenomenal on the Learning is huge.
And then if I look at examples that excite me, I think it was reading recently that New Mexico have changed what the requirements are in order to graduate, and they're putting in the option of having these capstone projects which seem like exactly what I think the dream would be or could be. That there are educational places looking at what do we want our learner profiles to be as graduates and then finding these opportunities with frameworks and challenge and rigor and I would argue probably in some cases exceptional opportunities beyond any nine a star distinction star point score that you'd find in a set out curriculum to have children connect with community to connect with workplace to choose the things that they love and that they enjoy And to go through a process of sometimes producing a product, but that might be a project or a community of practice, or it might be a podcast in order to demonstrate their learning and to gather that feedback and to keep getting better and that.
Thoroughly excites me.
[00:24:51] Matt Hall: I just want to nudge the conversation into where Tia's taken us, which is into curriculum, because we started with assessment, um, but I'm, I'm curious to also hear about, and again, I always approach this with the, um, I'm the listener, I'm hearing this, um, all sounds great and a bit theoretical.
Um, give me some more, give me some more ways in which I might start to address the curriculum in my school that. Makes it more future focused.
[00:25:24] Dariush Saheli: I want to help you here, Matt, by, um, not fully answering your question, but then coming on to it, I'm looking at it. Like I was very fortunate enough to be in a room with Stephen Heppel online once, and I just seen him.
This is one of these world leading thought leaders and here he is. And he's produced stuff about the futures of schools and, uh, and he's just sitting there in a. In a little, in a little room with some Lego, as he's speaking to us. And I'm like, here's this heavyweight, just sitting playing with some Lego.
And when you talk about curriculum and how you can maybe, uh, You know, one of the most radical things for me is play, and it is at the, it is at the highest form of taxonomy, when you're considering play as research, evolution. We had to somehow do something that was unexpected. That's it. To not be continually iterating the same thing that we had already been doing.
So, if you look at the curriculum of the everyday early years, what is one of the most, I think, radical but best things and most highly, like, the thing that's inspired me the most is, is getting in the early years where, I'm not going to say there's no planning. But the planning shifts into an Anna F.
Grave moment, and in the moment planning, where kids are constantly learning through a Reggio inspired play, where the environment is the teacher. And I mean, you could sort of say, well, how do you bring play throughout the other key stages? And if we are talking about radical, you know, even if you think back to the sort of Pink Floyd days, Play must have been one of the most radical things you could have ever imagined in a school.
And here we are, here I am here, saying that the way forward is play. It has to be through play. How do you bring play into the secondary school? You could argue that, you know, the Waldorf experience in, like, the Germany and stuff, well, it produces these wonderful kids, but they kind of go off to uni. But how do we bring through play in a way that it would be appreciated?
And I think I think it's just, as teachers, you're sitting there, you're about to plan something. I think one question you can just ask yourself, in a small way, and I'm not saying you have to be radical here, but if you just have a sort of a lesson plan, you're looking at something that you're going to be doing, as part of a quite conventional approach, just ask yourself, how could I bring in a couple of minutes of play here?
That's just one small step. How can I bring in a couple of minutes of play? And if you can do that, that's like, at least two steps forward in my book. It's two steps forward. towards imagining something that we, that we don't have, see or feel now.
[00:28:33] Naomi Ward: I really love that Darius, you didn't answer the question, which is disruptive in itself, right? There's a sense of like, so what's the curriculum? And you're saying it's an act of creation.
[00:28:46] Dariush Saheli: It is. Well, I was just looking at some, I actually had to do a little essay. And you know what I can say, academic literature would suggest that Even, uh, trying to define the curriculum as a futile endeavour.
Don't know who said that, but I just read it. Um, so my answer to you, it is a futile endeavour. It could be the narrowest sense possible. It could be the widest possible definition. But I think what it is, if we can just get back to it, is, yeah, being creators of play where kids feel connected.
[00:29:23] Elsie Solomon: I'm just loving everything you're saying.
This is music to my ears.
[00:29:27] Matt Hall: We're always stuck for time, unfortunately, um, so let's, um, and we could, we, we could talk about this. I mean, season four is kind of writing itself as we go through this, uh, this series, because I feel like we're scratching at the surface. Um, I guess I got a question to finish, which is, I want to check in on your optimism.
Stuff can feel heavy. I think we've used some, explored some big topics briefly today. Um, but you're in it, you're, you're there with kids every day. Are you hopeful about what awaits them and what's possible for them, Tia?
[00:30:09] Tia Court-Smith: Yes, I think I'm hopeful because of how difficult and overwhelming it can be. And when you talk to the children, they are so connected and so aware because of technology and all the other changes that just weren't there a generation ago.
And that can be a really scary thing. You know, they're aware of conflict, they know that the planet is going through a period of climate change. Is it possible to fix that? How would we do it? What does it look like? But they're also, if you reframe it, really connected and really aware. And things are changing around schools.
So there is no choice in my view than education needs to change. So I'm hopeful that it will and that it can and that the ways in which people are working beyond institutions like schools will help to shape that. I've seen differences, I've realized now that despite all the things I did before going into schools and education, it's been about 20 years.
And I could do with reconnecting and making sure that those experiences are there for our children too. And there's lots of ways to do that. What's actually life going to be like? How does it need to be different? Why will it be different? What are those benefits and using those parents now that are experiencing work in a different way than lots of the teachers did, or lots of the leaders did at schools to help, to make sure that we do things better.
[00:31:36] Matt Hall: Thanks. I'm curious about our Elsie and Darish. What's your, what's your view of the future?
[00:31:42] Elsie Solomon: Um, I agree with Tia, this generation has given me, the current generation gives me the most hope. I, I, um, mentor a Gen Zer. There are people, uh, who are very frustrated with Gen Zers because they question everything and they do everything their way.
And I love it. They disrupt me and everybody else around them. I am the most hopeful I have ever been because I feel that they know that they must question everything. They asked why incessantly. They will grind you down till you start to question yourself. I have hope with this generation for the first time in a long time.
Um, you'd request patience, a lot of deep breathing. But if you know your stuff and you're working from your heart, um, it's never a problem with the Gen Zers and, and I'm, I'm, I'm here for it.
[00:32:43] Matt Hall: I think we may have a Gen Zer on the call in the form of Darius, do we?
[00:32:49] Dariush Saheli: I don't know. It would make
[00:32:50] Naomi Ward: sense.
[00:32:53] Dariush Saheli: So when you asked this question and I just typed in the chat box, Donald Trump, I don't know, just first thing that came to my head.
And then I saw your eyes roll. And then I turned my camera off. So for me, do I have hope? Such a big question. I think, you know, I've got an, I think the one thing I love is working with the children. As I see that in some ways I got into this teaching career. I don't think I would be happy in any other career.
At least I feel like these guys are at the, these guys are the trailblazers in our evolutionary story as a species. And I'm getting to just sort of hopefully guide the spirit and inspire them, at least at the minimum, inspire them a little bit. Whether I guide them or not, I don't know. But I just feel whenever I'm with the children, There is certain hope, and I do relate it back to our species and, and our journey across evolution.
We are literally, right now, flying around space in a ball of rock. Um, we've got to have hope. We've got to have hope. And these kids are the future. Then again, I do live in the real world. And uh, right now America, I believe, has been made great again. So, there is always that real time balance where I'm having to just check in on my, my, my little, uh, expectations, reality, stoicism and hope.
I'll do what Elsie said, deep breathing, stoicism, a bit of Vibhasana, happy days.
[00:34:38] Naomi Ward: Yeah, it feels real, it feels really real that it fluctuates, right?
[00:34:42] Dariush Saheli: Yeah, it's part of the human experience, isn't it?
[00:34:46] Naomi Ward: Some days we feel hopeful, some, some days we feel complete despair.
[00:34:49] Elsie Solomon: Yeah.
[00:34:51] Naomi Ward: And, um, I love what you say about heart, breathing, regulation.
Um, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing where you are truthfully. What a great conversation. Thank you.
[00:35:03] Matt Hall: Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us today. Um, really appreciate you making the time and look forward to continuing the conversation another time. I hope
[00:35:19] Naomi Ward: so many provocations in that conversation and a reminder that this is, this was always our intention to catalyze conversations within your school and curious to know which question or which thread you are going to follow and we would love to hear from you and to let us know. So I'll, so I'll throw that out to you, Matt, which thread is it that you want to Pull on a bit more, um, in this inquiry.
[00:35:49] Matt Hall: Well, I wasn't expecting that question. So thank you staying, staying true to the way we're approaching this. Um, there's a kind of a macro theme here, which I think is so continuously illustrated in the paper and then brought to life by the conversations we're having. Which is when you go to Elsie's example of, you know, dream to go big.
This is what imagine, imagine a world like this. I find it equally liberating and, um, limiting because it feels too big. It feels too. And I sense that in the call is a bit of, well, that's never going to happen. Come on, get real. Um, and yet the invitation here, as I say, and the thread I want to follow is that ability to hold both to hold that what's possible alongside, what are we doing now?
And what can I influence in the work that's immediately at my feet? And I think I heard all three of them doing that. So there's a kind of gritty reality about what might be challenging about moving to a different form of. Pedagogy assessment and curriculum. Um, and if you, and if you get stuck in there, well, it will never be like that.
You'll, you'll not do anything. So what, what can I affect? And I, you know, Elsie's lovely example of the influence she has on her classroom. Just one really good way of illustrating that for me. So I guess that's the thread I want to continue in my own way is, yeah. How do we want things to be different, but also what can I do now?
[00:37:26] Elsie Solomon: Hmm.
[00:37:27] Naomi Ward: Yeah, I was. Really wanted to ask Elsie was, where was the joy when, you know, Shaz, yeah, what did you see that joy? I'll have to ask her. Yeah, it's interesting as I listen to you, those are almost the meta skills that we want young people to cultivate, right? Holding ambiguity, ambivalence, negative capability, you know, we don't know, and we don't know how.
So can we experiment? And I'm always, and I keep thinking about power and that it's the power structures and kind of the coloniality actually, that's pulling us back to, it has to be this way. And actually we're kind of decolonizing ourselves a little bit if we say, why? And I think that awareness of our own process and conditioning Is essential to progress and I could witness all three of them were on that way ahead on that, on that journey.
[00:38:37] Matt Hall: There's a, um, feels apt given. We've just speaking to a Glaswegian. There's a great line in a song by a band, Glaswegian band called Admiral Fallow, where they just repeatedly say, um, it doesn't have to be this way. And the title of the song is we're all old fools now. And that's, that's, it's getting absolute to that point.
If we carry on accepting that it has to be this way, then you just end up an old fool and, um, you're right. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be this way.
[00:39:07] Naomi Ward: Another provocation. And now you have to sing that.
[00:39:11] Matt Hall: See you next time.
[00:39:12] Naomi Ward: Yeah.
[00:39:17] Matt Hall: You can download a free copy of our paper, Futures Focus Leadership for International Schools, by signing up on our website, makingstuffbetter. com. And don't forget to like and follow Principled so you don't miss an episode.
[00:39:32] Naomi Ward: You've been listening to Principled from MSB. The podcast was produced by Emily Crosby Media, with music by Lucy Farrell, released on Hudson Records.
