To Learn from Within

One of my favourite songs by Bruce Woodley is “Last Night I Had A Dream” because it shares a narrative about a dream where the dreamer themselves experience a place where race is not an issue and people are living in harmony and peace. The message of this song is so simple and clear that you can instantly sense the vision of the writer. It has strong emotional value and it not only leaves an inspirational feeling but also a lasting impression on ones mind. This is the purpose of a vision. It should clearly articulate and describe the final destination in such detail that the person considering the vision can clearly see it becoming a future reality. It sounds like a rather complex process, but truthfully when you really stop to think, formulating the great narrative that is a vision is the easy part. The tricky part is understanding that most people are going to be at different starting points. Some will want to stop and enjoy the scenery during the journey, and then there will be others who just want to know how to get from point A to point B so they can arrive at the vision. Some people will walk the straight pathway, the clearly laid out roadmap to join the dots to get there and others will want to explore, forge new pathways, gain new understandings to get to the destination.

The problem from an organisational or managerial point of view is that there will be different arrival times / travel times, which means that the chance of having everyone on board the bus at the same final destination at the same time is slim. By the time some arrive the others which arrived earlier have already moved on looking for the next new adventure to learn from. Hence there will always be leaders, followers and wanderers. We need to recognise this, but whilst we are doing this we need to also ensure that the three groups stay in proportion so that the movement continues towards the vision. The risk we run if this balance tips is that we go around in circles like the wanderers and we will not progress anywhere. In education this is where we have an issue because our policies are often heavily tied to a political agenda. This means that every time there is a change in government there is a change in vision. Here in Australia that is roughly every three years. Which means that every time a new leader comes into power there is a whole new vision and often it is the direct opposite of the one previous.

So how does this influence the professionals working within educational organisations that are working diligently towards making the existing vision a reality? You may find your followers willingness to look at a new vision wanes when you need to stop along your journey turn around and change direction. Then you also get the change of middle management, a new principal comes in and has a whole different pedagogical approach and they want you to adopt and follow. Oh no here we go feeling like we are on Mr Wonka’s psychedelic boat trip seeing too many visions starting to feel confused and slightly sick. No wonder education professionals are often tired, feeling overworked and over burdened. They are vision sick! When discussing this with a learning leader once he commented that he felt that education can not improve in the great strides it needs to until politicians no longer have a say in the direction it moves. Interesting observation, but I believe it is more about trust, rather than who is in command of the boat or who’s vision we are following. Take for example, Finland’s education system and the political discussions made here.  They are still making decision regarding funding and the overall vision for education, but the crucial decision they have made as politicians is to TRUST the professionalism of the teachers versus ACCOUNTABILITY. The schools and the teachers themselves  have set the benchmarks and have created every school as a centre of excellence and have set high expectations for not only their students but also themselves. They see themselves as lifetime learners, they feel valued and respected by their employers, and as a result of the governments trust, the community also values and respects them.

Maybe this is the vision we all need to be working towards – an education system where trust and professionalism are the pillars of success. Political agendas should not be the foundation our educational visions are built upon rather they should be there as scaffolding supporting the vision designed and developed by those who hold the expertise, the educators themselves. Accountability should still play a role in our education systems, but it should not be linked to funding, nor should standardised testing be our only criteria of accountability. We need to look at the journeys taken of not only our children during their learning periods, but also that of our educators. Our future, our children, are not identical beings and as such require different considerations, different approaches, and different learning experiences. They too have a vision, they want to be treated with respect, they want to learn in a way meaningful to them as individuals, and they want to be able to express themselves and be heard. We need to seriously consider our clientele, the future, our children when writing the narrative which will formulate the vision for our education systems. What is the end product, the vision we hold for them? Do we want them to be come citizen which have developed a love of learning and therefore are life long learners; or do we want to ensure they have been taught only what is on the political agendas? We need to be united in our vision, we need to move beyond political agendas and write narrative with the inspirational change we know we can achieve WITHINEducation.