Why your teachers have seen it all before

Ah, yes, that was a sigh and you might hear that sometimes from your experienced teachers when you say, hey, we've got a new thing. Ah, that sigh of thinking we have been here before. Today we're going to look at that inevitable cycle of change and how to lead through it with integrity and with purpose. Hey everyone, I'm Shane Leading.

It's Education Leaders, the chat-topping leadership podcast for school leaders just like you. I'm an organisational coach and in this show I get to know the teachers, leaders and innovators, making a difference in schools around the world. Now, every other weekend do a bite-sized leadership episode and that's what today is. But before we jump in, I'm really happy this episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association.

Stay tuned to learn more. So, I've noticed that something happens when you get a group of experienced teachers together in the staff room. I'm talking to teachers with a good few years of experience under their belt. Inevitably, this is what happens, a new thing gets announced to the school and someone leans back in their chair and says, oh, is this that thing we did back in 2005?

They just called it something different. And you know what? They're probably right a lot of the time. In education, we seem to move in cycles.

What's old becomes new again, just with a bit of updated terminology and seemingly a fresh coat of paint. For example, that enquiry-based learning that we've talked about today resembles that discovery learning that we did a few decades ago or maybe that push for cross-curricular connections that we're all talking about and the new leaders are really passionate about. Well, didn't we have integrated curriculum models before? Or maybe even that focus that a lot of schools are focusing on now, student wellbeing.

You might be going, this has appeared before. We've talked about this before many times. In fact, this cyclical nature in educational change is so common that it's become a bit of an inside joke amongst educators who've been around a while. But is it actually true?

And more importantly, how should we as leaders be responding to it? Today, that's what we're going to look at. We're going to explore this cycle phenomenon. You know what I'm talking about?

That thing about things just come back again and again. We're going to explore why that happens and how we might lead through it a bit more effectively. So first, let's just address that elephant in the room. Yes, education does move in cycles and there are several reasons why.

One reason, and it's a reason that I've been reflecting a lot on lately, is that we are obsessed with change in education. It is baked into our system. Think about it. When was the last time you applied for a leadership position and were asked about your experience managing change?

You know, when I was stepping into my first middle leadership role, my line manager said to me, I remember very clearly, she said, Shane, before you do this, you need to do a change project. That's going to really help you develop your leadership. Many of us have had this, right? Change projects are a pretty standard part of leadership development projects.

We're taught that to be a good leader, we must be a change agent, right? It's almost as if maintaining stability and consistency is somehow a leadership failure. Even in my own work, I've co-authored a book called Change Starts Here. You know, I'm into change with my colleague Ephraim.

And I obviously believe change is inevitable and necessary. We can't argue against that. But should it be the driving force on how we lead? I'm just not convinced.

The second reason that these cycles seem to come about is simply because there are only so many fundamental ideas in education. In reality, there's a finite number of ways that we can structure our learning in schools. There are only so many finite ways that we can deliver a curriculum or assess understanding. So we might be dressing different approaches up in new languages, new technology, but the core concepts, they tend to recycle.

And this, I think, becomes particularly evident when new leadership arrives in school. You know, new head teacher, new principal comes in and there is almost an irresistible urge to put their stamp on things. So they reach into that limited toolkit of educational approaches. They rebrand something from the past and they present it as something new and innovative.

Now, I know some of you are going to go, OK, Shane, where is this cynical hack come on? Well, you know, there is such thing as genuine innovation. And there is also such a thing as research-informed practice or evidence-based practice, if you like. And I think that's a fair challenge.

And it's one that brings me to a bit of a distinction I really want to make. The most productive way to view change in schools isn't as a cycle of disconnected things, but as an evolution. So new research, yeah, that does come out and it really helps us to understand learning more deeply. And that new technology that's around, come on, we can't do a podcast without mentioning AI.

It's creating possibilities that didn't even exist before. Or even societal changes or things happening in society. Yes, I'm going to mention that drama, adolescents, we're all talking about it right now. These can really challenge and demand new approaches to prepare students for the futures that they're in.

And they're not just always the same ideas in new packaging. They can represent genuine progress, genuine refinement, if you like. Let's take formative assessment as an example. Yes, we can say good teachers have always checked for understanding before moving on.

We can say that. But our understanding of how to do this effectively, like the research behind it and the tools that are available to us have really grown and evolved significantly over the past couple of decades. So given the reality of education cycles or evolution depending on your perspective, how should we lead? This is where I want to offer some practical advice.

First, I think we need to rethink our obsession with change for change's sake. Every change has costs. Not just financial costs, but costs in terms of our time, in terms of the energy, even in terms of our emotional bandwidth. Sometimes the best leadership play you can make is not introducing something new, but deepening.

Or reinforcing what's already working. I was coaching a new leader recently who was new into senior leadership. And she felt this huge pressure to launch a big initiative in her first time. And we explored that pressure in our coaching sessions.

And when we were exploring, she told me that she realized that actually what was happening is this was self-imposed on what she thought others expected of her. And we went through the coaching sessions. We actually worked on this a bit. And instead of just launching into that initiative in the end, she decided to spend her first year learning more deeply about the practices in her school.

And not being inactive, actually celebrating what was working and building really strong relationships. And then she came back to this change that she wanted to implement. And she was able actually to do this in much more targeted way, much more effective way, because she'd built these foundations. And secondly, and this one's crucial, when you introduce change, you need to connect it explicitly to what's come before.

This is where listening to those experienced teachers, those boners, if you like, becomes really invaluable. This episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Now I've been working with the ICA for quite a few years, but they've been around for 30 years. And they've been around championing quality, unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools right around the world.

I really, really love that at their core is a model for improving learning. And this model is focused on the learning experience and they have tons of great curriculum materials, PD resources, and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours. So if you're interested, and I really do recommend you check them out, head over to internationalcurriculum.com.

When I'm working with schools, I look at change in a few different ways. Now, those of you who know my work with World Collaborative and Change, well, maybe you've heard of the Double Diamond model and you've seen I did a Change series as part of this podcast. So there's a detailed framework there, but essentially there's a framework that I use when I'm just chatting with schools about change. Firstly, I ask schools to acknowledge the past, begin by really recognizing similar approaches to this idea that you have that have been used before.

A simple statement, I know many of you will have experience with project-based learning because we did an initiative back in 2015. So acknowledge where that comes from. Then you bridge that to the present, explain how a new approach builds on or differs from what actually came before. What's different now, we might say, is research shows that there's specific types of scaffolding that make this approach more effective for learners.

So I know we've been doing project-based learning and we've already done that. We're talking about this again, but we're looking at some of the latest research. That brings you to the third point, which is to focus on evolution, not revolution. And I'm not sure who to attribute that to, but that's what you need to focus on, evolving, not revolting.

Frame the change as something that you're refining rather than this wholesale replacement. We're not starting from scratch here. We're revolving our practice based on what we've learned. And finally, you're honoring institutional knowledge.

You need to seek out and value the experience of staff who have seen it all before. So ask them. Say, I'd really like those of you who were involved in that previous initiative to shed what worked well and what challenges you face. Let's not go into this blind.

I have seen this kind of approach to change, to really transform some of that cynicism into actual engagement. When experienced staff feel their knowledge is valued rather than dismissed, they often become your strongest allies in implementing the change. There was one school that really stands out to me that I worked with. They were thinking about behavior management.

I've spoken about this before on a podcast. And they were initially in that change. They were getting a lot of resistance from the long-serving staff who, I think in their words, it was that they'd been through five different behavior systems in 10 years. Now, that leadership team could have dismissed that as resistance to change, but instead what they did is they created a series of focus groups and those experienced teachers were asked to share what had worked and what hadn't.

And when they actually developed that behavior, being careful not to use the word new here, but that evolved behavior approach, it was a bit of a hybrid. It incorporated the best elements of some of their previous systems and some new evidence-based strategies. And the implementation was a bit smoother because teachers felt ownership and ultimately the system was just more robust. It was built on institutional knowledge rather than just disregarding it.

And this brings me to a final point that I wanna make, is that the staff who point out that we're cycling through ideas again, they're not whingers, they're not complainers, they are the institutional memory of your school. Their perspective is invaluable. When they say, we've seen this before, they're not rejecting change, they're providing context. So we shouldn't really be thinking of whether we're just in this constant change of recycling.

There is a cycle, change does go in cycles. The question we should be asking is how do we as leaders acknowledge that as a reality and then use it to our advantage? So here's my challenge to you today, the next time you're planning a change. I want you to pause.

I want you to ask yourself four questions. One, how does this connect to what we've done before? Two, have we consulted with the staff who have experienced what happened before? Three, are we framing this as an evolution of practice or a revolution?

And four, are we being really honest about what's truly new and what's recycled? We have to resist that urge as leaders to present everything as novel revolutionary. It's natural for us to want to, we want to impress people. Instead, we just need to acknowledge the heritage that comes before us and just refine, improve based on new insights, new research, changing circumstances.

You don't need to reinvent the wheel with every new change. If we'll stick with that wheel analogy, in fact, you just need to acknowledge the wheels that you've already got, examine how they're rolling and maybe then make targeted improvements. In the end, we just need to shift from viewing changes, just these series of disconnected things to a continuous evolution journey. Each phase builds upon the last.

And I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you experienced this cycle of change? Have you been that person who's sighing and groaning? Or have you struggled, or have you struggled with teachers and people in your school who have?

Being pretty upset about the cycle of change. And how do you approach it? Get in touch with me on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, or ping me a message. I would love to hear from you.

Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning. Huge thanks to show editor Pete McGill. And for the original music back here, May Silva, thank you so much for tuning in today. It's been a pleasure to have you here.

If we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. If you wanna learn more about the brilliant work from the International Curriculum Association, head to internationalcurriculum.com.