Education Leaders LIVE | February Reflections

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. Welcome to Education Leaders Live, a week later than usual. So apologies for that. Hey Chris, how are you doing?

Good morning, good afternoon, great to see you Shane. Always a pleasure. Highlight of my month, this is. Well likewise, likewise. And we get to this month because it was a bit late this time so we get to do a couple. But for those of you tuning in for the first time, you may be tuning in live at Education Leaders Live.

.live or joining us on YouTube or LinkedIn. It is really, really good to have you here. So my name is Shane Leaning. I'm host of the Education Leaders Podcast, which goes through lots of different chatting with lots of different interesting people on leadership in schools around the world and some solo episodes focusing on your leadership strategy.

And this is our companion show where I get to chat with my real good friend and colleague, Chris Scora, who's back in the UK about the episodes. But also it's our chance to chat with you, the listeners, about what you found about the episodes. How did you react to those? You know, when we're listening to podcasts, they're wonderful because we can do them at any time. It's one of my favorite mediums you just can do while you're on the run. You can engage, you're on your own time. It's just you and the person who's speaking. But it's not interactive, is it? Equally, you sometimes just want to kind of comment on something or you go, I'm not sure about that. I disagree with that. Or maybe you think, I've had this experience and you don't get that give back. Well, this is your opportunity. So if you are listening on the bonus episode on the podcast feed, please

come last Thursday of the month, apart from this one, which is a week late. Last Thursday of every month, usually, come and join Chris and I to have a good old discussion. We would love, love, love to have you here. And we've had some good people join us in the past, haven't we, Chris?

Indeed, we have. And on that note, I've got some questions that I'm going to throw out there today. And I'd really love people's perspectives on that. It's all very well sitting in the shed, broadcasting when I don't have 20 kids to teach four times a day. But, you know, perhaps those people that have those pressures have got a slightly different perspective and can address some of those tensions that maybe we're going to be talking about today with a real life

perspective. I think that's really important. You know, I was this week, I've had an amazing week and I actually started the week having a conversation with Sam Chrome and Chris Passey, Sam Chrome, author of the power of teams, Chris Passey, co-author of succeeding as a deputy head. And both of them are acting, they are in headship positions this year for the first time. And we were talking about that tension between from the outside in sometimes and needing to get that experience on the ground to know

how this lands in school. So I think this is going to be really, really important. Stay tuned in a few months time. We're going to release that as an episode. But as Chris said, I can see quite a few of you already joining us online. So please say hello. Just say hello in the chat. In fact, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to say hello myself. This is me typing. Please say hi. I've just sent a message in the chat under our video. So I'd love it. If you could respond,

and start interacting with this show. If you see me looking to the left over here, that's because I'm just monitoring those comments as they come in and I'll bring them as we go through. But wow. So it's been quite a month on the podcast. We've been a few different places. Started the month with Gene Tevenetti over in the U.S. on why coaching programs fail. Also had conversations with Selina Boyd about From the Good School Scared about

parent-driven school storytelling. And recently this week with Simon Probert based in Hangzhou. I was just at his school this week actually working with some of his team, which was really nice working on the future of British schools abroad. And then I've done a few solo episodes this month, why smart leaders make terrible decisions. And also a bit of a communication masterclass on paraphrasing something we've looked at on the education leaders intensive a bit as well. Chris. So

Chris, go on. Where would you like to start this week? What's tickled you this month? Well, I had to listen to the Gene Tevenetti to start with about why coaching programs fail. And this struck a real resonance with me. I've had a variety of meetings with organizations and individuals over the last month. And same conversation about coaching and about the value of it and about the value of listening. And some of those meetings, that conversation has been really well received.

And engaged and embraced and valued. Yeah. Other conversations, not so much. In fact, yeah, not so much. I think we'll probably leave it at that. But it established in my mind that the value of coaching was not necessarily universally accepted. And I had a few questions, I suppose, coming out of that around the idea. First of all, what do we understand coaching to be? Because I think if you put that out there,

as I found out two times this week, well, last week, you put that out there. And the understanding of what coaching actually is, is not necessarily shared across all different places. And the encounter that I had was that it was just a warm fuzzy way of doing nothing and run a sort of bottom up approach to leadership and change, which is where we discuss things. And I kind of thought, well, who better to go to for a for a clarification around what coaching and instructional coaching in this context is for people that are listening out there than your good self.

So yeah, I'm about to get murdered by all of our listeners now for kind of getting this wrong. And interestingly, Chris, this is going to be a busy evening here. It's just gone six in Shanghai. And I've got another live stream. I'm not cheating on you, Chris. It's a different brand. Don't worry. But I've like, I've got another live stream with Jim Thompson in the US called

Coaching Done Well, another podcast that I do. And I'm going to get coached live in a couple of hours time, which I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah. People tune in if you're online, search Coaching Done Well, and you can find that. But I think this is a really interesting question because when I was speaking with Gene, and he's worked with so many schools now on coaching program fails, on coaching programs, and he found that so many

would fall apart and fail, which was really interesting. I think there's many different definitions to coaching. And this is where there is a problem. Because it depends where you come from a little bit like in terms of what field you're in for a start as to where your first experience with coaching is like, if you've come from a rigid sports coaching background, and you've been coached in sports, well, you've probably had quite a directive experience probably from someone with a lot of expertise in that particular area, that particular spot who's really helping you, you know, to get your swing or whatever it is that you're doing in the exact way that's going to really produce the output. So quite kind of directive in a way. But maybe you've come from a different wave of coaching, such as the executive coaching field where a coach is paired with you or life coaching, for example, where someone is paired to you and their job is not to have any expertise in what you do. It's about you

finding those things for yourself. For me, with instructional coaching, so the idea of, and for colleagues around the world, instructional just is in the US meaning teaching. So pedagogical coaching, some people might call it. So instructional is also a bit of a trigger word for us in the UK as well, because instruction sounds like a directive, and potentially it's been taken as that by some. But I would say instructional coaching, I like the way Jim Knight would describe it,

this is kind of in between the two, and it's a dialogical process for me, where you've got two people together, two people both with some expertise here, like some, you know, the person who's got expertise in their particular classroom, and the coach who's maybe got some expertise in the practice of teaching as well. And it's about those two people thinking together for the betterment of the coachy. So it's about helping the coachy to get better, to grow, to do something better. And I think this is where some people get a bit cynical about coaching rights, because I think some people would see coaching as just two people having a chat and exploring something. Well, I would say if you're just exploring something, and there's no result, you're not kind of gaining something from it, then I don't think you could really class that as coaching, because it's not just a chat with a good friend. Coaching, for me, should be results oriented. What are you wanting to achieve? And let's get you towards that, whether we do that in a facilitative way, whether they do that

in a directive way, it's about helping that person in front of you become the best that they can be. I don't know if that matches some of your views on it, or if I... It does totally. I like the bit about where you've actually come from. And one of my questions for you is about whether the US and Europeans have a slightly different perspective and approach to coaching. But I think more importantly, the observation that I make around this is you would never walk into a classroom and tell kids to do something because I'm telling you to do it. That's just not an approach that would work. And as educationists, the vast majority of teachers out there would be on board with that idea that you've got a

garner that genuine buy-in, you've got to explore those ideas, you've got to listen to the voice that's in front of you and help guide that towards something positive. Yet, very often, leadership fails to do that. And I'm surprised because if anyone should be in a position to deliver on that kind of coaching within their role as line managers or SLT, it should be people that have come through an educational background because that's their bread and butter, their stock in trade. Yet quite often, maybe it's because of time pressures, maybe it's because of whatever. I'm not quite sure what it is, but there's something that impedes that effect of coaching from adult to adult in a way that we're probably pretty good at doing adult to student in the classroom environment. Why is there that breakdown? And I don't really understand that.

And I listened to Jane and there was all sorts in there as to why that might be the case. And I was trying to pin down and think about my experiences and where it's fitted and where things have fallen apart. I think the word that I heard from you, Chris, was pressure. And I think most educators, when they go into leadership, do have a vision of what good leadership should be. And most people would agree that good leadership is empowering and it's good listening and it's seeing the best in your colleagues and bringing that out and aligning people around a shared community vision.

And I think it would be rare to see a leader who was going into this as a new leader, not saying that. You don't find many new leaders who go. I think the job of a good leader is to direct, direct, direct and tell people what they need to do. I don't think many people go into it. However, I think there is a reality that when you get into a leadership position, pressures start hitting you from all over the place and leadership is an intensely pressured position.

Sometimes I think it's not fully understood by those who are not in leadership. Sometimes it can be looked at and gone, oh, what do they do in their office all day or doing that kind of thing? These kind of throw away comments just in the same way teachers can be looked at and said, what do you do with all your holidays? It's not useful. It's not true either. And I think leaders get hit with all these pressures. They're reporting to other leaders, usually. They're within a network or a system. And it's like, I need to get this done now and I need these things done.

And if you're not well-planned and in advance, and then you need your teams to do something, sometimes you're going to resort to going and panic. The only way I can get this done in the way that I need it done, which I'm being pressured to do is to tell people to do it. And so I think people start to resort to that in the reality of the day-to-day leadership. And I think that's fair enough in a way, because if you haven't been trained in a coaching methodology, if you haven't developed your leadership skills in some of the ways that I'm teaching on my intensive course at the minute, Chris, on how to speak with clarity, how to run effective conversations.

On how to lead according to your own values. If you've never had the chance to explore that and practice that, then just asking a leader to lead, I just think is so difficult. And I still think so many leaders are vastly underprepared for the complexities of the role. And what do you do when you're over your head? Well, you try to control things as best you can.

Yeah. Yeah. And good decisions, good decisions, good choices, and empathy, take time and head space, and you don't always have that. Just as a point of reference, folks, I'm actually on this cohort of the course, the intensive leaders, and I'm loving it. I'm just going to put that out there as a happy client, let's say. No bias involved at all, but love it.

So yeah, it just strikes me odd that you come through that system as a teacher, and then you forget all the good stuff that you've learned about coaching kids and don't employ it when you're working with adults. And I think that there's often the idea of accountability often takes priority just by virtue of time over and above the idea of sort of getting the best out to people and building that internal capacity. And maybe it's a little bit to do with that sort of throwaway culture, disposability, I don't know, but I think we could do a whole lot better as an industry in helping coach people and bring them to the right place. Take them on the journey that they're on, rather than taking them on the journey that we're on.

We do all that coaching work with youngsters that we work with as teachers, and then we kind of forget it all under the pressure of leadership and that possibly asks a few questions around how we structure our leadership positions and things like that, because it needs time to make good decisions and good choices as a leader. And I wonder if maybe we've always got that available. Yeah, that's a really good point. And it's interesting, I've got Gene's episode up in front of me, and he was talking about why so many coaching interventions fail. And for those who haven't listened to the episode, there's a few reasons that he cites.

Like, one is treating coaching as a remedial tool, like coaching only, you know, using coaching as a way to get your bad teachers better or whatever, like, you know, like, that's going to work. But he also, like, I mean, he challenged me on something else, which I hadn't really thought of in the way he described it, was also on the idea of confidentiality. And I think sometimes people get tripped up because in the true sense of coaching, like, if you were to go to the International Coaching Federation and ask them what coaches should be, they would say, coaching should be always 100% confidential. And Gene was, I think, really helped me challenge this in my mind to go, well, coaching should be agreed and you should agree what is confidential and what is not confidential.

But it shouldn't just be that everything you discuss is confidential because if a coach has to, if a school has to do their whole professional development system in confidentiality, then how is anyone going to be able to help the teachers from outside that coaching relationship? And how do you ensure that you have got, you know, the program is working and impactful? So his idea was that, you know, that you should make an agreement where certain things are kept confidential, maybe in the how you discuss it and what comes up to an extent. But there are certain things that an agreement should be made that can be shared, such as those goals and how people are working towards them.

Maybe that's something that is useful to be shared so you can get the support. And actually, that's an essential element of kind of reflection at SLT level as well, because if you are working and coaching and listening to what's going on in your school, it might be that there's an issue that goes beyond that one to one relationship. It might be a common thread, maybe you're getting something wrong, maybe something you've missed, an assumption that you've made, and actually to bring that out of the one to one relationship might be to develop it and make things better. But how do you do that without someone feeling like there's been a breach of confidentiality?

And I kind of agree that that shouldn't be a sort of sacred space in that respect. I think it should be open dialogue. I also have concerns from a safeguarding perspective about the sort of overuse of confidentiality within the education space. I think that the reality is that if we're transparent rather than confidential, it's a much safer space for youngsters to be in, and I sort of believe in that quite strongly.

That's true. It's funny because I think confidentiality can almost sometimes be used as a buffer for psychologically unsafe environments. Like, well, this place isn't very safe, so therefore confidentiality protects you. But I guess what we would love to aim for is if we've got schools and teams that are psychologically safe, where people feel safe to make mistakes, where people feel safe to share their goals and share their learning journeys and be on a journey together with their team, then confidentiality in that sense becomes slightly different, doesn't it? Sometimes it might be a detriment to your betterment, because if you've got a supportive group out there, then why not lean into it?

We've got Dr. Wayne Reed joining us this week. It's great to have you here, Wayne, saying a coaching agreement should be established prior to the interaction as it creates clarity, trust, and shared expectations. I think that's right, and I think it's all about making those agreements really clear at the beginning. What are we discussing? What's okay to share? What's okay not to? And making that crystal clear.

It's kind of got overtones of a prenup though, hasn't it? It almost devalues the magic between coach and coachee in that process. Listen, I'm all on board with the idea of that clarity and the agreement and things, but I can see how that might set some people a little ill at ease, perhaps? Yes. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And we've got a few people welcome, by the way. So Wayne, we've got Education Matters, another great podcast, joining us. They're joining us, saying, I know Paul at the St. Mary's Belfast has a wonderful cohort, and he said they were discussing confidentiality last night. I did a guest lecture for them a little while ago, so that's awesome. And Everett Hill's also with us, replying to Wayne Reed, saying it should also be consistent in the school.

Not everything can be held in confidence, but that should be established up front. I'm feeling a little intimidated at the illustrious company we've got today, Shane. We have, we have. Wow.

We've got a question coming in as well, also from the Education Matters team. What's the line? Where is the line between what staff need and ought to know about private or confidential matters in relating to pupils? Or indeed colleagues. Speaks to a little bit about, I think, your concerns there, Chris.

Yeah, it's a tricky one, isn't it? And I think that when you're dealing with any sort of safeguarding issue, all you can share is what absolutely needs to be shared. The priority's got to be the safety, well-being and confidentiality for the child in question. It's difficult when you're involved to actually get a perspective on that. And I think that's when you need really strong relationships amongst your SLT, where you are able to discuss that.

So it might be, for instance, a deputy and a head who are both maybe the DSLs within the school, for example, might thrash that out and make a decision as to what gets shared with whom and how that works. Yeah. It is a very, very difficult field to get right and a very easy one to make mistakes with. And that's why being a DSL is a pretty awesome responsibility in a school.

It really is. And I can see there's still many great comments coming in on the chats as well. So thank you so much for these chats. This is what this is about.

Chris and I set up this Education Leaders Live exactly for this purpose, to get an engaged community together, to discuss some of those themes that come up on the podcast and you don't often get to chat. So keep those thoughts and questions coming in. And sometimes we even get the guests themselves pop into the conversations as well. So Jean, if you're listening, you know, feel free to give us a little wave too. So we had some other episodes that have been going on for the last month as well, Chris. What else has been on your mind as you've been listening through?

Indeed. I had a listen to your smart leaders making bad decisions, but you had a little bit of a laugh. Was it triggering? Yeah, possibly. You know, I thought about this and I did wonder and reflect, you know, one, was I a smart leader and two, did I make any terrible decisions?

It's not for me to answer the first part of that, but I'm confident I did make one or two howlers in my time. It just fascinated me a little bit. First of all, let me be clear that not all leaders that make terrible decisions are necessarily smart. There's one or two out there.

Should I do another episode? Why thick leaders make terrible decisions too? But let's be clear, the ones that are listening to this were clearly smart by definition. So there we go.

I just love the idea of cognitive bias that you talked about. And as someone that's taught a lot of economics in my time and done a fair bit of reading around Richard Thaler as well, that you mentioned, I'm digging into that is quite fascinating. Yes. Yeah, I often think I kind of vacillate on this a little bit about the idea of cognitive bias because I'm a big believer in trusting your gut.

Yeah. And trusting your gut is a sort of a collective subconscious of all of those experiences that you've gone through, that you've seen, et cetera, et cetera. And it gives you maybe some parameters that you can't consciously engage with. But then I'm a bit of a data geek as well. And I'm a big believer in using evidence and data to support decisions and choices and reflect and possibly move away from your own sort of gut feeling or your instinct or your biases.

So it was really interesting listening to this and trying to work out where I sat on it all. And again, from day to day it varies. I did my notes last week for this and then I had a review of them today and possibly my positions changed on that, I'm not sure. You know, how do we actually go about addressing that issue of cognitive bias as individuals both in ourselves and as leaders in our team? How do we address that?

It's an 18 thing. And I guess as a coach, you'll have come across it on that really, you know, that very front line one-to-one where you had to ask some pretty tricky questions and get people to confront that in themselves. Yes. I think biases are really fascinating to me. And for those who are listening who haven't tuned in, so it's why smartly because leaders make terrible decisions was the episode.

And in it, I explored five biases that actually come up a lot in leaders, which is anchoring bias, you know, anchoring to the first thing that you come across, for example, or availability bias. What's most available in your head and memory is what you go for. And sometimes that means you're driven by those things that are most emotive or endowment effect, which I think the one you was alluding to, you know, there as well, which is all about, you know, kind of hooking onto something, not wanting to let go, being a hoarder that like myself or groupthink as well, and then optimism bias. And what I just find interesting is I agree, there's a tension there. You can't become bias free, can you? Like that's, we know that these biases are just part of the human condition.

But being aware of them can help you in that moment because I agree with you, Chris, it's not, I think we've got to be careful to, we know humans are deeply fallible, like just look at the world at the minute and the chaos that's, you know, and the challenges around the world. So we know like that's part of the human condition is fallibility. I think the danger is you go the other end and you go, well, you know, let's, you know, it's totally fallible. So we can't trust humanity. And yeah, I think you're right. The gut instinct is something to listen to. It is an accumulation of all your experience. It is your unconscious kind of working for you.

I guess the challenge is how do you put some checks in balances in place so that when you use your gut, you are not doing it totally blindly, I guess. And that's where I, I feel, I felt over time, just having knowledge of these biases has been useful. I'm now thinking back to one of the episodes in my very first season of education leaders. A couple of years ago, I had a wonderful conversation with Arlene Badu in the UK on anti-racist, how to lead an anti-racist classroom.

And we talked a lot about those unconscious biases that we have and that you can't really just kind of get rid of them, but you can be aware of them and being aware of them is quite empowering. Yeah. It's interesting that the story that you told about Richard Taylor, the economist, he, I mean, he developed the whole, he started that process of sort of behavioral economics. He was at the Chicago school and he was being taught this stuff and just kind of this economic theory about the rational consumer and essentially just came out and said, hang on a second, this isn't actually true. It's just wrong.

It's just not how people behave. And that's where the branch of behavior economics came from. And I had a lot of time for Richard Taylor's. I've read his stuff. I've used it in class.

And I had this kind of image of him as this enlightened kind of forward thinking, cracking chap. Then I found that, oh no, it's for Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk on how to manipulate people via their websites. That was a little bit half broken. And I did wonder whether maybe, maybe Richard Taylor himself had made a terrible decision in that and done so much harm to humanity following the great work that he'd done in developing this behavioral theory.

With great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating thing. And it's, you know, I contrast that with Tim Berners-Lee just gifting the internet to the world without a sort of commercial focus.

And you think, you know, you start to wonder about the very relative positions of those people. But I listened to this podcast and I was fascinated by the idea that we do anchor particularly. We pick up something and we run with it. And in my work with data, I've often found that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And often we do, even as leaders, we get focused on one piece of data and we don't contextualize it and branch out and think about things like that. And a lot of the work that I've done over the last five years particularly has been trying to develop that contextualized approach to data specifically in order to understand what's happening in your everyday classroom with an individual. And I think to do that, you've got to question your own perspectives. Even if you ultimately affirm them, I think that process of questioning everything is quite healthy.

And I suspect that a lot of the problems that we face individually and as a society and as a world generally come from the fact that we don't question our own perspectives. I think you're right. And for listeners, Chris is the data guy for me. And so if you've got kind of data explorations that you want to do, get in touch with Chris.

And we've also got, I mean, we recorded it last year and we've just got to get it out there in the world and we'll get it out soon. We've got a wonderful self-study course that you can get. And if you're interested in doing a self-study with Chris on democratizing your data, get in touch. Send us a DM and we'll make sure you get that link as soon as it's out.

But I agree, Chris. And we've got Education Matters also having a chat in the chat box. Wayne saying the first step is recognizing everyone has biases for sure. And then Education Matters saying the teacher's journey is a massive journey in self-awareness, knowledge and personal and professional growth.

That includes the acknowledgement of biases and a commitment to work on them. And to that list, I would nowadays add critical literacy as well. Wayne says training in critical thinking, reflective practice, behavioral awareness, helps individuals understand how bias can influence perception and judgment. And it's about not simply accepting what you read, but taking a moment to think about what it means and why it has been written that way.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, you can find yourself, if you're not careful, getting drawn into conversations, perhaps in more everyday circles, let's say, where you hear that phrase, well, I'm entitled to my opinion. And it's been because of some tension for me with people that are friends or even relatives, where I would question everything, even myself. Other opinions are more entrenched and are not open to scrutiny and more difficult to move.

And I think that perhaps our job as educators is to open the world up to a little bit of sort of scrutiny, questioning a slightly more philosophical approach to things. And maybe we'd be better off if we could do that. Who's better place to do it than teachers? Yeah, I would hope so. And you know, this is not an episode on AI or anything like that,

without getting too bogged down in it. That's one of the arguments of the minute, you know, how do we find the human in what teachers do? And I would say that's been, you know, in helping people to kind of really explore deeply these ideas and part of that is being aware of biases. So that's, yeah, super, super interesting, Chris. And thank you so much again to those who are tuning in.

If you're just tuning in live, this is Education Leaders Live, and you can join in this once a month. We usually go the last Thursday of every month. And we are also a bonus episode on the podcast. So if you're listening to the podcast, which I know many, many of you do each week, then come and join us on LinkedIn or YouTube, or go directly to educationleaders.live.

You can join in with us live at 6pm Shanghai time, 10am UK time, last Thursday of the month. Okay, Chris, we've got a little bit of time left. Have you got another episode that was sticking on your mind? I'm going to go to Simon Probert's episode. Selena, I'm sorry. Simon, your friends

with Simon as well, aren't you, Shane? And you know Simon's work very well, indeed. He's done huge amounts of work around this idea of third culture kids, cultural identity, where it's rooted, how it's rooted, and where it's a force for positive things, and perhaps less so. And I mean, this episode he talked about rooted and unrooted cosmopolitanism.

Yes. You know, as someone that's done the whole international thing, as many people listening to this will have done as well, it's an interesting concept. Where do you belong? I've got residency in New Zealand. I've lived in different countries around the world.

And I feel homesick even when I'm in the UK because I miss those other places too. And I think that's something that Simon alluded to. And I thought this was a really interesting idea, particularly when you talk about British schools. I think that the title of the episode was The Future of British Schools Abroad. It got me questioning what's the purpose of British

schools? Why do we have British schools? What is it about Britain that the rest of the world is keen to buy from us in that process? And it made me wonder about the history of it.

And I've done a little bit of writing around this and looked at it. And then you can go back some way now and see that international schools were a tool of colonialism. They were there to prepare for the ruling elite, to rule the empire and so forth. But what's our remake now? And I

thought Simon touched on some great ideas in there about the idea of what is a global citizen? What is Britishness? How do we characterize that sensitively without overriding domestic culture? Where's the balance? All of these amazing questions that he came up with him. I loved it.

Simon is Simon Probert. He's one of those people who just absolutely lives what he talks about and writes about. And he's super passionate, looking up to see him this week. And we sat in Hangzhou kind of chatting about nothing but these ideas. And I think he's really opened my mind up to

this idea of what it means to be a global citizen. And for international schools listening, if you're an international school leader, you must, must listen to that episode. It is huge because so often as international schools, we talk about developing global citizens, you know, citizens of the world. And that's the ultimate aim of an international school, a deeply cosmopolitan idea that these students are just kind of going on there just international children of the world. And they go on to just these international lives. But as he

has researched and seen as well, that comes with problems. Because if it's not rooted, then you feel like you belong to nowhere. And actually, I think some international schools are really starting to understand this. I see it really done well, actually, in China. I think

this is starting to grow quite well in China, the idea that actually in these international schools, especially where most of the students within them maybe are Chinese, for example, definitely citizens of the world, but they're also distinctly Chinese. And that is, you know, that is not okay to just let that go. And it's the responsibility of the school to nurture that root. So he talks about rooted cosmopolitanism. So, you know, the idea that you're

rooted in your own culture, and you feel a part of this bigger picture in the world. And that is a very different vision as to what even, you know, looking back at some of the original scoping of the IB and going back in time to the original international schools that were made, that is quite different from the vision of just being global citizens. There's an important distinction there that I think is important to reflect on. I think if you don't embrace that original culture, for want of a better phrase, that starting point, if you like, you very much run the risk of sort of dominating via your own culture because you bring all of your own biases and your cultural cues to bear. I think within that,

first of all, it's a really tricky balance to get right. Secondly, there's a little bit of a commercial pressures there because a lot of British schools are selling the British name. The fact that you carry those names, Wickham Abbey, Harrow, Wellington and Dalit, those kinds of things. That's because those brands have cute awesome value in the regions where they operate. So they're looking for the kind of British values, if you

like, but not embrace the sort of original culture is to be colonial albeit in a slightly different format, I think. And then a very, very dangerous thing in the world that we live in today. I think the more understanding we have, the better the world would be. You would hope so. I totally agree. And it's so important. I think there was some good work on

this, where people talk about it in the terms of glocalization as well. I work with the International Curriculum Association who sponsors the podcast as well. And they've done a lot of work around this idea about meeting the local and the global and the local meeting. And it just feels like, yeah, we're struggling with that as a world at the minute. There's increasing

nationalism and this kind of thing on that side, but then there's also international bodies which are struggling to operate effectively like the United Nations and stuff. And this really calls into question what local and what global means to us. I think one of the important issues that Simon touched on for me was that idea that pedagogy is rooted in your cultural identity and how you access education as a youngster is framed by your cultural sort of background and your wider cultural context. And I think that that's something that's often lost when we're running a British education in places. We maybe struggle. And I

know that when I first arrived in China, that's probably where this smart leader made some terrible decisions, let's say, bringing those assumptions about what a good education looked like. I had a master's in education. I'd been a senior leader. I knew how these things were.

Yeah, when I came to China, that first six weeks was pretty hard work for me. And I made some mistakes in that because my assumptions that I had didn't fit into the context where I was. I had to make some pretty big, pretty quick adjustments and wonder whether I was getting that right or not. And that process was really born out of trying to listen to the children, listen to the parents and reconcile that with some of my previous assumptions and understandings.

And it wasn't an easy process to go through, but it probably did me an awful lot of good as a human being, let alone as an educator. I think many international leaders listening will resonate a lot with that, Chris. I can see in our chat as well, education matters say, great point. You have to retain your identity. Shared education in Northern Ireland

is much more successful than integrated education. I'd be interested to learn more about that. And Everett has some good questions as well. He says, but isn't the idea of bringing the foreign, in brackets, Western culture, exactly what most international schools are based on? He said,

it's a hard question in the current world as a population of international schools changes to a more local student body. I think Everett, you hit on the exact tension that so many people are facing at the minute. Like still, we're not fully sure what does it mean to be an international school. And for me, in my experience, I think one of the challenges is that we've got different stakeholders of a school with slightly different views on what that is. So you might have, let's take a big international school group, like a British

school brand, like a Dulwich or a Wellington or a Wickham Abbey or whoever it is. And they might have from their homeschool in the UK, for example, they might have wishes to replicate the successes of that and to kind of export that success. And it might seem very logical to say we run it like that. Then you'll have teachers coming in, some teachers choosing that school because it's a British and it's a British school. So wanting that British style education,

some teachers coming from another international school different. You've got the students who are turning up potentially without a choice, kind of coming into this zone and that can be quite disruptive. And you've got parents for which I think we are just seeing so many changes, especially over the last 10, 20 years in why they choose an international school coming for a variety of reasons. Some parents maybe would go, yeah, I want a British style education for my children. But I know in many cases, that is not the case. Sometimes

they're wanting a more international outlook. Sometimes they're wanting access to a prestigious university. Sometimes it helps rather than the process that they're buying. Exactly. And so in which case, what is the role of the school in that? Have the schools accepted

that relationship with that parent they've accepted that student in, assuming they did interviews and explain what the school is about. If there's a tension there, then the school have to own that tension and know what they're going to do about it. If they're going to accept a student, and let's be honest in international schools, usually for quite a handsome sum of money that they're accepting these students for, then there has to be a clear agreement of what this school's about. I'm not sure there are many schools who I think don't have clarity there. Can I chip in with what might be,

I'm going to say easy, Wayne, but it might not be so easy when you actually have to deliver it. But for me- I feel like we should have a little theme tune. Chris solves the world. This should be a segment.

Too much time thinking in my shed, Shane, that's the problem. I think language here is kind of fundamental. And I think language frames an awful lot of the culture that you live with. So there are cultural cues for me that are specifically jawty, that you would not find amusing, but my wife would be good enough to laugh at if I mentioned it. That kind of idea, very culturally specific. The language kind of frames

that. And I wonder if historically, I've worked in a school that was English only. Only ever English was to be spoken in this school. And that then disabled that access to that wider culture through the other language. And I think that if you can reframe that and

turn it round to embrace, encourage and enjoy those different languages. And let's face it, you might have up to 20, 30 languages in an international school quite easily. If you can do that, that then unlocks access to the wider culture that that youngster works with, lives with, understands. And I think that that's a huge win that you can get.

And a huge insight that you can have as a school, as pupils, as teachers. If you just take that time to understand their language, because that then unlocks all of those other cultural cues that go with it. The stuff between Chinese and English, that doesn't translate directly, I'm sure. You sort of have those closest match rather than direct translations that you might have between European languages. And I think that's an important aspect of addressing that.

So that would be my thing. Embrace the language as best you could. I would agree. And a lot of the work I do with schools is around trans-languaging as well.

Yeah, it's difficult for schools. I think there's a lot of identity crises happening right now. I know in my city, Shanghai, there's a lot of schools who have had significant changes in demographics where they have shifted over the last 10 years from a balanced international population. Let's say, you know, a spread of different nationalities to now serving a very specific sector that dominated by ethnically Chinese students and families. And that has

meant that you've got schools that started as one thing, shifting. And this is something that I think there's a lot of school leaders are trying to reckon with. I would really recommend people go and check out Simon Probert's book, The Rise of British International Schools, a really great book published with Outledge, exploring some of the challenges here through the British lens. But I think that many will recognize just in the international school sector overall. Listen, Chris, this is just fantastic. And you've got a fan, Chris,

Dr. Wayne Reed, who you need be intimidated no more because his latest comment was, Wayhey, come on the Jordies. So maybe you do have to share the in Jordy jokes. I'm liking the black and white, by the way, Shane. You should maybe go for stripes rather

than checks, but that's okay. We don't do football chat on this show. No, no, obviously. Listen, this is great. What an amazing community joining in online. This is what

it is all about, this show. And it is wonderful to see those themes like the guests who come on my podcast and share so freely with me, which is just wonderful. Simon was episode 150, would you believe it's a milestone episode this week, 150 episodes of Education Leaders. It's just so much great content there and so much great learning there. I just really value

having this space with you, Chris, to unpack that and unpack it with the community, with people like Wayne, people like Everett, with people like Paul who are tuning in and sharing their thoughts and ideas. This is what it's about. And community I know for both of us, Chris, is very important. And it's how we might actually start solving some of these global challenges that we talk about. So I'm deeply, deeply thankful, Chris. I wonder,

do you have any thoughts or reflections before we close up today? I guess going forward, there is that idea that schools have kind of got to reinvent themselves. And I think Simon touched on that as well, that the world is a changing place. But I think if anyone, if any group of professionals in the world can be a force for good, it's probably each as first, foremost and always. And never lose sight of the awesome responsibility

and the noble work that you have in front of you on a day to day basis. Go and enjoy it and try and be that force for good as best you can. That would be my sort of final thought and possibly explains a little bit of some of the things we've talked about elsewhere. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Chris. This has been awesome.

For education leaders over the month of March, we've also got some amazing episodes coming up. I've got some solo with some practical strategies for you to kind of dig into, if you like that kind of thing. We've also got a few interviews coming up, including on with the returning guest. Actually, he was one of the guests in the first year of the podcast, Chris Baker, Dr. Chris Baker, which I'm really looking forward to doing that.

And Chris Baker also has some, me and him have some plans together, which we'll be able to share as well. And also some wonderful discussion at the end of the month. You're going to want to wait around for this. This is great with the brilliant Meg Lee, who is in the U S and we're talking about the science of leading some of that science behind what makes leadership great. This is a really, really good episode. You are

absolutely, you're absolutely going to love that. So stay tuned for those episodes. And if you listen to them and go, wow, that really inspired me. That really got me thinking that really got me fired up. Or I just totally disagreed with everything that person just said.

And I need to tell someone about it. Then come and join Chris and I, we are live on the last Thursday of every month, which means the next time we are getting together is just after my birthday on the 26th of March. So it would be wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to see you there. Can I very quickly say sorry to Selina. We'll get to your episode next time.

Absolutely. Selina's episode, Selina Boyda episode on how parents choose schools. Chris, you will, yeah, this is going to be something that you'll love to chat about. I know Selina, it was an awesome episode. Selina joined for an education leaders live

years ago, actually, when we first did some episodes. So it's been on before. That's a great episode to go and yeah, to go and check out. So yeah, thanks for that reminder, Chris, but thank you so much for joining us today. This has been education leaders live.

I look forward to seeing you here same time next month. Thanks ever so much, Chris. Thank you all. Great to see you, Shane. Cheers. Take care right now.