Leading Education Systems

Stephen Brown, Patrick Duignan, Stephen Brown, Patrick Duignan

• Editore: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781800711327
• Argomento: Education
• Categoria: Leadership in Education

Vibrant, quality, inclusive, and performing education systems remain a constant aspiration for all countries and educational stakeholders, and are more important than ever given the uncertain and disrupted times in which we live. Ground-breaking and timely, Leading Education Systems explores the nature, dispositions and context of the leadership of schooling systems.
Acknowledging the once-in-a-lifetime stimulus of a pandemic, this timely edited collection highlights the opportunity we have for comprehensive and complex new discussions around education systems. Drawing on the perspectives of a diverse range of global thought leaders, academics and scholar-practitioners, this text is a springboard for the re-imagination of education system leadership. Supporting and fortifying leaders to question traditional models of system leadership, Brown and Duignan envision how system leaders might act in collaboration with others to lead differently. Their book is a must-have call to action for education stakeholders to lead us into a new and different age, and a sustainable future.

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System leaders scaling successful educational reforms in an uncertain future

Stephen Brown and Patrick Duignan

We are all time travellers, journeying together into the future. But let us work together to make that future a place we want to visit.

Be brave, be curious, be determined, overcome the odds. It can be done.

(Stephen Hawking, 2019 – his last book
before he passed away)

This edited book focusses on the challenges and opportunities for education system leaders in contexts of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – known as a VUCA world. Currently, organisational environments are increasingly characterised by global disruptions that create unprecedented challenges for leaders of complex systems, such as businesses, hospitals, schools and education systems. The pandemic, COVID-19, has presented all citizens and, indeed, leaders in every context with a supreme and ultimate challenge of unimaginable proportions. Moreover, recent technological transformations have unleashed their own challenges and disruptive forces.

Brown (2020) pointed out that the most powerful disruptions in education including big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, robots, digital automation and an explosion in the speed and connectivity of smart technologies are all emblematic of what has been termed, ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’. He claimed that, according to Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, this revolution of skills and technology is disrupting almost every industry in the world (The World Economic Forum, 2017). It extends from energy to education, mining to manufacturing, aviation to agriculture and it is pervasive and relentless (Brown in Foreword to Duignan, 2020).

The good news for educational leaders, however, is that the key to their success in leadership in the future lies in the fact that these fast-changing challenges also contain the seeds for successful responses. Leaders have access to the most powerful connectivity capabilities in history, which together with rapidly improving internet speeds and the miniaturisation of connective devices (e.g. smartphones and smart watches) provide them with capabilities they once couldn’t even imagine. The global pandemic, COVID-19, challenges all educational leaders to make a fundamental shift to a ‘new normal’, to new ways of governing schooling and its fundamental core of teaching and learning. Such an event-horizon has provided the stimulus or accelerant to advance at scale many approaches to teaching, learning and the delivery of schooling that have been implemented within the sector.

System leaders in education, however, will need to transform their leadership theories, mindsets and practices if they wish to remain relevant and successful in a VUCA world with its tsunami of changes. Dinham (2014) noted:

A tsunami comprises waves with very long wave lengths. Often these go unnoticed until it is too late to do anything about them. When they reach land, great devastation can result. The ‘long-wave’ changes to education … need to be subjected to intense scrutiny before it is too late. If the profession remains silent and passive in the face of some of these developments it will have itself to blame, at least in part, for what might eventuate.

System leaders in education will face many such tsunamis in the future; they will, typically, present as dilemmas, tensions and paradoxes. Back in 1994, Handy foresaw great changes and disturbances ahead for all organisations when he suggested that turbulence was inevitable given the complex, uncertain and turbulent context of constant change.

It would appear that tensions, challenges, dilemmas and paradoxes are endemic to the work of system leadership in education systems currently and into the future (Duignan, 2012), and they are often characterised in education systems and their schools by:

(1) The narrowing of the schooling agenda towards an emphasis on testing regimes and results as the primary measure of performance. The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), with its standardisation approach to testing, data collection and interrogation impacts on curriculum breadth and the degree of teacher professional autonomy.

(2) Leaders of schooling systems responding to government policy deliberations and debates, which are, typically, (i) about the provision, enhancement and improvement of performance or excellence, (ii) equity – the differentiated support, development, investment in or advancement of some groups, ideas, educative purposes, or (iii) by managing the tensions, dilemmas or paradoxes in ways to ensure a productive combination of excellence and equity.

(3) Agency, which represents the ability and authority for system leaders to enable and lead reform within the reality of the ‘authorising environment’ (after Moore, 1995). The various models of systemic school governance and levels of accountability, devolution of decision-making, vary from context influenced by such factors as culture, history, geographical and political systems (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 2007). System leaders need to balance their roles of implementing and aligning policy direction determined by governments with degrees of discretionary decision-making.

(4) Approaches to systemic leadership and system regeneration. Reid (2018, p. 18) provides a useful framework – the four Rs (revert, reboot, reframe and replace) – which ‘… explores the possible approaches in guiding system leadership in the consideration of reform’:

(a) Revert: strategies that reinstate the key features of the ‘past’.

(b) Reboot: strategies that focus on the quality of teachers and learning.

(c) Reframe: strategies that depart radically from the past by making significant changes to curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, school organisation and culture.

(d) Replace: using new technologies to assist in pedagogical reform and renewal.

(5) Increasing volatile operating environments along with increased expectations of schools and schooling systems: Peter Hinssen (2017), in his work, The Day After Tomorrow: How to Survive in Times of Radical Innovation, notes that most organisations are consumed in dealing with the now, which, in part, are yesterday’s concerns, issues and work processes. The reality is that leaders of education systems are endeavouring to respond to a myriad of issues – reactionary work – with little time or opportunity to undertake strategic positioning of the system or schools they lead.

(6) Minimal preparation of individuals to undertake system leadership roles within the schooling system: Despite the pivotal role of system leaders in setting direction and enabling policy implementation, there appears to be very little dedicated preparation of individuals to undertake such roles. The typical pathway into such non-school-based executive roles is via school leadership, such as that of a principal, headmaster or equivalent. Further compounding this is that there still remains little or minimal preparation for school leadership roles. ‘Some 35 per cent of surveyed principals in Australia have no school administration or principal training …. In fact, 45 per cent reported receiving average or weak leadership training as part of their formal education’ (OECD, TALIS, 2014).

From perspectives and commentaries on COVID-19 in the press, media and general leadership literature, it seems that a consensus is emerging that all of us will be required to change the way we think and act if we are going to be successful in the ‘new normal’ that’s rapidly emerging. If, for example, we wish to reform and transform education, we must start with the people who will reform and be reformed by it through understanding their needs, desires and what is likely to drive and inspire them. Simply put, reform is all about people, first, second and always! Any attempts to change school systems, schools, teachers or students must start with a consideration of people involved – their leadership paradigms, beliefs, especially their mindsets, and re-form them, if necessary, because: ‘If you’re shackled to who you are now, you can’t recognise – or reach for – who you might become next’ (Garvey Berger, 2020, p. 92). Garvey Berger’s research in a number of different types of organisations indicates that leaders’ ‘identity mindtraps’, or ‘fixed mindsets’ (e.g. Dweck, 2016), can blind them to personal and professional-growth opportunities, mainly because these mindsets focus on protecting the person they have become, not on growing into the person they can become. She reported from her research:

I have found that we humans are brilliantly designed for an older, less connected, and more predicable version of the world. In today’s highly interconnected, fast-changing world, we need to take some of that brilliant design and purposefully reshape it to be fit for the unpredictable future [the new normal] that is unfolding. (Garvey Berger, pp. 2–3)

Garvey Berger pointed out that fixed-identity mindsets cause leaders at all levels to attempt to defensively manage, even manipulate, the impressions others have of them as well as their own world views. She claimed that this stance may serve them poorly in a complex and unpredictable world, because if you are ‘shackled to who you are now, you can’t reach for who you’ll become next’ (p. 92). Within a fixed-identity mindset, she stated, ‘we protect and defend the identity we have rather than open to new possibilities’ (p. 98). She identified four forms of mindsets that leaders (perhaps all of us) tend to operate with and from. First, she claimed the self-sovereign mind tends to devalue – even exclude – the views and perspectives of others and values only its own needs and views. Second, leaders often develop a socialised mind (p. 101) where the perspectives they develop of themselves are mostly derived from external sources – their relationships, acquired values and their learned professional expertise. Third, some leaders develop ‘a self-authored form of mind’ (p. 12), which is more informed and formed by their values, beliefs with a deep sense of moral purpose, but they temper these internal dynamics with the ideas, perspectives beliefs and values of others. Fourth, regarded by Garvey Berger as most suited and useful for leaders who will thrive in an uncertain and rapidly changing world – a VUCA world – is a ‘… co-constructed and emergent form of mind’, which she names ‘the self-transforming mind’. People with this form of mind ‘… are always searching for the next thing that might challenge a deeply held belief system’ (p. 103). With this perspective, leaders ‘… spend less time creating and defending a particular version of [themselves] and more time letting life transform them’ (p. 103).

Garvey Berger’s concept of self-transforming mindset is similar to Carol Weick’s ‘growth mindset’ where leaders and their colleagues are open to others’ views and perspectives and are willing to learn from them. One of the most influential researchers, scholars and writers on the topic of mindset change is the world-renowned Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck (2016). In her book, Mindset, the New Psychology of Success: How We Can Learn to Fulfil Our Potential, she provided inspirational advice essential for those attempting to lead educational change and transformation at system and organisational levels in rapidly changing contexts. She explained in her introduction that ‘… changing people’s beliefs – even the simplest beliefs – can have profound effects [and] guides a large part of your life’ (p. 1). She claimed that ‘… the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you live your life’ (p. 6, italics in original). This concept she calls mindset. She identified two general types of mindsets – a fixed mindset where people believe their personal characteristics and qualities are ‘carved in stone’ and a growth mindset, where they believe that ‘… the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development’ (p. 7, italics by the authors of this chapter). This latter view ‘… is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others’ (p. 7).

Dweck’s key point is that ‘… although people may differ in every which way – in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application and experience’ (p. 7). System leaders driving educational change should be aware of and understand the implications and applications of Garvey Berger’s self-transforming mindset and Dweck’s growth mindset because self-created or fixed mindsets tend to be more negative in their views of both the present and the future – they are, usually, not optimistic that things will change for the better. Leaders with self-transforming or growth mindsets are more open to possibilities and the potential for the transformation of themselves, others and their systems and organisations; they are committed to learning how to be the best leader they can be. They value the actions of their colleagues and base their behaviours and actions on a collaboratively formed vision based on a clear set of values and a moral code.

Research evidence across a variety of industries (e.g. in business, health and education) and organisations (schools, hospitals and specific businesses), reported on and discussed in this book, indicates that leaders will need to develop their ethical and moral guidance systems inspired by core values, moral purpose and authentic processes and practices, in order to navigate through shifting and dynamic pathways in times of uncertainty and change. They will need to carefully reconcile such degrees of clarity in their vision with a VUCA environment by collaborating with others to forge alternate pathways towards reaching the vision and have enough humility to allow for resetting their vision as circumstances dictate.

Reid (2018, p. 18) noted that ‘it is not tenable to consider questions about future directions for schooling without a clear understanding and articulation of the purposes a broad approach to education is designed to achieve’. Without a clear articulation of purposes, the promulgation of any view(s) about the future direction of schooling would be ‘… at best problematic and a hit and miss affair’ (p. 18). Reid (2018) identified four essential purposes for system and school education leaders to consider in uncertain times (p. 20):

(1) Democratic purpose: schools are seen as the main mechanism or means by which society develops young people as citizens who are subsequently able...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• 1 System leaders scaling successful educational reforms in an uncertain future
• 2 Leading education change internationally: towards a new approach
• 3 Quality leadership for learning systems
• 4 System leadership for promoting collective responsibility and communities of learners: Insights from China
• 5 System Leadership for Future-ready Learners in Singapore
• 6 Leading School Districts for Improved Student Success
• 7 Leading a connected and partnership-based system
• 8 Sharing Our Story: One Approach to School and System Improvement
• 9 System Leadership – Human Flourishing Through Building Trust
• 10 Leading successful systems in a VUCA world: advice from our contributing authors
• Index