The elephant needs eating

I spent an evening and a day in the company of an outstanding group of educators, a group all of whom embody that essential moral imperative in education leadership that our rangatahi desperately need. It was our first face to face Manaiakalani Convenors' hui of the year, and it ended with a big question from three of our own rangatira - Russell, Dorothy, and Jenny: what do we want from Manaiakalani now?

What I want is system change. However I recall reading once (it may have been Sir Ken) that changing what happens in a single classroom for a single learner represents a system change for that learner (or something like that, anyway). So in my head the question posed to us is extant at multiple levels. 

One of the many strengths of our kaupapa is that it is evidence informed. We know what works, but equally our data shines a spotlight on things that are not working. We have plenty to work on right now, in particular the challenge of creating a systemic, coherent, approach to teaching reading, and writing, and maths. This is a challenge for our entire school system but for us achieving this across our 120+ school network would in itself be a significant system change. And the mahi that each kura, each leader, each teacher, undertakes is tantamount to system change.

But it's not change for all learners in Aotearoa, and the question is what is our ambition? How far do we want to go with this? Um.. how long is a piece of string?

Amongst our shared concerns are the rates of change in our kura, the resourcing of this mahi, and the quality of the ITE that should be supporting and enabling our ambition. However I am unlikely to be able to exert any great influence on these issues across the motu. A well respected colleague of mine once said 'don't try to boil the ocean, Robin', and I frequently have to remind myself of that. All I can do is influence these things within our own kura.

So my focus has to be on our own kura, and how I leverage off the amazing mahi of The Manaiakalani Programme, how I make sure that I get the best benefit for our learners from Manaiakalani and 'Learn Create Share'.

The most important act of leadership in that regard is to 'stay the course',  to 'stay on the bus', to continue to resource the mahi internally, and to be visible and vocal in that support. 

I think that's the best I can do. Yes the elephant needs eating, but we will only manage that one bite at a time.