System change and 'Slow Wonder'

At the end of term, teachers typically feel.. well ... bloody exhausted, actually. In a social media post at the end of last term I said this:

After over 40 years in education I have come to learn that the lethargy we feel in that first week after the  end of term, that inability to 'get out of our own way', that insurmountable difficulty we face when attempting to tackle.. well, anything really ... , that inability to do more than sit on the couch and stare blank eyed, is not laziness. It is the consequence of the state of complete and utter exhaustion in the midst of which the brain is saying 'I need to stop, to rest, to let go, to shed the thousand tears I have held back for so long'. At the twilight of my career I still struggle to be gentle on myself.

We push on, however, struggling as I said to be gentle on ourselves. Emerging from that state could perhaps be likened to walking through a dense fog. After a while the morning sun begins to get the better of the fog, visibility increases ever so gradually, and the sunlight manages to break through now and then, bathing the landscape in the beautiful golden glow that is the hope of the new morning.

In the first week of this latest term break I took a couple of hours to read this book just published by Professors Peter O'Connor, and Claudia Rozas Gomez, a book about the place of slowness, taking the time to wonder, to ponder, to gaze into nothingness, to allow the creative brain to just 'be'.

It is the sort of book I'd like to place under my pillow each night as I nod off to sleep, the sort of book I want to hold to my heart before every conversation with a child or a parent. It highlights one of the greatest tensions I have felt over the past six years of principalship, during which time we managed to 're-imagine' Hornby High School as 'he puna auaha a centre of creative excellence'.

I am only too well aware of the 'fact' that to be creative requires amongst other things the time to simply sit, to daydream, to allow the mind to wander and wonder. It requires 'Slow Wonder'. The problem is that our industrial model schooling system leaves neither time nor space for students (or teachers) to do just that. What's more, our initial teacher education (being so outcomes focussed as driven by our Teaching Council) fails to prepare new teachers to be tolerant of this need, let alone to nurture it.

If we accept the notion that society in general needs more creativity, if we accept that nurturing creativity fuels the very things that make us human, if we accept the evidence that creativity supports enhanced wellbeing for learners, if we accept that that is the purpose of education, then it seems odd that as Sir Ken Robinson says we have succeeded in designing and building the best possible system for stamping out creativity.

Our secondary school system drives students over five or six or seven periods of learning in a day, it shifts focus from one 'subject' to another making a virtue of change and instability. It says that all outcomes must be demonstrable, visible, and of course measurable, otherwise how else will we be able to tell if we are getting 'bang for buck' for the taxpayer's dollar? How else will we know if a teacher is good or not? How else will we know whether or not a teacher is worth her or his salary? 

The question is, how do we redesign a secondary schooling system to allow students and teachers the 'time' for this 'Slow Wonder', this time to daydream, to reflect, to just sit and be?

I think there are multiple attempts across Aotearoa New Zealand at doing just that. Our own mahi has so far been founded upon building stronger relationships between teachers and students, and now creating longer blocks of time in which to undertake the mahi with (in my head, anyway) the time for teachers and learners to simply 'stop', to 'daydream', to reflect. Our own changes do feel a lot like 'tinkering around the edges', and that more self directed exploration time is in order. However I've also worked long enough with adolescents to know that they are a fascinating and unpredictable creature that requires some structure, clear boundaries, and lots of guidance. However you have to start somewhere when trying to change a system.

This is difficult, and I can't help feeling that there are large structural roadblocks in our way. I captured my thinking in this diagram.

Creativity is squeezed between the resourcing models within which we operate, and the collective contract working conditions that exist with the PPTA's collective Agreements.

Before you scream at me, I an at heart a unionist. I was one of those who took to the streets fighting the Education Amendment Bill #2 in the ver early '80's (remember that?), I was one of those who, as Branch secretary, and committed Branch member, fought for the conditions of employment we now have. It is no coincidence that in my diagram, the PPTA contract conditions are on the right hand 'jaw' of the vice, the part that doesn't move. Re-read my opening reflection on the end of term. This probably describes the state of mind and physical health of most teachers a the end of the term. Teachers have little more to give. Our future evolutions can't happen at the expense of teachers.

The answers to creating the space for the 'Slow Wonder' lie in other 'places'. They lie in more generous resourcing of secondary schools. They lie in more flexibility in how resources are used. They DON'T lie in making teachers work harder. Generally speaking, teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand have little if any more to give.

The answers aren't some sort of 'binary' choice. The answers lie in a series of reforms, most of all in my opinion in the resourcing models we have. The answers might also lie in changes to our current contract conditions which seem to suggest a low trust model of teachers. I wonder if this is a result of the 40 years of largely neo-liberal impact on education, and teacher behaviour? The changes to teacher registration for example, adopting a high trust model, have not led to some sort of collapse of the profession., som sort of serious decline in teaching standards and outcomes .... what a surprise. Teachers can be trusted!!!

Of course, I am, not naive enough to think that additional resourcing is just a stroke of the pen away. There are always multiple competing demands for that 'tax payer's dollar'. The question is, what do we value most? How do we think we can have the biggest impact on our communities, on society? How can we best create a human future in which we value and nurture our young people, our future?

Regardless of views on exactly how we engineer changes, we need to find ways of creating that time in secondary education for BOTH students AND teachers to sit, to think, to daydream. We need to value that time without looking for some sort of measurable outcome.  What better way to support our Manaiakalani kaupapa, and our 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy?

We need time for 'Slow Wonder', to allow imagination to feed creativity.