I don’t know about you all but 2020 has been “the future” in my book for as long as I can remember… or at least since Y2K. I have seen so many “Vision 2020” documents and I have been sharing the research from the World Economic Forum on the top 10 skills needed in 2020 the workforce for at least 5 years. It hit me recently as I was talking with a  group of educators that 2020 is no longer the future, it’s literally next week.

With the imminent future upon us, I have been reflecting on a lot changes that I have seen in education, especially in the last 10 years. I want to share some of my thoughts on what I have learned over the last decade about education and our continual evolution to learn and grow to best meet the needs of all learners.

Here are ten things I’ve learned this decade about change in education:

1. Educators are working harder than ever. It’s not more that will fix our schools… it’s different. 

Despite the many reforms, new mandates and programs, and constant focus on improving test scores, The New York Times recently highlighted, “performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000. Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.”

The educators and learning communities that are making an impact ton learners are not adding more to an outdated model, they are doing things differently.

2. It’s the people, not the programs that are capable of the changes we seek in education.

Over the last 10 years, we have seen one to one access become a norm (yet still not ubiquitous), vast amounts of digital tools and programs have come and gone but these tools and programs are only as good as the people and the systems we design them to exist in. It’s the people who connect with one another, build relationships and provide effective feedback to one another. It the people who understand the needs of their students and community and can create experiences that are aligned with their goals, context, and needs. People, not programs, drive change.

3. If you look to learners, you will find solutions. 

As a classroom teacher, I always tried to seek feedback in multiple ways, including having students grade me and give me report cards, a mailbox for comments, and if you just listen or observe, there is plenty of actionable feedback being given at all times in middle school classrooms.  I continue to get the best ideas from asking learners what they need whether it be in graduate school courses or in professional learning with adults. If you are wondering what’s working and what’s not- ask students. Want to know how to solve a problem in the school, community, world- ask students. Want to know how to fix professional development- ask the teachers. Seriously, just ask.

4. Celebrate and elevate what is working. 

There is so much that happens throughout the week and it is easy to get bogged down by the challenges. Whether it is with your students, colleagues or with yourself there are always going to be things that need to improve but it makes such a difference when we focus on the positives and celebrate one another because when we focus on the good, the good gets better. This is not to say that we ignore challenges and only focus on the good, but it does mean that if we want anything to improve, we have a much better chance if we first create time and space to acknowledge and celebrate success.

People are more confident, passionate, and do better work when you focus on what’s right with them instead of what’s wrong with them. Creating authentic learning experiences that empower learners to develop the skills and talents to manage themselves and build on their assets, rather than focus on their deficits, maximizes the motivation, contribution, and impact of all learners. 

5. There are more similarities than differences among all of us. 

I have worked with educators in small rural communities, on islands in the Pacific, in the middle of Alaska, in urban cities, in suburban communities across charter, public and private schools. At a superficial level, there seem to be so many differences and sure there are many differences in the food, culture, dialect, and geography, but at the core, I always find that as people we have so much more in common than the differences we tend to focus on.  Regardless of where I ask people about the aspirations for kids, the responses are the same: We all want kids to be healthy, happy, confident, capable learners, problem solvers. We want kids who can understand multiple perspectives, read and make sense of the mass amount of information, and communicate their ideas effectively. We won’t be able to do this for kids if we don’t expect it of ourselves and model this for our students. 

6. There are many paths to success. Let’s help people find theirs.

In Learner-Centered Innovation, I highlighted the Gallup poll and how engagement plummets from 5th grade to 12th grade to about 35%.  Students indicate they have few opportunities to build on their strengths or doing something they enjoy in school. Unfortunately, this trend continues into the workplace. The 2015 Gallup poll found that:

Most U.S. workers continue to fall into the disengaged category. These employees are not hostile or disruptive. They show up and kill time, doing the minimum required with little extra effort to go out of their way for customers. They are less vigilant, more likely to miss work and change jobs when new opportunities arise. They are thinking about lunch or their next break. Not engaged employees are either “checked out” or attempting to get their job done with little or no management support.

To harness the power in each of us, we need to create systems that tap into the strengths and potential of each individual. I think it begins with what these students advocated in a change.org petition shared in the Chicago Tribune, students want the administration to broaden the narrow path of success defined by test scores and college acceptance.  The high school students beg to “start defining success as any path that leads to a happy and healthy life. Start teaching us to make our own paths, and start guiding us along the way.” If we are honest, isn’t this what we all want- to be happy and healthy and do work that gives us purpose and joy?  

7. There is too much to do and the stakes are too high to go at it alone. 

When we celebrate and honor the differences in one another including culture, race, gender, experiences, and preferences as assets that people bring with them, we can create a more interesting, inclusive and welcoming learning community and world. Our differences are strengths, not deficits. 

This quote from Henry Ford captures the difference in calling yourself a team and working together as a team, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”  Too often in team meetings or staff meetings I think we have become accustomed to showing up and counting that as our duty, but this is not success. Showing up is the first step but to come together as a team, as a staff to put all of the expertise together to work towards something that will improve outcomes for all learners is what we should be working towards every day.  There is too much to do and the stakes are too high to go at it alone. 

8. Our fear of (what we perceive as) failure may be the biggest barrier change.

There is a lot of talk about failure – the fear of it, embracing it, and modeling it. I am all for this but I also believe that we need to confront what it really means to fail. If we are really afraid of failing our students, our communities, our country, we would be relentless about looking at the learners we serve, evolving our pedagogical practices and creating the systems and policies that support a more holistic view of success that aligns with the world we live in and ridding them of ones that impede authentic learning, growth, and innovation.

9. Doing work that matters, matters. 

Like many educators, I have been guilty of creating my fair share of assignments that were just for the grade book to have evidence of a certain standard and had no further goal than to be turned in, graded and handed back, which ultimately landed in the trash can in most cases. In contrast to the many isolated worksheets and activities, Ron Berger reminds us in this article that,  “when we finish school and enter the world of work, we are asked to create work of value—scientific reports, business plans, websites, books, architectural blueprints, graphic artwork, investment proposals, medical devices and software applications. 

Seeing my own kids engage in projects with opportunities to present to an authentic audience pushes them to take the basic skills and the standards they are learning and use them in a context that mattered. When the work is authentic and purposeful, students not only learn and improve in reading, speaking, writing and communicating but she also demonstrated them in ways that were authentic and meaningful to her which provides purpose and motivation for learning.

10 . Our beliefs impact opportunities and access for learners.

If we really want to create learning environments in our schools where all learners are valued and seen as capable of achieving desired outcomes, we have to begin with the belief that they can. 

When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.  There is a lot of talk about creating opportunities for students to interact and have more voice and choice in their own learning, but I also hear teachers who hold back because they aren’t sure that “their students” would actually be capable of this type of work or administrators that tell me, it sounds great but my teachers aren’t ready for this. We hold people back based on our assumptions and our fear rather than believing in their ability to try, learn, and grow. 

As a teacher, every time I tried something new with my students, I learned very quickly what worked and what didn’t. As an instructional coach, I got to work with other teachers to help them shift practices to better teach and impact how and what students were learning. To this day, every time I walk into a school or classrooms I see learn new things, better understand the barriers that we face, but most of all I continue to expand my view of what was possible as I see so many examples in diverse schools who are leading the way. I would love to hear your take on what has changed or not in the last decade that will move us forward.