Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

A New Phase

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When Bruce Dixon and I started Modern Learners six years ago, we had two aspirations. First, to help people, teachers, parents, and policy makers, better understand the ways in which the modern world provided different lenses through which to see education and learning, and to help them use those lenses to make better decisions for kids. And second, to create a business around it that would allow both of us to get off the road, spend less time on planes, and provide a model for other similar communities down the road.

While I think we did a pretty good job with the first part, the second part has been a tougher path. As we knew it would be. And in all honesty, over the past year or so I’ve grown more frustrated and impatient with the whole conversation around educational change. While more people seem willing to engage in these ideas and take steps to make change happen, the reality is that only very few are willing to truly interrogate the “grammars of school” to an extent that moves them to a real reimagination of the work. And even then it’s a huge struggle to shift the narrative.

“Damaging Effects”

The forces against change are powerful and deeply rooted in the way we think about schools and education. The tech companies, testing companies, tutoring companies, universities, PACs…all of them have billions of dollars invested in making sure that any change we make in schools is cosmetic. And honestly, most authors and speakers and consultants aren’t going there either. I get it. It’s hard. My favorite Alfie Kohn quote these days is “I’m still wrestling with how to discuss the damaging effects of traditional educational practices without making it sound as if I’m blaming people who rely on them.” But that is the work right now, I think. To bring the damage to light. You can’t do that by dangling the next adjective for learning as the cure for what ails education. Nor can you do it by just trying to make things “better” via pushing practices that create more “voice and choice” or “personalization.” Those are more efforts in box checking than gut checking.

That’s why most of the “success” stories I’ve seen have come about outside of the traditional public and private systems. Really visionary leaders building new schools for the type of modern learning that’s possible right now. Small independent or international schools that eschew the status quo. Some boutique, one-off schools that are built for small student populations in more progressive areas of the world. They are out there, and their numbers are growing, no doubt.

But in the public and traditional independent sectors where most kids go to get “an education,” these changes aren’t scaling. Reforms don’t cut to the core of the “unpleasant truths” that I always talk and write about, those things we do in education that simply defy common sense when it comes to holding our kids’ best interests at heart. Those things we do which are increasingly irrelevant for the world we live in today. Everyone nods in agreement when I point them out. Few actually have the commitment to find a path to change them. And sincerely, I’m not throwing anyone under the bus when it comes to those who actually make an effort. Like I’ve often said to the people who have chosen to explore this space with me, this is the hardest work they will ever do. It’s excruciating.

Transition Time

With all that said, I find myself in a period of transition. Not that I’m going to quit trying to make the case for real change to happen in schools. But I am going to think about other ways to do that. I want to keep working. I want to get off planes because until they become more healthy for the planet, we should all get off planes. (Zoom anyone?) I want to do more writing, maybe run some masterminds for leaders and another Change School and Big Questions Institute or two, maybe do more work on and with parents (who may be the real drivers of change), maybe more with coaching basketball, maybe something else. Whatever that may end up being, the news is that both Bruce and I have transitioned out of Modern Learners. It’s time. I’m proud of the work I did there. I think the 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning and the audit got people to think really hard about their work. And I’m thankful and have nothing but admiration for all of those educators who over the years in spaces like Change School and our community have been willing to push themselves into the necessary discomfort that comes with this work and take steps toward real change. Working with them, coaching them, in fact, has been the best work that I’ve done in my professional career. It’s been a privilege.

So, on to…whatever. Sincere thanks to all of you who have supported us over the years. I hope you continue to support Missy as she carries on the work at Modern Learners. And I look forward to continuing to create new conversations around education and schools in whatever ways make sense. In this world of huge transition and uncertainty, I can think of no more important work.

On Telling Truths

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So, it’s been a while.

For someone who has had a blog for almost 20 years in one form or another, I’m wondering what happened last year. Started off with a bang. Posted fairly regularly elsewhere. But I think the white space here for the last year or so captures a larger struggle that I’ve been having with my place in the world and what I want to say and how to best say it.

Not to say the struggle is gone. But it feels like it’s abating a bit.

And I’m thinking it’s time to go back to the blog. For me. To air my brain out in public again on a more consistent basis. To write.

Today is the last day of January, and I’m happy to say I completed the “write every day for a month” challenge at 750words.com. But that’s the silly or private or even stupid stuff that comes with a Writing Down the Bones approach. Filter-less, which all of us could use, I think.

These days, however, I’m feeling the need to think out loud more than I have been, even though “out loud” is nowhere near the mostly happy, supportive, let’s learn together space it was two decades ago. Not that it ever got that bad in these parts.

But the thing is, I’m feeling like I’ve got more truths to tell about schools and education and the world. Seems like the more I read and think and reflect, the harder those truths seem to get. The harder those truths seem to hear.

Telling Truths

A piece in the Atlantic by George Packer is what tipped me into this post. A piece that while talking about writing in general, I think captures the state of affairs in the Trump era all too well. And it’s not good for writers, who find it easier to accede to the expectations of the tribe than to try to engage them in shifting those expectations when needed.

The education world is right there. I’m not sure we’re telling enough truths in the education space. We’re afraid, because some of those truths are really hard. We’re too concerned with gaining “followers” by telling them what they want to hear, in many cases by giving them what’s appealing to them emotionally instead of challenging their worldviews.

Writers learn to avoid expressing thoughts or associating with undesirables that might be controversial with the group and hurt their numbers. In the most successful cases, the cultivation of followers becomes an end in itself and takes the place of actual writing.

Can we even remember the days when we wrote not for likes and followers but for engagement and conversation? When implicit at the end of every post was the question “Here’s what I think; what do you think?” and the expectation that the answer would be thoughtful and seeking to deepen rather to end the conversation? When numbers didn’t drive the messaging?

Packer suggests that writers have become afraid.

It’s the fear of moral judgment, public shaming, social ridicule, and ostracism. It’s the fear of landing on the wrong side of whatever group matters to you. An orthodoxy enforced by social pressure can be more powerful than official ideology, because popular outrage has more weight than the party line.

And that is an existential problem for a writer.

A writer who’s afraid to tell people what they don’t want to hear has chosen the wrong trade.

I am many things: husband, parent, educator, author, speaker, consultant, podcaster, curator, lover of basketball, environmentalist. But I’m also a writer. I always have been. I always will be.

My choice now is what to do that.

I choose to tell truths.

More soon.

Standardized Personalization

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Just for the record, if you’re an advocate for “personalizing” learning, then you need to do more than just offer some options for how students might work their way through the curriculum.

That’s just a starting point.

If you really are serious about honoring a student’s interests and dispositions and individuality, then you’re going to have to also honor a “personalized” version of “success” and “achievement.” You’re going to need to honor what fulfills the individual, not what fulfills the institution.

I mean, remind me again the point of “personalizing” a path to “standardized” outcomes?

Of course, this requires that we seriously give up control over where a “personalized” path may lead. But in the service of developing kids as deep, curious, persistent learners, that’s a small sacrifice. Especially when being a deep, curious, persistent learner is now the coin of the realm.

Right now, we can only imagine what the experience of school might be if we put learning fully in the hands of learners.

My guess is it would be more joyful, more hopeful, more relevant than what most kids experience today.

On Learning…In School

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New rule: Whenever we talk about learning, we should distinguish between learning in the real world and learning IN SCHOOL.

For example, the work of John Hattie is cited daily as research that can help us improve student learning. All good, as long as we remember that his research is about improving learning IN SCHOOL as measured by very narrow, quantitative indicators.

That’s an important distinction because the reality is that IN SCHOOL we’re trying to get kids to learn things that they haven’t chosen to learn, that they’re not always interested in learning, that they see little reason for learning when it comes to real life application, and that they forget much of as they move through their lives.

So when we read things like “teaching is the most important factor impacting student learning” IN SCHOOL, that doesn’t necessarily mean that teaching is the most important factor impacting learning in the world. In fact, teaching in the traditional sense in many ways inhibits the deep, powerful learning that we want all kids to experience.

I’m not saying teachers don’t have a role or that they don’t have value. But we have to decide what our aspirations really are when it comes to our kids. To be successful at school, or to be amazing learners who thrive in the world?

What Matters?

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Do we value what works more than we value what matters?

Peter Block has me thinking about that. In The Answer to How is Yes he writes:

“The phrase ‘what matters’ is shorthand for our capacity to dream, to reclaim our freedom, to be idealistic, and to give our lives to those things which are vague, hard to measure, and invisible.”

We’re so scared by things that are “vague, hard to measure, and invisible,” aren’t we? But that’s where real learning happens. I mean how much of what you have learned happened in a particular moment when you were absolutely aware that something was changing? If you’re like me, not many at all.

So, tests “work.” A set curriculum “works.” Compulsory standards “work,” even if they’re often irrelevant and short-lived. Limiting freedom and choice and passion “works.”

But do those things “matter?” And, might other aspects of life that aren’t as cut and dried matter more?

Talking about what matters turns out to be uncomfortable because we know so much of what works doesn’t matter in the end.

And remember, if we don’t measure what we value, we’ll end up valuing what we measure.

We choose.