he UNESCO 2030 agenda emphasizes the need for a collective re-commitment to education as a public good. Education as a public good means that responsibility to safeguard the right to quality education for every child should be shouldered by public institutions. This requires policymakers to take continual actions that ensure education remains relevant, especially amid the complexities and ambiguities of a changing world. We cannot afford to have schools that systematically create ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’ Rather, education should create possibilities for every child to flourish. Changes are needed in the ways policymakers approach innovation and risk in education to reach this aspiration.
In our annual HundrED Global Collection of leading education innovations, we have observed that most of the innovations improving education as a public good are nonprofits. They work in a blind spot between the public and private sector. We see this gap as an opportunity for policymakers to create enabling conditions for experimenting culture through innovation.
The following three examples of education policies create possibilities for teachers and students without the risk of failing out of the system.
- Avoid dead-ends
Education systems need to be organized so that there are no dead-ends for learning between education levels. There need to be life-long learning opportunities, established through policy that can be recognized by employers. In well-organized systems, multiple learning pathways lead to learning opportunities that are recognized and credentialed by governing bodies. A system without dead-ends reduces the risk to the individual student and teacher to innovate
- Leadership is important at all levels
Teachers and school leaders need to be empowered to exercise pedagogical leadership. School and district-level decision-makers must take the responsibility to provide the resources and structures necessary for teachers to try new things. At the same time, leadership in innovation means taking the responsibility to dialogue about experiences and knowledge gained through using novel innovations.
- Education policies are formed for tomorrow
Education policymakers should ask themselves “will those in any and all kinds of employment after they finish compulsory schooling reflect on their education and think it was meaningful.” Clearly stated policies allow for flexibility and professional autonomy for teachers, while providing additional support in the process of adapting and changing the skills, practices, and environments of education. Good education policy creates conditions for trust between education stakeholders. We need to be able to trust that teachers have pedagogical competence, the administration is providing support, and there is trust between the community and the schools.
Although policy can create enabling conditions for change, change in education is executed through innovations. However, it is important to understand the difference between ideas and innovations. Ideas are suggested plans of action that might work. Innovations have been tested and tried; they can be replicated, adapted, and iterated with similar kinds of results.
Innovation requires an acceptance of complexity and ambiguity. This is the same kind of orientation toward effort and uncertainty that is also required for learning to happen. The curiosity of the student to learn what she currently does not understand, and the effort required to reach mastery in a new subject can be facilitated or squashed by the learning environment. Likewise, the agency of the teacher to implement a new innovation in the classroom is mediated by education policy.
Policy can create the structure for schools and teachers to be able to take the risks required to innovate. Creating experimenting culture demands a move away from what Pasi Sahlberg has termed the Global Education Reform Movement, that increases standardization in education publishing, relies heavily on high stakes testing and accountability standards drawn from new public management strategies, what Stephen Ball has termed Neoliberal Technologies of the market, management, and performance, or what Kristiina Brunila has called Precision Education Governance. Innovation in education is a move toward professionalization of teaching with a public and shared, rather than individual, assumption of risk.
Systems designed to help every child flourish depend on enabling factors. Such systems allow learning and innovation to be ever unfinished work—for the individual and for society as whole. We recognize here the varying capacities of public institutions to create such enabling conditions. In highly competitive education systems, parents and other stakeholders can be extremely reluctant for teachers to innovate if innovation means deviating from the standards. This is especially the case when test scores determine students’ possibilities for further education and future social mobility.
We end with an invitation to act. In education, there is currently an over-reliance on ideas. What is needed is continuous innovation and risk taking. Enough reimagining—it’s time to act on what Gert Beista calls the beautiful risk of education. Let's create space within public systems that support the creative and continual work of innovation in education to ensure that education as a public good is as dynamic as the societies to which it serves.
a global affairs media network
The Beautiful Risk of Education Innovation
Photo by Patrick Tomasso via Unsplash.
September 25, 2022
In education, there is currently an over-reliance on ideas, but what is needed is continuous innovation and risk taking. We must create space within public systems that support the creative and continual work of innovation in education, write HundrED’s Crystal Green and Lasse Leponiemi.
T
he UNESCO 2030 agenda emphasizes the need for a collective re-commitment to education as a public good. Education as a public good means that responsibility to safeguard the right to quality education for every child should be shouldered by public institutions. This requires policymakers to take continual actions that ensure education remains relevant, especially amid the complexities and ambiguities of a changing world. We cannot afford to have schools that systematically create ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’ Rather, education should create possibilities for every child to flourish. Changes are needed in the ways policymakers approach innovation and risk in education to reach this aspiration.
In our annual HundrED Global Collection of leading education innovations, we have observed that most of the innovations improving education as a public good are nonprofits. They work in a blind spot between the public and private sector. We see this gap as an opportunity for policymakers to create enabling conditions for experimenting culture through innovation.
The following three examples of education policies create possibilities for teachers and students without the risk of failing out of the system.
- Avoid dead-ends
Education systems need to be organized so that there are no dead-ends for learning between education levels. There need to be life-long learning opportunities, established through policy that can be recognized by employers. In well-organized systems, multiple learning pathways lead to learning opportunities that are recognized and credentialed by governing bodies. A system without dead-ends reduces the risk to the individual student and teacher to innovate
- Leadership is important at all levels
Teachers and school leaders need to be empowered to exercise pedagogical leadership. School and district-level decision-makers must take the responsibility to provide the resources and structures necessary for teachers to try new things. At the same time, leadership in innovation means taking the responsibility to dialogue about experiences and knowledge gained through using novel innovations.
- Education policies are formed for tomorrow
Education policymakers should ask themselves “will those in any and all kinds of employment after they finish compulsory schooling reflect on their education and think it was meaningful.” Clearly stated policies allow for flexibility and professional autonomy for teachers, while providing additional support in the process of adapting and changing the skills, practices, and environments of education. Good education policy creates conditions for trust between education stakeholders. We need to be able to trust that teachers have pedagogical competence, the administration is providing support, and there is trust between the community and the schools.
Although policy can create enabling conditions for change, change in education is executed through innovations. However, it is important to understand the difference between ideas and innovations. Ideas are suggested plans of action that might work. Innovations have been tested and tried; they can be replicated, adapted, and iterated with similar kinds of results.
Innovation requires an acceptance of complexity and ambiguity. This is the same kind of orientation toward effort and uncertainty that is also required for learning to happen. The curiosity of the student to learn what she currently does not understand, and the effort required to reach mastery in a new subject can be facilitated or squashed by the learning environment. Likewise, the agency of the teacher to implement a new innovation in the classroom is mediated by education policy.
Policy can create the structure for schools and teachers to be able to take the risks required to innovate. Creating experimenting culture demands a move away from what Pasi Sahlberg has termed the Global Education Reform Movement, that increases standardization in education publishing, relies heavily on high stakes testing and accountability standards drawn from new public management strategies, what Stephen Ball has termed Neoliberal Technologies of the market, management, and performance, or what Kristiina Brunila has called Precision Education Governance. Innovation in education is a move toward professionalization of teaching with a public and shared, rather than individual, assumption of risk.
Systems designed to help every child flourish depend on enabling factors. Such systems allow learning and innovation to be ever unfinished work—for the individual and for society as whole. We recognize here the varying capacities of public institutions to create such enabling conditions. In highly competitive education systems, parents and other stakeholders can be extremely reluctant for teachers to innovate if innovation means deviating from the standards. This is especially the case when test scores determine students’ possibilities for further education and future social mobility.
We end with an invitation to act. In education, there is currently an over-reliance on ideas. What is needed is continuous innovation and risk taking. Enough reimagining—it’s time to act on what Gert Beista calls the beautiful risk of education. Let's create space within public systems that support the creative and continual work of innovation in education to ensure that education as a public good is as dynamic as the societies to which it serves.
