Reset This Space…….

Among its many innovations, there’s a very simple, yet striking, image at Stanford’s d.school. It’s a label saying ‘Reset This Space: Here’s how:’ Below this instruction is a drawing showing how tables chairs and other props should be placed when the activity is finished. Sam Seidel, Director of K-12 at d.school, told our tour group that failing to reset the space is pretty much the only thing that will get you into trouble there — it shows a lack of consideration for those who also have to use the space.

Our visit to d.school came on the first day of our study tour to innovative schools in California. One week later, we’ve just wrapped it up and it’s been a mixture of affirmation, investigation and confrontation. The schools we learned with — our tours are definitely not ‘edutourism’, and the educators we bring have as much to give as the learning they take from hosts — spanned all age ranges, demographics and sectors (public, private, charters). What they all had in common was a mission to prepare their students for the uncertain futures they’ll face. If anywhere is looking seriously at the skills needed to fuel the knowledge economy, it’s Silicon Valley. A particular focus on this trip has been the leadership characteristics needed to create open and innovative learning cultures, and we saw the following in abundance:

• Common vision and purpose;
• A desire to ensure social and emotional learning is every bit as important as academics;
• Relationships among teachers, extended to students, based on high levels of trust;
• Cultures of innovation and collaboration;
• A belief in being part of something bigger than yourself;
• Human scale schooling — no schools we visited had more than 400 students.

While they’re creating these spaces of safety, of curiosity and, yes, of love, they’re also getting astonishing outcomes, but their success in getting exceptionally high numbers of students (90%+) accepted onto 4 year college programmes feels more like a byproduct of the process, not the driving force. Their expectation seems to be: have students do work that matters, through working on authentic external problems, have very high expectations, have them show, and articulate, their learning at every opportunity, and the outcomes will take care of themselves. We saw a dance performance at New Roads School, in Santa Monica looking at issues raised by the #metoo movement, observed a debate at High Tech High School, Chula Vista on the Brett Kavanaugh investigations (where the majority seemed to conclude there was insufficient evidence) — some educators would disapprove of both, arguing that schools should be apolitical, or that valuable class time should be spent exclusively on the standards/curriculum.

But all of the schools had fundamental principles of diversity, or equity, or social justice, so it makes no sense for these values to be hung on the walls, but left at the classroom door.

The innate conservatism of many schools was memorably summarised by one of our group when, during our culminating presentations of learning, he told of one experiment he carried out to inch the school toward a culture of innovation. He surreptitiously broke up the rows of desks in some of his classrooms, rearranging the furniture into more flexible configurations — within a couple of days the teachers had restored the rows, resetting the space. There is no immutable law that says the default position for classroom layouts mandates rows of desks facing the teacher, lecturing from the front of the room.

As educators, we have to reset the space we inhabit — the pace of change and the societal turmoil we’re living through demands nothing less. We have to show courage and boldness in leadership, not waiting for permission to change. Being here in the United States graphically underlines the polarisation that threatens to tear the country apart. Pre-Brexit Britain is similarly riven, while extremism and populism are on the rise everywhere.

In that context, what’s more important: incessant test-prep, so that our students’ exam results ensure that we all have a job to go to, or inculcating compassion, critical understanding of societal issues, appreciating others’ views (even when they deviate from our own) and healing the current climate of anger and distrust that sets such a poor example to our young people?

The students we’ve talked to this week have been an inspiration. Despite the febrile political atmosphere, they care for one another, and still believe that every voice matters, every community counts and many of them still aspire to be agents of political and societal change. With them as our inspiration, and with the kind of leaders we’ve seen at East Palo Alto Academy, d.school, Nueva, New Roads and High Tech High as exemplars, how can we not reset this space?