June 2, 2025 • 36 mins
Why do so many education reforms fall short of their promise? In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Joshua Glazer of George Washington University unpacks what it really takes to improve schools — not through shortcuts or silver bullets, but through the slow, steady work of building coherent, community-anchored systems.
Drawing on years of research into efforts like Tennessee’s iZone and ASD, Josh helps us understand why education is both a political and professional enterprise — and why lasting change demands more than test scores or talent pipelines. It requires trust. Context. And above all, the capacity to learn over time.
This episode is an invitation to look beneath the surface of school reform, to consider what it means to design improvement intentionally, and to imagine the kind of public education that honors both the expertise of educators and the voices of the communities they serve.
Whether you're a school leader, a parent, or someone who simply believes in the power of education, this conversation will stay with you.
Follow the EduByDesign Blog to explore the podcast topics, further.
And please let Phil know what resonates with you, in the comments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Phil Evans (00:00):
Welcome to Education by Design, the podcast that
explores how schools are shapingthe future of education by
centering on values, embracingcommunity voices, and building
systems that work for everystudent.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Phil Evans.
Lately, I've been thinking alot about why, despite decades
(00:46):
of reform efforts, our schoolshaven't changed in the ways that
we hoped they would.
We've seen waves of newcurricula, new assessments, new
policies, and yet so often theyseem to wash over the surface
without shifting the foundation.
I really want to know why thatis.
The more time I spend listeningto educators, leaders, and
(01:07):
families, the more convinced Ibecome that the challenge isn't
just about the right tools andthe right training.
It goes deeper.
How systems behave.
How they hold on to habits.
How they resist change, not outof stubbornness, but out of
structure.
Systems are built to do that.
It's also about howprofessional wisdom, the kind
(01:29):
that teachers and school leadersgrow through experience...
too often gets crowded out byshort-term political demands, as
if urgency and complexitycannot coexist.
But what if they could?
In this episode, my guest issomeone who helps us to see
complexity clearly, not as aproblem to be solved, but as a
(01:51):
reality to be addressed.
Dr.
Josh Glazer is a professor atGeorge Washington University and
a leading scholar in educationsystems and school improvement.
In his research, he doesn'tjust examine what works, he
(02:14):
studies how it works, where, andwhy.
This conversation explores whatit takes to build schools to
improve by design and not byaccident, and what it means to
nurture a profession that growsstronger over time, not just one
budget cycle at a time.
You'll hear us talk aboutcommunity, coherence, and a long
(02:35):
arc of learning, the kind thatstretches across generations.
I hope that you'll begin to seethe contours of approaches that
treat education not as aproduct to be delivered, but as
a shared endeavor, civic,professional, and deeply human.
Joshua Glazer (02:51):
If you think about what you're trying to do
and the type of changes that I,but many others, advocate as an
intergenerational socialmovement, where we spent over a
century doing it one way, whereall we thought we needed to do
was just get people into schoolsand classrooms, just access was
sort of the name of the game.
And then a couple of decadesago, having done a fairly good
(03:14):
job at that, we realized thatthat turned out to be a
bittersweet victory, sweet inthat we have the vast majority
of our youth in schools, butbitter in that that's no longer
good enough.
We need to significantlytransform what happens once
people are in.
That's a multi-generationalproject.
So you can almost sort of thinkof it as a social movement.
(03:37):
So when you foster thoseconnections, whether it's just
somebody who comes up to you andwants to talk about assessment
and curriculum and that nittygritty, I think those type of
connections, building thatinternational community of
people who are struggling withthese problems, who want to talk
about them, who are developinga shared language for thinking
(03:57):
about them, In some ways, that'sjust as important as the actual
teaching and learning going onin the classroom.
It's kind of just like buildingthe social infrastructure to
support this because it's It's agrind and it's a long haul.
Phil Evans (04:10):
Well, Simon Sinek, you know, I think was one of the
first to start talking aboutlike the why and pointing out
that, you know, as anenterprise, Apple did a very
good job of promoting theirproducts with a why and a reason
at the center.
And I think that's where you'retalking about that human
connection and that validity of,you know, are we going through
(04:30):
the motions of school and do weunderstand what it's for?
And I think about, you know,your work and this relationship
between politics and theireducation.
What I think is so powerfulabout your work is that you're
not just on the hunt to findwhat's wrong.
You're also celebrating whatworks.
Joshua Glazer (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.
Because of course, there's alot of things that we want to
make better and a lot of thingsthat need to be fixed.
We just can't allow ourselvesto become cynical or think that
nothing's working because that'snot the case.
And that's not a good mindsetto bring to this.
Yeah, I mean, about thepolitics, I'll sort of share
with you some of my currentthinking.
(05:06):
And, you know, most peoplewould agree there's a strong
professional component toeducation and, you know, with
our sort of contemporarydemands, what we expect schools
to accomplish, educating allkids to high levels, preparing
them for a sort ofknowledge-based workforce is a
big lift.
It's a tall order.
So the demands on teachers areconsiderable.
It really does requiresophisticated knowledge and
(05:31):
skill and abilities.
But there becomes this realtension between the professional
part and the public part.
You know, on different levels,if you think about a profession,
they're actually fairly closed,insular, exclusive system.
You know, you think about it,you go into a dentist's office
(05:51):
and in some place you've neverbeen to, they're gonna fill your
cavity just like any otherdentist.
Or you get on a plane, youdon't even know the pilot's
first name or where they went toschool, but you sort of think,
okay, this pilot's like everyother pilot.
So there's some advantages tothat, but those systems are not
open and democratic.
So I think we need to think howwe can do a better job.
(06:11):
We'll never make them sort of aperfect match, but how do we
sort of arrange things so thatthe political side doesn't
really undermine theprofessional side.
And because there are ways thatcan happen.
So for example, we know thateven smartly designed reforms
are going to take a while untilthey start to produce results.
(06:35):
It's going to be a much longerprocess than that because you're
just asking people to do thingsat a much different way and in
some ways much more complex waythan they may have done
previously in their career thatthey were trained to.
But the political clock ticksfaster than the educational
clock.
So there can becounterproductive pressure on
(06:57):
schools to show quick results.
The IB is really a perfectexample.
If you have adopted IB, it'sprobably not really
educationally productive to say,how can we use this new IB
curriculum pedagogy assessmentto show results in March of on a
standardized test.
(07:17):
That's not what you're doing.
That's not how IB works.
The payoff in the long run ismuch greater, much, much
greater.
But you have to sort ofunderstand that you're talking
about a longer process.
So we can't say, oh, we shouldjust take the politics out of
education because that won'thappen and it can't happen.
At some level, it shouldn'thappen.
(07:38):
But we need a way to sort ofhow can we make the sort of
political incentives a littlebetter aligned with the
educational process and sort oftrajectory of reform.
Phil Evans (07:54):
Yeah, it's the sticky part, isn't it?
What are we looking for inthose systems?
What should we be investing into try and help education to
shift course so that we are ableto advance our high-achieving
students and regard them andtheir aspirations and their
lofty goals as important whilewe are ensuring that this
(08:18):
industrial model that we're sortof trying to escape from of
masses of kids coming through isactually a valuable thing as
much as we talk about that beingantiquated.
But how do we ensure that thelearning is happening and what
sort of things should wesystematically have in place?
Joshua Glazer (08:38):
Well, one thing is that if we don't give the
public some indicators, avision, a grander narrative to
buy into and to embrace, then ofcourse it's perfectly
reasonable that they will focusexclusively on standardized
measures of student
Phil Evans (08:58):
learning.
The things that are easy
Joshua Glazer (08:59):
to measure, right?
These are easy things tomeasure.
Part, I think, of what isincumbent upon educators,
education professionals, peoplewho work in this field, is to do
a better job of articulating inan accessible way, what is our
vision?
If you walk into one of ourclassrooms, what is it that
you're going to see and why?
(09:21):
And why is that valuable?
What do we mean when we saykids know how to read, kids know
math?
We actually mean something bythat.
And we have to be able to talkabout that, talk about being
able to solve problems, beingable to apply skills in sort of
different ways flexibly, beingcritical thinkers.
That's a narrative that we haveto invite people into.
(09:43):
And then we also, I think, haveto do a much better job of
being able to articulate howwe're getting there and enable
sort of people to understandthat where we are now is for a
reason.
As I said earlier, for a longtime, our goal was just to sort
of get people into schools.
(10:03):
We have not spent historicallya very long time thinking about
how we get all students to apretty advanced level of
understanding and learning.
Historically speaking, this isa relatively new project.
Our old systems are prettyentrenched, but we are actually
making progress.
We're not where we were.
Phil Evans (10:24):
A lot's changed.
Yeah.
Joshua Glazer (10:25):
Just our discourse today that is sort of
that we have this sort ofaccepted social discourse that
it is our job and ourresponsibility to get all kids,
regardless of their background,to a pretty high level of
learning.
is an entirely new way ofthinking about the
responsibility of schools.
And the reason I say that is Ithink that provides a bit of a
counterbalance, offsets to adegree that's focused
(10:48):
exclusively on tested outcomes.
Phil Evans (11:00):
What have you seen communicated about the learning
momentum and the shifts towardsa more learning-focused
schooling environment?
How would we explain to parentswhat they should be looking for
in their schools?
Joshua Glazer (11:14):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think there are a number ofthings.
I think a pretty clear andspecified vision of what we want
our classrooms to look like andbe able to talk about, hey, we
want to see an active classroomdiscourse.
We want to be able to sort of,this is a little bit jargon, but
we need to be able to explainwhat it means to shift the
cognitive load to students wherestudents are actually actively
(11:36):
engaged, workingcollaboratively, solving real
life problems in classrooms.
Phil Evans (11:41):
Like student agency, like you would see students
actually being agents of theirlearning.
That would be evidence.
Joshua Glazer (11:47):
Yeah, yeah.
And to say, you know, we'rereally trying to move away from
students as sort of passiverecipients sitting there, you
know, copying off theblackboard.
We understand now that thatcreates maybe a visual image,
which in some ways appealing,you know, quiet classroom, kids
looking attentive, but thatactually is not how learning
works.
We understand learning to be amuch more active process.
(12:08):
We understand learning to be amuch more social process of kids
interacting with each other,communicating in productive
ways.
So I I think part of what Iwould say to a parent or a
policymaker is let's understandwhat a learning-centered
classroom looks like.
I think that there are thingsthat we should expect to see
(12:30):
happening in our schools at theorganizational level that are
not specifically in theclassroom, but that are tied
together.
to creating the capacity andthe abilities and capabilities
to actually make classrooms,like I just described, work.
Because one thing that'simportant to understand is that
(12:51):
it's easy to say, I wantdynamic, vibrant,
discourse-rich, problem-solvingclassrooms.
Making that happen classroomafter classroom, school after
school is challenging.
In many ways, traditionalinstruction is much easier than
(13:12):
more ambitious visions ofteaching and learning.
What that means is we have tostart to think about how do we
want to organize our schools asorganizations so that we can
constantly be developing thecapacity, the problem solving
skills, the collegialrelationships, so that teachers
(13:34):
can actually enact in those typeof classrooms?
Because it's not easy.
It's not easy.
Phil Evans (13:40):
It's certainly not easy.
But as schools sort of take onall of these different options
for students, I think some ofthe way that they're organized
becomes broken down and thatprincipals who are the leaders
over these communities struggleto find a way to bring their
communities together with aunified vision because we
(14:01):
haven't always got the samevision at the core of everything
that we've got going on in ourschools.
And I think about the teachers,you know, being in the
classroom and being in a facultywhere, you know, my first IB
school in the US, I would go tothe IB meeting on a Thursday and
I'd go to the faculty Englishmeeting on a Monday.
And it was almost as if I wasworking in two different
(14:22):
schools.
And, you know, I thought about,I think about our collaborative
relationships and how slim theywere.
There were things we could talkabout, but we were really
talking about scheduling andtalking about calendar things
and student issues.
We weren't really talking aboutpractice.
And it was hard under thosecircumstances.
So, you know, as you'rethinking about how we organize
(14:45):
schools and what schools aretaking on, do you feel like
there's some things that wecould be communicating better
about how we provide anopportunity for students in a
school where there's morecohesion?
Joshua Glazer (14:57):
You said that so perfectly, I almost have nothing
to add.
But I totally agree.
I often give this analogy to mystudents, which is that There
is a store, a chain of stores inthe United States where you can
get anything in the world youwant.
You can get a quart ofstrawberries or you can get a
plunger to fix your toilet or ashower curtain or a spare tire
(15:19):
for your car.
And that store is calledWalmart.
And whatever you want, you cango into Walmart and find.
It's just likely to be mediocrebecause you can't have
everything anywhere.
at a high level.
And then there's another storewhich has a much more curated
line of products.
Everything is at anextraordinarily high level, and
(15:40):
that's the Apple store.
And the point that I'm tryingto make in regard to education
is exactly the one that you justmade, which that as schools
take on more and more programsthat require different skills,
that as you put perfectly, havea different language, they
generate a different set ofexperiences for teachers,
(16:01):
different.
it becomes extraordinarilydifficult, if not impossible, to
create a cohesive organizationwhere we're all on the same
page.
We have a shared set of goals,a shared set of experiences,
perhaps because we're using ashared set of materials.
And as a result, our ability tocollectively solve problems,
(16:26):
our ability to collectively getbetter at the work is
significantly undermined.
Yes, you can have a pocket ofIB in the school and perhaps a
few teachers there who are doinga good job.
And across the hall, you havethe AP teachers who are doing
perhaps a reasonably good job atdoing some AP courses, you
(16:48):
know, and so on and so forth.
But first of all, you arealmost entirely dependent on
those individuals who happen tobe there.
And they will leave.
I mean, you know, there isturnover in this field as there
is in any field.
And once those individualsleave, because you haven't
really created sort oforganizational school-wide
(17:09):
systems tied to the program,tied to the curriculum, tied to
the instructional vision, thecapability of the school is
almost entirely embedded
Phil Evans (17:19):
in the
Joshua Glazer (17:20):
people that happen to be there.
And once they leave, All theknowledge, skill, and experience
walks right out the door withthem.
Phil Evans (17:36):
Yes, Josh, certainly.
And we often talk aboutleadership change and the impact
that has on schools andimprovement over time.
But you're raising a reallyimportant point about what
teachers bring to the table andthat education system is what
ensures that that schoolcontinues to move forward with
(17:57):
all the different teachers thatcome through the faculty over
time.
Joshua Glazer (18:01):
So I was recently speaking to a group of
principals and I was trying todrive home the difference
between a high-performing schooland a school which has some
high-performing teachers andwhat the difference is.
A high-performing school, evenif you have some turnovers of
(18:21):
teachers, you have embedded inthat organization a philosophy,
a set of practices,problem-solving processes that
can withstand a degree ofturnover.
But if you don't have those andyou're just entirely reliant on
the ability of individualteachers who happen to be in
(18:42):
that school, you don't actuallyhave a high-performing school.
You have a school with sometalented individuals.
But as soon as they leave,everything that's good about
that school walks out the doorwith
Phil Evans (18:54):
them.
And then the legacy comes.
is also gone.
And what do you build on?
You know, when the new teacherscome in, wouldn't it be great
if there was some way thateverything that our school had
made progress on, you know, overthe years of its existence was
passed on as the context forwhich these new innovators and
(19:16):
practitioners evolved ourpractice?
You know, I see curriculumbeing flipped over time and time
again, right?
The standardized test scoresdidn't come up for the students
we're trying to reach with thesetools.
So let's change the curriculumagain.
And then the teachers don'thave the time allocated or the
(19:36):
community or the professionaltraining.
So teachers are then left totheir own devices.
And then we sort of end up inthis cycle of, shall we perhaps
call it ineffective reform.
But what are some milestonesthat you've seen that have Yeah,
a lot.
I think
Joshua Glazer (19:59):
that's really important because, you know,
like I said earlier, we do notwant to lose sight of where we
need to get better and problemsthat we need to address, but
also not forget the progressthat we are making and then to
understand that this is reallyan intergenerational effort.
I think we have made some veryimportant progress in our
(20:19):
understanding around what I'llcall the social organization of
schools.
How is the work organized?
And you see a much moreconcentrated effort these days
to make teaching a collectivecollaborative work.
So for most of our history,almost all the details of
(20:41):
teaching were worked out by eachindividual teacher operating
basically in isolation.
And that is simply anunrealistic system given the
demands that we now place.
No other profession expects itspractitioners to come up with
everything on their own.
And I think schools, not everyschool, but many have made
important innovations and realprogress in trying to create a
(21:06):
more collective andcollaborative culture in which
core problems of practice thedilemmas and challenges of the
work of which there are many arediscussed addressed and
addressed in collaborativecontexts is every plc a
professional learning communityperfect no it's not sometimes we
(21:30):
have these bring teacherstogether and and it's sort of a
more superficial discourse thana real deep professional one, of
course that can happen.
But in many cases, particularlyif we compare to where we were
20 years ago, we can see a realeffort to try to start to
reorganize schools so that thework of teaching becomes a more
(21:52):
collaborative endeavor.
And I think that's a veryimportant progress for our
system.
Phil Evans (21:59):
I'm glad you added that.
I think it's the missing key.
Sometimes, you know, teacherswill even say, well, we don't
have time to meet at all.
So I think that what you'veadded there is a message that I
hope that people really heararound the importance of
collaboration and teamwork andknowing why we're collaborating.
I think that your point on whycollaboration sometimes feels
(22:19):
forced is because teachers arenot quite sure what we're
supposed to be talking about.
And that comes back to justhaving...
common language and commonpractice and common agreement
around what we're doing.
Joshua Glazer (22:31):
There is no curriculum which will teach
itself.
And in some ways, the moreambitious and advanced and
rigorous the curriculum, thegreater the professional demands
on teachers to be able to useit.
In many ways, their mostimportant contribution is that
they create the context formeaningful collaboration.
(22:54):
They create the context fordeveloping professional
capacity.
They won't teach themselves.
It's not a substitute forteacher expertise.
It actually ups the ante onteacher expertise.
But one of their sort of mostimportant roles is that they
(23:15):
create this common thread, thisshared experience of teachers
who are all going to benaturally and appropriately
struggling to use it.
But that struggle then canbecome the basis for a
collaborative struggle, where wetalk about the nitty gritty
problems of practice that may bein a specific lesson or a
(23:35):
specific part of lesson, reallygranular, but in many ways that
expertise development is at avery granular level.
If pediatric pulmonologists gettogether, they don't talk in
generalities, they talk in nittygritty details.
And that has traditionally beenharder or elusive for teachers
(23:56):
in part because there hasn'tbeen enough shared experience
around which to sort of organizethat collaborative discourse.
But you put a program like IBin there with its specific
goals, with its specificpedagogies, with its materials.
And in some ways, the mostpowerful part of that is the
potential that it creates forteachers to work collaboratively
(24:20):
together, to develop sharedexpertise.
Phil Evans (24:23):
And again, it's a long game, right?
So teachers are reallyaccustomed to change in
education, and quite often thechange isn't always focused on
learning.
It's often focused onincreasing results.
And so when an opportunitycomes along to put students in a
learning-rich environment,sometimes it still feels a
(24:44):
little bit scary sometimes.
And yet I think one of the mostscary things, which you've
pointed out, is that you'reoften doing this alone.
You know, all of theexpectation is that you in your
own classroom are going toaffect results.
But how much better off are weif the struggle is shared when
we're raising outcomes and we'reshifting the focus more towards
(25:04):
learning so students are reallybecoming self-regulated and
confident in their learning?
Joshua Glazer (25:09):
You said something that the struggle is
shared.
And I want to say somethingabout the sort of psychology of
our teachers and in some wayshow vulnerable they are.
We're asking them to doimpossible work, important work,
good work, but in some levels,extraordinarily difficult to the
point of impossible.
And under those circumstances,it would be very easy for our
(25:33):
teachers to have a sense offailure.
And there's a terrificsociologist who wrote a
groundbreaking book and his nameis Dan Lordy.
And that book was published 50years ago and it's called School
Teacher.
The book is about theorganization of the teaching
profession.
And one of the things that DanLordy points out is that when
the work is so individualized,each teacher owns the
(25:57):
frustration, the setbacks, thefailures on their own.
The burden is individual.
The problems are individual.
They are mine.
And I pay and teachers pay atremendous psychological price
for that.
Conversely, when the effort iscollaborative, that takes the
burden and in some sense, thesense of a failure,
(26:19):
disappointment off theindividual and makes it about
the group, which is workingtogether to try to overcome
these somewhat impossiblechallenges.
Because think of that, we'reasking for more rigorous
teaching and learning, higherlevels of student
accomplishment, but in theoutside world in which
(26:40):
inequality is getting worse,certainly here in the United
States, where just sort of, youknow, basic social conditions
are often extremely fragile and,you know, we know all too well
that all those sort of, youknow, social environmental
issues go right into theclassroom with kids.
If we're asking teachers to dothat, we really do have to be
concerned about burnout.
(27:01):
And in some ways, the mosteffective antidote to individual
teacher burnout is turning thiswork into a collective
enterprise where it's not me onmy own, where challenges and
problems are not just mine toabsorb and to cope with and
internalize.
but something that belongs to agroup of people working
collaboratively.
Phil Evans (27:21):
I'm loving the way that you're articulating this
because teachers don't oftenfeel seen and understood and
heard.
When I'm in isolationstruggling, it feels so much
worse.
And so it's a happier situationand an advantageous situation
to be in if we're all in ittogether and our lived
(27:42):
experiences are regarded.
The daily experiences and theimpossibility of the task is
understood Because teachersapproach their job with a duty
of care, like they want theirstudents to be successful.
And so, you know, putting themin situations where students are
likely to struggle is notreally doesn't sit well with
Joshua Glazer (28:02):
teachers.
significant changes to theirpractice with students who are
(28:22):
already struggling andvulnerable to introduce ideas
that are foreign.
You know, we can sometimes intheir foreign community have a
little bit of a tendency tovilify teachers who we just
think are entrenched in oldways, you know, who are
reluctant or resistant tochange.
And I think that's quite anunfair characterization.
(28:42):
We're asking them to take onsignificant risk.
Risk on a personal level,feeling like I have failed.
Risk, as you just put it,vis-a-vis my students who I have
this ethic of care and I don'tknow if this is going to work.
We also need to think how we'resort of going to manage that.
If we want teachers to reallyembrace the type of changes that
(29:04):
something like an IB program isasking them to make, we have to
understand how, we can't askthem to take all the risk.
It can't all be on theirshoulders.
That is enormously unfair.
So there has to be a way todistribute that risk more
equitably.
Phil Evans (29:22):
So then what does it mean to reimagine education or
to rethink education?
Joshua Glazer (29:27):
The more...
that we engage in meaningfulreform, trying to make
instructional changes, which Ithink would greatly resonate
with you and your colleagues,even though it's not IB, a sort
of shared philosophy aroundcontent, about what we really
mean when we say kids know mathand what does it actually mean
to know math and have anunderstanding of the sort of
(29:48):
really conceptual foundations ofmathematics, whether that's at
first grade or ninth gradealgebra, building the capacity
over time to do that.
You know, one thing tounderstand is how complex these
systems are, how deeplyentrenched some of our old
(30:09):
practices and norms are.
What I was just saying earlier,the risk that we're asking our
principles are.
and our teachers to take to thetime that it takes, and how do
we sort of show progress withouthaving unrealistic short-term
expectations, and you sort ofadd all these things together,
and you start to grasp this is areally complex, multifaceted
(30:34):
endeavor that we're engaged in,and then you can start to
understand why saying, oh, Ididn't get The results I wanted
from September to March, well,of course, you know, we need to
think about this as, you know,keeps saying, an
intergenerational undertaking.
Phil Evans (30:50):
It's certainly more of a system reform rather than a
reform in silos.
Joshua Glazer (30:54):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we're trying to turna massive ship, which has been
moving in one direction andstart to point it in another
direction.
It's not going to pivot on adime.
So that I think is something tounderstand and, you know, sort
of brings us back to thepolitics How do we make sure
that we're creating politicaldynamics and incentives that are
(31:17):
better aligned with the natureof the work?
Phil Evans (31:21):
And as you've pointed out in the book that you
co-authored, Improvement byDesign, Promise for Better
Schools, it's how all of theseactions work systematically.
Joshua Glazer (31:30):
Sure.
Educational tools, curriculum,lessons plans, assessments,
information systems, etc.
that just because you put thatin a school, they might not lead
to improvement because it's alla matter of how they're used,
how they're wielded in classroomcontext.
(31:52):
And it says, how committedschool staff were to get
curriculum lessons plans, dothey spend the time and effort
to understand the tools and makethem function?
And that is really a criticalpoint because you know, we need
to understand that when wedesign stuff, and the stuff is
very important, curriculum isvery important, you know,
(32:13):
formative assessments are veryimportant, data systems are
important, but they areimportant not because they
directly in, you know,inextricably lead to student
learning, because they create,they can create a powerful
context and platform on which wecan develop teacher expertise.
The power is not exclusively inthe lesson plan.
(32:36):
It's in to bring teacherstogether to try it.
to have problems with itbecause it didn't work for all
students, to get together andshare their experience and
improve it.
Phil Evans (32:48):
And it's that legacy piece too, Josh, isn't it?
It's that if you've got thatwritten curriculum and it might
be a unit plan or a lesson plan,but that's something that I can
come along as a new teacher andI can look at that and say, oh,
look what this teacher did.
That's really great.
I can see how that would work.
But I also have this in mytoolkit and I'm going to bring
this to the table.
But let's kind of keep movingin this direction.
Joshua Glazer (33:09):
We need to think about...
in some sense, the interaction,if you will, between material
resources, well-designed,thoughtful material resources,
and the social sort of work andsocial and professional
interactions that happen aroundthem.
The power is in the interactionbetween the two.
I wouldn't want one without theother.
(33:31):
That curriculum won't get thejob done by itself.
So we need to think about theinteraction between the material
and the social.
Phil Evans (33:38):
And that social definitely extends well beyond
the immediate school.
There's so much value in thatsystematic approach when
teachers from one school cancommunicate with another school
in their district or their stateor their country.
In the IB context, I thinkabout the multinational
collective of practitioners andthought leaders that really
(34:02):
contribute to the viability ofan education model that works in
the local context?
Sure.
So
Joshua Glazer (34:11):
there's two parts here.
There's one is, why is that soimportant?
It's so important because ofthe extraordinary complexity,
challenge, and difficulty of thework.
No one teacher could possiblydo this by themselves.
And some people would alsoargue that that's too much to
ask for an individual school totry to sort of take on these
challenges.
But can we actually sort ofharness the collective
(34:34):
experience of teachers?
of schools so that this processof overcoming these challenges
really does become acollaborative one.
Because it's actually quiteimportant to understand and to
think through exactly as yousaid, the conditions under which
we can sort of create thesemeaningful paths of
(34:56):
communication, problem solvingprocesses that actually
encompass groups of schools.
So we don't lack for sort ofexperience in our education
system.
There are tens of thousands ofindividual teachers in schools
doing stuff, things happening,grappling with challenges every
(35:18):
single day.
Where we need to get better isin how we deliberately and
strategically leverage those togenerate shared expertise, build
capability, and turn thatexperience really into
improvement.
Phil Evans (35:36):
And until next time, keep on learning.
Music (35:57):
Music
Welcome to Education by Design, the podcast that
explores how schools are shapingthe future of education by
centering on values, embracingcommunity voices, and building
systems that work for everystudent.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Phil Evans.
Lately, I've been thinking alot about why, despite decades
(00:46):
of reform efforts, our schoolshaven't changed in the ways that
we hoped they would.
We've seen waves of newcurricula, new assessments, new
policies, and yet so often theyseem to wash over the surface
without shifting the foundation.
I really want to know why thatis.
The more time I spend listeningto educators, leaders, and
(01:07):
families, the more convinced Ibecome that the challenge isn't
just about the right tools andthe right training.
It goes deeper.
How systems behave.
How they hold on to habits.
How they resist change, not outof stubbornness, but out of
structure.
Systems are built to do that.
It's also about howprofessional wisdom, the kind
(01:29):
that teachers and school leadersgrow through experience...
too often gets crowded out byshort-term political demands, as
if urgency and complexitycannot coexist.
But what if they could?
In this episode, my guest issomeone who helps us to see
complexity clearly, not as aproblem to be solved, but as a
(01:51):
reality to be addressed.
Dr.
Josh Glazer is a professor atGeorge Washington University and
a leading scholar in educationsystems and school improvement.
In his research, he doesn'tjust examine what works, he
(02:14):
studies how it works, where, andwhy.
This conversation explores whatit takes to build schools to
improve by design and not byaccident, and what it means to
nurture a profession that growsstronger over time, not just one
budget cycle at a time.
You'll hear us talk aboutcommunity, coherence, and a long
(02:35):
arc of learning, the kind thatstretches across generations.
I hope that you'll begin to seethe contours of approaches that
treat education not as aproduct to be delivered, but as
a shared endeavor, civic,professional, and deeply human.
Joshua Glazer (02:51):
If you think about what you're trying to do
and the type of changes that I,but many others, advocate as an
intergenerational socialmovement, where we spent over a
century doing it one way, whereall we thought we needed to do
was just get people into schoolsand classrooms, just access was
sort of the name of the game.
And then a couple of decadesago, having done a fairly good
(03:14):
job at that, we realized thatthat turned out to be a
bittersweet victory, sweet inthat we have the vast majority
of our youth in schools, butbitter in that that's no longer
good enough.
We need to significantlytransform what happens once
people are in.
That's a multi-generationalproject.
So you can almost sort of thinkof it as a social movement.
(03:37):
So when you foster thoseconnections, whether it's just
somebody who comes up to you andwants to talk about assessment
and curriculum and that nittygritty, I think those type of
connections, building thatinternational community of
people who are struggling withthese problems, who want to talk
about them, who are developinga shared language for thinking
(03:57):
about them, In some ways, that'sjust as important as the actual
teaching and learning going onin the classroom.
It's kind of just like buildingthe social infrastructure to
support this because it's It's agrind and it's a long haul.
Phil Evans (04:10):
Well, Simon Sinek, you know, I think was one of the
first to start talking aboutlike the why and pointing out
that, you know, as anenterprise, Apple did a very
good job of promoting theirproducts with a why and a reason
at the center.
And I think that's where you'retalking about that human
connection and that validity of,you know, are we going through
(04:30):
the motions of school and do weunderstand what it's for?
And I think about, you know,your work and this relationship
between politics and theireducation.
What I think is so powerfulabout your work is that you're
not just on the hunt to findwhat's wrong.
You're also celebrating whatworks.
Joshua Glazer (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.
Because of course, there's alot of things that we want to
make better and a lot of thingsthat need to be fixed.
We just can't allow ourselvesto become cynical or think that
nothing's working because that'snot the case.
And that's not a good mindsetto bring to this.
Yeah, I mean, about thepolitics, I'll sort of share
with you some of my currentthinking.
(05:06):
And, you know, most peoplewould agree there's a strong
professional component toeducation and, you know, with
our sort of contemporarydemands, what we expect schools
to accomplish, educating allkids to high levels, preparing
them for a sort ofknowledge-based workforce is a
big lift.
It's a tall order.
So the demands on teachers areconsiderable.
It really does requiresophisticated knowledge and
(05:31):
skill and abilities.
But there becomes this realtension between the professional
part and the public part.
You know, on different levels,if you think about a profession,
they're actually fairly closed,insular, exclusive system.
You know, you think about it,you go into a dentist's office
(05:51):
and in some place you've neverbeen to, they're gonna fill your
cavity just like any otherdentist.
Or you get on a plane, youdon't even know the pilot's
first name or where they went toschool, but you sort of think,
okay, this pilot's like everyother pilot.
So there's some advantages tothat, but those systems are not
open and democratic.
So I think we need to think howwe can do a better job.
(06:11):
We'll never make them sort of aperfect match, but how do we
sort of arrange things so thatthe political side doesn't
really undermine theprofessional side.
And because there are ways thatcan happen.
So for example, we know thateven smartly designed reforms
are going to take a while untilthey start to produce results.
(06:35):
It's going to be a much longerprocess than that because you're
just asking people to do thingsat a much different way and in
some ways much more complex waythan they may have done
previously in their career thatthey were trained to.
But the political clock ticksfaster than the educational
clock.
So there can becounterproductive pressure on
(06:57):
schools to show quick results.
The IB is really a perfectexample.
If you have adopted IB, it'sprobably not really
educationally productive to say,how can we use this new IB
curriculum pedagogy assessmentto show results in March of on a
standardized test.
(07:17):
That's not what you're doing.
That's not how IB works.
The payoff in the long run ismuch greater, much, much
greater.
But you have to sort ofunderstand that you're talking
about a longer process.
So we can't say, oh, we shouldjust take the politics out of
education because that won'thappen and it can't happen.
At some level, it shouldn'thappen.
(07:38):
But we need a way to sort ofhow can we make the sort of
political incentives a littlebetter aligned with the
educational process and sort oftrajectory of reform.
Phil Evans (07:54):
Yeah, it's the sticky part, isn't it?
What are we looking for inthose systems?
What should we be investing into try and help education to
shift course so that we are ableto advance our high-achieving
students and regard them andtheir aspirations and their
lofty goals as important whilewe are ensuring that this
(08:18):
industrial model that we're sortof trying to escape from of
masses of kids coming through isactually a valuable thing as
much as we talk about that beingantiquated.
But how do we ensure that thelearning is happening and what
sort of things should wesystematically have in place?
Joshua Glazer (08:38):
Well, one thing is that if we don't give the
public some indicators, avision, a grander narrative to
buy into and to embrace, then ofcourse it's perfectly
reasonable that they will focusexclusively on standardized
measures of student
Phil Evans (08:58):
learning.
The things that are easy
Joshua Glazer (08:59):
to measure, right?
These are easy things tomeasure.
Part, I think, of what isincumbent upon educators,
education professionals, peoplewho work in this field, is to do
a better job of articulating inan accessible way, what is our
vision?
If you walk into one of ourclassrooms, what is it that
you're going to see and why?
(09:21):
And why is that valuable?
What do we mean when we saykids know how to read, kids know
math?
We actually mean something bythat.
And we have to be able to talkabout that, talk about being
able to solve problems, beingable to apply skills in sort of
different ways flexibly, beingcritical thinkers.
That's a narrative that we haveto invite people into.
(09:43):
And then we also, I think, haveto do a much better job of
being able to articulate howwe're getting there and enable
sort of people to understandthat where we are now is for a
reason.
As I said earlier, for a longtime, our goal was just to sort
of get people into schools.
(10:03):
We have not spent historicallya very long time thinking about
how we get all students to apretty advanced level of
understanding and learning.
Historically speaking, this isa relatively new project.
Our old systems are prettyentrenched, but we are actually
making progress.
We're not where we were.
Phil Evans (10:24):
A lot's changed.
Yeah.
Joshua Glazer (10:25):
Just our discourse today that is sort of
that we have this sort ofaccepted social discourse that
it is our job and ourresponsibility to get all kids,
regardless of their background,to a pretty high level of
learning.
is an entirely new way ofthinking about the
responsibility of schools.
And the reason I say that is Ithink that provides a bit of a
counterbalance, offsets to adegree that's focused
(10:48):
exclusively on tested outcomes.
Phil Evans (11:00):
What have you seen communicated about the learning
momentum and the shifts towardsa more learning-focused
schooling environment?
How would we explain to parentswhat they should be looking for
in their schools?
Joshua Glazer (11:14):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think there are a number ofthings.
I think a pretty clear andspecified vision of what we want
our classrooms to look like andbe able to talk about, hey, we
want to see an active classroomdiscourse.
We want to be able to sort of,this is a little bit jargon, but
we need to be able to explainwhat it means to shift the
cognitive load to students wherestudents are actually actively
(11:36):
engaged, workingcollaboratively, solving real
life problems in classrooms.
Phil Evans (11:41):
Like student agency, like you would see students
actually being agents of theirlearning.
That would be evidence.
Joshua Glazer (11:47):
Yeah, yeah.
And to say, you know, we'rereally trying to move away from
students as sort of passiverecipients sitting there, you
know, copying off theblackboard.
We understand now that thatcreates maybe a visual image,
which in some ways appealing,you know, quiet classroom, kids
looking attentive, but thatactually is not how learning
works.
We understand learning to be amuch more active process.
(12:08):
We understand learning to be amuch more social process of kids
interacting with each other,communicating in productive
ways.
So I I think part of what Iwould say to a parent or a
policymaker is let's understandwhat a learning-centered
classroom looks like.
I think that there are thingsthat we should expect to see
(12:30):
happening in our schools at theorganizational level that are
not specifically in theclassroom, but that are tied
together.
to creating the capacity andthe abilities and capabilities
to actually make classrooms,like I just described, work.
Because one thing that'simportant to understand is that
(12:51):
it's easy to say, I wantdynamic, vibrant,
discourse-rich, problem-solvingclassrooms.
Making that happen classroomafter classroom, school after
school is challenging.
In many ways, traditionalinstruction is much easier than
(13:12):
more ambitious visions ofteaching and learning.
What that means is we have tostart to think about how do we
want to organize our schools asorganizations so that we can
constantly be developing thecapacity, the problem solving
skills, the collegialrelationships, so that teachers
(13:34):
can actually enact in those typeof classrooms?
Because it's not easy.
It's not easy.
Phil Evans (13:40):
It's certainly not easy.
But as schools sort of take onall of these different options
for students, I think some ofthe way that they're organized
becomes broken down and thatprincipals who are the leaders
over these communities struggleto find a way to bring their
communities together with aunified vision because we
(14:01):
haven't always got the samevision at the core of everything
that we've got going on in ourschools.
And I think about the teachers,you know, being in the
classroom and being in a facultywhere, you know, my first IB
school in the US, I would go tothe IB meeting on a Thursday and
I'd go to the faculty Englishmeeting on a Monday.
And it was almost as if I wasworking in two different
(14:22):
schools.
And, you know, I thought about,I think about our collaborative
relationships and how slim theywere.
There were things we could talkabout, but we were really
talking about scheduling andtalking about calendar things
and student issues.
We weren't really talking aboutpractice.
And it was hard under thosecircumstances.
So, you know, as you'rethinking about how we organize
(14:45):
schools and what schools aretaking on, do you feel like
there's some things that wecould be communicating better
about how we provide anopportunity for students in a
school where there's morecohesion?
Joshua Glazer (14:57):
You said that so perfectly, I almost have nothing
to add.
But I totally agree.
I often give this analogy to mystudents, which is that There
is a store, a chain of stores inthe United States where you can
get anything in the world youwant.
You can get a quart ofstrawberries or you can get a
plunger to fix your toilet or ashower curtain or a spare tire
(15:19):
for your car.
And that store is calledWalmart.
And whatever you want, you cango into Walmart and find.
It's just likely to be mediocrebecause you can't have
everything anywhere.
at a high level.
And then there's another storewhich has a much more curated
line of products.
Everything is at anextraordinarily high level, and
(15:40):
that's the Apple store.
And the point that I'm tryingto make in regard to education
is exactly the one that you justmade, which that as schools
take on more and more programsthat require different skills,
that as you put perfectly, havea different language, they
generate a different set ofexperiences for teachers,
(16:01):
different.
it becomes extraordinarilydifficult, if not impossible, to
create a cohesive organizationwhere we're all on the same
page.
We have a shared set of goals,a shared set of experiences,
perhaps because we're using ashared set of materials.
And as a result, our ability tocollectively solve problems,
(16:26):
our ability to collectively getbetter at the work is
significantly undermined.
Yes, you can have a pocket ofIB in the school and perhaps a
few teachers there who are doinga good job.
And across the hall, you havethe AP teachers who are doing
perhaps a reasonably good job atdoing some AP courses, you
(16:48):
know, and so on and so forth.
But first of all, you arealmost entirely dependent on
those individuals who happen tobe there.
And they will leave.
I mean, you know, there isturnover in this field as there
is in any field.
And once those individualsleave, because you haven't
really created sort oforganizational school-wide
(17:09):
systems tied to the program,tied to the curriculum, tied to
the instructional vision, thecapability of the school is
almost entirely embedded
Phil Evans (17:19):
in the
Joshua Glazer (17:20):
people that happen to be there.
And once they leave, All theknowledge, skill, and experience
walks right out the door withthem.
Phil Evans (17:36):
Yes, Josh, certainly.
And we often talk aboutleadership change and the impact
that has on schools andimprovement over time.
But you're raising a reallyimportant point about what
teachers bring to the table andthat education system is what
ensures that that schoolcontinues to move forward with
(17:57):
all the different teachers thatcome through the faculty over
time.
Joshua Glazer (18:01):
So I was recently speaking to a group of
principals and I was trying todrive home the difference
between a high-performing schooland a school which has some
high-performing teachers andwhat the difference is.
A high-performing school, evenif you have some turnovers of
(18:21):
teachers, you have embedded inthat organization a philosophy,
a set of practices,problem-solving processes that
can withstand a degree ofturnover.
But if you don't have those andyou're just entirely reliant on
the ability of individualteachers who happen to be in
(18:42):
that school, you don't actuallyhave a high-performing school.
You have a school with sometalented individuals.
But as soon as they leave,everything that's good about
that school walks out the doorwith
Phil Evans (18:54):
them.
And then the legacy comes.
is also gone.
And what do you build on?
You know, when the new teacherscome in, wouldn't it be great
if there was some way thateverything that our school had
made progress on, you know, overthe years of its existence was
passed on as the context forwhich these new innovators and
(19:16):
practitioners evolved ourpractice?
You know, I see curriculumbeing flipped over time and time
again, right?
The standardized test scoresdidn't come up for the students
we're trying to reach with thesetools.
So let's change the curriculumagain.
And then the teachers don'thave the time allocated or the
(19:36):
community or the professionaltraining.
So teachers are then left totheir own devices.
And then we sort of end up inthis cycle of, shall we perhaps
call it ineffective reform.
But what are some milestonesthat you've seen that have Yeah,
a lot.
I think
Joshua Glazer (19:59):
that's really important because, you know,
like I said earlier, we do notwant to lose sight of where we
need to get better and problemsthat we need to address, but
also not forget the progressthat we are making and then to
understand that this is reallyan intergenerational effort.
I think we have made some veryimportant progress in our
(20:19):
understanding around what I'llcall the social organization of
schools.
How is the work organized?
And you see a much moreconcentrated effort these days
to make teaching a collectivecollaborative work.
So for most of our history,almost all the details of
(20:41):
teaching were worked out by eachindividual teacher operating
basically in isolation.
And that is simply anunrealistic system given the
demands that we now place.
No other profession expects itspractitioners to come up with
everything on their own.
And I think schools, not everyschool, but many have made
important innovations and realprogress in trying to create a
(21:06):
more collective andcollaborative culture in which
core problems of practice thedilemmas and challenges of the
work of which there are many arediscussed addressed and
addressed in collaborativecontexts is every plc a
professional learning communityperfect no it's not sometimes we
(21:30):
have these bring teacherstogether and and it's sort of a
more superficial discourse thana real deep professional one, of
course that can happen.
But in many cases, particularlyif we compare to where we were
20 years ago, we can see a realeffort to try to start to
reorganize schools so that thework of teaching becomes a more
(21:52):
collaborative endeavor.
And I think that's a veryimportant progress for our
system.
Phil Evans (21:59):
I'm glad you added that.
I think it's the missing key.
Sometimes, you know, teacherswill even say, well, we don't
have time to meet at all.
So I think that what you'veadded there is a message that I
hope that people really heararound the importance of
collaboration and teamwork andknowing why we're collaborating.
I think that your point on whycollaboration sometimes feels
(22:19):
forced is because teachers arenot quite sure what we're
supposed to be talking about.
And that comes back to justhaving...
common language and commonpractice and common agreement
around what we're doing.
Joshua Glazer (22:31):
There is no curriculum which will teach
itself.
And in some ways, the moreambitious and advanced and
rigorous the curriculum, thegreater the professional demands
on teachers to be able to useit.
In many ways, their mostimportant contribution is that
they create the context formeaningful collaboration.
(22:54):
They create the context fordeveloping professional
capacity.
They won't teach themselves.
It's not a substitute forteacher expertise.
It actually ups the ante onteacher expertise.
But one of their sort of mostimportant roles is that they
(23:15):
create this common thread, thisshared experience of teachers
who are all going to benaturally and appropriately
struggling to use it.
But that struggle then canbecome the basis for a
collaborative struggle, where wetalk about the nitty gritty
problems of practice that may bein a specific lesson or a
(23:35):
specific part of lesson, reallygranular, but in many ways that
expertise development is at avery granular level.
If pediatric pulmonologists gettogether, they don't talk in
generalities, they talk in nittygritty details.
And that has traditionally beenharder or elusive for teachers
(23:56):
in part because there hasn'tbeen enough shared experience
around which to sort of organizethat collaborative discourse.
But you put a program like IBin there with its specific
goals, with its specificpedagogies, with its materials.
And in some ways, the mostpowerful part of that is the
potential that it creates forteachers to work collaboratively
(24:20):
together, to develop sharedexpertise.
Phil Evans (24:23):
And again, it's a long game, right?
So teachers are reallyaccustomed to change in
education, and quite often thechange isn't always focused on
learning.
It's often focused onincreasing results.
And so when an opportunitycomes along to put students in a
learning-rich environment,sometimes it still feels a
(24:44):
little bit scary sometimes.
And yet I think one of the mostscary things, which you've
pointed out, is that you'reoften doing this alone.
You know, all of theexpectation is that you in your
own classroom are going toaffect results.
But how much better off are weif the struggle is shared when
we're raising outcomes and we'reshifting the focus more towards
(25:04):
learning so students are reallybecoming self-regulated and
confident in their learning?
Joshua Glazer (25:09):
You said something that the struggle is
shared.
And I want to say somethingabout the sort of psychology of
our teachers and in some wayshow vulnerable they are.
We're asking them to doimpossible work, important work,
good work, but in some levels,extraordinarily difficult to the
point of impossible.
And under those circumstances,it would be very easy for our
(25:33):
teachers to have a sense offailure.
And there's a terrificsociologist who wrote a
groundbreaking book and his nameis Dan Lordy.
And that book was published 50years ago and it's called School
Teacher.
The book is about theorganization of the teaching
profession.
And one of the things that DanLordy points out is that when
the work is so individualized,each teacher owns the
(25:57):
frustration, the setbacks, thefailures on their own.
The burden is individual.
The problems are individual.
They are mine.
And I pay and teachers pay atremendous psychological price
for that.
Conversely, when the effort iscollaborative, that takes the
burden and in some sense, thesense of a failure,
(26:19):
disappointment off theindividual and makes it about
the group, which is workingtogether to try to overcome
these somewhat impossiblechallenges.
Because think of that, we'reasking for more rigorous
teaching and learning, higherlevels of student
accomplishment, but in theoutside world in which
(26:40):
inequality is getting worse,certainly here in the United
States, where just sort of, youknow, basic social conditions
are often extremely fragile and,you know, we know all too well
that all those sort of, youknow, social environmental
issues go right into theclassroom with kids.
If we're asking teachers to dothat, we really do have to be
concerned about burnout.
(27:01):
And in some ways, the mosteffective antidote to individual
teacher burnout is turning thiswork into a collective
enterprise where it's not me onmy own, where challenges and
problems are not just mine toabsorb and to cope with and
internalize.
but something that belongs to agroup of people working
collaboratively.
Phil Evans (27:21):
I'm loving the way that you're articulating this
because teachers don't oftenfeel seen and understood and
heard.
When I'm in isolationstruggling, it feels so much
worse.
And so it's a happier situationand an advantageous situation
to be in if we're all in ittogether and our lived
(27:42):
experiences are regarded.
The daily experiences and theimpossibility of the task is
understood Because teachersapproach their job with a duty
of care, like they want theirstudents to be successful.
And so, you know, putting themin situations where students are
likely to struggle is notreally doesn't sit well with
Joshua Glazer (28:02):
teachers.
significant changes to theirpractice with students who are
(28:22):
already struggling andvulnerable to introduce ideas
that are foreign.
You know, we can sometimes intheir foreign community have a
little bit of a tendency tovilify teachers who we just
think are entrenched in oldways, you know, who are
reluctant or resistant tochange.
And I think that's quite anunfair characterization.
(28:42):
We're asking them to take onsignificant risk.
Risk on a personal level,feeling like I have failed.
Risk, as you just put it,vis-a-vis my students who I have
this ethic of care and I don'tknow if this is going to work.
We also need to think how we'resort of going to manage that.
If we want teachers to reallyembrace the type of changes that
(29:04):
something like an IB program isasking them to make, we have to
understand how, we can't askthem to take all the risk.
It can't all be on theirshoulders.
That is enormously unfair.
So there has to be a way todistribute that risk more
equitably.
Phil Evans (29:22):
So then what does it mean to reimagine education or
to rethink education?
Joshua Glazer (29:27):
The more...
that we engage in meaningfulreform, trying to make
instructional changes, which Ithink would greatly resonate
with you and your colleagues,even though it's not IB, a sort
of shared philosophy aroundcontent, about what we really
mean when we say kids know mathand what does it actually mean
to know math and have anunderstanding of the sort of
(29:48):
really conceptual foundations ofmathematics, whether that's at
first grade or ninth gradealgebra, building the capacity
over time to do that.
You know, one thing tounderstand is how complex these
systems are, how deeplyentrenched some of our old
(30:09):
practices and norms are.
What I was just saying earlier,the risk that we're asking our
principles are.
and our teachers to take to thetime that it takes, and how do
we sort of show progress withouthaving unrealistic short-term
expectations, and you sort ofadd all these things together,
and you start to grasp this is areally complex, multifaceted
(30:34):
endeavor that we're engaged in,and then you can start to
understand why saying, oh, Ididn't get The results I wanted
from September to March, well,of course, you know, we need to
think about this as, you know,keeps saying, an
intergenerational undertaking.
Phil Evans (30:50):
It's certainly more of a system reform rather than a
reform in silos.
Joshua Glazer (30:54):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we're trying to turna massive ship, which has been
moving in one direction andstart to point it in another
direction.
It's not going to pivot on adime.
So that I think is something tounderstand and, you know, sort
of brings us back to thepolitics How do we make sure
that we're creating politicaldynamics and incentives that are
(31:17):
better aligned with the natureof the work?
Phil Evans (31:21):
And as you've pointed out in the book that you
co-authored, Improvement byDesign, Promise for Better
Schools, it's how all of theseactions work systematically.
Joshua Glazer (31:30):
Sure.
Educational tools, curriculum,lessons plans, assessments,
information systems, etc.
that just because you put thatin a school, they might not lead
to improvement because it's alla matter of how they're used,
how they're wielded in classroomcontext.
(31:52):
And it says, how committedschool staff were to get
curriculum lessons plans, dothey spend the time and effort
to understand the tools and makethem function?
And that is really a criticalpoint because you know, we need
to understand that when wedesign stuff, and the stuff is
very important, curriculum isvery important, you know,
(32:13):
formative assessments are veryimportant, data systems are
important, but they areimportant not because they
directly in, you know,inextricably lead to student
learning, because they create,they can create a powerful
context and platform on which wecan develop teacher expertise.
The power is not exclusively inthe lesson plan.
(32:36):
It's in to bring teacherstogether to try it.
to have problems with itbecause it didn't work for all
students, to get together andshare their experience and
improve it.
Phil Evans (32:48):
And it's that legacy piece too, Josh, isn't it?
It's that if you've got thatwritten curriculum and it might
be a unit plan or a lesson plan,but that's something that I can
come along as a new teacher andI can look at that and say, oh,
look what this teacher did.
That's really great.
I can see how that would work.
But I also have this in mytoolkit and I'm going to bring
this to the table.
But let's kind of keep movingin this direction.
Joshua Glazer (33:09):
We need to think about...
in some sense, the interaction,if you will, between material
resources, well-designed,thoughtful material resources,
and the social sort of work andsocial and professional
interactions that happen aroundthem.
The power is in the interactionbetween the two.
I wouldn't want one without theother.
(33:31):
That curriculum won't get thejob done by itself.
So we need to think about theinteraction between the material
and the social.
Phil Evans (33:38):
And that social definitely extends well beyond
the immediate school.
There's so much value in thatsystematic approach when
teachers from one school cancommunicate with another school
in their district or their stateor their country.
In the IB context, I thinkabout the multinational
collective of practitioners andthought leaders that really
(34:02):
contribute to the viability ofan education model that works in
the local context?
Sure.
So
Joshua Glazer (34:11):
there's two parts here.
There's one is, why is that soimportant?
It's so important because ofthe extraordinary complexity,
challenge, and difficulty of thework.
No one teacher could possiblydo this by themselves.
And some people would alsoargue that that's too much to
ask for an individual school totry to sort of take on these
challenges.
But can we actually sort ofharness the collective
(34:34):
experience of teachers?
of schools so that this processof overcoming these challenges
really does become acollaborative one.
Because it's actually quiteimportant to understand and to
think through exactly as yousaid, the conditions under which
we can sort of create thesemeaningful paths of
(34:56):
communication, problem solvingprocesses that actually
encompass groups of schools.
So we don't lack for sort ofexperience in our education
system.
There are tens of thousands ofindividual teachers in schools
doing stuff, things happening,grappling with challenges every
(35:18):
single day.
Where we need to get better isin how we deliberately and
strategically leverage those togenerate shared expertise, build
capability, and turn thatexperience really into
improvement.
Phil Evans (35:36):
And until next time, keep on learning.
Music (35:57):
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