Education Design that Works: Blending Visionary Ideas with Classroom Realities

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In this episode we pack two levels of insight that are mostly at odds with one another when it comes to improving educational design. We examine the dual landscape of educational innovation, where grand visions and data analysis for systemic change clash with the hands-on challenges of classroom application. Working with systems thinking, the fact that we are all innovating around the same core issue, Amy Edelstein illuminates what can become  synergy between high-level design and practical program execution. For true reform to be meaningful and pragmatic, we must work with the tools that help us create a harmonious blend of scalable ideals and individual needs. Working with mindfulness and experiential systems tools, we can uncover ways to value and view insight from these two different vantage points. 

Amy shows how to work with  the Continuum Exercise, a simple yet powerful  tool that gives people the visceral experience that we usually focus on the specifics and differences and yet we could focus on the unity, context, or system we are all addressing.  Lifting above the spectrum of diverse opinions can catalyze a pivotal 'aha' moment that goes beyond bridging differences to transmitting  a sense of unity.

 Whether you're an educator, a student, or simply passionate about the future of learning, this conversation promises to offer invaluable insights into creating educational spaces where innovation, collaboration, and consciousness thrive.

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Episode Transcript

(00:43):
Hello and welcome to theConscious Classroom podcast.
My name is Amy Edelstein.
I'm really excited to speakwith you today about something
I've been thinking about interms of future of education

(01:04):
design and the two levels ofeducational reform.
When people start thinking aboutrevamping education, depending
on their experience and wherethey tend to work and focus,
they usually come at it from oneof two ends of the spectrum

(01:31):
either from high-levelconceptual design thinking or
from on-the-ground, directservice program delivery.
Both of those are veryimportant and valid perspectives
to input.
They're both dimensions thathave a lot to offer.

(01:51):
Melding the two can be verydifficult, and especially if
it's gone about without muchconsciousness or intention.
High-level design designthinking that really looks at
where we want to head to datagoals, purpose qualities that

(02:17):
need to be cultivated is whatwill help us think about
education in terms of a wholesystem and how to support all of
our young people to learn andgrow and develop and find the
joy and love of accomplishment.

(02:37):
But high-level design thinkingwithout the ground-level minutia
of delivery might sound reallygreat in theory, might check all
the right boxes, it might beheaded in a direction that's
incredibly inspiring realitiesin young people's lives and the

(03:03):
individuals that walk throughany particular school door on
any particular school morningthat high-level thinking might
be completely impractical oreven impossible to implement.
And then, at the same time,on-the-ground delivery, really

(03:24):
are in touch with the details ofwhat it is to work in a school
where you have several hundred,500, 600, 800 young people
walking through the door on anygiven day, plus 60, 80, 100
faculty, all with their ownlives and their own

(03:45):
contingencies and navigating anenvironment and the
transportation system, theweather and any myriad of other
things going on in theirneighborhoods.
And those small details and therelatively small number of
students that they are relatedto are really important Because

(04:11):
navigating those means beingable to teach and implement and
transform lives or not, and, atthe same time, simply catering
to the specific needs in themoments of those human beings
without a sense of where we'retrying to head to and the larger

(04:35):
goals of education and thecultural needs and the way the
world is changing and mappingout where we might be in our
unknown future landscape whenthese children reach the job
market means that theon-the-ground details become
small, mundane and withoutdirectionality.

(04:59):
It really takes a stretchedmind to be able to have
conversations and strategicvisioning sessions that take
both into account and that allowthe passion of each perspective

(05:19):
to come through and advocateand impart the importance of
those different perspectiveswithout narrowing down.
Now, if any of you are intoeducational reform or if you
work in any organization orbusiness, you've probably

(05:45):
encountered scenarios like thiswhere, if we'll take just an
example from the classroom, youhave a group of teachers and
they're trying to solveclassroom management in the
morning.
They have one student let'scall that student Johnny always

(06:06):
needs to have the day'sinstructions repeated, always
comes 15 minutes late, andbecause one out of 24 students
comes 15 minutes late, it meansthat that teacher either has to
repeat, to the boredom of theentire class, what was just gone

(06:29):
over or not address the studentand have that student dive in
midstream and be out of stepwith his peers.
And especially if that schoolis trying to implement some
mindfulness, some centeringactivities, some community

(06:50):
circles, some protocols thatreally help the classroom
community come together andallow the students to arrive to
let go of whatever's happened intheir rushed morning getting to
school and allow them to settleand center and be ready to

(07:10):
learn.
So very important and beingadopted by more and more
classrooms, particularly in theyounger grades.
But of course I will advocatethat that's all the more
important when you hit middleschool and high school, when
students just have so manydifferent demands and emotions

(07:32):
and complexities that they'retrying to navigate socially,
emotionally, home life, work,school, different subjects,
relationships, work, school,different subjects,
relationships.
So when schools are trying toimplement that and one student
is always out of step, thatmeans that their classroom never

(07:54):
gels, because 23 studentsgelling with one student not
gelling means that the whole hasa wobbly part of the circle and
that creates all kinds ofunseen currents and frictions

(08:15):
for the rest of the class.
So in that common planning,meeting, that small circle of
teachers who work withon-the-ground issues, they'll
come up with solutions.
They'll think, oh, let's startwith some independent writing
and reading, let's give them apart of the lesson that they can
do without introduction.
Let them find their way andwhen the whole group arrives,

(08:36):
we'll do our community buildingactivity, we'll do our mindful
settling, we'll start thatcollective process together and
of course, that will work.
Now theory meetings for the samesituation will say oh well, the
data shows us that when westart with community building or

(08:57):
mindfulness or social emotionallearning activities that help
the group come together, it'sthe best thing for students to
let go of distractions, be readyto learn.
We've tested in different ways.
We've shown this to be the bestway forward and after five or

(09:19):
10 minutes of reflectivecommunity time, students are
ready to learn.
So therefore, the high-leveldesign thinking is going to say,
throughout our entire school orsystem or district, we are
going to implement 10-minuteclassroom start times.

(09:40):
That must be mandatorysocial-emotional, mindfulness
learning times and according tothe data, they may be right.
According to the data, in anideal setup that might be the
best way forward and it mightkeep the entire school on track

(10:01):
together and it might develop aschool-wide rhythm.
But for those teachers on theground dealing with anomalies in
the form of human beings withminds and hearts and feelings
and cares, andself-consciousness and dreams,

(10:22):
that system might be the worstthing to implement and mandate.
Both realities are true withintheir contexts.
Simply aggregating data isn'tenough and making large-scale

(10:44):
recommendations from a fewanecdotal stories on the ground
that are absolutely true for oneclassroom setup won't help us
create a tide of change.
Change In meetings that containboth stakeholders.

(11:05):
The design thinking level cansound cut off, insensitive, out
of touch with the humanrealities of program
implementation.
In those meetings that containboth stakeholders, the ground

(11:28):
level implementation can soundso small, so petty, so
insignificant when you'retalking about system-wide change
, that either it'll be dismissedor those who have those
insights to offer will feel thattheir observations and
experiences are too small tomatter, even though they may
make the difference between asuccessful support and a failed

(11:53):
support for actual students intheir actual lives.
In thinking about how to meldthese two dimensions or levels
or perspectives, both of whichare important to system-wide

(12:15):
change, is to really think aboutimplementing some of the
systems thinking, experientialmodeling, those types of
activities that get the plannersand all the stakeholders in the
room to do an activity together.

(12:36):
That's an actual activity whereyou get up out of your seats
and you work together to designsomething or accomplish
something or move in a certainway.
That requires each of thepeople in the group and then to
step back and look at theprinciples, look at actually
what happened and then what theactual experience indicates.

(13:20):
What these experiential systems,thinking exercises can do is
imbue a visceral sense of flow,a visceral experience of the
connection of parts, ofcontingencies, and of how
precarious any flow or system ofdesign might be if there's
little wiggle room for error orchange or inaccuracy or anomaly.

(13:46):
And for those who are used toworking on the ground, the
stepped back approach of theseexercises and really looking at
well, what does this experienceshow us about the flow and the
process of the system?
And where might we be able tointerrupt the system outside of

(14:09):
the personalities of peopleinvolved, outside of the
particulars of one individual,outside of the particulars of
one aspect of the group?
And that can give thoseon-the-ground program
implementers first a sense ofthe principles that they're

(14:29):
dealing with every day and itwill also give a sense of the
system as a whole and maybeupstream levers of change that
will allow for adjustment of thesystem, outside of just
maneuvering the parts right infront of them, because on the

(14:51):
ground, program implementationchanges usually involve just how
do I work with this immediatesituation?
Do I wait for Johnny to come?
Do I change the activity?
Maybe there are other ways toflip a lever and allow more room

(15:13):
in the system overall way,before Johnny gets to the
classroom 15 minutes late.
The beautiful thing aboutsystems, thinking activities and
exercises is that they can't bedone alone.
The way they're designed is all.
The stakeholders are needed toparticipate in order to see what

(15:38):
is possible, and this very muchrests on each individual's
ability to allow for peripheralvision, to be able to see things
freshly, to be able to discernand intuit and lean into the

(16:01):
whole, rather than beingabsorbed and focused on their
part, their perspective, theirfeelings, their solutions, their
solutions.
So often when I approach theseways of thinking or processing,

(16:27):
first we do some mindfulnesspractice and allow ourselves to
sink in and rest in thatspaciousness of open awareness,
allowing ourselves to focus onthe quality of being awake and
aware and attentive, not focusedon any particular thought or

(16:52):
any particular feeling or anyparticular memory or object in
our field of vision.
So just like watching the nightsky above, focusing on the
space, between all of the stars,the blackness that extends in

(17:13):
all directions, being aware thatin your peripheral vision that
sky continues to extend andextend and continues to hold the
satellites and meteors andmoons and suns and planets.

(17:33):
Resting in open awarenessexercises that peripheral vision
.
It helps us remove the blinkersthat we build or put on when
we're in the course of habitualways of thinking, a busy life

(17:57):
with lots of detail.
Where focus is required, itallows us to be free in our
thinking.
And when we can really focus,when we become very practiced at
the concentration of openawareness, the resting in that

(18:23):
broad, expansive field of vision, when we become very practiced
at that, our field of visionsharpens.
We see anomalies andpossibilities that bring change
more quickly.
We notice possibility in ourperipheral vision.

(18:51):
So the practice of mindfulnessand particularly the focus of
open awareness, the resting inthat quality of being awake and
aware and not bound or glued toany particular object, becomes

(19:23):
foundational for our ability tosense new possibility in these
systems thinking exercises.
Now, one simple exercise thatdoesn't require a ton of focus
is allowing all the stakeholdersto just do a series of events
on an imaginary line that youdraw.

(19:44):
You can stretch an actualstring or a piece of tape on the
floor and there are two polesand people will position
themselves on either end of thepole or somewhere in the middle.
You can start with very simplethings Are you a morning person
or a night person?
Are you a spring person or asummer person?

(20:09):
Do you like sweet or do youlike salt?
Do you like to be alone?

(20:29):
Do you like to be in bigparties?
Do you like to work with others?
Do you like to figure thingsout by yourself?
It doesn't matter what you useand keep switching up and allow
all the participants in theactivity to choose a polarity

(20:50):
and have everyone shift on thelines and then afterwards
debrief.
So what did you notice?
What did you notice about wherepeople clumped?
What did you notice aboutdifferences?
What did you notice about wherethey're unexpected Places?

(21:12):
That you were surprised thatpeople held those preferences,
that you were surprised thatpeople held those preferences.
Now, all those aspects areimportant.
One significant part of thiscontinuum exercise is to bring
everyone together and say whilesome people are on one side of

(21:34):
the continuum, some people arein the middle and some people
are on the other side of thecontinuum, what's common about
all of us is that we're all inrelationship to the same
question.
We're all on the same continuum, although different parts of it
, parts of it, we're allresponding to the same question

(22:05):
and whether someone holds oneopinion or the other, one
preference or the other, we areall still relating to the same
thing and there's a universalityabout that.
There's a connection to that.
There's a relevance of eachperson to the question at hand.
Usually, we're looking forwhether people clump on one end

(22:33):
or the other, or whether theyclump in the middle, and who's
like whom, who's different?
Who are the outliers?
What are the outlying datapoints?
What is the mean?
To promote the unity ofthinking and the sense of being
as a whole system.

(23:00):
What we're actually focused onis not the difference but the
connection, all responding tothe same point.
And there are many ways totease that out.
You keep asking what did younotice?
What did you notice?
What was the same, and see ifanyone steps back enough to see

(23:28):
that we're all answering to thesame question.
We're all connected in the sameexploration and when everyone
shifts from noticing all thedifferences, all the particulars
, or trying to find a pattern,or trying to find a mean, or

(23:50):
trying to understand what theoutlying points are, and when
they click into seeing thesingle question or context that
everyone's in, it can reallyproduce an aha moment.
It can really produce thatsense of shared discovery and a

(24:12):
sense of focus, and a sense offocus and interest in the
difference, without the chargeof those differences superseding
the sense of being part of onequestion.
It's a powerful contemplation.

(24:40):
Now there are many, many waysto affect this ecosystem mapping
In your work, whether you'reworking in a classroom trying to
bring more social, emotionalmindfulness skills, more

(25:07):
wellness, more holistic thinking, or whether you're a principal
trying to map the score, orwhether you're a concerned adult
trying to figure out how tocare for the next generation so
that they're healthy and welland responsible and caring and
heartful and authentic.

(25:28):
Keep in mind that there arealways ways to point back to the
sense of the whole, the senseof being part of a universal,
single event, while we look atall the small particulars and
the differences betweenindividuals or subjects.

(25:50):
Part of learning is identifyingdistinction, part of our social
, emotional contemplation andcultivation of our classroom as
the incubator for wise humanbeings is to return back in many

(26:13):
small ways, to the sense of thewhole, the sense of all being
part of a larger organism,whether it's a social organism,
you see it as a social organism,or a global organism, or a
classroom organism.
All systems are like living,breathing organisms where your

(26:41):
finger may not know what yourlung is doing, but certainly
what your lung is doing isessential for your finger
because it needs to pump thatoxygen back to the finger and
carry away that carbon dioxide.
And the more we point out thesystems and the wholes, the more

(27:05):
we prepare our students with aframework to deal with
complexity, with a framework towork in what seems to be a very
fragmented and divided world,which emotionally it is.

(27:27):
And yet we still are in oneliving biosphere, on one single
planet, all part of oneincredibly beautiful and complex
system, unified in that, evenif we carry diametrically

(27:49):
opposite viewpoints on politicsor other issues.
It takes a lot of sensitivityand heartfulness to resist the
fragmentation of our times andyet this is such an essential

(28:31):
part of our education andteaching of young people, our
approach to our ownresponsibility as adults who are
always serving as role modelsto someone and as important
nodes in this vast ecosystemthat we're a part of.
So I wish you all well, takecare.
Thank you for listening to theConscious Classroom.
If you enjoyed this pleaseleave a review and share it with

(29:03):
a friend, pass the love on.
See you next time.