When it comes to educational change there is a variety of literature that discusses the need for radical change in education as the gaps between the system and the students it is designed for continues to widen each day. The pandemic caused this rift to widen exponentially making the divide even more difficult to navigate than it was before. This is evident in seeing reports of escalating extreme behaviours and higher rates of truancy. Combined with staffing shortage, it is clear that there is a need for changes in our current educational models. 

Despite this need for change, we must also recognize that the people and processes in place are not designed for wholesale shifts in practice and that making a quantum leap in changing schooling is a bridge too far for many educators. Education as an institution of maintaining society is built to resist change (ASCD: Getting to Institutional-Level Change) and so it is unsurprising that change is slow to happen.

Instead of saying that we need an educational revolution that seems difficult to achieve systematically, we would be better served focusing our efforts on evolving our practice. Small changes and tweaks, when applied consistently and constantly, can evolve our practice to shrink the gap. 

I realize that critics of this approach would complain about the speed of which this moves and the number of students we will lose before it catches up. But, this fails to take into account a couple of important points.

1. The revolution isn’t coming. As mentioned, the institution of education is built to resist change. There are too many moving parts and too many stakeholders for everyone to shift all at once. From educational training, to our policies and procedures, to retraining current educators, etc. If we remodeled how we did school radically, then society who send their kids to school everyday may not understand or approve of those changes also causing resistance for educators trying to make these changes. Finally, we also have some educators who fundamentally believe in the current incarnation of schooling, who will be hard to convince that it needs radical change.

2. Positive change forward beats no change. It is also easier to monitor and evaluate to see if these smaller moves are effective. Those that are, we can keep and build on, while those that are not we can dismiss. Changing too many factors at once makes it difficult to determine which of those factors are the most impactful or even what the impact of any one factor was. When we cannot determine why we succeed, it becomes difficult to replicate and build on that success. If it is unsuccessful then where do we jump to next? We will lose a lot of kids and public faith while we are trying to figure that out.

3.  A wholesale change of practice is much more resisted by the educators who would need to do this much more so than small tweaks. Saying that we need to change everything all at once will be met with defensiveness about current practice since we are trying to toss everything rather than adjust. It is also cognitively a big ask for teachers who have been doing things a certain way for a long time to change everything. The difficulty becomes compounded for those that fundamentally believe their current practice is the best practice. This additional layer in a time when teacher retention and burnout rates are at unprecedented levels may only serve to push more teachers out of the profession with no replacements available.

4. Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo will also resist large-scale change more fiercely when it is all at once. One of the difficulties with changing the game of education is that many who chose it as a career were good at playing it! Additionally there are those who would prefer to deal with a familiar system in which they can succeed rather than change to one with so many unknowns, this is especially true for institutions  and entities that may be risk-averse. 

5. Leaders who may be a little out of touch with the current classroom realities may not appreciate the nuances of why certain changes need to be made, or, if they do then they may not be able to effectively lead with the 'how', which can frustrate those who lead. As such, they are unequipped to effectively lead the change even if they believe it is needed.

Despite this resistance to wholescale change, some change is definitely needed. Only those with their head completely in the sand would think otherwise. Changes that are small but constant in nature are much more practical and sustainable. They avoid many of the problems inherent in large scale shifts.

Some of the key features of making these tweaks include:

1. Tweaks and adaptations need to be constantly happening, they can’t be one or two every few years. There should be multiple adaptations per year and should align with student needs and changes in society. Everyone should be evolving their practice and sharing those practices to see which ought to be adopted and which discarded.

2. Constant evaluation of what is working and what is not working needs to be embedded in our practice. We cannot make impactful change if we do not know what has the most impact on student success! Cycles of collaborative inquiry are key since we need to make decisions based on evidence rather than on surface perception. These cycles will also allow us to identify where we need to go next.

3. Professional learning and support for teachers must be ongoing, with time to plan to enact these changes into practice. We can't expect teachers or administrators to implement changes without them having the skillset and tools to do so. Poor implementation can lead to failures that may cost us effective practices since we will be assessing implementation rather than the practice itself if we are not careful with it.

4. Leadership must invite multiple stakeholder voices to the table to continually get feedback on both what is working and what is not working along with the perception of the changes. They must also be able to leverage experts to help mitigate the gaps and commit to regular cycles of improvement as well as providing the necessary time, training and resources as noted above. 

We absolutely need changes to the game of school. However, these are unlikely to happen all at once or be effective if they are wholescale shifts. It is possible that individual schools may attempt these leaps in schooling and it is possible they may find measures of success with it. However, it is important to note the criteria for success as well as the context in which these changes happen and ask ourselves if they are replicable, transferable and scalable. If any of the answers to these questions are no, then they are likely not a good model systematically, but do likely have some qualities that are still worth exploring further. Steady and sustainable changes is who we evolve our schools to best meet the needs of our learners, we just need to be more intentional and push for those types of changes a little harder if we want to try to start closing the gaps.