I think that one of the major problems we face in educational change is the problem of binaries: the idea of one or the other, this or that, new or old, us vs them. It is as common in education as it is in many other walks of life.

A reason we do this is because binaries are an easier way of thinking: this or that. Black or white. It’s not so much lazy thinking, it’s more a reflection that we are already cognitively overburdened, that simpler is often the path we take. Many of us don’t have the mental resources to invest in the difficult process of picking the parts of both sides that work, and then fusing them into a new whole that works for us. Similarly, educational change is often presented as being a solution to a current issue, which implies we should stop what we were doing and start doing this new thing. The unsaid message to all of this is that educational change becomes a process of replacement, rather than one of integration and evolution as it should be.

In education, an example might be how best to run a classroom (this may sound like more binary thinking but bear with me). The term classroom management seems to have fallen out of use. Instead there is a focus on relationships or restorative practices. The implication for many is that classroom management has gone by the wayside while these other ideas have gained prominence. But, as many educators know, without solid classroom management, teaching is even more difficult. As such, this focus on building relationships doesn’t need to come at the expense of classroom management, but rather becomes an important component of it. 

Setting expectations, building relationships and a sense of community are integral parts of a well-functioning classroom. However, when those expectations and norms are violated, there needs to be a consequence (and I do mean consequence and not necessarily punishment) to help restore the classroom to a place of learning and psychological safety. These consequences could involve restorative practices where students learn skills and have opportunities to work out differences, or they could be more singular in nature. By having both restorative tools and other classroom-management tools in my toolbox, I have many more options to best resolve a particular situation than if I had wholly adopted one or the other.

Unfortunately, some of these binaries in education can also include: the adults vs the kids, or the teachers vs the administration, or schools vs districts. These divisions are incredibly problematic because they create further divisions in the collaborative work that is required in education. Leaders need to be mindful of this when leading change and in how they deliver their messaging. It is important to pause and reflect when introducing something new that we do not inadvertently devalue the work that our teachers are already doing.

The more divisions that we make, the more difficult it becomes to bridge those divisions in order to make a working whole. We can’t effectively teach and connect with students if we (or they!) feel we are against them. Similarly, making divisions between teachers and administrators makes it harder to build a true educational team and can lead to more hard feelings than successes. 

When it comes to working with people, getting locked in binary thinking often creates win-lose situations that shouldn’t be or distracts us from actually resolving the issue. As an example, when it comes to navigating a difficult situation with a student, parent, or staff member, it is critical that the focus remains on problem solving and moving forward rather than whose way is right and whose way is wrong.

In order to move forward effectively we need to move away from defaulting to either/or thinking and ought to focus on ideas about integration and evolving our practice. Rarely is an educational initiative completely successful when adopted wholesale. This is likely because in an effort to adopt what is new, we leave behind the parts that were working as well as the parts that were not. We are rarely best served by remaining at one end of a spectrum. We continue to use past practices because there has been some success with them. We are open to new strategies because society changes and we learn more about how students learn best. 

Rather than focusing on whether an idea is new or old, we need to evaluate the merits of the approaches available to us. Very often, we may find the most success when we take parts of different approaches to create a more complete whole. This does not necessarily mean a middle ground. It means evaluating what works best in a particular context.

Getting rid of something old for the sake of new can be a mistake, so is adopting something new simply because it is new. Instead we need to evaluate which components of each work best for our practice to create a new path for ourselves. This shifts us beyond binary thinking and opens us up to the possibility of a new approach that takes pieces of many approaches to make something new that is entirely our own.