[00:01] SPEAKER_00:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:16] SPEAKER_01:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the podcast Dr. Yang Zhao. Dr. Zhao is a foundation distinguished professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a well-known researcher and author in our profession. He is a professorial fellow at the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University in Australia, global chair at the University of Bath in the U.K.,
[00:43]
and just someone to know and someone whose work everyone should be following if you're at all interested in 21st century education. And we're here today to talk about his new book, Reach for Greatness, Personalizable Education for All Children.
[01:00] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[01:02] SPEAKER_01:
Dr. Zhao, welcome back to Principal Center Radio. Thanks, Justin. Happy to be back. So let's talk about the origin of the book. What prompted you to write Reach for Greatness?
[01:12] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I think it's really from my earlier work of examining the so-called achievement gap. I think that's really hurting children because, you know, from No Child Left Behind to all this achievement gap mania is that we're trying to fix children. And but, you know, upon examination, every individual has some potential. So that's right. I think how we have suppressed the so-called low performing children by depriving them of the opportunity to really become who they can be. That's their great potential.
[01:45]
Everyone has the potential to become great. Then upon some research, I realized the so-called high performing children are suppressed as well in suburbs, in private schools. They're suppressed to just try to secure a good SAT score, a good GPA, but they have more resources. They are much, much more than what a test score can measure them. So they have been guided to pursue a good college, again, good college admissions. I think that's really sad.
[02:18]
you know, a waste of human talents on both ends.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01:
Absolutely. When we define a student based on one measure or one milestone of success, like getting into college or something that's so far out in their future. Yeah. I mean, there's, as you say in the book, there's a genius, there's a potential for greatness in every child. And I remember as a teacher talking with parents, you know, maybe at parent teacher conferences and realizing it's true. Every parent believes their child has that potential for greatness.
[02:48]
And hopefully they continue to believe that as the child gets older. But, you know, especially, you know, at the younger ages, we all believe that as parents. And I've got fairly young kids myself.
[02:58] SPEAKER_02:
Justin, that's something that's amazing, right? Is that parents realize that, but then graduate parents may lose that because, you know, they get pressured. They get... tracked into something.
[03:08]
So, you know, like we asked about origin, I just realized that how poorly, you know, our education policy or the general discourse in the media about it, I think it misguides and misleads our children and our parents.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01:
If every child has the potential for greatness, how does that intersect with our need in schools to do some things that are fairly predictable? You know, obviously, personalized education sounds great, but we're, you know, we come much more from the world of treating every student roughly the same and hoping that that doesn't tamp down their uniqueness and their greatness too much. We want to take students through a curriculum that will give everyone a solid foundation, that will give every student the skills they will need to move to the next level. So I wonder if we could start with your definition of personalizable education. What does that mean, personalizable?
[04:01] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I think this goes back to another empathy kind of slogan that we've been playing around in our education for a long time called lifelong learning. What does that mean, lifelong learning? Lifelong learning has to be intrinsically motivated, that you want to learn, and you want to learn for a purpose. And once you have that, you want to learn and you have a purpose, and you will be able to construct really your own learning ecosystem. You know, when you're motivated, young children, you know, if they want to learn something, they're unstoppable. You know, they will find ways to do it.
[04:37]
They'll find friends, they'll find colleagues, they'll find information online. However, you know, not all our children have been socialized or enculturated in constructing that. So to me, a personalizable education is one that affords children all the possibilities and guides them in constructing their own learning ecosystem, which is drastically different from personalized learning. Personalized learning, I think right now is getting worse because it's been hijacked by the tech industry to basically market tech products to children. By definition, we say personalized is personalized by someone for someone, right? We can only make education personalizable.
[05:16]
We actually cannot make it personalized. Even if it's personalized, again, it's a batch production because children are not participating in the process of really personalized whatever education it is. Another issue is that personalizable education involves a really high level redefinition is that I am personalized in my learning to achieve who I can become, not to achieve what you think I should become. I think that's another major difference because now personalized learning, if you look at all the products, they're the propaganda is really about, you know, learn this math. And you may learn slow, you may learn fast, but you still have to learn my math. You know, that's the same thing as, you know, some schools, I'm sure, you know, Justin, you're very aware of that.
[05:59]
You know, everybody can become who they can be as long as the who they can be is what I want them to be. You know, that's kind of, you know, that's the kind of personalized learning. The whole model is really like that. So I think, you know, Personalizable education, which really I hate creating new words. English is my second language, so I'm not really good at creating words. But that comes closest to what I believe children should be able to guide it to develop their own learning ecosystem.
[06:29]
That's the learning strategy to become a lifelong learner. Imagine after college or after school, why do people differ? I think there are many people who know where they can get information, they have the metacognitive strategies to know who they should collaborate, where do they get information, if not, how they can expand. That is something I think we have to pay attention to.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01:
So just to draw that contrast, you know, if I'm talking about personalizing learning and I want my math instruction to be personalized for each student, you know, I might have students do some sort of online program, maybe some lessons on Khan Academy where they have maybe different ways or different paces of learning what I want them to learn. But you're talking about something that's much more determined by the student in terms of where the student ends up. Is that right? With personalizable learning?
[07:22] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, as a former principal, I'm sure you know this very well. Let's just take even one academic subject, which I'm not in complete agreement with that, which we can get into that later. But let's take just math. You know, as soon as students enter school, even if they enter exactly the same point, after two weeks, they become different, different levels. And they have different interests.
[07:44]
Like, for example, students might be interested in really learning math by solving real problems. Some people are happy to learn math from a textbook. Others might be interested in doing a drill and a cure of a method. In the 1950s, a long time ago, the great Stanford professor Lee Cronbach, and they've been starting to talk about something called ATI, called aptitude treatment interactions, that no method applies to everybody. People interact. So even in that case, unless you make it possible for students to pursue their own way, whatever.
[08:20]
No matter how smart you are as a teacher, you're imposing one way of learning upon the students and one outcome. Some students may take them, let's say, three weeks to master a concept, but then they accelerate after that. Some may take them a day. So in a school, if you ask how many students, they're engaged all the time. The percentage is very low. So as a math teacher, or better yet, as a school principal, you can pull all the math teachers together And then they can put all the possible ways of learning and introduce them to students and assist students to make a wise decision to experiment and to explore the way in which they want to learn and how far they want to reach.
[08:59] SPEAKER_01:
So in the schools that you're seeing that are doing well with this, let's talk about a little bit of a vision for more personalizable learning. So if on the one extreme, we have a very rigidly defined one size fits all program where we decide what students will learn, when they will learn it, how they will learn it. and there's not really any choice or agency on the part of students. And maybe on the other extreme, if we're going very far in the other direction, maybe we don't care at all what students learn and we don't really do much to make sure they learn. When schools have found some of those most productive, most effective ways of providing that opportunity for students to have a voice in their own education, to have a voice in determining how they pursue their learning, what they're interested in. What does that look like in some of the schools that you've studied that are making some good strides in that direction?
[09:48] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I think when we talk about giving students some control of this, I think in my book I talk a little bit about this concept called co-ownership, which I've discovered, I've studied, I've been promoting this in some schools in Australia. Co-ownership is really a sense that students co-own not only their learning, but co-own the school curriculum, the school resources. So they have a stake. This is like, you know, community-owned banks or grocery stores. You have a stake in making the whole environment better, not only for you, but for others, because you are part of the learning environments. You're actually putting students into more, like distributed leadership to students.
[10:28]
So I think that concept needs to be explored. In essence, the students co-construct not only their own by the whole school resources, so the school is not really wild. Because technically, when they come to a school, when you say, oh, you can do whatever you want, actually they cannot, because the school, any culture, any school environment confines what happens in there. So when people say, oh, you just let kids do whatever they want, you know, a lot of times, when you actually construct a good home environment, good school environment, Students will make the right choices. You know, I remember a long time ago from one of my old professors at University of Illinois, David Zola, who was saying that, you know, in your household, if you do not want children to get electric shock, don't blame them for putting their fingers into the outlets. Find some covers.
[11:14]
Do you see what I mean? So you don't have to punish the kids, punish yourself. You actually can prevent that by constructing this environment. And so what I think my best right now, my best thinking is really about co-ownership, which is not developed. But because you do not want children to learn selfishly, because that's another problem with our schools right now in the so-called meritocracy. that we actually define meritocracy by making people lose.
[11:39]
That's why we have losers. You know, you only have so many people that are in a competitive mode, you know, who gets the highest GPA, who gets to be the valedictorian, you know, just those kind of things. But in this, people become selfish and competing with each other. But if they become part of the owner of a community of the whole environment, they define, they participate, and they contribute. And in the process, they are learning as well. You know, just, you know, what if we say, okay, Our students just get together, let's say, okay, let's pick a book club, you know, let's discuss, you know, should there be a book everyone should be reading?
[12:14]
And they got to go around to the research to convince each other to devote and to participate in democracy. By the way, that's what we need our kids to do a lot more, how to manage their own community, manage their own learning, manage their own society.
[12:26] SPEAKER_01:
And do you think we give students enough credit for being able to do that? Because I think as adults, we all fear Lord of the Flies. They'll be poking each other with sticks in no time.
[12:37] SPEAKER_02:
I think that's a problem. A lot of dictators think that democracy is wrong, right? It happens among adults, right? It happens among adults in the highest kind of positions. But in general, I think people actually want to be good. We need a creative environment that rewards creating value for other people, which actually is another theme in my book, is that people need to become great psychologically.
[13:03]
They need to feel like they're making a contribution to other people's life. They need to feel very good about socializing with others. I think a lot of times children do things to antisocial things because they are basically ignored. They've been put down. There's no venue for them to ascertain their identity and their contribution.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01:
I remember I was talking on the podcast a few months ago with my friend, William Parker, William D. Parker out of Oklahoma. And he said they had some writing happen on the mirror in the bathroom. And I said, oh, you know, we don't want kids writing on the wall in the bathroom. He said, actually. they were writing positive notes to each other.
[13:41]
Like, you can do it. And this is a middle school. Your encouragement, student to student. So I love what you said about creating an environment that rewards, how did you put it, creating value for others or making a difference for others?
[13:54] SPEAKER_02:
Yes, rewards creating value for others. I'm just wondering, you have kids, I have kids, we all have children. You know, the best time they feel is they're making authentic, genuine contribution to better other people. help someone you know or even help you make the house genuine contribution not just a fake one not just bring a can of food you know if they're not they don't believe that's a good thing that's not a good thing you know just young children always want to assist in getting a sense of accomplishment
[14:24] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I think about schools that are doing things like makerspaces, schools that are doing things like my friend Don Wettrick teaches a program on innovation at the high school level where students are doing really impressive kind of real world projects. So what's your view of our best way of approaching that degree of ownership for students? What are some of the ideas that you share in the book Reach for Greatness that can help us make some moves in the right direction?
[14:51] SPEAKER_02:
Actually, I know Dawn's work. I met her once. She's a very good guy. I did interview some teachers from different places. I think the key is that it's really diversity of opportunities that you can offer in the environment. Really trying to not be a dictator in education to say, my way or the highway.
[15:15]
My way is the best. There's no panacea. I think Dawn's work is amazing. I think Project-based learning is amazing. Makerspace is amazing. But again, remember, not all students like that.
[15:27]
Not all students are good at that. So I want to promote the idea of Todd Rose of Harvard, who wrote the book, The End of Average, where he talks a lot about jagged profile of strength, jagged profile of interest. That is, we cannot design something for the average anymore. So what I would like to suggest is that our thinking, first of all, important thing is that as educators, we probably have to let go of the concept that we have the best way, we have the right way, and children are going to go crazy, go wild, you know. But we have to trust the goodness in human beings, that children want to be good, they can be good, they can be unique in their own way, and that uniqueness itself is valuable. That's a big shift, I think.
[16:09]
The second thing, I think, is that teachers, who if you happen to work in a school that's very rigid, I think you can at least try to make your class personalizable in the beginning you know talk to students and to say what they want to learn what triggers them and you are the one who make sure that exposed to you know that the knowledge the need and and asking why they want to do some things you know why is that of value to them to other people to keep asking children say yes I can be good but what I'm gonna become good for you know who can I benefit is that how can I help others how well my knowledge is and skill I develop will be of value to other people. You know, sometimes teachers say, oh, we're solving real world problems. But your real world may not be the real world for a child. I think this is, by the way, the beginning of creators and entrepreneurs to say, how can I be of value to other people?
[17:04]
And that's something I think we can ask. And then we can build a curriculum around that. And then we need to learn how to compromise. Children need to negotiate. We only have an hour a day. I'm the only teacher, a resource.
[17:18]
How can we make sure everybody is taken care of? We learn to compromise. Maybe then learn to collaborate. So then if at a school level, I would advocate for really flexible structural change is that in terms of courses. If a principal is really creative and really courageous, you can say, who is there to say that 45 minutes or 50 minutes is a lesson? Why can't we change that?
[17:45]
Who is there to say that one teacher has to teach 22 students? Can one sometimes be 200, can sometimes be two? Those structural changes or the grammar of schooling, I think, can be changed and should be changed. And then we have to really put together a genuine constitution for our community and really specify how our voices can be represented. And also you can, you know, you can now with this technology, you can do daily voting on certain activities, certain things, certain things, you know, certain decisions. So I think all of those things are possible and can be done, but I would try to avoid any Panacea, it's like, and by the way, you know, when they talk project-based learning, I really don't quite like that term anymore because project-based learning a lot of times is used really or misused or abused as a way to believe we're doing something progressive and constructivist.
[18:43]
But actually it's not. As you know, a lot of the projects are really fake. And students don't believe they're authentic. They treat it as just another type of silly homework on paper.
[18:54] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, well, I loved what you said a moment ago about creating value for others and about solving problems that matter to them because... My wife, Dr. Amy Bader, does a lot of work around project-based learning, and we're doing more through the Principal Center and adjacent to the Principal Center through the project-based learning network in that area of helping schools, helping teachers develop projects with and for their students. And one of the things that she's always bringing it back to is...
[19:20]
How do we allow students the opportunity to identify and choose a problem that they care about, a real-world problem, maybe a problem that's in their community or a global issue that they care about, and not just do a report on it and not just make a poster as the project, but actually do something to solve that problem?
[19:41] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I think you have a great wife. And I think my work around that area, I wrote a book in 2012. That's the entrepreneurship book. That book proposed the idea called product-oriented learning to replace project-based learning. In which basically is what I think Dr. Amy Bader, your wife, is talking about is that We always start with asking the students to find a problem worth solving and justifying that.
[20:10]
You got to think about, you know, why is it worth solving? And then second is, can you solve it? Why you? Why now? And then go through the process, actually solving that problem, creating a piece of work or products that's of value. So, you know, this actually differentiates from project-based learning a lot, is that we start with the problem worth solving, identified by the students, justified by the students, And they also go through the process of actually, in essence, making the product or solving the problem for someone or for the world.
[20:39]
And they have to care about the quality of the product. Because in project-based learning, one of the problems is that, oh, it's what you learn is important. It's the process. It's not the product. The product, of course, matters because you want children to care about their product, to think they can be great, they can do great things. And a lot of times children make a crappy PowerPoint.
[21:00]
They're not nearly as proud as when they really create a professional quality video and put it on YouTube that tracks thousands of views.
[21:08] SPEAKER_01:
Absolutely. And that getting it out into the real world, too, I think is such an important aspect of that. You know, real people, real audiences will see their work. And as you say, it's not just a...
[21:17]
Crummy PowerPoint that they present to the class and then that's it But just to clarify the book that you're talking about is that the take action guide to world-class learners book to how to make Product-oriented learning happen.
[21:27] SPEAKER_02:
Yes. Yes, that's why yeah, that's the way I think that's basically it's that you know Talks about a lot of the issues is that and again it has to do with the issue just in that a lot of teachers feel like they have to do it and They don't. You know, today, again, we're talking about 21st century. We're talking about information isn't accessible. We're talking about experts isn't accessible. So our teachers really just we can do this by getting out of the way in terms of information, in terms of skills development.
[21:58]
But we have to become a good project manager, a good counselor, a good human resource person. So, you know, a lot of my experiments in Australia and actually some schools in China is really trying to drive that. And of course, the issue is that a lot of students, in the beginning, they really have not thought about they can identify problems. We always try to teach them to solve problems, how to solve a problem, but actually identifying the problem worth solving is quite important. And given now that smart machines, robotics, artificial intelligence, they can solve problems that has been identified by human beings. But I don't think so far these machines are able to come up with a novel problem and understand its human value and to solve them.
[22:44] SPEAKER_01:
So we need to teach students to identify problems worth solving that will create value for other people, that will make life better for other people.
[22:52] SPEAKER_02:
Exactly.
[22:53] SPEAKER_01:
What do you think some of the most important actions that leaders can take are. So for our audience of primarily school administrators, obviously it's easy for us to get excited about the vision of learning that you and I have been talking about. And it's easy for us to kind of scare teachers with that enthusiasm. And not really set them up for success in that. So what are some things that we can do to maybe, you know, build on that excitement, but not scare our teachers and parents and students too much, but actually get some movement going? What are some of the most important leadership actions that we can take as administrators?
[23:29] SPEAKER_02:
Well, as far as, you know, I've been working with a number of schools where I work with a lot of principals in a sense. I think the most important strategy is not to, again, as we treat students, to force changes on teachers but invite them to innovation but not impose upon them and in every school you have a few teachers who get bored teaching the traditional way they want to try something new support them invite them you know read something you know look for something i think that's the most important piece you know there's no imposition like like in i said a lot of books right about how to change teachers. Who are you to change them, honestly? They sign onto the school before you come. Why would you force them to change? You invite them, provide opportunity, because I really believe in every community, there are a few people who wants to do something different.
[24:19]
And that gradually becomes shift. Then make sure if they're doing something important, recognize them, spread the news. Have other teachers visit them. Organize PD around them or support them. Again, on the basis of volunteer. And they also, as principals, if you don't have anyone like that, which I doubt, actually, rely on the students.
[24:41]
Give students some time. Carve out some opportunities for students, especially the student teachers who may not want tidy, inordinate classrooms. Give them opportunity. Give them support. Maybe they can build something different. Your problem students, your discipline students, maybe they can do something amazing to amaze you.
[24:59]
Talk with them. Ask them what they want to do. Support them. they may become your change agents as well.
[25:05] SPEAKER_01:
Well, and I'm struck by your comments about dictatorship. You know, you said don't be a dictator. And I think if we don't want teachers to be dictators to students, it follows that, you know, we can't expect our example to, you know, to not matter. So it seems like, you know, treating teachers in that way, you know, that we want students to be treated and creating opportunity and creating invitation seems like a great starting point as well.
[25:30] SPEAKER_02:
Yes.
[25:30] SPEAKER_01:
So the book is Reach for Greatness, Personalizable Education for All Children. Dr. Zal, if people want to learn more about your work or connect with you online, what are some of the best places for them to do that?
[25:43] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I think the best place is perhaps check out my website, which I blog occasionally. And I know I'm not a good blogger because I blog essays. I do not blog like 300 words. I'm horrible in that case, you know. So my website is zhaonearning.com.
[25:58]
Z-H-A-O learning.com. Or they can follow me on Twitter, which I only tweet interesting things. There's no ranting, nothing, you know, on my Twitter. It's clean, nice. It's Yong Zhao.
[26:10]
Perfect.
[26:15] SPEAKER_01:
We'll put all of that in the show notes. And thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure to speak with you. I wish we had more time, but thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[26:24] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you. Hope to talk to you again. And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.
[26:31] SPEAKER_01:
So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Professor Zhao? I took a whole bunch of notes and am just fired up after that conversation. And one of the big ideas that I wrote down is this idea of co-ownership, that it's not really appropriate in this day and age for us as adults to do all of the thinking, all of the deciding what students should learn, how they should learn it, when they should learn it. You know, we're coming out of an era that's been very focused on standards, very focused on standardization and accountability. And we're realizing slowly that that may not be a good fit for the world that our students are going to live in as adults. And if we want to prepare students for that world and give them real world experience solving real world problems, we can't just teach basic skills and expect that eventually as adults, students will be ready for that world.
[27:26]
We've got to start now. And I love that idea of co-ownership and that idea of creating an environment that rewards creating value for others and solving real problems. that people are facing right now and really giving students the opportunity to do that and to be leaders alongside us. I think about the Danielson framework and how if you look at the distinguished column on Charlotte Danielson's rubric for teacher evaluation, the difference between satisfactory performance and distinguished performance, that highest level, is all about student ownership. And I think that's a lesson that we're learning slowly as leaders. that we really need to create the opportunity for students to become leaders.
[28:11]
So a couple of resources, if you're interested in this topic, I want to refer you to our previous interview with Don Wettrick. I want to refer you to any of the authors published by Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess Consulting. A number of his authors have appeared on the podcast, including Michael Matera and many others. And I also wanna let you know about the Project-Based Learning Network led by Dr. Amy Bader. She is helping schools design, helping teachers design rigorous, authentic, project-based units and problem-based units that really pull students in and really get them solving problems that matter to them for authentic audiences.
[28:52]
And you can learn more about the project-based learning network, PBLN, at amybader.com. And one specific resource that you may be interested in is 10 product ideas. Often where we get stuck is thinking up a good product, or thinking up a good project for students to design. If we know, okay, I don't want students to develop a poster, not another poster, please. If we don't want them to develop a crummy PowerPoint, as Dr. Zhao and I talked about, what can we have them do?
[29:21]
So we've got a great PDF for you. If you go to amybader.com and click on the 10 PBL product ideas to get you started, then you can learn more about the Project-Based Learning Network and... Take those ideas to your team and say, hey, we've got this PowerPoint presentation as the product or the project that students are working toward in this unit.
[29:43]
How could we change that up? How could we make that more authentic? How could we give students more opportunity to make decisions in this? So download the 10 PBL product ideas to get you started at amybader.com.
[29:55] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
