In 1996 eleven years ago, the Australian Principals Association Professional Development Council, released an absolutely brilliant and inspirational resource entitled “Managing Change, a Resource Kit for Principals.” It was intended as a discussion resource to plan the future of Australian education but didn’t get the profile and accolade it should have.
In terms of futurism, it drew heavily on a paper presented at the 1993 ICP Conference in Geneva by Kevin Richardson. What he presented in 1993 is even more pertinent today.
• 60% of children in Year 3 will enter careers that do not exist yet, involving technology that has yet to be invented.
• The body of knowledge is growing incrementally
• Engineering and technology knowledge is obsolete within 5 years.
• Students leaving school today can expect to have 6 – 10 jobs, to have 3 – 4 different careers, to spend time unemployed and to be involved in continuing learning.

The area of futurism is of considerable interest to me but I guess the question is, can we predict the future? The answer may be a qualified no, but things we can say with certainty is that:
• Nothing stays the same.
• Predictability is a thing of the past.
• Change is the biggest and most constant issue of our lifetime.

Peter Senge from M.I.T. School of Business gave a brilliant presentation at the ACEL Conference in Sydney 2007. He is a strong advocate for schools to change. We need to get away from the production line approach to school and re-imagine our structures and curriculum to prepare children for a world which hasn’t been invented yet and for a job that doesn’t yet exist. Schools may not exist in 50 years. They began in order to provide workers for the 19th century industrial revolution and will become outdated by geo political internationalization of the world and changes in technology and employment.

There are drivers in place impacting on schools, over which we have no control. What is clear however is that schools need to change and the changes process should be driven by educators. There are major changes in the environment, in technology, in globalization, in the post industrial economy, in cultural and economic shifts (Chinese are now the second biggest ethnic group in Auckland) and in changes to labour markets. Many commentators (Tofler, Senge, Richardson, Rod Oram) are of the view that most people will work for companies employing less than 200 people and that the creative arts will become a major source of employment.

Senge is of the opinion that schools are finite organizations and that as we know them, may only have 50 more years of existence. His challenge is that we need to be thinking about and re-imagining new forms, ideas and curriculums for schools. Interestingly, the new New Zealand School Curriculum, our self managing structure and the concept of personalized learning, may give New Zealand an edge over other countries. Worldwide changes require schools and school leaders to understand the issues and our response to them.
• Technology changes
• Creation of life long learners
• Thinking skills curriculum
• Importance of languages
• Importance of arts
• Networking as an educational and employment tool
• Globalization etc

Some years ago I was dozing through a presentation by an English educator at the NZPF Conference in Wellington. My colleague nudged me awake and told me to write down what was just said, “that we need to change the nature of schools from places of teaching, to places of learning.” This has been my inspiration ever since, to change the nature of our school. Organizations which don’t change, wither and die. Boys Brigade, Sunday School, even marriage might well be examples of this and if Rip Van Winkle came back to life now he wouldn’t recognize hospitals or transport systems but would recognize a school – essentially four walls, children sitting in rows and a teacher at the front of the room, arguably boring children to death. This picture does not inspire confidence to educate children for a future which doesn’t yet exist.

Matipo School is now 4 years down a journey to change the nature of our school and change the nature of teaching and learning. We called our initiative “The New Learning Paradigm” and its purpose was to change the nature of the school from a place of teaching to a place of learning, with children more actively involved in the learning process, and the role of the teacher changing.

We made changes to our timetable, curriculum coverage and pedagogy. The place and promotion of digital technology is well understood and integrated into the learning process. We built new specialist facilities to match the changing curriculum, introduced an adaptive curriculum and inquiry based learning, thinking skills as a major pedagogical tool, a strong performing arts programme and a lot of staff development on school improvement, pedagogy and what we would now term personalized learning. Within the inquiry process, the role of the teacher is changing from the font of all knowledge to the facilitator, the coach, the prompter of learning. We need to get children out of the school and more visitors into the school. We need to seek out more authentic learning contexts such that the learning is more purposeful to children.

Our journey is only yet at the beginning. The major impediment to change is the teachers themselves. Too often there is a reversion to former teaching practices. With some, I have failed to communicate or enthuse the changes in order to create sustainable difference.

Within the above parameters there has been a daunting degree of risk taking. There was no mandate to introduce the adaptive curriculum. I couldn’t data quantify the success of some of the changes. Employment contractual obligations prevent us from terminating staff members unable or unwilling to implement our new paradigm. Political changes in philosophy have seen a demise in self management opportunities for schools. As principal, I need to continue to drive, enthuse and extend the concept on a daily basis.

There is much more to do. The inquiry process needs further staff development. I would like to downsize the curriculum further, to do less but better. We need to seek out alternative funding sources such as private sponsorships in order to rebuild the physical plant and resources for a 21st century education. We need stronger support systems for management and staff. We need to extend networking opportunities for students, staff and schools and cross pollinate ideas from other sectors and businesses. We need politicians to trust the professionals and encourage intellectual autonomy. All schools need to focus on children and their learning outcomes, not systems or compliance. Teacher quality needs improvement with good quality inservice but more especially with better quality pre-service intake. Teacher quality is the absolute key along with vital leadership “you can’t run a school with dead leaders” Andy Hargreaves (2007). We probably also need to be able to more tangibly recognize and reward ability of staff.

I would also like children to develop their own digital portfolios, to move along the inquiry spectrum to negotiated learning outcomes and to develop the ability of children to continue their learning through an online portal. So much of developing a school of the future is dependent on monetary resources but more is about vision and leadership.

We don’t know what the future holds but we do know it won’t be the same as the present.

“No one is less ready for tomorrow then the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow will contain.” Watts Wacker