Edition XIX
EDDi June 2020
Dear subscribers
It is turning out to be quite a year. And, we are barely half way through. We never intended EDDi to be a topical news digest, but some topics just can’t be ignored.
This isn’t a themed edition, but we have put aside (for this week at least) the regular academic digests. Instead, we have a series of loosely connected articles which offer some thoughts - and perhaps even some hope - on the two issues dominating the news: COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter.
The articles below attempt to set both in the broader contexts of history and change. There are pieces on:
Black Lives Matter and International Education (see the linked articles especially).
Managing uncertainty and being flexible.
The (new) world of work.
We have also included a podcast on resilience - a trait much needed in these turbulent times.
For new readers, our two popular COVID-19 articles are here and here; last week’s equally popular ‘Asian Century’ piece is here. And the book chapter can be accessed here.
Happy reading.
EDDi
If you are like us, then right now you will very likely feel caught up in a wave of conflicting emotions, assailed from all sides by unforeseen events.
You may be an international school Principal desperately worried about how you are going to safely re-open your school and keep the whole show on the road during the coming year. Perhaps you are an international school teacher who had planned to move to a new school next month but today finds themselves out of a job because that new appointment has suddenly ‘been deferred for the foreseeable future’. Possibly you are a UK university professor who just read this week’s news (or last week’s EDDi) about the continuing decline of UK universities and the rise of Asian institutions.
Or maybe, and on a more serious note, you are a Black or Asian student or teacher living in a country with institutionalised racism historically embedded in its culture - the USA and UK, for example - and out on the streets protesting at police violence and the continuing discrimination you experience on a daily basis. If so, we recommend some articles below – they won’t solve the problem but at least they highlight the problem, and as Albert Einstein put it:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions”
And as far as Black and Asian racism is concerned, no school, no educational institution, can honestly claim to have the problem ‘sorted’. But at least today, and hopefully for the continuing future, there is a whole lot more focus on the issues. Out of this earnest if not desperate attention may come positive and practical change for Black and Asian people. If so, schools, universities and colleges must be at the forefront of that change.
Which means all of us.
Whatever your individual circumstances and concerns, it is worth recognising that we are in the midst of historic change. Though whether what we are seeing and experiencing is a mere blip in the heartbeat of the status quo, or the beginnings of real social advancement - West to East, North to South, White to Black, Rich to Poor, Male to Female - remains to be seen.
Pasts and Futures
The Black Lives Matter Movement has existed in some form, some articulation, for many decades, centuries even, though today it is more globalised than ever, touching on peoples in every part of the world, not least through social media. Likewise, the #MeToo Movement is the contemporary manifestation of the 1970s women’s movement and rising feminist consciousness of the last 50 years. The LGBT community of today exists largely because of the actions, and protests, undertaken by the Gay Liberation Movement (and Stonewall) in the late 1960s.
The point is, nothing exists without a past. We are all connected. And our actions, attitudes, practices and assumptions all link to a history we may not recognise, we may even reject, but remains nonetheless potent in our sub-consciousness and consciousness.
Unravelling that history is not easy. It may be impossible. But it is worth remembering that humanity has been here before. What we are in the midst of today is not unique and it is certainly not new. Our ancestors experienced the same, and in most instances a great deal worse.
The task which befalls all educators is, then, to help their students understand not only who they are and visual their potential, but to recognise where they came from. This requires we often unpick and unsettle some precious assumptions.
This is why the Edward Colson statue needed to come down in Bristol and end up in the River Avon. Perhaps not in the way it did, perhaps not when it did, but it needed to come down, nonetheless. It is why Oxford University will need to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes. It is why every school, university, company and institution must look critically at its symbols, imagery, monuments and values. And, it is why every international school which offers a Western education must do so cognisant – and critical of - the Western imperialist mindset which underpins it.
As Safaa Abdelmagid says to the international school community (linked in this edition):
‘Own your privilege and use it to serve those who truly deserve it.’
That is our challenge, and it is yours. We are all culpable, we are all complicit. But in recognising this so we are also potential agents of change – so long as we are minded to be.
Change
Of course, the temptation we all have is to manage change. And if we cannot manage it then at least try to predict it. Fortune tellers, palmists and soothsayers are as popular in the 21st century as they were back in the Middle Ages. And they either get it wrong or get lucky.
I can recall my uncle, a Jehovah Witness Minister, confidently predicting to me, back in 1970, that the world would end on a given date in 1971. It didn’t.
I can recall a sudden burst of global interest in the predictions of Nostradamus just prior to the arrival of the Millennium. Surely the 1st January 2000 would herald the ‘End of Days’? It didn’t.
I recall writing any number of five-year business/development plans for my various employers. Did any materialise? No.
And over my 70 years I can recall any number of politicians, bosses, economists, and social commentators advising me to vote for them, believe in them, follow them, or simply listen to them, because they could change the future.
None ever did.
As we say in this EDDi edition – watch for the Black Swans. If you can. Of course, being Black Swans, you will never know when, where or if they will arrive. Or indeed in what form.
And that is the challenge of being human. To fight for change, desire change, urge change, work for change, but all the while knowing full well that in the final reckoning, yes, change will arrive on our doorstep - though not necessarily as we ordered it.
By Dr Stephen Whitehead (views are author’s own)
BLACK LIVES MATTER
We originally planned to include a list of readings and resources on Black Lives Matter. In the end, we decided that it would be more effective - and more meaningful - to direct you to just a handful of important pieces.
First, three pieces on international education. Each are very powerful, each are well worth reading:
An Open Letter to the International School Community: Our Role in the Black Lives Matter Movement and Anti-Racism Work
(Rachel Engel, Medium, June 4, 2020)
Black Lives Should Have Always Mattered: An Open Letter to Search Associates
(Safaa Abdelmagid, Medium, June 8, 2020 )I worked as a recruiter for international schools. The industry is racist.
Anonymous, Medium, June 10th, 2020
And, for anyone working in a relatively monocultural setting:
Why White Students Need Multicultural and Social Justice Education
(Sheldon Eakins in Cult of Pedagogy, June 7, 2020)
There is also Trevor Noah’s monologue here. It’s an 18 minute YouTube video, neatly tying many of the various debates together.
Strategies, Black Swans And Relying On Prayer
By Dr Stephen Whitehead (views are author’s own)
I was recently asked this question by a budding international school manager:
‘How important is strategic planning in educational management?’
A few months ago, I would have had little hesitation in answering “very important indeed’, vital even”, and going on to explain why.
Now, six months into Covid-19 pandemic, I’m less sure how to answer it. Every organisation needs a strategy, you’ll say. In which case, ask yourself how well your ‘Covid-19’ strategy played out. Chances are, your school didn’t have one. Last year, when your school (or university) leadership team sat down and devised the business strategy for 2019-20 academic year, Covid-19 was not even on their radar. How much money was set aside in this year’s budget for pandemic responses? None. How much money was set aside for months of school closure? None. How much time and effort went into preparing for 100% online teaching? None.
What does this tell us? Well it tells me that strategies are often little more than comfort blankets for anxious leaders and managers. We wrap them around us in the hope they’ll offer some protection from the future unknown, and occasionally they do. But most business strategies are little more than fiction confidently presented as fact.
When was the last time any strategy you devised, either personally or professionally, played out exactly as you’d planned?
Far from being helpful, strategies can actually be a hinderance, especially when they are protected by inflexible bureaucracy and blinkered, insecure leaders. We draw up these targets and plans mostly based on what happened in the past, adding in a couple of known variables, but invariably veering on the optimistic side. After all, if you’re leading an international school department or school you are hardly likely to downsize your academic results for next year. You are certainly not going to downsize your enrolments or bottom-line income and profit.
Why? Because it would be nigh on professional suicide to do so. You and I well know that target forecasts are only allowed to go one way – upwards. Which actually tells you all you need to know about the veracity of most ‘5-year business plans’.
We project onto our strategies and plans not what we know will happen (fact: we never know what will happen) but a vision of the future which suits us today.
You have played this game, and so have I. It is a game of mirrors, one that has become compulsory for any current or aspiring leader or manager. We are all culpable in maintaining the illusion that we know what happens next.
How many times have you sat down at a meeting, presented your forecasts for the coming year, and while you look your peers and bosses confidently in the eye, impressing them with your fancy PowerPoint graphs, behind your back you are keeping your fingers firmly crossed?
You are well aware that you can be hung by those same targets and expectations. The more confident you are in your future strategy, the less rope you have and the tighter the noose around your neck. Because for sure, come the end of the following year, you’ll likely be judged on that very same strategy – usually during your annual appraisal.
Any analysis of history and organisations reveals a singular truth: that the most ‘successful’ leaders are not those who actually get the results but those who exude confidence that they can get the results. It takes a brave leader or manager to say, “sorry but I am not sure what will happen next year – these are my best estimates but they could be wrong”. Unfortunately, being brave and honest is less valued in organisations than appearing confident and assured.
If you wish to be a successful leader of any educational organisation, but especially international schools, then appearance is all important, and a key element of that appearance is openly focusing on what counts in terms of ‘success’. Though first you need to decide what ‘success’ means for you.
This is a quote taken from research I did many years ago into UK Further Education College senior management:
“The thing to remember now is that the number of students equals income and income equals power. I have worked hard at setting up this new department, but moving to this college was part of a clearly defined career path. There are more challenges (to the structure) yet to take place here. I’m keeping my eye on things but the next rung up, Head of School, is what I’m looking for in say the next two years.” [i]
Does that quote sound familiar? Likely it does. Maybe you have said or thought something similar. I have dozens of recordings of similar quotes from educational leaders and managers and they all sound and read the same: individuals presenting themselves as secure, grounded, farsighted and effective at strategic planning and implementation. Leaders in control of their destiny.
But it is all an illusion.
The manager quoted, ‘Jim’, did go on to become Head of School but then his second child was born with severe learning difficulties and Jim’s priorities changed completely. Eventually he quit his high-flying Further Education job and become a househusband.
Jim made no apologies for focusing not on results but on acquiring ‘power’ in the organisation. For him it made total sense to use business strategy to increase his targets and then go all out to get as close to them as possible. Student enrolments became merely the tool for his wider ambitions; to acquire power and to move up the organisational ladder. What Jim was especially adept at was presentation of self; the leader who knows where he is heading. And Jim knew another singular truth about management: that people will more likely follow when they are confident the person they are following appears to know where they are going.
Unfortunately for Jim, his personal and professional strategy didn’t allow for the ‘black swan’ flying into his life.
Managing Contingency
We live in a world inhabited by black swans.
But of course, you already know this, because you’ve seen them, or are aware they exist. But there was a time, not that long ago, when no one on this planet believed in black swans – they’d only ever heard of or seen, the white swan. And then in the 17th century the first explorers arrived in Australia. And what did they see? Yes, a black swan. As the philosopher, Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out, all you need is one variation to expose the falsity of your assumptions:
‘A small number of black swans explain most everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to the elements of our own personal lives.’ (2007, p. xxii) [ii]
In the latter months of 2019, international school Principals were busying themselves with their annual task of recruiting new staff for the coming academic year. They were travelling the world, attending recruitment fairs, interviewing likely candidates and finding out which of their current staff would not be staying on after June, 2020. School budgets had been agreed, marketing strategies formulated and enrolment targets set. A familiar pattern of work and responsibilities, timetabled and scheduled to happen. However, unbeknown to them, and the rest of the world, a black swan had just hatched in a wholesale animal market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. A black swan that caused each of those school Principals, together with the rest of us, to throw ‘normality’ out the window and quickly adjust to a new, and totally unexpected, reality.
Distressing, stressful, and potentially lethal. But let us not pretend we weren’t warned.
As Taleb argues, human history is the story of big events that no one foresaw; from the rise of the Roman Empire to the Mongol invasions; from the French Revolution to WW1; from the rise of Hitler to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc; from the spread of the internet to 9/11.
For every current and aspiring international school teacher, it is worth remembering the black swan metaphor. Never forget that what you don’t know is going to be far more relevant in your life, and your job, than what you know. Because what you don’t know is much more likely to determine your future and that of your organisation.
Effective leadership is not about claiming to know what happens next, but being able to manage contingency. Which means being secure in your self while also acknowledging the limits of your agency and powers of clairvoyance.
Some years ago, I was told the story of an international school principal who, when faced with a big black swan landing on his school, (in the shape of disastrous floods which left his magnificent buildings and playing fields under several feet of water right in the middle of the winter term), attempted to manage this crisis not through strategy but through faith.
This international school principal was a devout Christian. He firmly believed that prayer would save his school from the rising waters. He confidently and in all seriousness, informed his senior managers that he would be spending time in his waterlogged office, praying intensely to God. Well, alas, God didn’t listen, or perhaps didn’t hear him. The waters didn’t disappear but lingered for weeks. And the school principal? He was “sadly” let go by the school owners. It was the end of his career.
How we manage contingency - the black swan flying into our lives - is more important than strategy and targets.
Sure, do your planning, devise your business strategy, but only a fool sticks to a strategy in the face of the unexpected happening. And yes, if it works for you, go ahead and say a prayer. Just don’t tell everyone you are relying on prayer and nothing else. Because if God doesn’t answer then your leadership credibility disappears down the plug hole.
Flexible Leadership
If Covid-19 has taught you anything it must be that no plan or strategy survives reality.
For leaders this means being strong enough to be flexible and brave enough to change course when it is evident the course needs to be changed. Don’t hang on to the plan like the captain of a sinking ship, staying determinedly on deck as the vessel slowly descends into the deep blue. There is no future in that strategy, either for you or the school.
International school organisations are now well and truly embedded in a corporatised world of high-speed decision-making, multiple risk-factors, and unexpected globally-related challenges and events. This world is contingent, not predictable. When the highly improbably happens, as surely it will, you won’t be dusting off your strategies and plans to guide your response.
Of course, there once was an era when management of a private school was a leisurely paced enterprise, ideally suited to a tweedy, nerdy, pipe-smoking professorial-type of Head. That era has long gone.
Nowadays, anyone who takes on the mantle of international school leader or manager must be prepared for the unexpected. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, recognise and accept that ‘all things are in constant motion at all times’. A large part of your job is reacting to this reality, not pretending you are in control of it.
The test of a good international school leader is not, then, how confidently they appear to predict the future, but how well they handle the black swans when they land on the playing field.
[i] Whitehead, S. (1999) ‘Contingent Masculinities: Disruptions to ‘man’agerialist identity’ in S. Roseneil and J. Seymour (eds) Practising Identities: Power and Resistance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 107-33 [ii] Taleb, N. N. (2007) The Black Swan. New York: Penguin.
By Dr Stephen Whitehead (views are author’s own)
Photo by wang binghua on Unsplash
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DIGEST
Over the past decade, the global unemployment rate has done something quite interesting.
It has gone down - from 5.6% in 2009, to 5.0% in 2019.
You might judge that statistic remarkable, given the global financial crisis of 2008. However, in contrast to the average, global youth unemployment has marginally risen (12.9% to 13.2%) and this at a time when Generation Z, now representing 33% of the global population, are starting to stream out of secondary schools and universities.
Which makes global youth unemployment nearly three times greater than that for adults. Add in the fact that some 1,500 million workers are in unstable jobs, with at least another 114 million workers living in extreme poverty, then quality working lives will be at a premium for all young people.
That simple fact should be of concern to all countries and those charged with continually updating and delivering educational curricula. Indeed, one might argue that it should be of concern to anyone interested in the stability of global society.
Because if youth unemployment doesn’t benefit when there is global decline in overall unemployment, then when will it benefit?
If educationalists cannot hold out the prospect of gainful, secure employment to their students, then what is the purpose of education?
End of Work?
Predictions regarding the ‘end of work’ have been around for some time.
The French philosopher, Andre Gorz, argued in his seminal book, ‘Paths to Paradise’ (1983) that work would in the future need to be rationed; with everyone doing a little, no one doing a lot.
This thesis fitted well with the late 20th century concept of the ‘leisure society’; a world of technological advancement in home and at work, leaving humankind with much more time to spend watching movies, visiting Disneyland, or simply going for a jog. However, by the end of the 20th century, economists such as Jeremy Rifkin and influential US politicians such as Robert Reich, were becoming much less optimistic about the social and economic impact of the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’; a world without mass secure, employment.
‘We are entering a new age of global markets and automated production. The road to a near-workerless economy is in sight. Whether that road leads to a safe haven or a terrible abyss will depend on how well civilization prepares for the post-market era that will follow on the heels of the Third Industrial Revolution.’ (Rifkin, 1995, p.292)
During the last 25 years we’ve experienced the Third Industrial Revolution and are now heading rapidly into the Fourth. Global society has not broken down. The ‘abyss’ has been avoided, so far, and indeed the burgeoning global middle class now dominates and drives economies from China to Brazil.
In which case we can all relax, and book that trip to Disneyland, Tokyo, confident that our job will still be waiting for us when we get back?
Well, not quite.
Jobs under Threat?
You don’t need me, or indeed anyone else to tell you that Artificial Intelligence is no longer just around the corner, but already in your office and sitting room. How close it is to actually sitting in your office chair is the big question.
But it is close.
The first wave of AI impact on jobs is already happening; wiping out any job which is repetitive and easily done by a machine. So basically, we are talking about factory work. Many thousands of factory workers (mostly male) are already sitting at home imagining a life without full time, or indeed any, employment.
Next in line to go will be those jobs which require some level of human ingenuity but not enough to stop a machine learning how to do it. For example, most types of driving jobs.
So, don’t plan a career as a lorry driver.
The third wave will be when AI becomes a partner in a job, not necessarily removing the job for a human, but becoming a human’s working assistant. This is already happening in teaching, medicine, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, banks, finance, and in theory could spread to any profession. To what extent this will remove jobs or simply enhance the effectiveness of existing jobs, we don’t really know.
But we are soon to find out.
Of course, given that many serious commentators have predicted the end of work over the past half century and yet global unemployment continues to decline, then one can be accused of ‘crying wolf’. Not according to Daniel Susskind:
‘If those who worried in the past about the future of work were wrong to be concerned, then surely those who worry today are wrong to be anxious, too? Yes, people did tend to find work after being displaced by technology – but the way this happened was far from being gentle and benign.’ (2020, p. 18)
As Susskind argues, even if AI doesn’t wipe out employment, it is most definitely going to change it.
‘Technological change may affect not only the amount of work, but also the nature of that work. How well-paid is it? How secure is it? How long is the working day, or the working week? What sort of tasks does the work involve? (p. 21)
Already I can see that impact here in Thailand. Thai factories are not closing, but they are replacing thousands of humans with robots. And what are many of these ex-factory workers doing? They are working for Grab and FoodPanda on zero-hours contracts delivering restaurant food on their scooters to middle-class families.
Implications for education
Education works on hope. It is all about promise. Work today for tomorrow. Build your knowledge and secure your place in society. Deferred gratification. Without hope why become educated? Why bother with the expense of university? The whole contract between teacher and student resides on this singular assumption: the effort will pay off.
Susskind has a frightening scenario, at least for educationalists, within which this absence of hope is powerfully contextualised:
‘When confronted with the threat of technological unemployment, the most common response from those who think about the future of work…is that we need more education…the problem is [therefore] ultimately a skills challenge…For the moment, this is indeed our best response, and the most pressing task is figuring out what “more education” actually means…However, as time goes on and machines become ever more capable, education will be of diminishing help. The idea that education can indefinitely solve the employment problems created by technological progress is pervasive and largely unchallenged; it is also a big mistake.’ (p. 154)
What I find disturbing about this quote is that I sense it is presenting an accurate if brutal appraisal of education and work.
We cannot out-think the robot. We cannot out-perform the robot.
We are less reliable and more-costly than a robot. And even with those skills assumed to be innately human (e.g. creativity, empathy and emotional intelligence) as Susskind argues, the robot will simply bypass them, reinventing the job to match its own unique abilities.
Which raises a simple question: If education cannot offer hope to the millions of young people expecting, indeed demanding a future of secure pensionable, life-long employment, then as an educationalist, what are you working for?
Implications for Educationalists
I offer no answers to this conundrum. Better brains than mine are struggling with it. But I do know this, if we educationalists are to stay relevant to this and future generations, then we have to change the narrative.
We cannot change the politics, and we cannot change the education system, well, not fast, but we will have to change immediately how we present the future to our students.
We cannot in all honesty continue to promote a narrative of full-time careers for life. Professional identities will have to be entrepreneurial, fluid and flexible. People will experience serial careers, not a singular one. Nor can we pretend that by becoming ‘global citizens’ with all the attributes such entails will our students be the ‘leaders of the future’. For one thing, most will have no one to lead. We cannot even assure them of a job after university. And as for being middle class for life, well maybe. But growing numbers of educated middle-class millennials are now finding they cannot afford to buy a house, even with a full-time job.
One thing I have come to learn about Generation Z is that they appreciate honesty and openness. If we educationalists present a world which no longer exists, a future which is never going to happen, then not only will our students never forgive us, we should never forgive ourselves.
We need a new educational narrative for a new age.
And while we are working out just what that narrative is going to look like* we educationalists might also consider it a good idea to rethink the whole aims and purposes of education in a world where people no longer find meaning in work and where whatever work might be available is demanding, invariably poorly paid, intensely performative and highly insecure.
*Any narrative might benefit from aligning itself with Sir Winston Churchill’s observation about education and expectations: ‘Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent or vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.’ (W.S.Churchill, ‘My Early Life’, 1930, p. 81)
references
Susskind, D. (2020) ‘A World Without Work’. Metropolitan Books
Gorz, A. (1983) ‘Paths to Paradise’. Pluto
Rifkin, J. (1995) ‘The End of Work’. Tarcher Putnam
As this EDDition opened, we are living in emotionally conflicting times, assailed from all sides by unforeseen events. Important then to consider resilience.
In this podcast episode, Director of Persyou, Nicholas McKie is joined by former Headteacher and author Viv Grant. Viv has developed a deep interest in approaches for supporting the emotional and psychological well being of school leaders. The episode explores how important cultivating self awareness is for school leaders in supporting their emotional resilience in times of change and Viv offers her top tips for leading schools.
Those interested in the work of Persyou can find out more here. Or, you can follow Nick Mckie on the usual social channels:
Twitter: @PersyouC and @MckieNicholas
LinkedIn: Persyou and Nick himself
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