Commentary: On the road to deeper learning

Citation

Bathon, J. and Richardson, J.W. (2024), "Commentary: On the road to deeper learning", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2024-275

Deeper learning, as an idea, seeks to advance schooling toward what we know as the best practices for human learning and development. While structures for systemic learning are old in the fabric of humanity, public schools are still relatively new, having been democratic additions to constitutions only within the past couple of centuries. Thus, while the ideas that live behind deeper learning are in many ways ancient; the widespread embrace of those ideas to schooling, as a broad concept, is still nascent. For public schools, it has been a long road to deeper learning and one upon which we still journey. The concept of deeper learning, and leading for deeper learning, are explored from various angles in this special issue.

The long road to deeper learning also describes our personal journey to this work. Both of us, as children, were ill-suited to schooling. Perhaps only our privilege, with some persistence, saw us through the traditional exits to our current jobs as university professors. The reasons behind this dissonance, though, have been a long journey of discovery. We will not belabor our histories (although Jayson has many more savory stories), but the path to the discovery of deeper learning was not straightforward. We found our way through various detours and surface-level concerns, such as technology disconnects. But, below the surface always lingered additional questions that drew us forward. For instance, even when students had powerful digital devices and Wi-Fi (thus the great swath of human knowledge at their fingertips), the essence of the student learning experience stubbornly refused to change. Why? These sticky questions took us on a descending path into the depths of the foundation of schooling itself, revealing the shallow expectations we have built into our systems. Deeper learning, then, describes not just a movement of the moment, but a long, inquiry-filled journey undertaken by passionate educators into the depths of our expectations of school. As Jal Mehta highlighted in the commentary at the end of this special issue, like us, few have personally experienced what a robust, progressive education can be; yet they are in positions of authority over such systems. If you come from a marginalized background, such experiences are even less likely.

It is in this recognition of the inequitable roads to deeper learning, though, that we were motivated to learn more. In our experiences, this is a similar motivation to what we have seen on physical roads as we journeyed through school visits and leadership conversations over the past decade. Rarely have we spoken with a school leader who sees a full, clear picture of the disconnect between schooling and learning early in their journey. Surely, as teachers, each of us experiences hints of absurdities, but the wider system in which those emerge remains clouded.

So, how does deeper learning emerge? How do we systemically close the disconnects between the ancient knowledge of learning and the modern iterations of schooling?

This search has been motivated by many of those who came before us (for example, see Martinez et al., 2016; Mehta and Fine, 2020; Sizer, 2013). We highly recommend learning from others on similar journeys of inquiry to help shorten your path. We, though, wanted to specifically bring forward the role of building leaders in this work. As professors of school leadership, we long embraced the potential impact of those entrusted to manage, convene, guide and operate the schools (see Leithwood and Sun, 2000; Leithwood and Sun, 2012). For them, and for us, an inquiry cannot simply stop at deconstruction. Deconstruction alone, however revelatory, is a postmodern privilege. Instead, deeper learning leaders live in a metamodern world where modern structures are, rightly, subjected to critical postmodern deconstruction and awareness. We all know there are critical problems with our structures of school; yet, the school doors open day in, day out. Students, with all their hopes, dreams and potential, pour in. The leaders, literally, hold the keys.

With an eagerness to learn more, our team set out to explore the growing number of deeper learning schools taking shape across the world and specifically within the USA. Over the last decade, each of us, in our own way, while inquiring and deconstructing, saw enough new school models with substantially alternative practices emerging to signal that something exciting was happening that demanded more attention. More specifically, we wanted to know how school leaders impacted the formation and sustainability of these alternative models to traditional schooling. As such, we purposely chose 27 schools in the USA, and 3 overseas schools to give us an understanding of school leaders' impact on deeper learning for students.

We started our school visits in the Fall of 2019. We landed in New York for two stops before heading north through New England by train. We had already conducted interviews with the school leaders in all 30 schools and analyzed those data to capture phenomena we wanted to explore during our on-site time. As we arrived at each school to see the efforts of these school teams in practice, we did not expect to be so surprised. However, after nearly every visit, we left in awe. The curiosity and creativity of the children contained in the school walls frequently exceeded even our best hopes. Amidst the metamodern complexities, these schools were shaping opportunities that narrowed historical disconnects between the shallow experience of most schooling and what we know about deeper learning and human development (see Learning Policy Institute, N.D.).

On that first trip in the Northeast, we learned from leaders in an urban charter school under the Brooklyn Bridge, a New York City public elementary school in Queens, an Expeditionary Learning public high school in Portland, Maine and a learning model crafted by architects in Boston down the street from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In each leadership conversation and school tour, we heard of similar long journeys of inquiry, deconstruction and reconstruction in practice.

We found a commonality in these deeper learning leaders and their restlessness towards equity. Thus equity permeated curriculum, structures and mindsets. In fact, we soon realized that one cannot harness deeper learning in schools without addressing issues of equity, head-on. In fact, it seemed the long journeys of deconstruction were the underlying motivation of the tireless reconstruction work.

On this first trip, we found ourselves with an extra day in Boston. On a whim, we cold-called the Francis Parker Charter Essential School hoping to at least stop by for a few minutes, given its history. Colleen Meaney answered the phone and, instead, treated us to a wonderful afternoon spent in the legacy of leaders past and present. The progressive, deeper learning model employed there was already a generation old. Among a slew of lessons, we learned about their Ten Common Principles (i.e. learning to use one’s mind well; depth over coverage; goals apply to all students; students as worker | teacher as coach; personalization; demonstration of mastery; decency and trust; democracy and equity; commitment to the entire school; and resources are dedicated to teaching and learning), their approach to promotion by portfolio and their advisory program. The leaders of the school today are living, and upholding, a sustaining model crafted 25 years ago by similar acts of deconstruction and reconstruction. In fact, as we gleefully sat at the desk where Ted Sizer (1984) penned Horace's Compromise and envisioned the Coalition of Essential Schools, a new historical sense came over us. This was, indeed, a long road to deeper learning, and we were simply travelers in the present moment continuing a sacred mission to align learning and schooling.

As we boarded the plane back from Boston, we reflected on the massive impact that school leaders make in deepening learning and began to shape our understanding of how deeper learning leaders are different. A total of 23 more schools to go.

We headed next to the upper Midwest, rushing to catch a rental car to drive to EPiC Elementary in Liberty, Missouri. EPiC, is a local public school of choice. It is a multi-age, multi-disciplinary, entirely project-based approach to an elementary school that is a fundamentally different option from a traditional elementary school. We witnessed first and second graders redesigning downtown spaces and third and fourth graders gardening vegetables to sell at the local farmers market. We then visited Iowa Big in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This experience redefines how, at least some, of high school can be structured as something more like an entirely project-based consulting firm to support local business partners with traditional subjects woven in as needed. South Middle School in Harrisburg, South Dakota, lets kids choose their daily schedule each morning by linking to specialized offerings from teachers throughout the day. Here, we saw teachers pitch their classes to students, and students had the agency to pick what class they wanted and needed on that day and time. At each visit, the learner's experience was closely tied to the vision and actions of the school leaders. In many schools, leaders meant more than just the principal, and many of these efforts were the result of small teams. But, to be clear, the formal leadership positions were critical. Each school was, and continues to be, a passion project of the leaders, which was reflected in the passion projects of the learners.

We traveled to STEM Chattanooga and saw all projects for the year posted right at the front entrance. There was such clarity of purpose of the entire experience that most of the details were fully on public display. At Locust Grove High School, south of Atlanta, personalized learning time led to capstone defenses that reinvigorated disenfranchised students and disgruntled teachers. We saw leaders open to new approaches and tools that created innovative learning experiences around those new affordances.

At Butler Tech, north of Cincinnati, Ohio, we saw a near-complete redefinition of career and technical education (CTE) to something approaching a deeper learning technical college as the core of the high school. On our trip to Wisconsin, we visited Kettle Moraine High School and learned how a team built a set of academy-embedded, deeper learning charter schools with existing public school buildings.

We headed to the West Coast to visit an all-girls, college-preparatory charter that focused on serving girls who have significant gaps in their educational journey, often through pregnancy, arrests, homelessness, or various other challenges. We spent the day at an inclusive, start-up STEM charter school. We visited Vancouver iTech Preparatory, a recently built teacher-student-designed school that was on the edge of the Washington State University campus where students could dual enroll. We visited One Stone in Boise, Idaho, where the student agency was so dialed in, that the hairs raised on the back of our necks. In Utah, we popped into Innovations Early College, which was physically located above a community college. It felt like it was a natural extension of students' educational progression.

And, of course, we did not ignore our home base in Kentucky with Frankfort Independent transforming a high-poverty high school, blocks from the state capitol, to Jonathan Elementary in far western Kentucky, knocking down walls in an old building to engage in multi-age, multidisciplinary projects. These school leaders taught us about student agency and trusting teachers to be creative designers.

Our personal journeys to deeper learning have often taken winding back roads, literally and figuratively, and we cannot give space to all the innovative schools and powerful leadership practices we witnessed in this brief commentary. But on these back roads of the long journey, we had time to sit on the porch with school leaders to listen to their stories intimately. It did become apparent that leadership was playing a critical role in the operations of these deeper learning schools. This work led us to create a portrait of a deeper learning leader (see Table 1). With that portrait, we captured the core practices that these leaders enacted on their road to deeper learning. To read more about the travels, the schools and the portrait, check out our book, Leadership for Deeper Learning: Facilitating School Innovation and Transformation.

But, we are not finished. The hope manifested in these spaces by the collective school communities draws us back. We want to see more. We want to learn more. There are a thousand more questions.

We hope your road to this work of deeper learning leadership is not as long as ours, but is equally winding. It is on the long road toward deeper learning that the field can genuinely embrace a metamodern path forward as the patient work of deconstruction informs the urgent work of reconstruction. In that work, we can honor dualities and open space for students as agents of change, teachers as professional designers of learning experiences, and, ultimately, more humanizing schools at peace with the long journey of childhood learning and development.

Table 1

Portrait of a deeper learning leader

Component
Living the vision
Authenticity and agency in learning
Trusting teachers to be creative professionals
Openness to new approaches and tools
Over-communicating change
Restlessness towards equity
Courage to live outside the norm

Source(s): Adapted from: Richardson et al. (2021)