A highly adaptable one

Today’s guest

Thomas Hatch is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST). His research includes studies of school-reform efforts at the school, district, and national levels. His current work focuses on efforts to create more powerful learning experiences, both inside and outside schools. He is the lead author on the just published work, The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict.

Tom on why this conversation matters

“We can and we have to improve the schools that we have right now. But that can't be at the expense of doing the hard, long-term work on transforming the education system over time. And I think too often, we're caught between choosing one or the other. It's like either we can improve the schools we have, or we can start over and have this disruptive new education system. And the reality is, we have to do both. We have to improve the schools we have, but at the same time, we have to transform the education system so that we're supporting the development of all those students, particularly those who've been disadvantaged by the system for so long.”

How you can use this podcast episode

Avoiding change failure Tom’s specific advice on how to avoid change failure is to “find those environments where more powerful approaches to teaching and learning can take root and to take advantage of those conditions there rather than trying to power over the entire school and the entire school system and make everything different and and changed in a short period of time.” In other words, start an impactful change with a small application, and don’t worry about moving the change along slowly. Where might you have a circumstance like that?

Closing thought

“It's really an approach to find those environments in those conditions where more powerful approaches to teaching and learning can take root, and taking advantage of those conditions there, rather than trying to just power over the entire school and the entire school system and make, you know, everything different and and changed in a short period of time.”