Thousands of schools around the world have leaders pushing for some sort of change. Educational change exists on a spectrum from administrative to an organizational learning culture. Listening to the Future Learning Design Podcast, one would think change was a foregone conclusion that all the experts agree on and no district or Principal could argue against. What fascinates me most about education is how little change actually happens and in particular embeds long term. Leaders can use statistics, worldwide reports, and even strong anecdotes from ‘real people’ and it still seems like the status quo wears impenetrable body armor. Why with such strong trends and with the learnings from Covid are we still likely to see little change in 2022?

Relationships before research

Author and guru in system change, Michael Fullan (Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto), writes much about Leading from the Middle and from his national system context. He refers much to school Principals being the gate-keepers for change as they decide more than anyone the culture and priorities of a school. A reason for this is that, unlike national or district government departments, Principals have the personal and thus emotional connections with the implementers of any…