The Practice Change Imperative

As I've travelled across jurisdictions and spent time looking at schools and pondering, my conviction that practice is "at the heart of the matter" has solidified and sharpened.

The opportunity to visit multiple schools and learning contexts and to reflect on what is really making a difference, for me, gives rise to two clearly emerging items that we educators have control over:

• leadership practice
• teacher practice

There is a 3rd major player in this game and that's family practice. We can work with, guide and influence this 3rd item but we can't control it.

I suggest that the imperative here, is that we get on with the things we can control, whilst we try for best influence with those we can't. Those we can't would have to include politics and policy.

This conclusion about practice is not limited to education, but is equally applicable across the the social service sector.

Preparing an introduction for the Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir presentation to Faculty of Education members of Auckland University was a great opportunity to try and gather my thoughts about this subject that has been bugging me for a while and is at the heart of my own inquiry into practice in the Pt England Learning Community.

I hope you find the setting and the content interesting. Do take the time to visit Class OnAir if you haven't already done so, as it is a completely genuine attempt on the part of some very courageous Manaiakalani Teachers to expose their own developing practice to the whole world. 

Sincere congratulations and kia kaha Class OnAir Teachers, I'm extremely proud of you!