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Learning at home: start with relationships

Posted on March 24, 2020 by CORE Facilitation Team

He moana pukepuke e ekengia e te waka.

A choppy sea can be navigated.

Firstly a huge mihi to all educators for everything you are doing for ākonga and communities as you prepare to teach in different ways. Ākonga and whānau will look to you for guidance and support as they adjust to thinking about learning at home, and what this means. Complex, we know, especially as you prepare for changes in the day to day lives of your own whānau too.

CORE Education is publishing a series of blog posts to help you with the planning and preparation you’ll be doing. These will be underpinned by our commitment to Tiriti o Waitangi, as well as our expertise and knowledge in online learning, effective pedagogy, and Universal Design for Learning.

Published over the next two weeks, the blogs present a chance to step back, reflect, and anticipate some of the things leaders and kaiako could consider now that learning has shifted to home. They cover considerations that are applicable to early learning services, kura and schools and Māori medium settings. Also, please let us know if you have areas you would like us to focus on.

In this first blog, as you move from your workplace to home, we offer four key points focused on building and strengthening relationships.

Keep relationships at the centre
Invest in the wellbeing of kaiako
Empower and affirm ākonga
Remove barriers to staying connected

Relationships at the centre

Begin with the people. Focus your initial thinking on building connection. Relationships will be more important now than they ever have been. We all need to find ways to ensure the virtual components of our programmes include opportunities to simply connect in personal and meaningful ways. Children in isolation overseas are saying that they really miss their friends. Kaiako used to collaborating may also find job satisfaction is harder to achieve with less day to day human contact. So, how can you put relationships at the centre of what you do?

Suggestion: Have a plan that everyone is a part of to reach and engage all ākonga.

“Connecting with people who make you feel safe and loved is the most important thing you can do to look after your mental health and the mental health of people around you.”
Looking after mental health and wellbeing during COVID-19.

Invest in the wellbeing of kaiako

Collaborating and working as a team will ease the pressure on individual kaiako. No one should feel alone. Keep the connections strong so that you can listen to diverse perspectives, agree on ways forward together and overcome any obstacles you encounter.

It may also help to create an agreed set of expectations in our new reality. Keep it broad, but with enough structure to provide a framework for planning. It is not going to be possible to simply move what you do face-to-face into an online environment. Albany Senior High School recently sent these guidelines to their staff, and have made them available for everyone. Consider if they are a useful reference point for your own communities.

Suggestion: As a learning community, have a plan for mutual support and keeping an eye on each others’ wellbeing. Ensure each kaiako has a colleague or friend they can lean on, be in regular contact with. Create regular opportunities for simply connecting and checking in.

Empower and affirm ākonga

Empowering the wairua and enhancing the wellbeing of ākonga is paramount. It’s what teaching and learning are founded on. Learning from home will present a new and unexpected set of challenges for ākonga, and they’ll need our support to navigate these successfully. Ensuring that ākonga thrive, are connected to their language, culture and identity and have all aspects of their hauora balanced will be a challenge for a kaiako to consider thoughtfully.

“Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear, take care of what they see, take care of what they feel. For how the children grow, so will be the shape of Aotearoa” – Dame Whina Cooper

Suggestion: in a planning meeting, ask yourselves these questions:

How will we share with ākonga and whānau our ongoing commitment to their learning and wellbeing?
How might we continue to strengthen our learning relationship with ākonga and whānau in online environments?
How will we ensure all ākonga are well supported during this transition?
What are the cyber-safety and digital citizenship considerations of having ākonga online?
What safety protocols do we need to put in place before bringing ākonga into virtual meetings or conference calls? For example, one protocol might be that before they activate their cameras in a video conference, everyone has “video off” as the session starts, and then mindfully starts their video when it’s OK to do so.

Remove barriers to staying connected

Our schools, kura and early learning settings have closed this week. We do not know how long we all might need to engage in learning from home. Access to connection options will vary across your community. It is important that we steer away from single, one size fits all solutions and work to find individualised solutions for all ākonga and their whānau. This will require us to identify the barriers and the access constraints within our communities, and create innovative solutions that will be inclusive and responsive to everyone’s needs.

Suggestion: Check in with ākonga and their whānau to identify their current accessibility status and explore all possible solutions to empower them to engage in distance learning.

Explore opportunities for ākonga to work in ways that can be supported by occasional internet access.
Provide ways for ākonga and their whānau to confidentially contact someone they feel comfortable speaking with if they have an equity or access concern.
Find out if whānau or members of your community have old, unused smartphones with no SIM card that will still be useful on a family wireless connection.

How can we help?

CORE Education’s facilitation team can help you or your learning community transition to teaching and learning from home. We are committed to a people-first approach and will work alongside you to find solutions that will work for you.

Please get in touch if you need any kind of support or guidance, email learning@core-ed.ac.nz

Visit our dedicated webpage for more resources about learning at home

Acknowledgements

Albany Senior High School Instructions for Going Remote. Accessed from DisruptEd Facebook Group. Google Doc (March 2020).

Mental Health Foundation Looking after Health and Wellbeing During Covid-19. Accessed from Mental Health Foundation website (March 2020).

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Two women sitting on beanbags with laptops open are looking at each other and smiling

Appreciative inquiry: Searching for the best in people

Posted on October 30, 2019 by Natalie O'Connor, Lesley Brown and Ara Simmons

What comes to mind when you think of the word ‘change’? What emotions come to the fore? What models do you associate with? How is change enacted at an organisational level? A team level? A personal level?

What if we challenged you to look for the positives in every situation, actively use the strengths of each individual as the benchmark for excellence, and constantly search for the best case scenario as an innovative way of moving forward? Change is the constant and reframing how we view change can have a powerful effect on the way positive transformation occurs in organisations. This blog will look at how appreciative inquiry (AI) is a positive approach that underpins change and uses the strengths of the people, and the system to produce extraordinary results.

Appreciative inquiry has its foundations in a collaboration in the 1980s between David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva. What became apparent during their research was the powerful influence of ‘life centric forces’ on the outcomes of initiatives. Searching for the best of what is and the best in people was affirming and led to a collective sense of purpose.

“At its heart, appreciative inquiry is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengths-filled, opportunity-rich world around them. AI is not so much a shift in the methods and models of organizational change, but appreciative inquiry is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to ‘see’ the wholeness of the human system and to “inquire” into that system’s strengths, possibilities, and successes. ”

(Stavros, Godwin & Cooperrider, 2015)

Appreciative inquiry is a philosophical approach to change that can be used with individuals, teams, or in early childhood centres, schools/kura or kāhui ako to create positive system-wide transformation and innovation. It is a way of thinking, a way of bringing the best to the fore rather than a traditional problem solving approach.

The cycle of appreciative inquiry supports the individual/team/organisation to discover what strengths, talents and positives already exist and build upon these to design the desired future. The 5D Cycle is a process that underpins the inquiry.

The 5 Ds are:

Definition. Choosing an affirmative topic as the focus of inquiry. The focus is on choosing a meaningful theme that is developed collaboratively. From this initial development, you are setting the stage for positive interactions.
Discovery. During this stage, you inquire into the exceptionally positive moments of each group member/team/organisation, share your stories and identify the life-giving forces from which you will build your foundation.
Dream. Creating the shared images of a preferred future
Design. Innovating and improvising ways to create the ‘dream’ future
Destiny/Delivery: Implementing and sustaining the design.

This approach is what brought three CORE facilitators together to develop the use of appreciative inquiry in educational organisations as a positive change process. All three of us have a background in using appreciative inquiry. The interesting aspect is that each practitioner drives the initiatives from their unique appreciative inquiry perspective and the nuances of each person add to the flavour of each situation. To illustrate our successes we wanted to share our thinking around appreciative inquiry as a way of understanding some of those nuances, and describe different applications within our roles.

Natalie O’Connor

Appreciative inquiry is a transformative force that supports individuals, teams and organisations to always be positively future focused. It is underpinned by five principles:

Our words create our worlds. Our conversations create the reality we desire.
Questions create change. The questions we ask direct the way we move forward.
What we choose to study/learn is the world we are creating.
Our image of the future drives us towards that destiny.
Positive questions create positive change.

In the facilitation mahi I am currently involved with I constantly use the language of appreciative inquiry, and the five principles, to drive innovation.

Coaching 1:1 Situations

One such initiative is working with middle leaders on developing their e-learning leadership skills and linking this to their appraisal. We spent the initial sessions consolidating the appreciative inquiry approach, with particular reference to the five principles and then introduced the e-learning lens as an overlay. The success of the programme has been captured in the reflections of the participants:

“It has been an interesting reversal of values, to approach the leading of change from the opposite direction. By this I mean that; instead of looking for a problem to fix, for obstacles to remove – we have instead been looking for what is already good, what is already a strength, what is already working and then seeking to harness those in order to help lead the change we seek.”

“Another reinforcing factor is the use of relationships; making connections and strong relationships with others in pursuit of the change can create a self-sustaining momentum that lends itself to one in times of lapses. Overall I have found this process to be challenging and rewarding and also somewhat liberating in that I am encouraged to place trust in building relationships with others, in moving towards a vision that is not wholly my own and in accepting that I do not need to know all the answers nor provide all the ideas.”

“Personally, appreciative inquiry has helped frame the mistakes I have made and the challenges that I have faced as learning opportunities. As I have continued to use appreciative inquiry to guide my development, I have found that challenging situations that I once would have found daunting or threatening are no longer so. These moments still may be challenging, but they are vital spaces for me to reflect on myself and my practice.”

Mentoring Situations

Developing leadership capabilities is another area where appreciative inquiry promotes positive transformational change. Mentoring leaders, utilising their strengths and the strengths of their team, and working towards a common destiny develops a strong collaborative approach that benefits the entire community:

“Appreciative inquiry is a process where it engages, involves and motivates people on working on what their goal is in their professional and personal life. The appreciative inquiry approach has shown me my strengths which I was not even aware of. Appreciative inquiry has taught me how to build relationships amongst colleagues and not only in my professional life but in my personal life too.”

Using appreciative inquiry across a Kāhui Ako

All three of us are now designing mahi with Kāhui Ako from an appreciative inquiry perspective. At recent teacher only days, we underpinned the learning by creating collective visions based on the positive, future focused dreams of the Kāhui Ako. We focused on listening, utilising the best case scenarios and using the strength of the collective as the driving force. We challenged colleagues to positively question the process, and use the language to build trust and forward momentum. This focus on creating the destiny they desire has liberated staff, and innovation has been the outcome.

Ara Simmons

He waka eka noa.

We are all in this together.

a double hulled waka at sea — Double-hulled Waka Te Matau a Maui by Shellie Evans. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Enabling systematic flourishing

Another way to consider appreciative inquiry is how it can support our wellbeing. If wellbeing is to feel good and function well, hunting for what’s good, what’s working well offers both individuals and the teams that they belong to the energy and motivation that can propel us forward.

The teams that we work in, the schools and communities that we are all part of are indeed living systems. And to be able to dance together within these living systems we need to be open and curious. Consequently, this type of mindset supports us to live in what is described as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) times.

Flourishing whānau

Because appreciative inquiry is so much about the collective as opposed to the individual, I often use the concept of flourishing whānau in the work that I do. Culture and wellbeing are inextricably linked together. It is to ask the questions, what are the factors that can support us as a whole whānau/system to flourish? What does whakawhanaungatanga, manaakitanga, tino rangatiratanga look like for us?

Research tells us that currently only twenty five percent of the New Zealand population in the workplace experience flourishing whilst the rest of the population are languishing. To flourish is to experience high levels of wellbeing. By hunting the good within the discovery phase of appreciative inquiry supports collective whānau flourishing.

Supporting high quality connections

Through discovering the positives the wisdom that exists within the team emerges, and enables different networks and interactions between those teams. It goes without saying that appreciative inquiry enables connection, where connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued. We are hardwired for connection.

Positivity is contagious

As we slowly move through the discovery, dream and design phases of appreciative inquiry, our emotions naturally spiral upwards and our body language shifts. We look up, see what’s possible and tend to be more creative. Just some of the benefits that positive emotions offer us. A natural state that is generated within this approach.

Sat at the very heart of this approach is

He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!

(The people, the people, the people)

Lesley Brown

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Anne Frank

Why are we consistently aiming to ‘solve problems’ rather than celebrate and grow those experiences that enrich our human experiences? This is a question that would be useful to ask in any organisation, and in particular services and Kāhui Ako. If we consistently seek to identify the weaknesses in an organisation, especially in regard to human capital; we risk damaging the organisational culture and erode the efficacy and authenticity of the people so critical to the organisation. appreciative inquiry offers a window and framework towards building a strengths-based culture and a place of work that recognises and builds those actions that are making a difference for the clients (learners in services) and those delivering the product (teachers and leaders in services).

Appreciative inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organisations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. It centrally involves the mobilisation of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question”.

In appreciative inquiry “the arduous task of intervention gives way to the speed of imagination and innovation; instead of negation, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis, as the cycle shows there is discovery, dream, and design. Appreciative inquiry seeks, fundamentally, to build a constructive union between a whole people and the massive entirety of what people talk about as past and present capacities: achievements, assets, unexplored potentials, innovations, strengths, elevated thoughts, opportunities, benchmarks, high point moments, lived values, traditions, strategic competencies, stories, expressions of wisdom, insights into the deeper organisational spirit or soul and visions of valued and possible futures.”

Appreciative inquiry deliberately, in everything it does, seeks to work from accounts of this “positive change core” and it assumes that every living system has many untapped and rich and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link the energy of this core directly to any change agenda and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.
The appreciative paradigm, for many, is culturally at odds with the popular negativism and professional vocabularies of deficit that permeate society.” (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005)

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but seeing with new eyes.”

Marcel Proust

Using our collective experience through future-focused Theory of Change initiatives

The three of us are using appreciative inquiry in CORE Education’s Theory of Action: He Ariā Kōkirikiri. The approach leads itself perfectly to be integrated into authentic situations that are personalised to our particular contexts. The same can be applied to the situations that arise in any organisation particularly with reference to your theory of change.

CORE Education’s Theory of Action

1. Te Mārama Pū – Deeply Understand.

Appreciative inquiry is the vehicle to truly and deeply understand and connect with people. It is about developing positive interactions with stakeholders and understanding the people who are invested in the success of the organisation. We celebrate perspectives and endeavour to truly listen and understand. Personal narratives are used as the foundations for the life-giving forces that underpin the success of the initiative. Our positive language is linked to the reality we desire and supports us as a collective to strive for excellence in what we do.

2. Te hoahoa kia rerekē – Design for change.

In sharing our personal narratives, we can now focus on our collective future reality. Through the development of shared images of our preferred future, we construct our questions and design our language to drive positive change. We make conscious choices about what we want to change, and the way in which we approach that change.

3. Te whakatinana kia auaha – Implement to innovate.

Once the foundations have been laid, we design our mahi around innovation and improvise ways to create the ‘dream’ future. We ask questions such as, “What will have the greatest positive effect?” “How are we ensuring that every voice has been heard?” “Who has the skills to be the driving force to ensure success?” “What does our best case scenario look like and how do we reach this?” This cyclic approach leads to innovation, sustainability and strengthening of the relationships that underpin the forward momentum.

Embedding appreciative inquiry is an investment that reaps incredible rewards. Within the facilitation work we collaborate on we have noticeable successes that are future focused and are proving the power of collective efficacy.

Appreciative inquiry is the glue that binds systems and communities and propels them into the future that they desire. We challenge you to take a positive leap of faith and join us in the power of appreciative inquiry.

Bibliography

5-D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry – The Appreciative Inquiry Commons. (2019). Retrieved 29 October 2019, from https://appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu/learn/appreciative-inquiry-introduction/5-d-cycle-appreciative-inquiry/

Appreciative Inquiry – A Brief History – The Appreciative Inquiry Commons. (2019). Retrieved 29 October 2019, from https://appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu/learn/appreciative-inquiry-brief-history/

Cooperrider, David & Whitney, Diana. (2005). A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry. The change handbook: The definitive resource on today’s best methods for engaging whole systems. 87.

Firestone, L. (2019). Thinking Positively: Why You Need to Wire Your Brain to Think Positive. Retrieved 29 October 2019, from https://www.psychalive.org/thinking-positively/

Stavros, Jacqueline, Godwin, Lindsey, & Cooperrider, David. (2015). appreciative inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution. In Practicing Organization Development: A guide to leading change and transformation (4th Edition), William Rothwell, Roland Sullivan, and Jacqueline Stavros (Eds). Wiley

Author bios

Natalie:

Natalie is a lead facilitator, certified executive coach and academic life coach for students, and currently enrolled in the Positive Psychology Practitioner 12 month Certificate programme. Her background as head of schools and developing five schools in a network internationally, places her firmly in the areas of strategic planning, whole school development future focused education, individual/group coaching and leadership development.

Lesley:

Lesley is currently an expert partner to Kāhui Ako and a senior education consultant. She has worked across and within all education sectors. Having taught and led for 25 years in a range of high schools across New Zealand, Lesley works to grow the human capital and leadership capacity of schools and kura through a positive psychology perspective. Her previous work as a leadership and management advisor has drawn on a wide range of theory, as well as practical experience in strategic planning, culturally responsive practice, teaching as inquiry and change management.

Ara:

Ara is a Positive Psychology practitioner, facilitator and certified Positive Psychology based coach. Ara works alongside schools in supporting a whole school systems response to both culture and wellbeing which includes staff, tamariki and whānau. This includes strategic planning for delivering wellbeing, growing wellbeing teams within schools and supporting the design of wellbeing initiatives. She draws on a variety of tools that support both school leaders and teachers for career development and job crafting that support transformational shifts in individual’s that enhance self-efficacy, confidence, direction and wellbeing.

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Instigating sprints to support transformational change and innovation in schools

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Fionna Wright

Change is the new black

Educational change is inevitable and it’s all the rage (although some may argue with the second half of that sentence). A rapidly evolving and turbulent world, our growing understanding of the nature of learning and, in New Zealand, the need to change how our education system performs so that Māori students enjoy and achieve education success as Māori (Ka Hikitia – Accelerating Success 2013–2017); all mean that educational evolution is here to stay.

The challenge with educational change these days seems to be the amount and sometimes exponential pace of it. This volume and speed creates a need to look past previous iterative approaches to improving teaching and learning, and instead, become transformational as we strive to evolve our own practice in both a rapid, and meaningful way.

However, effectively managing transformational change is a change in itself. Transformation calls for innovation, risk-taking and creativity; and engaging in mahi where the outcomes may be unknown. Without resources, time and support, this form of change can feel overwhelming, laborious and like it’s ‘on top of’ an already saturated workload.

In a previous post I co-authored with my colleague, Rachel Westaway, we suggested that school leaders explore Agile values and principles to support transformation and innovation in schools.
In this post, I will delve deeper into an agile tool called ‘sprints’ that supports teams to work through transformational change; hopefully experience some creative freedom; and provides a framework and process that promotes embracing uncertainty while minimising risk. This way, managing change and innovation should not be overwhelming and may actually be enjoyable.

What are sprints?

The concept of sprints originated in the IT/project management world where they are one of the key components of the scrum framework, supporting people to work collaboratively to address complex problems and unpredictability. Scrum is founded on agile principles, with an emphasis on creating value, and making progress through regular reflection, adaptation and teamwork.

Sprints enable teams to work collaboratively to tackle large problems or significant change by breaking down the work into small, time-boxed, increments (a.k.a sprints) and focusing on what is most important.

In the education world, the sprint approach can be used to manage, improve and innovate on practice to support our learners’ needs, allowing educators to be more adaptable, creative and flexible in working through significant change. Sprints can be anywhere from one to three weeks long (as a guide only). Put simply:

Using a sprint approach can break down and simplify what can seem to be an overwhelming, long-term challenge, into smaller manageable parts.

Agile Schools has developed Learning Sprints; a programme that provides tools, resources and professional learning. They recommend 3 key phases in a ‘learning sprint’:

1. Prepare

a. Define: What student learning outcome do we want to focus our practice improvement on? For which students? What evidence justifies this decision?
b. Design: What small, specific actions can we take in our classrooms to improve student learning?
c. Assess: What evidence of student learning will we collect?

2. Sprint

a. Teach: In what ways are we deliberately improving our teaching practices?
b. Monitor: How are we collecting evidence of student learning? What is it telling us?
c. Support: How are we harnessing peer and expert feedback?

3. Review

a. Analyse: What progress did students make and how did our actions contribute to this?
b. Transfer: How can we transfer what we’ve learned into future practice and ways of working together?
c. Reset: What professional learning could we engage in next, in order to help us maximise our impact on student learning?

Implementing sprints in a teaching inquiry

The sprint process is strongly underpinned by evidence-based practice and therefore aligns closely with the Spiral of inquiry. Used as an approach within a longer-term inquiry, sprints can provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of our actions over many cycles within the wider inquiry space. Not only does this allow new learning to become embedded in the way we work but the speed (velocity in ‘scrum speak’) at which the team can move and adapt is accelerated.

However, before contemplating the use of sprints within an inquiry, it is important to discover and define what is going on with our learners. The scanning and focusing phases of a teaching inquiry will support us to create collective learner statements about targeted students in a particular educational community. We can then explore how these challenges relate to the nature of learning (OECD 7 principles of learning) and the Key Competencies in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). The NZCER Remixing the Key Competencies: A curriculum design deck is useful for this. In developing a hunch we look at our own practices attached to any challenge/s.

This work might look something like this:

Diagram: Fionna Wright – CORE Education, (CC BY-NC 4.0)

When working collectively through the inquiry phases we should discover overarching themes, for example:

“Our learners are engaged in learning activities outside of school and are far more engaged at school when learning is personally meaningful to them.”

The challenge for us therefore is to design learning activities that are more meaningful for students with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, interests and learning needs. (The creation of User stories to support this thinking is another useful agile approach but this will need to wait for another blog).

So, what do we need to learn and how will we take action, and check that we are making enough of a difference for our students?

Using sprints to manage, improve and innovate on practice in a collaborative, structured, iterative way; whilst collecting relevant evidence to measure the impact of our ideas and actions, helps us figure out what to learn and the necessary actions to take in an adaptive way. It helps us therefore to develop adaptive expertise–the ability to apply new knowledge ideas and skills flexibly and creatively. (Dumont, Istance and Benavides 2010, 3).

This is the approach that Agile Schools has taken with a range of activities in their Learning Sprints toolkit. Amongst these in their Define phase is Boulder, Pebble, Sand. This activity allows us to break down our learner challenge into bite-sized chunks of practice that we can then review, transfer and adapt new learning and ideas before going into another sprint.

It is important to note that, whilst I believe the outline of this activity is useful, I would lean more towards ‘doing with’ students and possibly whānau in identifying and developing learning outcomes. That is to say, if our challenge is to design learning activities that are more meaningful for students with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, interests and learning needs, it would seem to be reasonable to co-design learning outcomes and activities with the students rather than for them. I also wonder if we should change the language from ‘learning outcome’ to ‘student-valued outcome’. This places more emphasis on designing a response to challenges or opportunities around the nature of learning and the key competencies in the NZC. It also supports the design and implementation of learning experiences that are more human-centred. The Guide to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is useful for this.

Reviewing a sprint

The review of a sprint can look a little bit like a SCRUM meeting in which teams review the evidence collected during the last sprint. Using the Learning Sprints Check-in Tool teams ask questions like:

What learner progress did we see?
What did we learn?
What worked well?
What didn’t work well?
Where to next?

Recording individual ideas on post-it notes to move around and look for patterns, positives, needs and gaps is helpful when answering questions. For example:

Images: Fionna Wright – CORE Education, (CC BY-NC 4.0)

This process leads to a collective, in-depth examination of practice that supports the transfer of new learning and consideration of next steps.

So, if the concept of breaking down large, often long-term challenges into a small, structured, incremental steps appeals to you, then sprints might be a process that is worth considering. I’m in my early days of exploring this approach but I believe that, in education, sprints can:

support collaboration and innovation
provide a clear, simple process that is easy to manage
promote rich discussion and deeper learning
allow for flexibility, adaptability and innovation
encourage evidence-based practice and provide accountability
provide structure to more effectively measure the impact of actions
inform future practice.

As an aside, a useful consequence of implementing an ongoing sprint process is the development of a growing portfolio of robust evidence that reflects the Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession (NZ Teaching Council).

If a sprint approach to managing challenging change can help us to continuously measure, adapt and improve our practice, it would be great to consider how it could also be used with our students.

Featured image by Will H McMahan on Unsplash

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Summer Holiday Reading 2018/19

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Paula Eskett

We have made it to the end of another busy year! The Kiwi summer break provides an excellent opportunity to relax, refresh and prepare for the new year ahead. If you need something to read over the break, look no further!

CORE’s Knowledge Curator Paula Eskett has once again collected book reviews from across the CORE whānau, showcasing a number of new titles to inspire your thinking and teaching practice.

Thank you for being late, an optimistic guide to thriving in the age of accelerations.

Friedman, T. (2016). London, United Kingdom: Penguin Random House.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Harari, Y. (2018). London, United Kingdom: Penguin Random House.

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.

Reese, B. (2018). New York, United States of America: Simon and Schuster.

Reviewer: Derek Wenmoth

Rather than focus on a single book for this review I have chosen to provide a brief overview of three books; all focusing on the theme of the future, the impact of technology on society and what it means to be ‘human’ in the midst of this change.

The three authors, a journalist, an entrepreneur and an academic bring their own unique perspectives to this challenge.

Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who writes regular columns in the New York Times and is well known for his previous best seller “The Earth is Flat”. Friedman writes with vitality, wit, and optimism, and argues that we can overcome the multiple stresses of an age of accelerations—if we slow down, if we dare to be late and use the time to reimagine work, politics, and community.

Byron Reese is the CEO and publisher of the technology research company Gigaom, and the founder of several high-tech companies. His previous book as also a best seller, titled “Infinite Progress: How Technology and the Internet Will End Ignorance, Disease, Hunger, Poverty, and War.” Reese writes from the perspective of an entrepreneur, but does more than simply explain and describe the world of AI and robotics, he focuses on how to think about these technologies, and the ways in which they will change the world forever.

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli academic who rose to fame with the publication of his book Sapiens, originally written in Hebrew as a history of humanity, translated into English in 2014. He followed that with Homo Deus which is a gaze into the future. 21 Lessons provides a contemporary stocktake of where we are currently, and explores the issues facing us in the present time, challenging us with the decisions we will need to make as individuals and as society as we progress into this ever changing future.

My reason for providing this collective review is that when we read a single book on a topic like this it’s easy to become caught up in the particular set of arguments or thesis of that particular author, and lose sight of the bigger picture of the issue or issues at stake. The combination of these three books provides an eclectic mix of viewpoints which, while sharing a similar focus, differ in the perspectives provided, leaving the reader to synthesise for themselves the ideas to arrive at their own point of understanding.

My reason for choosing these three in particular is that they are each extremely well informed, well researched and profoundly challenging volumes. There is a plethora of books emerging at present on the similar theme, but many of these are purely descriptive or opinions of the authors, rather than providing the meaty, ‘metacognitive’ perspectives that these three do.

At the heart of what these authors provide are fascinating insights into Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics and Bio-technologies and their extraordinary implications for our species.

In The Fourth Age, Byron Reese makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history:

100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to language.
10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare.
5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which lead to the nation state.

Reese then explains we are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics.

Harari arrives at a similar place, claiming that as humans we are currently facing three big challenges that are shaping our ‘future agenda’:

How to prevent nuclear war
How to prevent climate change
How to learn to control new technology before it controls us

Friedman describes three key areas of non-linear acceleration that are shaping our future…

The Market (digital globalisation)
Mother nature (climate change, biodiversity loss)
Moore’s law (exponential technological development)

While it may appear from these summaries that each author has a different agenda, their perspectives merge around building a picture of the future that is significantly different to what has been experienced in the past, and one that will present us with an unprecedented level of challenge in terms of who we are as humans. The change ahead is simply not a case of finding ways to adapt, but of considering how that future is being shaped by our own behaviour and decisions now, and then facing the consequences of what may happen when we are no longer able to make those decisions or act on them because a ‘greater force’ is doing that for us.

The challenge I’ve taken from these books is to consider the question that has challenged philosophers and academics for centuries, “how should we then live?” It is patently clear, from the three perspectives here, that our current ways of thinking about how we organise our personal lives, our business models and our political systems must all be up for review if we are to adequately prepare for, and shape, this uncertain future.

Throughout each of these books there are challenges that will resonate in the minds and hearts of educators. The future we imagine and are preparing our young people for demands action now. Our current ways of thinking and organising learning are being severely challenged and will require us to ‘let go’ of some of the things we feel precious about, and to act with greater determination to understand our role as ‘future makers’, rather than those who perpetuate the status quo. Essential to this is finding ways of working together, in collaborations, in networks, in communities – and not as isolated individuals with a ‘hero-mindset’.

The challenge is well summed up in the words of Harari…

“How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?”

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.*

Manson, M. (2018). New York, United States of America: HarperCollins.

Reviewer: Alyssa McArthur

This review has been written from my own personal point of view and is my opinion on some of the key points made in the book.

What attracted me to the book was the slightly naughty title ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’. In this day and age I feel we are programmed to care about everything and anything. It affects everything we do from our mahi to our personal lives; when really we need to figure out what we truly care about and what matters to us. It’s not just handed to us, we learn through our own experiences in life. I thought that reading this book would be a step in the right direction to help me lighten up and care less about the pointless dramas life throws at us.

The world we live in today has lots of not so great factors e.g. unhappiness, unsolved problems, depression, anxiety etc.; but it also has the good factors including happiness, problem solvers, and people willing to help. We are usually quick to forget about all the good factors as we are constantly dealing with our next issue or problem. Many people just like to complain and they can’t complain about the good factors which is why we hear more about the not so great factors.

A number of not such great factors affect my life daily and I was curious. I wanted an insight into someone else’s way of thinking about life and its problems and that person ended up being author Mark Manson.

I found the book to be funny and relatable in the stories Mark Manson used as examples to explain his theory as to why the human population think and act in the way they do. I didn’t take into account every thing he said (sorry Mark!), but that’s the good thing about this book; you can take what you want from it and use the techniques which align with you. They make you think! Sometimes I found myself having to stop halfway through a chapter just to think about whether or not I agreed with what the author was saying. It was like a mini counselling session for myself.

I honestly enjoyed reading this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking into changing their mindset or re-considering their own personal values. Life can be full of surprises and this book provides some interesting insights into how we can handle them.

Why We Sleep : The New Science of Sleep and Dreams.

Walker, M. (2018). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.

Reviewer: Pete Sommerville

An extract: ‘Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory, makes you more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are you interested?’

The wonder drug can be hard to get your hands on. But it seems it’s worth the effort.

Everyone needs to know how our modern world has conspired against sleep. Matthew Walker clearly describes the damage we do by ignoring the importance and complexity of the role sleep plays in our lives.

For example, we can all be divided into two genetically determined groups: morning larks and night owls, each influenced by different circadian rhythms. There is nothing owls can do to become larks which is tough because work and school norms overwhelmingly favour early rising larks. Owls are forced to ‘burn the proverbial candle at both ends. Greater ill health caused by a lack of sleep therefore befalls owls, including higher rates of depression, anxiety, diabetes, cancer, heart attack and stroke.’ There is evidence for viewing lack of sleep as a factor in the onset of depression and schizophrenia. Early school starting times are disastrous for the mental health of teenagers.

If you regularly clock in under seven hours a night, you’re doing yourself a disservice as grave as that of regularly smoking or drinking to excess.

Your Wellbeing Blueprint: Feeling good and doing well at work.

McQuaid, M., & Kern, P. (2017). Australia: Michelle McQuaid.

Reviewer: Ara Simmons

Who doesn’t want to feel good and function well? For many of us work will make up a good chunk of our lives so why wouldn’t we want to thrive.

By regularly engaging in wellbeing habits and activities we can build on our wellbeing. In this book, the authors distill research from the past three decades and serve them up as practical activities which we can try on for size in our everyday lives.

The wellbeing blueprint provides a “how to” guide from initially supporting us to measure our own wellbeing right through to supporting us to create our own wellbeing plan.

Personally, I think it’s a gem of a book and something which I come back to regularly to provide me with doses of inspiration. For those of us with an academic thirst the book comes filled with a bumper store of references for further exploration.

Contextual Wellbeing : Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out.

Street, H. (2018). Australia, Wise Solutions.

Reviewer: Ara Simmons

So when we are creating positive schools what are some of the things we consider? Does context ever come into it?

Children not only need to learn, but they need to live well too but sometimes the decisions we make as schools can get in the way. In this book Helen Street asks us to be curious about what the social side of wellbeing looks like – considering community approaches instead of competition, looking at motivation as opposed to compliance and control as just a few teasers and then serves up a contextual model for wellbeing together with next steps on how to begin.

This book is for anyone who is interested in the conversation of creating positive schools from the inside out where health, happiness and positive engagement are all considered as an integrated whole.

Remixing the Key Competencies: A curriculum design deck.

Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER Press.

Reviewer: Jacky Young

I have been working in a secondary school recently helping them to review their Year 12 NCEA L2 course, focussing on the key competencies to enhance student learning instead of focussing on the traditional ‘credit farming’ they had been doing previously.

NZCER have produced a deck of cards called Remixing the Key Competencies: A curriculum design deck, where each cards lists an example of a learning activity on the white side and the relevant key competency on the other coloured side. We used them in a variety of different ways:

Lay out all cards white side up. Teachers select 2-3 cards that relate best to something they were doing with a class in the last day or 2. Talk about what they were doing, hoping to achieve etc in that lesson. Turn cards over. Taadah – which KC were you embedding?
Lay out all cards white side up. Select activities that best match up to a unit of work. Turn over and look at the frequency of KCs being covered. Where are the gaps? Which ones currently dominate? What do you want to do about this?
Fan out all cards. Pick one from the deck (a bit like a magic trick!) Turn it over and talk about what it would look like in your classroom if you designed an activity like this.

Lots and lots of ideas. Also blank cards so you can write your own. The school liked them so much they are going to buy their own set. They think they will get lots of use out of them when they start to review other year levels to be more inclusive of the KCs. All staff were fully engaged in this ‘gamification’ of curriculum design.

We have a set in our CORE Education library, but I liked them so much I bought my own.

NZCER also do a deck on remixing NCEA across learning areas (NCEA L2) and the Science capabilities.

Meri Kirihimete me ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the CORE Education whānau!

We trust you have a safe and happy holiday break, the CORE Blog will return in 2019.

Featured Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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Some summer holiday reading

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Paula Eskett

This is the time of year when projects and work streams wind up in preparation for the fabulous Kiwi summer holiday. Yet, for many of us, it can also be a time for reflection and thinking ahead to ways we can bring to life our goals and aspirations for 2018.

CORE whānau are ferocious readers with their fingers on the pulse of the latest national and international titles and best sellers. Our personalised reviews — with a uniquely Aotearoa — lens may support and inspire your thinking and teaching practice.

Enjoy a selection of reviews of the great reads from 2017.

Schools who are interested in subscribing to the CORE Library can contact Paula Eskett for details.

A Learner’s Paradise — a guidebook for parents and educators everywhere.
Wells, R. (2016).
EdtechTeam Press.
Reviewed by: Jacky Young

Richard Wells (@EduWells) writes in a conversational style, which made this a quick and easy read for me. I also enjoyed the web links contained in footnotes allowing me to explore further. He made me realise that we do have a great education system, something those of us who were part of the evolutionary process as The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) document took shape often take for granted.

As a past CORE Education e-Fellow, he explored how the NZC has been interpreted by a wide range of schools throughout NZ. Many parts of it are well worth sharing with others, especially if you are working as a facilitator in schools. His key focus is on the amazing nature of where education is at in NZ, and the possibilities of its future due to the innovative and flexible opportunities inherent in the NZC as our guiding document. He came to NZ in 2006 after having taught in a very constricting and rigid education system in England. Based on his prior experiences, he calls our curriculum the ‘empty’ curriculum because of its lack of content, driven by key competencies and values allowing it to be interpreted in diverse ways to best meet the needs of learners and school context. He frequently refers to NZ’s high trust model, which means that teachers are treated as professionals capable of making good decisions about what and how they teach.

This book is not just targeted at New Zealand readers and has received accolades worldwide for his reflections on the ideas and possibilities that are embedded within our national education system.

In the words of our colleague Philippa Nicoll Antipas, as quoted on the cover:
“A Learner’s Paradise offers a fresh and engaging overview of the New Zealand education system with provocations and practical suggestions for the classroom teacher… This is a highly enjoyable and thought-provoking read.”

Moving the Rock: Seven Levers We Can Press to Transform Education.
Lichtman, Grant (2017).
Jossey-Bass.
Reviewed by: Rebbecca Sweeney

Grant Lichtman’s #EdJourney is the precursor to his latest book, Moving the Rock. He has searched far and wide for examples of innovation and real change in education, and has shared these in #EdJourney and on his blog. Now, with Moving the Rock, Grant presents his thoughts on exactly how we should achieve the changes needed to shift education dramatically. He shares seven “Levers” for transforming education:
1. Create the demand for better schools
2. Building school-community learning laboratories
3. Encourage open access to knowledge
4. Fix how we measure student success and admit students to college (university)
5. Teach the teachers what they really need to know
6. Connect, flow, and rethink “school”
7. Lead change from where you are

I loved so much about this book and wish I could share it all in this review! While Grant writes from an American perspective, many of his ideas and much of his take on the state of education can be aligned to our New Zealand view. You can happily skip the descriptions of the American policy scene and read about each “Lever” to get some amazing ideas on what you can do right now to influence change from where you’re at — whether you’re a learner, a parent, a teacher, a leader, or a facilitator.

A few snippets I liked a lot include:

Lever 1: Creating the demand for better schools can involve starting small from wherever you are through things like having open community conversations, inspiring our communities by watching films such as Most Likely to Succeed, by piloting new programmes, and by showing off our successes, our pilots, our passionate, and engaged learners!

Lever 6: Online technologies and learning spaces (like MOOCs) may have opened up all kinds of “transactional access to learning but they largely ignore the critical importance of relational learning” — Virtual Reality has potential here, if we can develop a relational pedagogy to go along with relationable VR and Augmented Reality technologies. Exciting!

Lever 7: We need to consider the human side of school change and consider the role of leadership by classroom teachers, families, and communities, too. “Leading from where you are” is important in order for significant change in education. How might we provide opportunities for “early adopters” to engage in leadership learning and then in leading transformational change? How much leadership mentoring and training have school leaders had? How do they enable distributed leadership in their schools?

Disobedient Teaching : Surviving and Creating Change in Education.
Ings, Welby (2017).
Otago University Press.
Reviewed by Anne Kenneally

What a pleasure and a privilege to get to review this book. Earlier this year, the title piqued my interest, I’ve been following the social media hype, and have been thoroughly looking forward to diving into it. Welby is a learner, an educator, professor, award-winning academic, designer, film-maker, and author.

Opening the book, I immediately found myself immersed in a thoroughly engaging and easy read that grabbed and embraced me in positive hope and positive disobedience. Perhaps the most poignant for me is the need for absolute belief in the preciousness of every learner. Belief that all flowers bloom when they are ready given the right environment.

The notion of ‘social editor’ is a new one to me. That ‘editor’ who causes us to be wary of standing out, of being disruptive. I am wondering how powerful the ‘social editor’ is in those youth who have incredibly creative ideas, thoughts, and processes. What if they are filled with creativity that they are simply unable to share because of the force of the ‘social editor’?

As I read voraciously, I reflected on a couple of things that I think are worth noting:

As a young learner, I would have died rather than stand out for my ideas.
As an adult, I am increasingly aware of the ‘lack of real creativity’ in my current work life.
I am continually reflecting on the explicit inclusion of creativity in some aspects of my adult life, especially in times of creative questioning and reflecting.
I am acutely aware all over again of the true power and need for Story Hui as a tool for capturing a success story.

This book is full of ‘real’ stories, practical examples, big questions, and a whole lot of hope.

BIG QUESTIONS examples:

How do we give learners ‘permission to disobey conventional thinking and the protestations of their social editor’?
How do we foster creativity? (Question, take risks, have unrelenting courage)
How do we rely on ‘the transformative power of productive disobedience’?
What are we doing to address the conflict with measurement causing dependence?
What do I really and truly know about the way I learn?

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to Welby, at the University of Otago. And we are privileged to have him sharing at uLearn18.

If there is one book to read this summer, this is it! Get positively disobedient!

Collective Genius: The art and practice of leading innovation.
Hill, Linda A. (2014).
Harvard Business Review Press.
Reviewed by Oceane Imber

When we think about innovation, our imagination usually pictures creative and charismatic individuals such as Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg. We can be set with the idea that the capacity to change our world and be innovative only lies in the hands of a genius with the one revolutionary idea.

In Collective Genius, the authors, Linda A. Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove, and Kent Lineback, uncover what it takes to be an innovative company and dismantle the myth of an individualistic innovator.

Through in-depth research, case studies, and interviews this book demonstrates that the reality behind the success of innovative companies lies in the diversity of people working together to achieve a common dream. Innovation takes place when a melting pot of ideas and people work together supported by innovation-oriented leadership. The importance of the right type of leadership cannot be underestimated. A leader of innovation aims to create the right culture of innovation to give space for the collective genius to thrive. Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to bring innovation to life.

Not only does “Creative Genius” give us more realistic perspective on what the buzz word “innovation” hides, but it also gives examples and guidance on how to lead innovation and bring this into the norm in our own environment.

“Every person in your group, whether that’s a small team or a large corporation, contains a slice of genius. Your task as leader is to create a place where all those slices can be elicited, combined, and converted into collective genius.” (Hill et al, 2014, p.7).

Reduce Change to Increase Improvement.
Robinson, Viviane (2017).
Thousand Oaks
Reviewed by : Chris McLean

Don’t be put off by the cover. You certainly won’t regret spending three hours reading this little taonga of a book. Every school leader should have this in their Christmas stocking to reduce stress levels in the year ahead.

We’re under pressure in education to improve outcomes for all learners, and with good reason. However, this expectation often pushes us to make changes without clearly understanding the why and the how before we embark on yet another journey of change. Robinson unpacks some key steps for leaders, facilitators, or coaches, to take to ensure everyone is on board from the outset, using her ‘bypass’ and ‘engage’ approaches to leading improvement. You’ll love the examples. They’re real and make perfect sense.

Essentialism : The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.
McKeown, Greg (2014)
Virgin Books.
Reviewed by Joanne Robson (#ProfReading)

This year’s pick was originally recommended to me by Derek Wenmoth, CORE Education. For me, an outstanding professional reading is one that challenges my thinking, is underpinned by sound principles/research, and offers practical approaches to achieving the desired life — work balance we crave.

Moving from a non-essentialist to an essentialist mindset requires a shift in thinking, doing and getting in order to live a fulfilled life. McKeown, emphasises one of my mantras, “Less, Better” (note the placement of the comma), so I was encouraged to read on.

Each chapter: Essence, Explore, Eliminate, and Execute encourages us to discern what is truly important, remove the distractions, and ultimately effectively focusing on less but better. The principles can be easily applied to teams, organisations, leaders — starting with you!

In summary, this book reminds us to be mindful of everything we choose to undertake. By creating new triggers to develop healthy habits, we will be able to BE living essentialism — the disciplined pursuit of less. Being equipped with the powerful “slow yes, and quick no! Go on, dare you to pursue this. Ask yourself, “what is essential?” and eliminate everything else.

“If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”

Late Love: Sometimes Doctors Need Saving as Much as Their Patients.
Glenn Colquhoun 2016)
Bridget Williams Books
Reviewed by Carolyn English

You may know and love Glenn Colquhoun’s poetry — Playing God, the Fine Art of Walking Upright — now he has used his poetical skills to tell us about his life as a local GP/youth worker in Levin and what needs to change to reconnect our health system with the more vulnerable and less resourced parts of our society.

“I noticed that in consultations after that my head would calm …. wrinkles began to shimmy on the faces of my patients. Parrots or bellbirds or fantails would appear on their shoulders and dead people shuffle shyly out from behind them. Some would hide beneath their skirts or behind their trousers and others would trail warily after. Some would haunt and others would protect.”

This essay is part of the Bridget Williams Books (BWB) series — short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. It’s not just the health system that needs changing Colquhoun also describes his views on the role of teachers and education to reduce the poverty divide in our country. A very thought-provoking and visual text.

Gamify – How gamification motivates people to do extraordinary things.
Burke, Brian (2014).
Bibliomotion Books and Media.
Review by Fionna Wright

Gamify written by Brian Burke, presents the value of gamification and ideas on how to design a gamified experience. Burke is a prominent researcher in the areas of business/IT strategies, disruptive technologies, and gamification. He argues that gamification can address three key elements of motivation:

Autonomy – allowing for choice and agency.
Mastery – providing challenge and feedback to motivate participants.
Purpose – engaging people at an emotional level, in a meaningful way.

At the heart of the book, Gamify is about creating an environment that motivates participants to achieve their own goals. The implication for businesses and organisations is, as Burke states,
“If the player’s goals are aligned with the organisation’s goals, then the organizational goals will be realised as a consequence of the player achieving her goals”.

Gamify highlights that workplaces don’t have to be boring, or disconnected from employees’ personal lives. Work can be fun, personally meaningful, and allow people to set and reach goals that also support the organisation they work for.

In schools, gamification is fundamentally about rethinking learning. This book encouraged me to ponder:

Why learning should ever be boring, or personally meaningless?
How gamification could help educators provide more choice, personal meaning and a real sense of purpose to learning?
How gamification could help school leaders provide more choice, personal meaning and a real sense of purpose in their workplace for their staff?

A good read for people considering how to motivate others to learn and work in different, engaging, and purposeful ways.

The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die.
Payne, Keith (2017).
Penguin Random House.
Reviewed by: Nick Billowes

I really enjoy books that take a multidimensional view of complex problems and bring coherence to the chaos through clever storytelling, analysis, and the integration of frameworks from the work of others.

Is The Broken Ladder this kind of read? Absolutely it is! Keith Payne knits a clever writing style together with his unique experiences to provide deep thinking around the genesis of and approaches to dealing with inequity. He answers the questions around this topic that you have often asked yourself. As well, he challenges your thinking about the social and moral milieu that is leading to its increase.

Inequity is undeniably on the rise as a major global issue, affecting not just financial disparity but also access to opportunity, access to a quality lifestyle and access to a fair and free society. Payne takes a storyteller’s view of the issues and our reactions to and ways of coping with the challenges of inequity. He provides a mirror on the societies in which we live, questioning what we see around us at a societal level, and noting our responses and their consequences. Inequality divides us at a fundamental level, consigning us to lifestyles that are reflective of our opportunities, our health, and our consequential attitudes. Payne brings this sharply into focus.

Through the clever use of research, theory, and the insights of others, The Broken Ladder takes us on a journey where both our actual economic, social, employment, and community standing and our perception of the fairness, justness or otherwise of these, affect our future potential. In other words, it is not just how we are, but also how we accept where we are that defines inequality and how we deal with it. The ways we think and respond deeply change our prospects and, thus, our social and economic status and opportunity.

This book will help you make sense of social dislocation brought about through the impact of inequity, how it affects individuals, and how thinking about its genesis can help us all learn to address ways that we might mitigate its impact.

Image Credit (Feature image): Photo by Bethany Laird on Unsplash

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