There's no such thing as the 'New Normal' in Education

The post-pandemic period has given rise to a whole range of zeitgeist terms, some of which capture the reality of the current situation, and others which have emerged through popular usage, but serve as a distraction from the work being undertaken by people as they navigate and explore the changed landscape of the workplace and elsewhere. This is not a new phenomenon. Crises over time have given birth to new terms and words which are now part of our English-speaking vernacular.

One of these oft-used and distracting terms is the 'new normal'. It has almost become as ubiquitous in use as the word 'unprecedented'. But, there is nothing normal about this newly re-shaped context in which we find ourselves. To consider a situation (i.e. the workplace) normal is to recognise:

• Things have been in place for an extended period of time, resulting in familiar routines of operation which can be readily anticipated by people;
• That people share a generally accepted view of the reality of the workplace;
• A broadly agreed upon set of practices, systems, actions and processes.

If we accept what we are called to believe about the post-COVID era, then 'new' is right, but 'normal' is way off the mark. Further, to continue to proselytise this so-called 'new normal' is to convey to staff that that they should just accept their new work-life 'lot' and if you're not on the 'new normal' bus (another vapid analogy), then you are professionally abnormal; a Luddite; and/or anti-innovation and anachronistic. You can't talk staff wellbeing and the 'new normal' in the same breath.

I am a Secondary school Principal, so the idea that we are in a new context, where the wave of change is to imminently crash onto us is not lost on me. Schools have had to undertake steps, in rapid fashion, to meet the new and revised learning needs of students. This was a new experience, and in no way were we assisted in this task by our commitment to contemporary pedagogy, STEM or eLearning. The reason why the word unprecedented has been used so often to describe the pandemic response in education is because this has never happened before. This also clarifies why we did not read about schools who genuinely transitioned to online learning at home without complication. Those that did were exercising their PR strategy more than anything else.

There is nothing normal, that is to state "everyday", in schools standing up critical incident management teams to plan for the real possibility of a school closure, hundreds of students maintaining their learning progress while not physically attending school, and teachers adapting their pedagogy for the online environment. Further, most schools don't seek parent feedback at the end of every week, or meet multiple times a day to troubleshoot and respond to unanticipated problems and issues ranging from the technical, to professional learning and student wellbeing. I am yet to see the 'normal' in any of this.

Post-online learning at home, experts and educationalists have beckoned a new paradigm of learning; that after a few months of online learning the dawning of a new way of teaching has been revealed to us all, consigningour pre-COVID methods to relic status. Unquestionably, many schools are engaging in a discussion about differentiated practice, adjusted schedules, increased student agency in the learning process, and feedback methodologies. But this is not the 'event horizon' in education for which many had anticipated.

Education's response to the pandemic has demonstrated and show-cased the flexibility, adaptability and generosity of teachers. There's nothing 'new' about that.

Thought Leadership in Education: Thinking is the new leading.

I read somewhere recently that change management books need to be thrown away now that we have graduated to the post-COVID world. Apparently, the ‘new normal’ is a paradigm shift in the way we see our world, the way we work and, indeed, the way leaders lead. It might be suggested that over time we may see emerging new ways of leading which privilege one leadership subset over another (e.g. relational over the instructional).

LinkedIn is a professional platform which might serve as a source of data allowing us to map these changes over time, and it can be used for this purpose now. Indeed, my observations across the time I have been a member have revealed a number of changes in how professionals present themselves, their selection of material/ideas to post, and the ways in which leaders conceptualise, define and express their roles.

However, not all of this is necessarily positive or helpful. LinkedIn is a social network which shares many of the vagaries of other such sites: false or misleading representations; fantastical articulations of work-life success and the generally unquantifiable but very impressive claims about skill sets, talents, knowledge and experience. This may read as quite cynical – it is, and needs to be if we are going to truthfully and trustfully engage in social media, including those platforms dedicated to professionals. 

This, therefore, leads to the point of this article which is to shine a light on what this writer considers to be some of the more incomprehensible, loosely defined, vacuous and irksome articulations of contemporary leadership. This may not be a popular position to expound, but perhaps arguments here may lead to further impassioned discussion about what qualifies as leadership.

There is a ‘market’ for new iterations of leadership, given that seemingly innumerable books, articles, workshops, conferences, models and frameworks have been claimed in its name. Some of these iterations seem self-evident, conveying something which is apparent and obvious; others claim to ‘nuance’ what leaders do, giving birth to a new subset of leader(ship).

One of these subsets is Thought Leadership. Although not new in the leadership vernacular, it is a new arrival relative to other, more established leadership nomenclature. According to Forbes, Thought Leadership was an invention of Joel Kurtzman who was an American economist, writer and founder of the publication Strategy+Business. According to Kurtzman, a Thought Leader is someone who is considered an expert in their field, understands the needs of customers, is characterised by originality and insight, and has keen eye to changes in the market. Evidently, Thought Leadership finds its home in business and marketing, but it has migrated to other fields, including Education – the author’s abiding interest – where it rests less comfortably, but nonetheless claimed by many in the field. The contention here is twofold: that the very nature of Thought Leadership is not a particularly discrete or nuanced expression of leadership, and unhelpfully compartmentalises the work leaders, as this applies generally in the field of Education.

This is not an academic article – though it may foretell something more rigorous and substantial to come – but the extant literature in the area of Education leadership does not prominently feature Thought Leadership as a term or concept of interest. The seminal researchers, policy designers and writers in this field have not written extensively on Thought Leadership. One could reasonably contend that if it was something of importance to the field, these writers would have written about it. Conversely, teachers/educationalist/educators/Brilliant Ex Head Teachers (someone actually has this as a title!) claim the title of Thought Leader on LinkedIn (and, assumedly, elsewhere as well). Essentially, by claiming such a title conveys to connections that, according to the broadly accepted definition of Thought Leadership, they are:

• Innovators

• Change agents

• Experts

• Leaders in the field, and widely recognised as such.

This article is not an empirical study, but a cursory glance of the soi disant Thought Leaders in the field of education on LinkedIn reveals some interesting points for reflection and discussion. One of the striking findings is that Thought Leadership is used as a job title by teachers, school and system leaders. One has to delve into their profile to discover their ‘real job’ in order to clarify where they might be leading all of this thinking. So, for some, the claim to Thought Leadership supersedes and seemingly more meaningfully expresses their ‘job’ than their actual job. When considering their paid employment, one could only conclude that their roles require much more than the dreaming/visioning/networking/futurology captured by the term “Thought Leadership”. Indeed, on one hand they undersell their own skill set. On the other, they use a term to describe their strongest professional attribute which is seemingly self-evident in education leadership, which should consign Thought Leadership to redundancy.

The position of this short article might be considered the views of a curmudgeon pedant, who has over-interpreted the use of Thought Leadership to describe the work of (some) Education Leaders on a professional networking platform. There is no denying that leadership in the field of Education requires a level of innovative, future-oriented thinking. Leaders are called on to inspire their staff to some form of action with intentionality. However, the term Thought Leadership captures a fraction of the work of an Educational Leader, and where it is used as the primary description of the work of leaders in schools, suggest some are either not doing their jobs very well at all, or have chosen to work in the niche, corners of the zeitgeist, for ‘thumbs-up, profile views and conference invites, and avoiding the less glamorous elements of leading a school.

When school leaders are not dreaming about the preferred futures of their schools, they are leading instruction, with an eye to the impact on student learning and achievement. These leaders can articulate the research, interpret it for teachers so that they engage with the most effective, evidence-based practices to propel students’ learning forward. They are also having unpleasant conversations with students, as they perform the role of Life Coach, Child Psychologist, Career Advisor, Motivator and Disciplinarian. Education Leaders work in the grey of the relational space with staff – resolving conflict, managing poor performance, redirecting, demanding accountability and professional responsibility. These leaders are in regular contact with parents and carers of students, who in myriad ways express their concern for their child’s learning. Despite the challenging nature of parents’ conduct at times, education leaders are called to be composed, respectful, provide honest feedback without the sharp edges, and maintain a relationship marked by openness and a willingness to engage in the best interest of their child. Education leaders also have to absorb the pervasive and negative perception in public discourse of the role of schools and teachers. COVID-19 may have offered some respite to this, saturated by the endless array of home-schooling memes, but there are no clear plans in place to capitalise on this sentiment. Indeed, the pandemic has only heightened the multifarious work of leaders in schools as they navigated the complex issues arising around equity of access and socio-economic disadvantage; the diverse capacity of staff in the area of online learning; and student wellbeing in the virtual learning environment. Finally, school leaders are at the behest of school systems and politicians, who design education policy when, in many cases, they are the least qualified to do so. Yet, school leaders are required to pivot, adapt often with little notice, and convince their colleagues that ‘x, y and z’ are the best course of action when often they are not convinced of it themselves.

Unsurprisingly, this takes thought; to actually state as much seems ridiculous. Leadership requires thought, reflection, intention and action. Thought Leadership as an alternative expression of the work of school leaders plays into the faddism which often runs rife in education and other bureaucratised systems. The term and its designation offer little to school leaders, and serves to diminish the complex, labyrinthine work of leaders in schools.  

The Catholic Education Paradox: Elitism, exclusion and social mobility

When we look at the history of Catholic education in Australia, indeed the world, its establishment emerged from a strong belief in education as a powerful way of evangelising and sowing the seeds of faith. Indeed, Catholic schools emerged in social contexts of disadvantage and hardship. Catholics were a persecuted group, and Catholic schools offered the faithful places of safe familiarity. 

Looking ahead to the contemporary Catholic school, much has changed. No longer are Catholics a persecuted minority in this country. Indeed, they face a greater threat of of being sounded out by an increasingly secularised world. Catholic schools enrol almost as many non-Catholics as Catholics, and are established as a high performing system of schools. So much so, that many Catholic schools have grown to be premier educational institutions. 

The commodification of education has, to some extent, necessitated a certain degree of pragmatism in Catholic education. Catholic schools, in order to remain viable, have to be responsive to the prevailing policy and funding conditions. However, my contention is that many Catholic schools have strayed so far from their founding traditions, they are only recognisable by the crucifixes. 

The authors of The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium presciently stated that the contemporary Catholic school faces the challenge of avoiding the entrapment of rising secularism which reduces education to its "purely technical and practical aspects." Perhaps these "practical aspects" might refer to the ways in which many Catholic schools 'chase the dollar' in order to meet certain expectations from the elite class. The elite class desire social mobility or maintenance for their children, and many so-called elite Catholic schools provide parents with educational environments with high social capital, and with every fee paying enrolment these schools preserve the most important aspects of their reputation which serve to reinforce their public standing, both educationally and financially. The research indicates that high-SES is one among a number of strong predictors of academic performance, and therefore, a number of Catholic schools undertake a process of social class creaming in order to enrol the best students.

I provide a sample of Catholic schools, their fees and founding charism below:

School 1 (Metropolitan) - Christian Brothers 

• Fees per annum: $13152

School 2 (Metropolitan) - Society of the Sacred Heart

• Fees per annum: $15460

School 3 (Regional) - Missionaries of the Sacred Heart 

• Fees per annum: $11020

School 4 (Metropolitan) - Jesuit

• Fees per annum (Year 7 student): $22900

... and the list could go on. While I do not suggest that these schools do not achieve great things for their students while neglecting students' faith formation, I do assert that these fees not only exclude the very students for whom Catholic schools were established, but defy their founding charism.

At a recent gathering of Queensland Catholic school Principals, Dr Wayne Tinsey (Executive Director, Edmund Rice Education Australia) presented those present with some very provocative questions, which he fearlessly posed to even his own colleagues in the system of schools and colleges which he leads:

1. Is a true 'option for the poor' our priority and mission and do our cultures and practices reflect this priority?
2. Do certain traditions or parental expectations of us conflict with our embrace of a deeper 'option for the poor'?
3. Do our fee structures and enrolment policies really encourage inclusion or are we focussed on priorities that exclude us as a possibility for those who are poor?

I am quite confident that Edmund Rice, Ignatius of Loyola, St Madaleine Sophie and Fr Jules Chevalier had no intention of establishing exclusive, elite Catholic schools. Again, any superficial analyses of these Orders' founding philosophies would conclude that there is some degree of dissonance with the schools founded in their names.

It is undeniable that elite Catholic schools offer students great opportunities, but questions remain around their authentic Catholicity and the extent to which their graduates absorb the socially depletive classism which appears to be the emergent ideological basis of these students' alma mater.

Even the Statues Looked Miserable: A reflection on Catholic Mass

The Catholic Church is a church in the process of change. We know that the number of people in Australia professing any faith at all is in rapid decline, with atheists currently holding second place as the largest group in the (non-) faith stakes. Currently, approximately 11 percent of professed Catholics attend Mass, and the numbers are dwindling among young people.

Many commentators look to the rise of secularism as the reason for the increasing antipathy towards religion. However, such a view sometimes fails to acknowledge that secularism grows where the Church has become impoverished.

If the Church is to have a future in the modern world, particularly in the West, then it needs to work at engaging young people, and certainly when it comes to the celebration of the Eucharist at Mass.

As a young boy and teenager who attended Mass in the early 80s and into the mid-1990s, I was rarely consumed with a joyous celebration of God’s love at Mass. While there were regular moments of solemnity and an experience of the transcendent, I often reflected why I and those around attended Mass at all. I know that I certainly didn't have a choice in the matter as far as my parents were concerned, but that didn't make me resentful or any less reflective about my presence among my fellow parishioners.  I simply wasn't engaged, and I often drifted off to cogitate on matters relevant only to the mind of the young.

When I was focused, I tried to understand the significance of what was happening before me, and I was regularly confronted with homilies which were above me intellectually, sometimes terrifying and always leaving me with more questions than answers. One of my other keen observations was the seeming joylessness of those around me: no one smiled; noisy children were chided and silenced by parents, and teenagers yawned and restlessly endured the 60 minutes of compulsory Mass attendance. Even the statues looked miserable.

However, it wasn’t all bad. As a student of Catholic primary school, liturgy and Mass were always much more vibrant and seemed to keep the attention of even the most inattentive student. We practised hymns for the following week’s Mass, complete with hand actions and bodily gestures; we learned the prayers and responses; we made symbols which were meaningful; and we even did a liturgical dance or two. In all, my peers and I were generally engaged in what was happening, even if some of the theology was lost on us.

As an adult Catholic who attends Mass on a weekend, many of my observations remain unchanged. Indeed, I am one among very few of my own age at Mass, and I observe that fewer young people attend Mass with their parents, despite professing to have a Catholic faith. Though, I am not surprised. In many ways and in many parishes (but not all), Mass has become mentally disengaging. The proponents of a more traditional form of Catholic ritual cite liturgical correctness, theological accuracy, institutional orderliness, and conflate a silent mournfulness with solemnity. They also believe that Mass is for the virtuous alone, but often look, as Nietzsche remarked, though they are “Lent without Easter”.  They appear virtuous, but often cannot think with generosity. Priests with a more contemporary perspective on Catholic liturgy are in an invidious position created by the self-imposed Vatican police who look for any liturgical divergence, however minor, to report back to their “masters”.

The Mass is about an engagement with the Gospel, ‘radiant with the glory of Christ’s cross, [which] constantly invites us to rejoice’ as Pope Francis tells us[i]. It is an encounter with Jesus through the redeeming power of the Eucharist. And it is open to sinners; they [should] occupy the highest order in the Church – Jesus didn’t live and die for the virtuous, and He loves according to need not virtue: ‘The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’[ii]. So, the Mass should be an experience that enfolds the sinner, and enables us to engage –mentally, emotionally, spiritually – where we can experience ‘mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgive and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel’[iii].

Catholic schools understand this given that there is a relationship between engagement and intellectual stimulation. Good teachers develop learning materials which stimulate the mind and thereby create optimal learning conditions where students can think, explore and be creative. An observation of Mass or celebration at a Catholic school is replete with joy, colour, vibrancy, and meaningful and authentic participation, which arises from an understanding of effective ways to engage the minds of the young.

We need this approach to Catholic ritual to infect the broader Church and overcome those immunised against liturgical creativity, engagement with the senses and the outward expression of the joy which can only come through experiencing the redeeming power of the Eucharist.

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[i] Evangelii Gaudium,

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid