Rethinking Education Systems: Human-Centered Leadership and the Challenge of Transformation with Randy Zigenfuss

PODCAST Season 7 EPISODE 1

Randy Ziegenfuss

Professor of Practice, Moravian University

 Quotes of the Podcast: 

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." — Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss is committed to transforming K-12 and higher education systems from the traditional, school-centered model to one that prioritizes the learner and adapts to our dynamic, technology-rich world. His research agenda focuses on the transformational leadership practices needed to catalyze systemic change. Driven by his interest in strategic foresight and understanding both Generation Z and Generation Alpha, Randy collaborates with school leaders to design innovative, transformed educational systems. He retired as the superintendent of Salisbury Township School District (PA) in 2021, after a full career in public education. Randy is currently a Professor of Practice, Education Department Chair and the Director of the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Program in Transformational Leadership at Moravian University. He holds degrees from Moravian University, Teachers College at Columbia University, and The University of Pennsylvania. In his free time, Randy works on a side project called The Human School and frequently visits New York City to enjoy its rich arts culture.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators. 

• 30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education as a practice?
• Transforming systems and interacting with school leaders to do this
• Human-centered leadership; 
• AI in education; 
• Generations - understanding Gen Z and Alpha
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?”

Podcast/ website/ book shoutouts

Ed.D. in Transformational Leadership at Moravian University - a place for changemakers interested in elevating their skillsets and mindsets to change systems.

Transcript

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Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Education Perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education. So welcome back to Education Perspectives, ladies and gentlemen. I am very honored today to have Randy Ziegenfuss with me today.

Liza Holland [00:00:38]:
He is a professor of practice from Moravian University, and he has some wonderful areas of research that we're going to dig in today. Welcome to Education Perspectives.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:00:52]:
Hello, Liza. Looking forward to our conversation this morning.

Liza Holland [00:00:56]:
Well, I appreciate it. We are both in super hot areas of the country today, but luckily we're here in cool weather for inside. At any rate, I would like to kick you off with my 30,000-foot question. Why do you think that we as a society invest in education?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:01:16]:
So I'm going to take my systems approach, okay?

Liza Holland [00:01:19]:
Absolutely. That's awesome.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:01:21]:
I think there's actually 2 paths to that. answer. And I would say that in the system that we reside in, the main incentive and message that's sent out about why we invest in education is to prepare students for a career. That is not a very human-centered answer though. But when I was a superintendent, one of the things that really irritated me was how the conversation around college and career readiness continued to ramp up. And believe me, I totally all about careers. I spent more of my life working in my career than probably most adults do, because it was such a priority and such a part of my identity. But it is only one sliver and aspect of being a thriving human being.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:02:07]:
And I think that's the other answer to the question. If we look systemically and we want to look through a human-centered lens, I think that there are probably 3 reasons why we want to invest in education. And that is, first of all, to prepare each person to be a thriving human being. And what is that? I think it's creating the space and the systems for them to discover and evolve what their gifts, assets, purpose, potential, things like that are. Help them to identify what are those things. And then it naturally flows into, I think, another reason, and that is to take those gifts and assets and to figure out how you want to contribute to something greater than yourself, to move beyond just a simple career to something that expands beyond that in terms of contributing to larger society, larger systems, helping those thrive. And I think when people do that, when we have systems where people are able to do that, that's when we can really create some synergy around solving the significant problems that we have as a world and as communities. And then I think, uh, the last thing that I would— the last reason, the human-centered reason, would be to prepare people to exercise agency in terms of shaping that future.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:03:29]:
I think one of the challenges of being in the systems that we have now is that the message that's incentivized is that you just react and respond. The future happens to you. And how do we in education systems help everybody— students, teachers, learners— realize that you have agency over that. And once you identify your gifts and assets and identify where your contributions are, you can then exercise the agency to figure out how you apply those things. And when we all do that, we create, I believe, hopefully, theoretically, a pretty amazing future. And we're not just responding and reacting. we're also being proactive and creative and agentic, and all that good stuff too. So I think the answer to the question is really kind of 2 things.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:04:21]:
What does the system tell us the reason is why we invest? And then what's a more human-centered response to that? And I think I have tried to operate on the human-centered side. That can be challenging, as I'm sure we'll get into, because systems incentivize certain things, and it's very easy oftentimes to sort of slide back into What does the system want? And then you find yourself being dehumanizing as opposed to humanizing.

Liza Holland [00:04:51]:
Well, that is a thorough and thought-provoking answer. I love that. Well, so tell us a little bit more about yourself. You mentioned you were a superintendent. What drew you to education?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:05:01]:
So I would go back to my K-12 days. So a little storytelling here. You ready?

Liza Holland [00:05:10]:
That's, that's exactly what this is all about.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:05:12]:
So I came from a very working-class family, first-gen college student here. My father was a truck driver. My mother was a housekeeper. So one-income family. But for some reason, they wanted me to play the trumpet. And they wanted me to take private lessons before ever even starting school lessons. And I'm sure it was a hardship to pay for music lessons on a one-income I mean, my father was oftentimes on unemployment certain times of the year because there was no work. But I started private music lessons in 3rd grade.

Liza Holland [00:05:46]:
Wow.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:05:47]:
And apparently I really enjoyed this. And so as I went through and got into high school, became very interested in music and wanted to become a music teacher. So I took all the music classes, did like— I didn't do any athletics. It was all, it was all music. That was my gift and asset, I suppose. The space was created for me to to— for me to feel a space where I belonged. And so I went to college for music education, graduated, got a job in a very good school district. And instead of— I wanted to be a high school band director initially, but then I had a not very good student teaching experience and decided that I would probably go deaf if I was going to become a high school band director.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:06:32]:
So I ended up spending a dozen years in middle school choral and general music, and musical theater, of all things. So, I think I learned a lot about leadership from music and directing and things like that. The idea that a conductor or a director or a teacher creates a space for artistry to come out. It's sort of like that idea that, you know, we just let people chip away at the marble and the thing comes out, then the art comes out. So, after 12 years, That's when technology started to show up in classrooms, and I became fascinated with that. And the school let me take a computer home, and there was this thing called the internet. And I was fascinated by how this technology could allow me to do some different things that I couldn't do without it in the classroom. I suddenly had this, this digital world of like connecting a computer to— connecting a digital instrument to a computer and making music.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:07:36]:
And how did that allow students to experience music in different ways? And so I became very intrigued with not only technology, but how does technology allow us to do things that we couldn't do without it? Not just reinforce or make more efficient what we currently do, but how does it allow us to reinvent? So I think probably at that point is where the idea of constant evolution and emergence, just designing and being comfortable with ambiguity and chaos. My classroom was like a 3-ring circus. Kids were all over doing all sorts of things. And then I left the classroom after 12 years and moved into technology because I was asked to work with teachers. We had all— we do technology in schools terribly, but that's a whole nother conversation. And so all this technology had landed in classrooms. and no one was really using it or knowing how to use it. So me and one other person were the 2 point people in the district that were charged with basically coaching teachers in how to effectively— I put that in air quotes— use technology.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:08:43]:
And thinking back, it was kind of hilarious in the sense that it was how to make a PowerPoint presentation. I even remember how to make a website. Like, And now you can make websites in AI with absolutely no coding background. But anyhow, time has evolved.

Liza Holland [00:08:59]:
You were an early adopter.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:09:01]:
So after 7 years of doing that, or probably after 5 years of doing that, I realized that it was time to move on to something else. But I didn't have a degree in that. I didn't even actually have a master's degree at that time. So then I went back and got a master's degree. I was able to leave that district and move to another district. a neighboring district. And, uh, that was my first sort of technology administrative position. So I was the director of technology in a smaller school district.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:09:34]:
And, uh, that was a couple years before we went to sort of the one-to-one kind of thing. That was a big thing. And so we were— our students had digital devices K through 12 in— was like 2012. So it was, it was pretty early, and there weren't too many districts that were doing that. And so a lot of the work as I was a technology director was around, let's not just use this to amplify what school looks like and what learning looks like. Let's figure out how do we reinvent the classrooms. And that's kind of where I ran up against sort of the human challenge of change, which hopefully we'll talk about. a little bit later.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:10:17]:
So I was in that job for, I think, about 7 years. And then the superintendent asked me to be the assistant superintendent. And then I was the assistant superintendent, I think, for about 2 years. And there was a couple of— he left and there was somebody who came in and they left. And then I was appointed the superintendent. So I did that for the last 7 years of my career. So it's a really interesting pathway that I think has Taught me when I'm sitting at a table with people, like, diverse perspectives. I don't come with a principal's perspective.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:10:50]:
I didn't have that role. That was a blind spot. But it was also— I think there's an advantage to that too. I've become much more sensitive to blind spots and also realizing what are the gifts and assets that other people bring. Nobody can have everything. And so how do you create a space where people can contribute those things, going back to my original answer. So that's a little bit about my career trajectory, but that's only until I retired. So I retired.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:11:18]:
I retired in COVID. Yes, there's more to the story.

Liza Holland [00:11:21]:
Yes, there is.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:11:21]:
I retired in the middle of COVID That was a very down time for me, too, because I was the kind of leader that was, like, really not a whole lot in the office. It was a small school district, so I got to know people. Much more of a relational leader than a sort of transactional kind of leader. And so COVID really slammed the brakes on a lot of that stuff. And so it was a good time to leave and retire and reinvent what I was going to do. Took about 10 months off, and my career had been like a big part of my life. And now there was like nothing. And I was sort of like, what am I going to do? How do I feel like, what are my gifts and assets and how can I contribute them? And so I spent a lot of alone time thinking about what did I do? How did I act? How did I create spaces for people to thrive? And as we talked about earlier, and so I landed on this thing called the Human School, which was basically, I call it a theory of action.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:12:23]:
Basically, how do people respond as leaders in terms of trying to bring about transformation, not just change, But how do you actually reinvent systems? So 10 months doing that, and then I was asked to work in higher ed. I worked at one very small university for about a year and a half, and then was invited by Moravian, which is my undergrad institution, to design a doctoral program. And that has been a really One of the most rewarding experiences of my career because it was really an opportunity to transform what a doctorate is and what higher education's purpose is. Because I think those are really all challenges in higher ed right now. And so collaborating with some people to design it from ground up and implementing it over the last 3 years, and we have our first graduating class this summer. So that's been hugely exciting, emergent, and very rewarding. learned a lot more deeply about systems and people and how they think and change. So that's the long answer.

Liza Holland [00:13:36]:
No, but that's a great trajectory, right? And you obviously were an early adopter with technology, and then you had opportunities to be able to help to implement it. What a great grounding for being able to teach our superintendents, our leaders. around how things impact a system. A lot of people I talk to are like, oh man, education, that's too big a boat to turn, man. It is, it's huge, it's such a bureaucracy, it's yada, yada, yada. And so I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, how do you transform a system like that? And so I'm fascinated to hear a little bit about your perspective about transforming systems, 'cause that's a little bit, different than change, right? Transformation, this is a good time, we're recording this around the 4th of July, so we're looking at a little bit of a revolution here as opposed to an evolution. Tell me your thoughts about what we, what do we need to be doing in education to create that kind of change?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:14:42]:
The short answer is we need to become more human-centered. And the reason why I say that is because I think that in traditional leadership programs and the way that those systems are creating space for leaders to learn about leadership, they're really focusing on a lot of the tactical, strategic, non-human things. And so one of the frameworks that we use in the program is Govindarajan's Three-Box Strategy. And basically, there are 3 places in which leaders who want to transform systems need to juggle the various tasks The first box is the present. And that's where, if you look at most leadership in schools, in education, that's where leaders are most comfortable. That is where leaders have been trained to operate in. It's keeping the things running, keeping people feeling safe, keeping the system status quo, avoiding as many disruptions in that system as possible. So if I'm an elementary principal, I make sure the schedule is done.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:15:53]:
I make sure that the faculty feel safe. I make sure that the students know what the expectations are. It's all those things that keep the system stable, and we need that. Okay. But in the larger world, the larger system, the education system is nested in this complexity and chaos, which is getting more And more complex and chaos as time goes on. And so it no longer serves us to just operate in that one box. Okay? So in response to that, most leaders will think like, okay, strategic plan. Let's have a little vision here.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:16:34]:
What do we really want our school to be? Okay? And in Govindarajan’s theory or framework, that's box 3. That's designing the future. What do you want? That's box 3. It's designing the future. It's working collaboratively with your stakeholders to say, who do we want to become? Who are we becoming in this larger context of the world? The chaos, the goodness that's happening, the innovations, the AI, all that stuff.

Liza Holland [00:17:06]:
Okay.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:17:06]:
Very complex work.

Liza Holland [00:17:08]:
Okay.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:17:09]:
I would also say that in terms of box 3, many leaders and many organizations and systems lack imagination. Okay? Strategic foresight is a fabulous skill to have, to be able to think without boundary into what do we want to become, and then putting on some constraints and pulling that back more into reality and balancing that with The current box one. So you got this box one, you got this box three. Box two is selectively abandoning what's preventing you from getting to box three. And another thing about box three is it's not like a technical process where you follow five steps and then you like that's where we're going. Okay, you know that's where we're going today. But tomorrow something might pop on that says we need to pivot. We need to constantly.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:18:04]:
Shift what that box 3, that target, so to speak, looks like. And so we've got leaders who are great at box 1, somewhat good at creating a vision and working with other people. But what we're lacking is talking about what do we need to stop doing? What do we need to abandon to get to that box 3? And that is very, very human-centered work, because what happens in organizations that have strategic plans and initiatives and things like that is they come up with all the checklist of how we're going to operationalize this. What are we going to do today? What's going to be due next month? All that stuff. And it becomes this totally dehumanized process, and we avoid the conversations. And I think that this is like the new killer leadership ability. And that is, how do leaders create the space for people to navigate the sense of loss when there is a system change? Because it is like mourning. Let's take an example of AI.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:19:15]:
I work in higher ed, okay? People are crazy about what's going on, and they're crazy about what's going on because it is a direct challenge to their identity. I have spent decades learning how to become an academic. I have become an expert in a thin sliver of something. And now students come into my classroom and they can find deeper information using an AI than having a conversation with me. And that is a huge challenge to my identity. So what do people do? They say, I don't want to have that conversation. I don't want this thing in my classroom. I've got to ban it.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:19:56]:
I don't want digital. We go through all that. That's mourning. Okay? That's going through the process, a very human-centered process of managing this new thing that's come on the radar. And leaders, in that case of AI, how do we create a space for faculty, teachers, educators in K-12 to have that conversation about why does this feel weird? Okay? And what do we need if this thing is coming and it's inevitable and it's not going to stop? I'm not going to stop it. And I can't avoid it. And I would be a bad educator. I'm gonna use the word bad.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:20:35]:
I'm gonna— I'd be a bad educator if I said to my students, like, we're not gonna talk about that because, you know, whatever. They're gonna live in a world, they already do. So we can't ignore it. So how, as a leader, do I help my faculty navigate that? I can't navigate it for them, but I can create the space that we can have conversations around. How do we do this? And there is no— the other thing about box 2, there is no playbook. There is no one thing that I can say, Liza, here's what you need to do. And that's another problem. That's box 1 thinking in education is we always want, we always want the consultant solution.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:21:13]:
Just tell me what I need to do. Okay? That's not human-centered. That box 2 is the human-centered. It's messy. It's chaotic, it's full of fog, it's ambiguous, it's a place that leaders avoid. And so what happens is initiatives fall apart because transformation is a human-centered mental process. Transformation happens when we change and alter our beliefs and our values. And you don't do that through a strategic plan.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:21:44]:
You don't do that through a checklist of things to do to implement AI. Buying a tool, creating a policy, that's a box 1. Okay, you can do that. You probably need to do that. Okay, but we also need to figure out, okay, so how does this alter our assessments? What do we need to abandon about assessments? And how do we reimagine what assessment looks like? That's the box 3. So as a leader, I have to juggle all of those things. So our theory about transformation is that transformation is a human-centered thing that requires the people in the system to change their beliefs and their values. And the role of leadership is to create the space for that to be co-designed and implemented.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:22:36]:
And that's when transformation will happen and it will stick too.

Liza Holland [00:22:40]:
You know, that stickiness is a huge factor. We, we had a big pivot point happen in our district here. And I started talking to some stakeholders who have kind of been there with the district over time. And one of them said to me, you know, said, Liza, I'll be here for you if you want to try to do this kind of thing. But I think over the last decade, we've had maybe 12 initiatives that I've been a part of. And we put all this work in and then it just disappears. And I thought, you know, that as you were telling your story, that's So much. And so much of it is leadership changes and somebody wants to put a new stamp on, but the system in general really pulls towards status quo.

Liza Holland [00:23:26]:
It does not want to be in that productive struggle, discomfort sort of space. And on top of that, I've done so many interviews with teachers, and the interesting common denominator is their most precious resource is time. As it sits right now, they don't have time to spend mourning, as you talk about. And you're right, that whole space really resonates with me.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:23:54]:
And looking from a systemic perspective, too, the systems in which we reside are sending us incentives about efficiency. And efficiency is connected to time. And so a human-centered response to the leader who's focusing so much on the tactical in box 1 is that's all you know, and that's okay. And let's help you see something else that you need. How do you focus on that human-centered thing? And one of the things that I've learned from working with people is like, that's what we call a threshold concept. It's sort of like, I never thought about that. And that's because they've lived in these systems that have incentivized and signaled that time efficiency optimization. That's what you should be focusing on.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:24:41]:
And our leaders do that. But the problem is that maintains the status quo. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving forward, and there becomes this big gap. And that's when we start to feel the real anxiety, like AI. Okay? Our systems are not— they're in optimization, and the rest of the world is not. The rest of the world is in transformation. And so we've got these gaps. And so my argument is we need more leaders who have the skill sets and the mindsets to be able to navigate that.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:25:10]:
And so how do we create the space for those leaders who are so focused on optimization and box one? Like, there's a lot more to leadership these days than maybe what your systems have taught you.

Liza Holland [00:25:24]:
Well, and speaking of systems, the disconnect between human-centered leadership and the type of system that we, at least here in America, have built. It's very standardized, right? It does not allow for human variability. It doesn't allow for student agency. It doesn't allow for a lot of these things, especially when you try to cram so many different, you know, standards into one year. You know, objectively, if you look at it, There's no way to cover all of those standards in a year. And so how do you give students vibrant learning experiences that are connected to the real world under a system like that? What kind of changes do you think need to happen to the system overall? And particularly, I'd love your thoughts on accountability.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:26:19]:
One of the things that we're working on right now here in our state our higher ed institution, Moravian is going under review of all of our programs. And recently, PDE has created— there's not only the competencies that, let's say, if you're in elementary education or special education, there's those competencies that you have to meet. But now they've added like 150, no joke, competencies around trauma-aware, technology, something or another. They call them common ground. There's like 5— there's like professional ethics. I can't remember what they all are, but if you look at them, there's like 150 of them. The party line is by the time your students graduate and get certified, they should be competent in all these things. I'm like, how do you even do that? Like, it's so absurd.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:27:11]:
And so I guess to your question of like what needs to change is like And I can't even be prescriptive about it too, but there's like, we need to start— there's this natural hierarchy, which I hate hierarchy, but there it's a reality. So, you know, federal government, state government, school, the superintendent, central office, I should say, then principals, and then students are like at the bottom. Like, so what do we— we need to get out of these silos and we need to start, and this is the messy human part, We need to start co-designing these things in ways that are actually meaningful. So in that example of all those 150 competencies, and hopefully nobody from PDE is listening to this, but all these 150 competencies were probably created by somebody in an office who said, the state legislature has now tagged us with creating competencies around X, Y, and Z, and I'm going to sit in my office alone. And now every institution of higher education in the state is impacted by this new system, which is absurd and ridiculous and honestly a big lie. Like, there's no way all of our graduates are going to have all of those competencies proficient. And I tell my students too, I'm like, you're at the first step of the journey of the rest of your life. You're going to take a whole career to become masters at these competencies.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:28:38]:
Like, That's the truth. If you think you're going to leave— and they want to be perfectionists too. They want to get like highest there. But it's like, you're new. Like, you don't have experience in this. You will get that. And it's OK that you're floundering. So I don't know what the second part of your question was, but I think the first thing we need to do is get out of our silos.

Liza Holland [00:28:58]:
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. The second part to me was, I firmly believe that you get what you measure for. And so What are your thoughts around accountability and how schools are held accountable and how that affects systems change?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:29:12]:
Yeah, so I think what has driven accountability is optimization and efficiency. You know, we want— I remember No Child Left Behind. I chuckle. What was it like? By 2002, 100% of your students are going to be proficient in all these things. It's like, Come on. Like, that's a lie. We could strive for it. We should strive for, you know, the highest level of performance, but that's a lie.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:29:39]:
And it's also based on numbers. Like, 100% of your students are going to be, or even like now I had to write something up for PDE that was a, they wanted a rubric for something we were getting approved. And it was like 80% of the students will be competent. Like, everything's based on a number. Okay. So I think what we need to change in terms of assessment and accountability is, and this is one of the things that we embrace in our program, is that numbers and stories too. There's a story behind every number. Okay.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:30:09]:
But why don't we tell stories? Why doesn't the system accept stories? Because it's not optimization. It's not messy. It's messy. It's, it's not something we can put a number on that says like, yes or no. Did you make it? Did you not make it? So we avoid the stories because, you know, there's bias, or, you know, there's— you can interpret it. You might interpret it one way, I might interpret it the other, but that's data too. So, you know, assessment and accountability, let's reimagine that. Let's value numbers, but let's also value the richness of the stories that are behind it.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:30:47]:
You know, if I— what happens at school board meetings, at the end of the school year when test scores are being reported, okay, it's almost all numbers. Give me a face. Give me a kid. Bring some kids in to talk about what they did, okay? And then let's put that next to the test scores.

Liza Holland [00:31:06]:
Yeah, no, you, I just, that opportunity for kids to be able to present, I mean, so many of those kind of performance-based learning As you know, from music, right? I think from music and sports are where our kids are getting a lot of those experiences. And in, you know, once you get out into quote unquote the real world, those are the skill sets that you're really going to want to need. And they don't fit nicely onto a multiple choice test or a Scantron or any of those types of things. But it, I guess it's gaining consensus around what can be evidence of learning.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:31:43]:
Yeah, that's the messy part. We can't necessarily define that if we're going to reimagine it. I can't give you a checklist of that. We have to figure that out. It has to emerge. We have to be okay with the chaos and the fog to be able to figure out what that is. But the system doesn't incentivize that.

Liza Holland [00:32:02]:
No, it doesn't. And that's what, you know, I mean, I look at how can we start to right this ship, or at least you know, adjust the sails to where we're arriving at a little bit of a different destination. And it seems to me that accountability piece is a good place to start because people will strive to, you know, get their full credit on this little portion if that little portion is put forward. Here in Kentucky, we just had House Bill 257 pass, and it is really leaning into these durable skills. And so they're calling them local indicators of quality, but it requires— I know.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:32:45]:
That sounds so optimized.

Liza Holland [00:32:47]:
Doesn't it though? But it's really the kind of the Portrait of a Graduate movement. It's the what, trying to meet the needs of what employers are looking for. At higher ed here, we have 10 essential skills that they have been agreed upon in higher ed all the way through. But it's exciting to me that at least a greater richness and diversity of skills is starting to be embraced even at the legislative level. So it's gonna be interesting to see how that kind of pans out. So we have these generations now who have been, we tend to call them digital natives, but tell us about your research in generations. How can we better serve these generations that are now in our school system, our Gen Z's?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:33:33]:
I think the first thing we need to do is bring them into the conversation.

Liza Holland [00:33:36]:
Okay?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:33:37]:
Whenever we talk about changing systems that they're absolutely participants in, they're the last people that we bring in. And I think we need to bring in the whole, the whole range of students too. Like if you're in a K-12 system, get in there and talk to your kindergartners.

Liza Holland [00:33:51]:
Yes, indeed. And talk to the ones that are not thriving in the system as we have it as well.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:33:57]:
and get their stories, going back to that idea of numbers versus stories, and really listen to them. And I think embrace this idea of transforming systems. And in terms of transforming systems, you have to bring in the people who are using that system, who are a part of that system. And that is the various generations. One of the things that I'm struggling with now and don't have an answer to, but really want to have conversations with students about. And that is, and I hear from my higher ed colleagues all the time, students don't read. They have no stamina to read. And so that's a challenge.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:34:36]:
And how do we work around that? And I'm thinking in my mind, like, this is a system redesign. Okay. And from a human-centered perspective, I say the reason why they don't have the stamina and they don't appear to be reading is because they lived in a system that didn't incentivize that, that gave them very short passages to read, that then gave them multiple choice tests. And now we're asking them to come read more academic literature, and it ain't working. Okay. The other question that I'm holding the mirror up and going like, how important is that right now?

Liza Holland [00:35:15]:
Mm-hmm.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:35:15]:
Like, are we going to evolve our current framing of what reading is? Same thing with writing. How is AI a tool that actually deepens the thinking that happens when you're reading or actually deepens the thinking that happens when you're writing? So right now in AI, we've got this mindset of it's a replacement. Okay, I use it to replace my thinking. No. You can actually use it to get over some of the low-level thinking to really push yourself deeper. So having conversations with students about what you're curious— what our curiosities are around what we're seeing is happening and what we're seeing as being different. And how students can inject their voice into that conversation so that we can actually learn from that. and then transform the systems and have them be involved in that too.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:36:11]:
So always enjoy having conversations with students to shed some light and perspective on what I'm seeing as challenges, what my colleagues are seeing as challenges. And I would also say one last thing, the non— the dehumanizing response that teachers and professors have towards students today is to say, like, they're lazy or they don't do this or they don't do that. That's not very human-centered. Human-centered is, this is what they do. Okay? And if we want to change that, that's transformation work. How do I create the space for them to see a value that I see? Or how can I be open to seeing something that they value that I don't value? And do I need to transform my own way of thinking too? And I think the challenge is the system's saying optimize. So I can't change. I've been doing this for 30 years.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:37:09]:
I must be right. And so just sit down, shut up, and listen to me and read the material, take my test. And if you fail, that's your own problem.

Liza Holland [00:37:19]:
And, you know, to me, with the pace of change that we are experiencing, we have got to be focused not on getting them a degree and then just done. It's got to be fostering the thirst for lifelong learning, the thirst for being able to have a new technology thrown at you and figure out that messy part, right, of how does this fit into our system and be able to do that. And the whole sit down, shut up, and just regurgitate is not gonna do that for people. I had an experience, speaking of stories, with my own son, his high school experience, and he's a pretty sharp kind of cookie, but the experience of school was just draining to him. The one day that it really, you know, kind of stands out for me is he came home and he said, Mom, I just sat through 45 minutes that I could have learned in 5 minutes on YouTube. What are we doing here?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:38:24]:
Mm-hmm.

Liza Holland [00:38:25]:
And that just really stuck with me because I'm like, okay, you know, here's a kid who, who could do that, you know, who is willing to go out, has the curiosity to go out and actually learn this kind of stuff. But we're not capitalizing on the different ways for our students to be able to learn. And so that was kind of started me on this path towards, okay, how do we talk about differentiation all the time, but how do you do that in a classroom of 30 kids? You know, and a lot of it is just figuring out how different types of pathways where kids can still learn and how do we do that?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:39:04]:
The other answer to your question is changing our mindset around agency. I think we're way too controlling. Again, it's optimization. We don't want any deviation in the classroom, so I'm gonna lock things down as far as I can to keep everything homogenized. And I think what we do is we crush out those gifts and assets. We never even see them. These kids never get to express them. And it becomes, the classroom becomes this factory floor of like optimization.

Liza Holland [00:39:33]:
And it's drudgery instead of learning should be so exciting. You know, as far as, oh wow, I just learned this. If you go down into your elementary classrooms, that's where you see it. And somehow our system beats it out of them by the time they get into high school and college.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:39:49]:
Yeah. Going back to the story about your son, I think the thing that struck me is how does that teacher use his story as a spark for their own transformation, as a mirror, hold the mirror up and say, ooh, this isn't working. If this student, can learn what I planned for 45 minutes by going on YouTube, there's something wrong with my design. I need to change it. Okay, but that's the box-two thing. That means I need to abandon something, and that's a challenge to my identity. That's where I start to mourn, and I go, oops, brakes, can't do that. I'll just stay in my little 45-minute box.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:40:26]:
He's one student. It doesn't really matter. So then we rationalize that. But how do we help people see like, no, hold the mirror up. Like, that's a great opportunity to change who you are becoming as a teacher.

Liza Holland [00:40:40]:
See, and that's the piece too, is they need to be the ultimate lifelong learners, right? And that's not how our system has really built and supported them exactly. They don't— the systems don't support it. So I guess I'd love to go back a little bit in this getting us into that box-two thinking. What are the biggest challenges that you see as you try to apply this thought process in kind of real-world situations? What are the biggest challenges that happen in trying to— what do you see are the real challenges as people start to move into this space? And how do you coach them through it? Can you give us a couple of, like, if there's a, A leader listening, how do you coach people through this change of identity sort of a piece? What are some foundational pillars?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:41:34]:
Yeah, so I'm trying to think of a good example. Let's go back to the AI example because this is sort of my biggest frustration right at the moment. Head level, because I think that virtually everybody in my space, with the exception of a few people, see this as a technical challenge. We just need to give them more training. What tool are we using? Oh, let's, let's set up a little training. Let's show them how to redesign their assessments. And so we go back to that efficiency piece, like there's some sort of checklist to do that. And one of the things that's my goal for this year is to create little blocks of time for people to stop by and to just tell stories about what they're experiencing at the moment.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:42:19]:
So maybe Liza comes in and she says, I had this really exciting moment in class today where I was working with the students, and they figured out that we could use AI to do this. And I had never thought about that. So here's a story where somebody is beginning to re— they've been open to a threshold concept. They've crossed that doorway. They can't go back. They can't unsee it.

Liza Holland [00:42:44]:
Okay.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:42:45]:
And they've got the momentum moving forward. And then there's Randy, who comes in. And is like, I've been giving this same assignment for 15 years, and now it appears like students are, are all just using AI and submitting all these stupid assignments, these, these papers that read like robots. Okay, so let's talk about that. How does that feel? Why do you think that is? What do you think it's saying about the world that we live in? What do you think it's saying about the students? What do you think it's saying about you as an educator? How does that feel? Does it feel like you're losing something? What does it feel like you're losing? So I think, like any good coach, asking those questions that are very human-centered questions that direct people to help people see that this is an identity challenge. It's not going away. There's no way you can turn it off. And so how can we navigate through that? Okay, maybe I can share a story about how I was navigating navigating through that.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:43:43]:
You know, I experienced the same thing. I, one of the papers that I think I've linked on LinkedIn is a story about how I had this assignment in my class and it was to do a critical artifact analysis of something in a classroom, a set of rules or a process or a piece of software. And students were using AI for it. And I was like, okay, I could take one of two paths here. I could say, I'm gonna go academic integrity, all full tilt on this, and like, I'm just going to nail them. Or I think my assignment was pretty crappy. It's now a cheatable assignment. And so how do we start to use AI as a thought partner? How could I use it? How could I help them use it so that they can make that assignment even better than what I've gotten in the past? And I tell them that story, and I tell them how I Initially, that was like, oh crap, I'm a crappy teacher, or oh crap, now I have to create something new.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:44:43]:
I don't have time for that. It's not efficient. So I think I go back to a lot of the coaching is a lot of that storytelling, my own personal storytelling, other people who are in the group storytelling, and over the course of time. And it's messy because it's human. It takes people time to go through that process. Of seeing something new, of crossing that threshold. And so that's the goal, is how do you create the space for people to walk over that threshold where they see something that they currently don't see that alters their beliefs and their values, which ultimately is sort of the natural way that transformation and things change in the world. Things are constantly changing in the world, and we need to sort of go with that flow.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:45:29]:
Unless we really love feeling that dissonance and that anxiety, which I think most people don't.

Liza Holland [00:45:34]:
No. And, you know, that efficiency standard has taken up all the time that we used to spend doing that sort of work. So I think your focus on leaders creating time and space is super, super valuable.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:45:52]:
And what's counterintuitive about that is we don't do it because It takes too much time. It's too messy. It's the personal stuff that we think we're not supposed to talk about, but it's an investment in that transformation, and I don't own it. So when I leave, it's still there. And I think that's another problem with innovation and initiatives and things like that, is somebody at the top owns it, and it's, here's the blueprint, go do it. And then when they leave, people are like, thank God they're They've left. Now we can go back to doing what we've always done.

Liza Holland [00:46:29]:
Back to the status quo. Absolutely. Because the system will do that to you, right?

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:46:33]:
Yeah. And you have to do that human work if you want it to be sustainable and you want to have control over how the innovation happens. So go back to our AI example. I say that if we don't want to participate in that dialogue and that Box 2 conversation, that's fine. It's still going to happen to you. And you're going to have no control over it. But if you participate in that and you exercise your agency to be engaged, then you do have a role in defining what that future looks like. So do we want to have a role in defining the future, or do we just want to have it happen to us? Which kind of goes back to my initial answer to your first question.

Liza Holland [00:47:13]:
That is so incredibly true that in a way that, that is a great answer to my last question. I could have this conversation with you all day. What would you like for decision makers to know? And you can define decision makers however you'd like to.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:47:28]:
Ooh, so much. I think I'll say 2 things. One is we need to lead differently. The world is not going to be kind to systems that focus only on optimization. So that requires a new kind of leadership. I don't think there's a blueprint for that because the terrain is shifting constantly, but we can't continue to lead in the way that we've led for efficiency and optimization. And I think the second thing is, goes back to my policy answer, and that is we need to get out of our silos. And those decision makers need to realize that, yes, while I get to make the decision, I need to make that decision with data, information, and stories from as diverse a group of people as possible.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:48:22]:
Because I am human, I am infallible, I do not know everything. And the more that I can engage other perspectives and a diverse set of people, the better that decision or that outcome is going to be and the more sustainable, because those folks will feel a sense of agency and involvement as opposed to being cogs in the wheel of some top-down decision maker. Now, the caveat to that is most people in the system have been conditioned to be the minions of the decision makers, and they're happy with that because it's comfortable. I get to know— you tell me what to do, just tell me what to do. What do I need to pass my compliance review? What do I need To get a proficient? What do I need to do this? You just tell me. Okay, so I give you my agency. That's very comfortable to a lot of people. Okay, because then when it goes off the rails, I can blame you.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:49:19]:
You didn't tell me, or you told me this. So I think, yeah, those 2 things. We need new leadership, new ways of leading, and we need to get out of our silos and really start to engage people in co-designing whatever these Box 3 visions happen to be. And yeah, those would be my 2.

Liza Holland [00:49:37]:
Those are excellent too. They really are. Goodness. It makes me think, which is wonderful. And I, this is one of the reasons I love this, love this podcast. And I am so, so glad that you took your time to share your thoughts and ideas with us today.

Randy Ziegenfuss [00:49:51]:
My pleasure. It's been fun to play with some ideas and see what new thinking comes from this. And I'll— once we hit the off button here, I will probably reflect and think of what new things I learned. So thank you, Liza.

Liza Holland [00:50:06]:
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which Education Perspectives you would like to hear or share. Please subscribe and share with your friends.