Education Perspectives
Education Perspectives podcast explores the challenges and opportunities in education from birth through productive work. Everyone seems to agree in principle that education is important. So, why is it so hard for us to get to a system that works for our society as it exists today?
Taking the 30,000-foot view to look at the entirety of our multiple systems so that we might begin to plot a course toward transformational change is worthwhile. This type of change cannot happen until people are “rowing the boat” in the same direction.
Education Perspectives includes interviews with people engaged in the work at every level. Looking at challenges and opportunities and what they would like for decision-makers to know. This type of communication changes the dialog. Understanding where the other people in the room are coming from breaks down barriers and opens the conversation on a broader level.
Framed by the host through the lens of having worked in a consulting role with each level, Education Perspectives can give policymakers, administrators, education advocates and the community a unique view into this education journey. Considering these various perspectives to make for better communication can reframe discussions and move policymakers' understanding forward to make policy that will better meet the needs of our information economy.
Education Perspectives
Transforming Schools Through Connection, Academics, and Purpose with Cinde Locke
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Dr. Cinde Lock
Head Of School, Pickering College
Author Connections, Academics and Purpose
Introduction of Guest BIO –
Dr. Cinde Lock is the Head of School at Pickering College, a K-12 day and boarding school in Newmarket, Ontario, where she leads with a deep commitment to meaningful learning, community engagement, and student well-being. Her work is informed by a global perspective shaped through school leadership roles across Canada, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
With degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics (BScH), Education (BEd and MEd), and a PhD in Education and Mathematics from Queen’s University, Cinde brings both academic depth and practical experience to her leadership. She has guided innovative programs, developed transformative learning frameworks, and contributed to international best practice networks such as the Academy of International School Heads (AISH) where she contributes as a Board Trustee.
Cinde’s interests span student-centered design, experiential and project-based learning, and the intersection of education and well-being. She writes and speaks widely on school transformation, including her work developing the CAP Method of Education, which prioritizes connections, rigorous academics embedded in context, and purpose-driven learning. Her leadership continues to inspire educators to create schools where young people feel connected, confident, and prepared to make a meaningful impact.
Visit Cinde’s website at www.cindelock.com to learn more.
Interview
Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators.
- 30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
- What drew you to education? Global Perspective
- New Book - Connections, Academics and Purpose
- Need to break the system and start over
- Mastery education
- AI and Measuring success
- What are the biggest challenges to you?
- What would you like decision makers to know?”
Podcast/ website/ book shoutouts
Connections, Academics and Purpose
Education Perspectives is edited by Shashank P athttps://www.fiverr.com/saiinovation?source=inbox
Intro and Outro by Dynamix Productions
Liza Holland
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. Welcome back to Education Perspectives. We are honored to have Dr.
Liza Holland
Cindy Laakmann joining us today. She's the head of school of Pickering College and also the author, or co-author, I guess, of Connections, Academics, and Purpose. Cindy, welcome to Education Perspectives.
Cinde Lock
Thank you very much for having me.
Liza Holland
So I need to kick you off with our 30,000-foot question. Why do you think that we as a society need to invest in education?
Cinde Lock
Oh gosh, I almost feel like it's— if the people listening don't know the answer to that question, then something's really wrong with society. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean, we're investing in our future when we invest in education. The children that will determine what our lives are like when we're old and gray and long gone, and, you know, the ones who shape society, we have to help them, I don't know, find their way, figure out what values they hold. Who they want to be as people, not just what they want to learn. That's why it's not just about investing in education. It's actually investing in a certain kind of education that is broader than just the knowledge and skills that a child will have. And I feel like with AI and all of the things that are happening with curriculum delivery models online that are getting some traction, it makes me frightened that not everyone believes in that broader picture of developing the child and thinking about who they are.
Cinde Lock
Rather than just what they know. So I feel like that's why it's really important to have this conversation today too.
Liza Holland
Yeah, defining what education really means and what— why we're here, I think you're right, is an incredibly important distinction to be made. So tell us a little bit about yourself. What drew you to education? I know you've had lots of global types of experiences in education. Give us a little snapshot of how you got here.
Cinde Lock
Hmm. Well, I started off, I majored in chemistry when I was doing my undergrad. And I really didn't know what I wanted to do, but I thought I want to do something that's challenging and something that's interesting. And chemistry was my lowest grade in high school. And I thought, okay, then I'll pick my lowest grade and that'll be the thing I pursue. And I guess that was really narrow. But anyway, I grew to love it and it was fine. But then when I went and actually started practicing as a chemist, I was really feeling like, I don't know, it was too, it was too narrow.
Cinde Lock
It was too lonely in the lab. And you have to repeat everything over and over to, you know, make sure that you've got, you know, accurate data and that you can actually, you know, publish with confidence. And it just felt like I was on the end of a pin and it didn't feel like I was leading a meaningful life. And I think that's part of why I, you know, I'm so interested in education with young people because it's about helping them figure out, well, what is a meaningful life for you? You know, what makes you tick and how do you find that at a younger age? You know, even today when kids go into university, the vast majority have no real idea what they wanna do. And it takes them, you know, that 18 to 25-year-old time of their lives, you know, like a wandering time and a hopeful time, but a feeling of urgency and uncertainty. And I guess I experienced that myself as well. So how did I get into education? I ended up leaving the lab and, you know, I was packing up my university apartment and I was looking through the newspaper And, uh, there was an ad for the US State Department. I'm not, I'm not American, I'm Canadian, but it was an ad through the US State Department and they said, we're looking for interns to work overseas in whatever countries, whatever schools, they're international schools.
Cinde Lock
And do you wanna apply? And I thought, I'd love to see the world. I'd love to try something new. I hadn't thought about education. And I went, I ended up in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire in the Ivory Coast, West Africa. Did that for a year as an intern, very positively supported through the US State Department. And then fell in love with all of it.
Liza Holland
That's just amazing. And what an interesting career pivot and where you never would have thought it would take you. That's so exciting. So you're bringing all of these years now of experience in education to a new book. I want to talk a little bit about Connections, Academics, Purpose because I absolutely love the framing that you have around this kind of how school needs to change. Tell us how the book came about and how you came up with the CAP.
Cinde Lock
Yeah, so the acronym CAP is a way to remember it and package it and understand a little bit about, you know, the philosophy of education that I'm trying to encapsulate. And I've done this with my co-author Annika Lee, who, you know, helped to kind of understand and make succinct this philosophy that we were developing together. But it really is about, you know, when you think about a teacher, let's go to something really practical so that you can picture it and understand it from, you know, the real-world element. So if you think about a teacher, they go into a class or they go into the school at the beginning of the year and they say, okay, what do I need to do? They start by opening up with the curriculum, right? And they say, okay, I'm teaching, let's say, grade 10 chemistry, right? We'll go back to chemistry. And these are the units, these are the topics, this is how much time I'm going to spend on each. Let's start with unit 1. Okay, what do the students need to learn? What will I have them do at the end to prove their learning? How will I structure the lessons so that they will be successful at the end to show their learning? And that's the first thing in. Now the second thing then becomes, well, how can I make it interesting for them? And how can I make them feel like they're engaged and interested in it? But that comes after And only as a small thread through for the thinking and the planning of the learning.
Cinde Lock
And what do we find when we follow this method of education, this philosophy of education, that it's about backwards design and intentional learning and all of that stuff? Well, what happens? The students are stressed from the minute one about what the assessment will be, right? They're assessed along the way. It's about tests and quizzes and assignments, and it's about It's about proving their learning every step of the way. And at no point is there any urgency or interest necessarily to make that learning really real beyond the curriculum in the textbook. Because that wasn't what, you know, I often talk about what you put into the soup first determines the taste of the soup, right? But what was put into that soup first was decontextualized curriculum and standards and benchmarks and tests and assessments. That's the world the students know. And that's their whole world and how they view school today, right? It's all about chasing a grade. It's about proving yourself. It's about repeatedly doing things for the sole purpose of showing it to a teacher.
Cinde Lock
The teacher's the main audience, and the grade is the main outcome. So what if we flip that? And this is where, you know, the CAP method comes in. What if we didn't start with the curriculum? This is a surprise, and people might go, what are you talking about? You're starting with school without the curriculum?
Liza Holland
Correct.
Cinde Lock
Curriculum will come in. It's important, but it's not the most important. What if the most important thing we began with was connection? Something that was really meaningful, that would be purposeful, that would have an audience beyond the teacher, that would involve kids in doing something that was real, that they could feel an urgency to do because it mattered. And we found these connections and these points and then said, okay, now that we have this thread through of something meaningful you can do. What is the curriculum we can embed into that connection, into that context and that experience? And then throughout the process of it, you can show your learning in a real way. Now, does everything need to be CAP? No, it doesn't. But what if we intentionally pick the things that could be that and then amplified how that could play out for students and hopefully also gave them choice within it to say, well, what do you want to pursue further as well? And required in our schooling system that they go beyond the curriculum and find a passion or an interest, and they can pick where that might be, and we track that individually and in a mastery model kind of focus. And we also ask them in at least one way in every course to apply their learning in context to show impact.
Cinde Lock
That's that cap piece. And then they would get like a major. The student could pick where they did their minor and where they did their major in a course, but this became part of how we think about planning, assessing how we engage students in something real. And this is something that we've been doing at Pickering College and my previous schools as well, and it's made a profound difference on learning engagement, excitement, well-being. You know, when we did this in Korea, oh my gosh, we had, you know, such an intense academic environment and so competitive, and we had kids, we had books for you know, how to handle suicidal ideation. And we had counselors that would come in for suicide training for teachers to know how to deal with students when they came to you with, you know, severe mental health issues, you know. And, um, when we started to do this and we put it in every grade in an intentional way with real projects that were really meaty and interesting, we saw the mental health improve. We saw the kids were no longer competing with themselves for grades and this intensity of, ah, will I do okay? Instead it was, oh, wait a minute, what you want me to show is what I'm doing for someone else or with someone else in something real.
Cinde Lock
And now it's not about me, it's about what I can do and how I can do something meaningful that through it I can show you what I can do as well. But it's not about me. The emphasis just completely changed. And, and of course that changed with amongst the students too, because it became about collaboration, not competition. And yes, we also did the full IB program and the IB scores just Flew when we started putting this in because they were more excited about their learning and it was less stressful. So we went from being, you know, around world average for the IB Diploma, and we then, by the 8th year I was there, we were top 1% in the world for IB scores. So a lot of people say, can you do this and hold the academic rigor? Yes, yes, and yes. So that's the essence of this CAP model of education and what the book is about.
Cinde Lock
And the book is very practical as well. It's philosophical to talk about how to think about teaching and learning and assessment in a different way, but it's also practical. How can you make this come alive in your classroom?
Liza Holland
Boy, that's so powerful. And I love that the traditional assessment model was still impacted even with all of the wonderful greats as far as the students and how they were feeling and all that kind of stuff. But the academic rigor that everybody puts so much focus on right now, and is, that's the assessment model right now. And yet your system is working even within the broken system that we have.
Cinde Lock
Yeah, a big part of that is how we track learning. And that's where you can maintain that academic rigor because we've been developing, you know, a lot of people think of AI as a tool, but we've been thinking of it as a system and a systems design piece. And by building a full tech platform that tracks learning individually, then you can see curriculum line by curriculum line what each student has learned and hasn't learned and in what context. And industry mentors and leaders and collaborators, teachers, they can type in testimonials for the students as they do these projects and they track the curriculum as the student shows evidence of it. So, you know, it becomes very personalized. And mastery-based, if you still didn't meet, you know, this curricular line, if you still don't know the difference between acids and bases or, you know, redox reactions or whatever, you still have to do that. You can't not meet the curriculum and you can show it in any context you want, but you have to also show a major in, you know, impacting context and a minor where you're going and extending the curriculum beyond just what's written on the page. But you can choose and you have to meet all the curriculum and exceed it in some area.
Cinde Lock
And as long as you're tracking it, Then it holds the academic rigor, but also requires that there's something more to it than just memorization and testing.
Liza Holland
You know, that's kind of magical because the naysayers out there are always like, well, you know, how do you measure any of this stuff? And, you know, we get what we hold schools accountable for. And unfortunately, what we're holding them accountable for right now isn't necessarily what is providing the skills and knowledge and process that kids actually need to graduate to be successful in the world that we live in today. It probably was fine during the first Industrial Revolution, but it's not so fine anymore. Tell us a little bit more about the, the tracking and how AI can bring it to scale, because so many people say to me, you know, there's a reason it's standardized. We have so many students. How are we ever going to do this? How does that work?
Cinde Lock
Oh, it is so cool. I'm so glad you asked that. Okay, so let's start with a student entering an assignment rather than a teacher. So we're kind of flipping this, flipping it on its edge to begin with, right? Because we know what it looks like when a teacher enters an assignment. You know, everybody's gotta get a grade and blah, blah, blah. So say the student says, I want to learn, you know, I, we're doing this stream project and we're studying, you know, this fast-water creek at the end of the property that we have for the school. And what we found as a class is that there's lots of microplastics and there's lots of antibiotics in the water, right? And I want to pursue that further to understand not just what's in the water, but how to actually address it as an environmental concern, right? Because maybe the class only went so far with it because they were just doing their piece. So the student can propose an idea and say, I'm going to study this.
Cinde Lock
Maybe it's theoretical and they don't do anything, they don't even touch the screen, but they research it, whatever. That would be a minor, right? Or maybe they wanna go and find partners or work with a group within the school or beyond the school and do something. Doesn't matter. The student types in what their idea is, okay, for their project. So I'm going to research microplastics and removal systems for microplastics in the ocean and understanding how those microplastics affect the fish in the stream, right? Now the AI will go through and will look at all of that student's individual curriculum pieces. They're all outlined, science, math, English, whatever, you know, all the piece for that year for that student. And it'll search through and say, oh, with your project, you could meet this expectation, this one, and this one. And if you present it to this audience, you could meet this expectation.
Cinde Lock
Exclude
Or if you write it as a 5-paragraph essay with blah, blah, blah, you could meet that expectation, right? The student then looks at all of the possibilities of which they're not, it's not overwhelming, right? 'Cause they'll just give them a few. And the student writes back in and says, yeah, I wanna do this one, or I don't wanna do this one, or how would that work? Or unpack this so I can understand that curriculum line a little bit better. So it's a student interacting directly with their curriculum, right? And then at some point the student will say, okay, you know what? I wanna do these 3 pieces of curriculum. So I wanna learn about, you know, I wanna show evidence that I understand the influence of pH with, you know, how pH changes in the blood and how pH changes in the water with microplastics, which people think, oh, is that— that related? Oh my goodness, it is, right? Or whatever it might be, right? And they're showing this curriculum, this one, and this one, and the student will say, yeah, those are the 3 I want to work on, and I'll write the little essays because I want to have an English piece met through this as well. So then the student says, yes, I want to mark these 3 in progress. The little dial moves to these 3 are in progress. The student can see across all of their curricular pieces what— in their subjects, which curriculum is in progress, what deadlines they've set or agreed to. They can see what ones they finished at any time.
Cinde Lock
It's fully transparent. So now that gets automatically sent to the teacher. So if it's the English teacher for that English essay, it gets sent to that teacher. If it's the science teacher for the other 2 pieces, it gets sent to the science teacher. The teacher can write in the system and say, I need more information, or I wanna understand a little bit more about what you're doing, come and talk to me. And they can set up a time in the system to talk online or in person, doesn't matter, they decide. Or the teacher might say, no, you know what? You talked to me about that yesterday at lunch and now you've put it in. Yeah, Yeah, I agree.
Cinde Lock
I'm gonna mark as well in my dial, you're in progress. Right? Now they can discuss what the outcomes will be and what the evidence needs to be to show their learning, or the student can just begin and try different things and go back and forth with the teacher. If the student's working with somebody externally or someone else who's helping them, that person can write in testimonials about what the student did, whatever. At any point, the student can upload the evidence and then say, you know, give me feedback. The feedback's in the system. It's mentorship within the system, right? And the teacher at some point will say, you know what? Yeah, I've met with you. I've discussed this with you. I've seen your products, whatever you've done.
Cinde Lock
I'm going to mark that as met, right? Or the teacher can mark it as at any point as extended, and then you've got a minor in that so that you've shown where you went beyond the curriculum. or as a major, and you've shown impact in practice to that thing. Either way, the curriculum slowly gets met, and the student can see at any time the percentage of the curriculum that they've met in any one subject. They can see where they've extended it, where they've applied it, and a little algorithm that can be determined at the teacher level, but also at the school level, determines the grade as the grade develops over time. So it starts at a 0, and as you do things, it builds up. until the end of the course. And you can, in our system, you can only get a maximum of 80% of a grade if all you do is just meet all the curriculum, right? And you get a portion of that if you've not met all the curriculum but part of it, right? That can be your highest grade. But to get those last 20% is when you have to show a minor and a major.
Cinde Lock
And then that gets, you know, you can, a teacher can decide how many minors you need to show in a course, or if it's just 1 or 2, whatever, and if there's a major. So that determines the grade. But the other thing that's cool is, so it's forming a portfolio, it's forming the grade, it's tracking transparently the learning. But the other piece is that it also tracks competencies. So, you know, the competencies like showing empathy, collaboration, independence, leadership, whatever all the, you know, the competencies. And the school can decide which competencies they wanna drop down to include for the school is like, their values or the competencies that they want to focus on. And the student can say, oh, through this project I'm going to show collaboration, right? So then that gets marked, and then the student also has to show evidence of that meaningful collaboration that they did, or what they learned about collaboration through the process of doing it. And now at the end, a teacher can use the system to help it assess, or the teacher can just say, no, I want to do it all on my own.
Cinde Lock
So the teacher could say generate can say in the system, you know, this is the project the student did, because it can flag it and say, for that, you know, give me 4 questions I can ask the student that will dig into their learning a little bit deeper. Or tell me, give me a quiz so I can just make sure the student knows how to do this, right? And the system, the AI in the system, can generate the quiz or the test or the reflection questions or discussion questions. And then that can help the teacher to be able to you know, confidently say when they mark it to met or exceeded for the curriculum. And it goes like that piece by piece. Now what can also happen, a teacher can assign a test just like a traditional class, right? And in the test the teacher can say, these are the things that are being assessed in the test, right? And these are the questions that relate to each of those curricular pieces. Students can go write the test in class like a traditional test and then can mark in which curricular pieces they met, which ones they extended, whatever for the test. And then that becomes individual to the student. You know, if I didn't do well on that test, it was just one chance I had, but I can have many, many more chances.
Cinde Lock
I just have to come and show that, no, I didn't learn it in that context. I'm gonna learn it in another, and I'll show you that I'll meet that curriculum. I'm— I feel like I'm talking too long, but it's a complex— it's a complex idea here. But the idea is that right now, if a student writes a test, you know, maybe that whole unit's done, and the teacher doesn't go back and say, well, what did you learn? What didn't you learn? Oh, I'm sorry, you never learned how to complete the square for quadratics. Oh well, you got a 72, that unit's done. It's, you know, you're still on your little conveyor belt of learning, and it didn't matter that you didn't learn that. That's not how our system worked. Now the teacher goes, you know what, you still don't know how to complete that square, and it's obvious in the system.
Cinde Lock
You better learn it, and I'll help you. And, you know, there are lots of ways you can do it, and we can ideate about what assignment it might be or how you want to learn that, I don't care, but you can't leave this class without learning that. The onus is on the student. It's transparent to the student, to the parent. It's multi-layered with mentorship opportunities. It supports the teacher, but the teacher's still the key. It's not AI learning. It's not sit on a computer and just watch videos all day and do online learning.
Cinde Lock
That's not what it is. It's a system that uses AI that helps give efficiency to the teacher and transparency to the student, and that keeps a high academic while allowing the student to enter and engage in lots of different kinds of meaty, meaningful projects and use those to demonstrate their learning.
Liza Holland
That purpose.
Cinde Lock
What do you think of it?
Liza Holland
I think it sounds like magical thinking. It's really real.
Cinde Lock
It exists today.
Liza Holland
That's amazing. There's so much to unpack there. Tell me a little bit about how your teachers are responding to this entire new way and any feedback if you're getting it from the students as far as learning in this new type of a way.
Cinde Lock
So it's really new. Like, we're literally just piloting it, and we've only just piloted it in the, in the fall, in the spring. So It's a different way of thinking about school because they keep saying, but I just need to grade the test. I just need to grade it and I need to give them a percentage. And I'm like, well, what does that percentage mean? Does it mean they participated, that they had growth, that they met a standard, that they were norm referenced? Like, it's so muddled with what a grade means right now. And they're so stuck in their system. And it's, it's almost freeing, but it's fear-inducing for the teachers because they're like, All I have to do is mark that they met the curriculum or that they exceeded it. That's it.
Cinde Lock
Yeah, that's all you need to do. And that you need to give feedback in the system and that you need to confirm they actually learned it, right? Like, your job is a different job, and your job is also to engage them in meaningful learning within this cat model, right? So that it's real as often as possible. So yeah, the teachers are excited and fearful. and sincerely working with us to make it happen. Like, they, we're lucky because we've got just such a wonderful group of teachers here. But yeah, they're, it's different. It's not more, it's different.
Liza Holland
But it's completely different in how, I mean, this really is that move to a coach model in a way, you know, and give empowering the students to be able to direct their learning and all of those things. That is very, very different from traditional education.
Cinde Lock
You know what's quite nice? The piece that's hands down everybody agrees is, oh yeah, this is a game changer for this piece is, you know, lots of schools do, you know, a week without walls or an experiential component, or they do service learning or co-curricular work, and it never counts towards any grades because they can't track it. as an academic component as well. And this lets them do that. So, you know, some of the projects that we've got going on that are really big and meaty, they say, oh, I don't know how to track that. It's being tracked outside of, you know, the traditional systems. And now that you can put it into this system, it gives it weight and meaning, but it gives it authenticity, I guess is the word I'm looking for. Because they go, oh, you know what, that project that we're working on, It's got to be— it has to have, you know, rigorous academics embedded in it because it's being tracked and it counts. So we better do it really well.
Cinde Lock
It's not an add-on. And a lot of things when students do service learning, it's an add-on, or co-curricular is an add-on. But now—
Liza Holland
They're checkmarks as opposed to embedded into the system, as you so rightly put it.
Cinde Lock
Wow.
Liza Holland
And I love the ability to work across disciplines for the kids so that they can actually have a connection and understand, okay, this piece of the puzzle is actually going to count for my English, this is going to be part of the science, this is going to be a social studies researching the history, whatever it happens to be, that connection and understanding and answering the age-old, why do I have to know this? What am I learning this for?
Cinde Lock
Yeah. And why is that age-old? Because that's what school was.
Liza Holland
It's been for forever. Absolutely. So, no, tell me a little bit about the students, because I would think that for students, particularly the older ones that had gone through more of a, a typical learning journey, was this difficult for them to give them this much power and agency?
Cinde Lock
Well, first of all, let's look at it through the project. So what we've done so far is we've created these incredible projects. across the grades that end in capstone incubator experiences with mentors that are assigned to each student individually based on their passion and their interest in their project. So we've built all across the system these really cool experiences, and we have over 120 partnerships with different groups with the school, and students can engage. They have choice for what projects they might want to participate in and which ones they don't. So when I come into grade 6, for instance, right, A student gets a choice of 6 projects that they can pick from, and they have to do one each term, and they can pick what they want. They know who the partner is and what the project's about, so that they kind of know what they'll be doing, and they can show their learning within it. So, and the projects are multi-grade grouping.
Cinde Lock
So if I'm in grade 6, I might be working with a grade 7 or grade 8, because it doesn't matter. I'm showing evidence of my curriculum. It's unique to me. It doesn't matter the grade level I'm in anymore, right? We keep it still pack 6, 7, 8. We do the same with 4 and 5 where it's combined, but they love— they absolutely— feedback from the students, the parents, they love these projects. You know, they, they say things like, why can't I come on Saturday? Because I've got to get this thing finished. You know, it's a real project. It's so meaningful.
Cinde Lock
The tracking system, everybody's just kind of getting used to because it's new and they— we haven't seen it one whole school year, and that will be when everybody goes, wow, because they'll see it and they'll see their, their grade tracking. Right now it's been piecemeal because we've just been piloting it. So, um, but we already know the projects are making a major difference. I can tell you lots of examples of projects if you want to hear that too. But—
Liza Holland
I love that you're moving in that direction. And in our district here, we've been trying to move into— Kentucky has determined that as a state we want our students to have vibrant learning experiences, which is another name for, for the types of projects that you're working on. And it's interesting to me that some of the top academic students are the ones that are having a more difficult time, you know, learning how to work within the new system. They had that old system down, right? They knew how to study, and they knew how to take a test, and that they were good in that realm. And now we're kind of pushing them into that discomfort zone that actually means learning. And I thought it was fascinating that it's not the, you know, it's not the low-performing kids that were having problems with it. It's the high performers.
Cinde Lock
Well, it's— I would say it's a mixture because it's a different kind of pressure on them too, if you think about that anxious generation. But, you know, students today that get, you know, 96, 97% averages, they've really learned to play the game well, haven't they? Like they know exactly what it is and they're meeting the teacher's expectations and playing the game of school. But a big part of that is actually being an exceptional follower because they're following the instructions and the, you know, the requirements and doing the work, which means they've got perseverance and they've got grit to do the work and they have, you know, a strong work ethic. Like there's a really good thing within it, but there's really no expectation that they know themselves or have a passion. There's no, no requirement that they you know, see beyond just the scope of the curriculum and, you know, the walls of the school. So, you know, the school system was built for an industrial age when people were trying to have a standard expectation of a worker that would enter the workforce and get a job and be a follower in the job.
Liza Holland
Yep, you're so right. And that's why your CEOs out there are not the straight-A students, because the system is not preparing them for, for the entirety of the real-world experience. It was, it was focusing on that academics and following. Yeah. Oh, what an exciting, exciting project that you've got going on.
Cinde Lock
But we don't have the jobs of tomorrow that will be those following jobs.
Liza Holland
Right. They just don't exist anymore. Or there's very few of them. And the reality is the pace of change in knowledge is changing so much that even the content that we are teaching may very well be obsolete in a lot of different disciplines by the time kids get out into the workforce to apply them. So it's more about that learning how to assimilate information, how to process it, how to critique it, and then how to turn around and apply it. And that goes beyond our traditional academic model. So not that I am an anti-academic, I am not. I think that that needs to be an anchor and a foundation, but it's not good enough to just do academics anymore.
Cinde Lock
Well said. Yeah.
Liza Holland
Oh, how neat. So you and I got into this really good discussion, um, a week ago about the system itself and how the educational bureaucracy, the way it exists today, is really kind of dysfunctional for what we really want to have. And at the time you advocated for, let's just break the system and start over. Let's talk a little bit more about that.
Cinde Lock
I just think it's so hard to make a change from within, isn't it? Yeah. And, and maybe it's not about breaking the system because there are pieces you don't want to throw the baby out with bathwater, right? Like, you want to— we've spent 100 years developing curriculum expectations. You don't want to lose that work or that thought that went into it because, you know, you do want to make sure that you honor not tradition, but honor the thinking about what was important and why it was important. It didn't come about by nothing. But people have tried to make a change, and it's really hard if the system is just set up And you're on this conveyor belt and the student just passes along in the same way. Like, you have to do something different. You have to see it in a different way and be willing to make, to try and, you know, to offer something different to kids. So I don't think it's like, you know, the Google and Amazon, you know, go fast and break.
Liza Holland
Disruptor. Okay.
Cinde Lock
Yeah.
Liza Holland
Yeah.
Cinde Lock
I don't think that we can do that because what we don't want is to splinter the system.
Liza Holland
No. And you've got kids in the system here today, right? And so we have to make sure to honor their experience experiences and whatnot. But it's, I think it's more from a strategic thought leadership perspective. And I guess I'm looking at you legislators is looking at instead of making exceptions, which is what's happening, at least in my experience, which is much more limited than yours, that these really unique and interesting programs are exceptions to the rule. And we're having lots and lots of more exceptions, which is great. But at some point, We need to make a fundamental adjustment to the system that makes it so that these flagship programs and these things that are actually working and moving us forward have a full seat at the table, maybe, because otherwise it gets sucked back into the system and the status quo when a leader leaves. And we— our kids deserve better than that.
Cinde Lock
That's the thing. What happens? It either gets stuck back in the status quo and you fall back into tradition of what was happening before, which isn't working for kids. We know that, right?
Liza Holland
Over 50% of them in Kentucky.
Cinde Lock
Yeah, it's not working. It's just not working. You either have students dropping out or not meeting standards or, you know, working really hard, doing well, and then being stressed out of their mind and having like anxiety attacks all the time. Like, you can't win. So 2 things might happen. One, You know, you try this new thing, it's a flagship program, and then something happens and it just is seen as an alternative or an add-on and it gets sucked into the mainstream. But the other thing that can happen is you get a whole bunch of these flagships, but they look all different. Then you've got all these options and you get a sense of feeling overwhelmed with what's right for my child if you're a parent.
Cinde Lock
And then you, the mainstream doesn't exist anymore. And then you end up with a system that's shattered. Because there's no core system. And that is what I worry about because I'm in the realm of looking at what all these thought leaders are doing and how they're moving forward. And some of the ideas are really good. But when I look, you know, there's a Global Impact Diploma, there's the Mastery Transcript Consortium, there's Melbourne Metrics. And, you know, there's all these different systems that are gaining traction, but in each of them, something, it's like it's not a whole system, right? Like the metrics system is about just the competencies and they've, they've ignored the, the core academic profile, the, the curriculum. So now all of a sudden you're just tracking competencies.
Cinde Lock
That's not enough. You can't lose the academics. So—
Liza Holland
Right.
Cinde Lock
And I'm— I don't mean to, you know, judge another system, but it's true. And if a parent is looking and doesn't know what to do, right? Or you look at this Alpha School, which is gaining a lot of attention and they're focused just on the curriculum and nothing else. All that matters is that the student just masters the curriculum. And then the other pieces the student does where, you know, you might engage in something meaningful or understand who they might be as a person or what values they might have, those are add-ons and not tracked in their system. And you think, well, then, you know, are we willing to lose key pieces or do we need a system that encapsulates all of it and that can honor all of what we're trying to do in education, recognizing that— Core academics is a piece, who the student is, what values they hold, what they bring, what their commitment is to being an engaged citizen. Because at the end of the day, you actually also want to live in a society that functions, right? All those pieces have to be in the system, and I don't want the system to splinter as all these other things gain traction and get all this investment money that makes them grow.
Liza Holland
Yeah. Wow. Okay, so that answers a lot of my what are the biggest challenges to you kind of question, because boy, that is a huge challenge in gaining Getting consensus in the academic space is probably one of the biggest challenges out there, as far as, you know, getting everybody to agree that this component of that and this component of the other, and we ought to really, you know, dedicate moving forward. What other things do you view as your biggest challenges as far as moving into this new space?
Cinde Lock
It's actually not the system. The system is, you know, it defines what we value and how to track that and make it transparent. People look at the system and they say, oh yeah, this is it. It's not the building of the, this HAPPS system with meaningful projects because everybody says, oh yeah, it's a lot of work, but these projects are incredible and let's engage kids in the real world. Nobody says don't do that, right? The biggest hurdle by far is teacher buy-in because you're changing the role of the teacher and fundamentally changing it. How they think about their day, how they interact individually with students, how the accountability is so tight. Every child has to meet every curricular piece.
Liza Holland
Mm-hmm.
Cinde Lock
You know, like it's a different way of thinking from a teacher's perspective. And teachers are in the pattern of, this is, this is how I learned, this is how you're going to learn. It's all the same. And this is how the system works, right? And that's the hardest part is the buy-in.
Liza Holland
You know, it's funny, I had a very good friend who was a superintendent and he said, you know, 85% of the problems that I face on a daily basis are adult generated, not generated from the kids. And I thought, you know, that in and of itself, it kind of tells you how resilient kids are, that they can move and shift and adapt and all that kind of thing. It's the adults in the system that actually can hold back progress.
Cinde Lock
You know, that's true for everything, I would say. You know, the— there's technical issues and people issues, right? The technical issues, you can just learn them and surpass them and overcome them. It's the people issues. issues that are the most challenging. Now, I remember years ago I was in Trinidad and this amazing boat that was funded by, it was jointly funded, I think, by the UK and the US, and it was to support the reduction of drug trafficking from the Caribbean and South America into North America. And it had like, you know, the Drug Enforcement Agency, they had a spot in this boat. They had anti-missile guns. They had an actual jail on the boat.
Cinde Lock
They had, you know, like a tremendous— it was a frigate. It was like 10— actually, it was probably more like $100 million to just create this one boat anyway. And had all these, all these moving parts for this project that had, you know, a complex structure across governments and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I had this chance to tour and talked to the main guy who was the, I don't know what his position was, captain, CEO, whatever he was. And I said, what's the most challenging thing in your job? And I thought he'd talk about money or, you know, the complexity of shooting down these drug runners, you know, in the ocean and repercussions because like, it's crazy apprehending people at sea. Like, yeah, no, nothing. He said, my biggest problem by far is when we dock the boat and the sailors go into town and they get in fights or they get into conflict. And he said, I got to deal with their conflicts.
Cinde Lock
It's all a people issue. It's not the technical at all. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Liza Holland
You know, and it's interesting, that is such a testimony to life in general. And maybe if we do a better job of approaching the whole person, within the school systems, maybe they'll learn how to handle conflict a little bit better. Maybe they would learn how to, you know, and I just, I see that in meetings. I see that, you know, obviously that, that was manifesting itself with the military folks. But across the board, that can be one of the biggest headaches is just learning how to deal with people. And boy, in this age of AI, isn't that going to be the top-level skill set?
Cinde Lock
Yeah, exactly. And that's why those competencies, you know, with the Mastery Transcript Consortium, the Mastery Transcript, and within this Landscape of Learning platform that we've developed, you know, that's why it's important to have them in there, those competencies, because being able to, you know, resolve conflict, work with people, those are all the things that need to be tracked as well as the curriculum. But you're right. Yeah, I didn't even think about that in terms of Yeah, what would make that guy successful in his job?
Liza Holland
And you know what, especially with those conflicts, one of the things that I've been realizing recently as I've been doing more and more work in those types of competencies is it's not about teaching people, like, say, what communication is about. It's giving them time to practice and to learn it and experience it. That really makes the difference. Because you can know theoretically or academically how to critically think or how to problem solve or any of those things. But until you have the actual practice time, and hopefully not in a super, super high stakes type of a situation, you got to practice to learn. You have to practice to be good. Any sports team knows that. Every musician or actor or anything like that knows that.
Liza Holland
And it's funny that those are the add-ons in our school system, but that's where people are gaining those skill sets.
Cinde Lock
Yeah, that's the thing. And we're not valuing them right now. Yeah, because we have a narrow view of the purpose of education. But that's why we have to have this talk, right? Because that's the message we're spreading. You know, that's what's important because I don't know, I care about the future and I see a lot of potential, but it's a time of tremendous change. And if we want this change to go in the direction we want it to go in, We've got to design it, and we have to think at a systems level.
Liza Holland
Well, let me throw out the last question in case you have anything to add on there. What would you like for decision makers to know? And you can define decision makers however you'd like to.
Cinde Lock
I don't know. What would I like for decision makers to know? That school doesn't have to be what it used to be, that we can— we have the ability to make a difference and make, you know, a profound change, a profound influence. We can redesign our systems in a way that we've never had an ability to do before because it was never in our hands in this way. We've never had this level of tech and structure that we can use at our fingertips. You know, the system that we had before was designed because we had to treat people in packs because we had to see you know, groups of people traveling along a belt of learning. We don't have to do that anymore. So what do I want decision makers to know? We are at a tremendous time of opportunity. Let's take advantage of it and let's plan for what we want school to be, all that it can be.
Liza Holland
Fabulous way to end this really exciting and hopeful conversation. Thank you so much for being here.
Cinde Lock
Thank you. It's always fun to talk about these things and I love to talk to you.
Liza Holland
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