Optimism

Not the toxic kind.

It is difficult to be optimistic about public education today. There are so many nay-sayers about how things are run and how the system is broken. Make no mistake, our American educational system isn’t designed for every child to be successful. The COVID-19 pandemic called attention to just how broken it is. The problems in education are complex in nature: American schools were not designed to authentically educate students of color. Instead, schools in the United States marginalize and under-educate children of color, frequently causing lasting and irreparable harm. In order to address issues of disproportionality and racial predictability in the lowest and highest achieving students, teachers must “engage in narratives that compel [them] to synthesize [their] knowledge and transform it into direct and measurable action” (Singleton & Comer, 2013). In order to design equitable learning experiences that support traditionally underperforming students of color, we, as educational leaders, need to develop adequate indicators for schools to close inequity gaps. Teachers should be trained using anti-racist pedagogical frameworks that support marginalized students and accurately measure their success. The current metrics are not sufficient.

Restructuring our educational system so that all children reach their full academic potential is not an easy task. In fact, “thinking our way toward progress or taking action as a single individual is not likely to make any great impact on the powerful systems of oppression we face as teachers” and lived experience students of color face in their classrooms (Gutierrez, 2016). Does this mean that all hope is lost? That we should just abandon optimism and resign ourselves for a pessimistic reality?

Absolutely not! As John Bielenberg, co-founder of Future Partners says, “Optimism is the thing that drives you forward.” I believe in the power to improve public education for all students. I believe that human-centered design thinking is inherently optimistic. To take on a big challenge, especially one as large and intractable as disrupting the status quo and redesigning for a equitable and anti-racist public education system, we have to believe that progress is an option. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t try. Optimism is the embrace of possibility, the idea that even if we don’t know the answer, that it’s out there and that we can find it together.

Human-centered teachers that design with their students in mind, are persistently and optimistically focused on what could be, not the countless obstacles that may get in the way. Constraints are inevitable, and often they push teachers toward unexpected solutions. But it’s our core animating belief that shows just how deeply optimistic human-centered designers are: Every problem is solvable. This is moonshot thinking.

I believe that we have failed to redesign public education not because we don’t know what or how to change, but because we only focus on making small gains. Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Google X, knows that “when you are working to make things only 10 percent better, you inevitably focus on the existing tools, structures, and assumptions, and then build on top of those existing solutions. Such incremental progress is driven by extra effort, extra money, and extra resources.” Sound familiar?

Teller explains that “when you aim for a 10x gain, you lean instead on bravery and creativity — the kind that, literally and metaphorically, can put a man on the moon. You’ve all heard the story before: Without a clear path to success when we started, we accomplished in less than a decade a dream several generations in the making.” This is the origin of the term moonshot thinking. Thinking big requires optimism. An abundance of optimism. As educational leaders, we need to understand the size of this challenge will actually motivate people more. Bigger challenges create passion. Redesigning public education is one of the biggest challenges we face today.

So, how do you get started?

Tune in next week for a much longer email where I discuss some of the methods I’ve learned over the years. In the meantime, check out some great resources for being more optimistic in your classroom.

Optimism Resources

I love this interview so much! Everytime Astro says the word “experiment” I want you to think of your classroom learning experiences.

Want to think REALLY BIG? Check out The Audacious Project.

Moonshot edVentures cultivates a community of BIPOC & historically marginalized leaders to launch, improve and sustain schools and programs.

Have a great week!

—Adrian