experience that you’ve had in the last
year that was truly amazing for you
maybe it was at a restaurant where you
have that meal that just hit every one
of your tastebuds and you had that
energetic server that that met every one
of your needs that night or maybe it was
for the first time in mechanical history
that you got a car repair bill back that
was actually less than you thought but
not only that when the mechanic realized
that you were going to be late they
drove you to work in their own personal
vehicle they went that extra mile for me
this is it check out this beauty the
shelf I bought from Costco so I’m not
the handiest of people and I don’t
really have any tools so when people go
to buy a shelf they might look at the
dimensions or what it’s made of maybe
even how it articulates with the wall I
didn’t care about any of that it needed
to just say two things on the box which
was easy and no tools required so I got
this baby home I cracked open the box
and the instructions actually looked
like the parts that were in there and
within 20 minutes I had made this thing
it was miraculous most times when I put
things together there’s not one or two
things left over there’s sort of 12 or
13 things in a drawer and somehow the
thing is still standing so this was a
miracle for me but now I want you to
think about that experience that you had
in the last year and think about what is
the one word that you would use to
describe that experience maybe it was
one of these personalized magic
astounding amazing or miraculous like me
well I work in schools and a couple of
years ago as a principal I started to
think I wonder if when kids leave their
math class they’re saying words like
this about their experience were they
saying that it was amazing inspirational
sick I don’t even know what that means
actually but I’ve heard that that’s a
good thing
but not just that what about our parents
what about our parents who come to our
websites what about our parents that
that come for registration and come to
the office are they saying that was
personalized it was amazing it was
inspirational and not just that our
educators as well our teachers and our
principals as a former high school
principal I feel really bad for some of
my staff that had to endure my staff
meetings which was sort of a slow
transition to the afterlife
but I can guarantee that they probably
weren’t using some of these words and so
I started to think about that and what I
realized is that in our digital era it’s
all about the review and corporations
and companies all over the planet they
want us to become their unpaid
advertisers and they want to make sure
that they get that five-star review
because what we all know is that a good
review travels fast but a bad review
travels even faster so I wanted to do a
little bit of research and digging into
these companies and products and
services that really did get these sorts
of reviews and what I found is that many
of them used a model called human
centered design and in human centered
design what you do is you really connect
deeply with the people that are going to
be using your product or experiencing
your service and you get to understand
and empathize with them and then you
design the experience through their eyes
and I started to think about this and
think well in schools we have humans and
we want them to have that five-star
experience so what if we adopted a
mindset called learner centered design
where we put the learner experience at
the center of everything that we do and
the learners not only the students in
our classrooms but it’s our educators
and our parents and our entire school
community and I believe that if we take
this stance and we follow four basic
steps which are to be slow to do things
to ask silly questions to wear bifocals
and to have a huge appetite I think
together we can change the experience
school now of course when I showed my
wife these she thought that I was kind
of doing one of two things either
describing my mother-in-law or perhaps
validating my plans for retirement but
bear with me let’s see if we can change
this experience together in 1994 Procter
& Gamble the large multinational
corporation in the United States was
experiencing a lull in there cleaning
division nothing was really going on it
wasn’t going well it wasn’t going badly
it was just kind of dead and so they did
something interesting they hired a
design firm called continuum to inject
some life into this sort of listless
part of their organization
now continuum could have went fast they
could have jumped quickly to a solution
they could have sat with the executives
behind a closed door and you know
proposed some neon-colored cleaning
solution or aerodynamic broom handle but
they did something really unique
something I think that we can all learn
from rather than try and make a solution
they actually went and watched people
clean they went into their houses
they’re invited just want to say that
but they went into their houses and they
watched people clean they talked to them
they listened to them they tried what
they were doing and they really
developed a close connection to those
that were experiencing this solution and
as a result of that unique work they
developed a 500 million dollar a year
product for Procter & Gamble something
that many of you might have in your
household the Swiffer and look at how
much fun my daughter is having she just
didn’t want me to take that picture I
did anyways and it’s all because they
avoided the dreaded solution itis and
this is something that we get an
education quite often it’s when
well-meaning people move rapidly from
problem to solution without ever
considering those that are going to have
to be impacted or implement that
solution I can tell you as a principal I
was pretty bad for this as well summer
would be coming and the kids would start
to wear their summer clothing and you’d
see people with spaghetti straps and all
that sort of stuff so what would I do
I’d I’d slap a dress code on them and
that
change the behavior at all no it
actually just made kids become pasta
experts so instead of spaghetti straps
it was linguini straps or fettuccine
straps they figured out the way around
it like they always would why because i
jumped quickly from problem to solution
without ever having them involved in
that process and it’s something that we
need to change the second thing that we
need to do is we need to ask silly
questions how many people in here have a
child under the age of five or have had
a child under the age of five yeah lots
so it won’t surprise you to know that in
a study in 2013 in the United Kingdom it
was found that children can ask as many
as 390 questions per day of their mums
and dads and we all know this mums and
dads don’t we this is why I bought the
Google home actually and what I realized
is is this wasn’t made by engineers this
was made by a couple of mums and dads
that said we need some help with some of
these questions these are pretty hard
but we need to really in our schools we
need to really encourage these why
questions in 1943 Edwin land was walking
near Santa Fe New Mexico with his
daughter Jennifer and Jennifer and his
de and her dad were walking around and
and Edwin was doing what any good dad
would do he was taking pictures of his
daughter and his daughter of course said
to him dad why do we have to wait for
the picture now most people who are
younger today don’t know what we had to
endure as older people with pictures
where he sent them away for three weeks
to some faraway land and they came back
half of them had red eyes and the family
photo had everyone’s head cut off she
didn’t know that so she asked that
question and as you saw Edwin
when he thought about that question and
thought more about it he thought why
indeed and that led to the creation of
the instant camera all because of a
silly question and so in our systems and
in our schools we need to ask and
encourage those silly questions and
again as a teacher and a principal I was
kind of scared of some of these because
what if I didn’t know the answer
questions like why do our classrooms
look the way that they do and you know
it is an interesting one especially when
we know that students learn in
cooperative environments where they get
to work together where they get to do
something that’s meaningful in an
authentic environment that actually
resembles what they’re going to be going
into in the real world well as we know
the only real-world environment that a
classroom tends to represent is another
classroom and we have all these other
opportunities outside of us but we need
to ask and encourage those silly
questions questions like this why can’t
school improvement plans be community
improvement plans and you know it’s
interesting because I have nearly 15,000
students in my district spread over 40
schools imagine if each one of those
schools every year worked on just one
community problem fifteen thousand
people a year working on 40 community
problems what would that community look
like after a year or five or ten years
why can’t school improvement plans be
community improvement plans and if the
answer is is that we’ve always done it
this way I think the moment that we hear
those words cross our lips we need to
see that as an opportunity to do
something different we need to ask and
encourage silly questions the third
thing that we need to do is we need to
wear bifocals how many people here have
had an MRI before anyone yes a couple
one of the most important things that
you have to do in an MRI is you need to
stay still and what our children not
very good at staying still and I know
this because we we had something sad
happened to us a couple of years ago
something that no parent ever wants our
daughter broke her arm she fell
backwards off a coach and put her hands
back to break her fall and instead broke
her elbow so I had to take her to the
hospital to get x-rays and let me tell
you it was not a great experience for
either of us we had to sit her there for
about 15 minutes and get shot after shot
because she couldn’t stay still who knew
how strong a little two-year-old was but
I can’t even
Hajin what it would have been like if
she would have had to stay still for a
machine like this but what if we put on
those bifocals those innovative bifocals
and we looked closely at the problem
that we had but then started to look
outside and see where we could borrow
different ideas from when you think
about this if we just jumped to solution
itis we could put up a big sign that
says stop wriggling kids and hope that
worked
or we could blur our vision just a
little bit and say it kind of looks like
a tunnel and where the kids like to go
in tunnels for any of us parents that
have been stuck in those tubes at a
McDonald’s play place we know that kids
like to go in tunnels so if we blur our
vision and use our bifocals and look
outside of our own situation what can we
come up with what can we come up with
that makes kids not have to stay still
but makes them want to stay still
because it’s part of an exciting
adventure for them all because we can
start to look outside and see the best
bits that we can bring back inside to
our schools if you look at this picture
we might see just a parking lot filled
with cars Robin chase the founder of
Zipcar saw unused capacity what do we
see here do we see chairs and desks and
the kids that might fill them or do we
see unused capacity and potential that
we need to unleash or maybe when we’re
going to Ikea later today and we wonder
how people can go through and for two
hours and afterwards only buy napkins we
can look at it we can look at it as IKEA
or as schools we can look at it as a
unique way to provide self-guided school
tours what can we learn if we just look
at things a little bit differently and
what about our unexpected experts that
we have in our schools we have children
parents our community our teachers that
have a diversity of experiences do we
look at a parent that maybe works as a
flight attendant at WestJet as a flight
attendant or do we see them as someone
that has to deal with anxiety and people
being nervous right before flying and
think about where do we have kids
nervous just before they have to take
flight maybe just before an exam
what can we learn from that person
that’s a little bit different what about
our students that work in high-pressure
jobs and yes they do right after school
where they’re having to deal with things
coming at them rapidly what can we learn
from them about time management about
resiliency or even getting things to
people in an efficient manner who are
really busy like what our parents come
to pick up report cards how can we
empower our students and what about our
First Nations community what can we
learn from them about the power of
storytelling the power of family or
sustainability all these opportunities
are there if we just look and we wear
those innovative bifocals and the last
thing that we need to do is we need to
have a huge appetite for feedback how
many of us have read through went
through this dreadful scenario where
we’ve forgotten our password you’ve
entered it five times you’ve been locked
out and it sends it to some email that
you can’t remember and not just that
when you get it back you have to come up
with twelve letters numbers up case down
case a Russian Cyrillic something like
that and you end up putting your
password right on your computer anyways
don’t we all say the same thing
afterwards don’t we all say did this
person ever test this solution did they
ever try it did they ever test it with
someone like me that was actually going
to use it and this is something that’s
very important for us in our schools if
we have a new curriculum like we do we
need to test it with the people that are
going to experience and implement it our
teachers and our students if we have a
new website that’s there to serve our
parents or maybe a new parent teacher
format why can’t we test it first rather
than place in a moveable stake in the
ground and as we know anyone who is over
the age of 21 as old to children so why
can’t we just ask kids if we put a
snowboard in a math equation does it
engage you any more than it normally
would test the solutions with those who
are having the challenge one of the
traps that we can fall into is we can
say that they don’t know what they don’t
know how can we ask someone they don’t
really know
how can we ask our parents they might
not know enough about this but the one
thing I do know about every student
every staff member and every parent is
they are an expert on their own learning
experience and so we have to become the
ones who discover those experiences for
them one might argue that despite the
hard work of so many different people
that the classroom experience hasn’t
really changed all that much and I
understand that but I think I can see
this a little bit differently now I see
that change is not only an opportunity
to make better solutions with people
it’s an opportunity to empathize and
connect deeply with the people that we
serve that’s the real secret sauce
change is an opportunity to connect to
our community at the start of my
conversation today I asked you to
consider that amazing experience outside
of schools now I’d like you to think
about what was that one amazing
experience that you had inside of a
school with a project that you did or
maybe a teacher that just inspired you
in a way that you’ll always remember if
you can remember that then you know that
it’s possible you know that it’s
possible to change the experience of
school and I believe that if we follow
these four steps and we adopt an
approach that is learner centered design
that together we can change the experience of school thank you