Designing an Education System We Want: The Mash Up

Things we know about the U.S. education system:

There is a dramatic racial opportunity gap. Teachers don’t get paid a lot. Schools are more segregated than they were 50 years ago. Teachers quit their jobs at higher rates than other professionals. Some schools don’t have enough money for proper bathroom stalls. Only 18% of teachers are people of color. 26% of teachers are men. Students of color are disciplined at higher rates than white students. Teachers are expected to protect students from assault rifles. Etcetera.

As a college graduate hoping to be a science teacher, things aren’t looking so great. While I’m overwhelmed with articles describing the obstacles I’ll face in my classroom, I’ve challenged myself to envision an education system that I’d actually want to work in. This takes a touch of audacity; it’s easy to get caught up in the “how” when we try to imagine changing a system that has been reproducing inequality for 150+ years. But I invite you to dream with me for the next few minutes. Instead of outlining all of the things we don’t want to see in education, let’s decide what we do want to see. What sort of education system would make you excited to be a teacher?

In design thinking, there are lots of activities that help us move beyond “what is” to think creatively about “what could be.” One of my favorites is called The Mash Up. The gist of the activity is to pick two broad, unrelated categories, then list as many elements of each experience as you can in 2 minutes. Then you step back, look at the two lists side by side, and let new ideas emerge as you mix-and-match.

Some friends and I did this last weekend. We put education in the first category, and rotated between computer science, medicine, interior design, and fashion in the second category. What came out were some phrases that you might hear in these professions, re-imagined in the context of education.

Here are a few examples:

“I’m on rotation this quarter in the Research & Development department.”

The most successful and innovative companies in the world spend billions each year on R&D. After the tech industry, pharmaceutical and car companies spend the most on R&D in the U.S., totaling about 2.7% of U.S. GDP. It is simply an expectation that their products evolve, so companies hire folks with experience in their field to create new materials and techniques while bringing down costs. Importantly, these departments are not a separate entity, but rather are part of the company’s culture and directly tied to their needs and interests.

What could an R&D department look like in a public school district? There are great teachers who find creative new ways to encourage learning and address student needs every day. But what if these innovative ideas were systematically tested, improved, and implemented on a large scale, driven by the expectation that educational practices must always be improving?

“I’ll be going back to clinical work after my research project is finished this year.”

Many physicians do academic research part-time while continuing their clinical practice. Some even dedicate multiple years to full-time research, then return to clinical work later in their careers. While physicians aren’t the only people conducting medical research, their insights from direct patient contact are highly valued. Moreover, their inclusion in research helps the field improve more rapidly.

What if PK-12 educators regularly conducted research? How might an 8th-grade teacher incorporate data from her part-time clinical practice in the classroom into her research on adolescent development? Teaching is often seen as a temporary stepping stone to a more prestigious position in research or policy, and few policy makers return to the classroom. But in medicine, research and practice may be simultaneous. Imagine what this could mean for a career in education?

“Now that we’ve gotten to know each other, let’s decide what you want.”

Interior designers may spend days or weeks getting to know a client before they begin to design their homes. The designer’s job is to create a space based on the client’s specific needs, so they ask questions. They ask about the client’s goals, their everyday routine, and their past experiences with interior design. There are common archetypes and tricks of the trade that designers might employ across clientele, but designs are flexible and co-created with each person.

What if students, parents, and communities got to tell us their goals, routines, and past experiences with education, before we even began designing our classrooms and curriculum? It’s one thing to give parents choices between a variety of schools, each set in their ways, but what if teachers asked each parent and child what they want even before they began teaching? In the same way that co-designing a home is a challenging and intimate journey, teaching and learning is a deeply personal process based on the relationship between teacher and student. Instead of designing educational structures for communities, what would it look like to iteratively design education with communities?

“Take a look at yourself; how does that make you feel?”

Whenever I’m shopping with my mom, she comments on the fit, the pattern, and the practicality of the clothes I try on. But ultimately, she advises me to buy what makes me feel good. High-end fashion designers love to talk about how their clothes make people feel, too. Ralph Lauren is known for stating, “personal style is about having a sense of yourself and what you believe in every day.” A great personal stylist will ask you if your wardrobe is an accurate reflection of who you are and who you want to be.

In education we rarely, if ever, ask students how they feel “wearing” their knowledge and their skills. What if students’ feedback on how something made them feel was treated as truly valuable information? As it is now, government entities typically decide the parameters of a “good education.” While there are certain standards that are probably best set by adults, students’ feelings such as pride, hope, and joy are also key to their success. If a student graduates with a 4.0 but hates school and never saw a scientist who looks like them in a textbook, did they really get a good education? We would never call a fashion line a success if no one actually liked to wear it; maybe we should listen to students’ opinions on their own education, too.

My hope is for these questions to be used as conversation starters. Looking to models in other industries can be a useful way to uncover implicit assumptions and move beyond mental blocks to better imagine what could be.

As we continue these conversations, however, we must be critical and intentional about who we listen to. The communities who have been historically disadvantaged by our education system are ironically the ones who rarely get a seat at the table; the parents, students, teachers and staff who don’t have the luxury of writing about education systems are likely the ones who have the most valuable insights and creative solutions. Instead of continuing to burden these communities with the task of educating everyone else about what’s going wrong, let’s allow them the time, resources, and power to actually design solutions. Then, we can move together toward an education system we’d like to see.