In this episode of Education Matters, Jason Buccheri reconnects with three system leaders from last year's Education Matters National Summit in Ottawa: Joanne Pitman, Chief Superintendent of the Calgary Board of Education; Liz Hill, Deputy Superintendent of West Vancouver Schools; and Andrew Holland, Deputy Superintendent of the Surrey School District. Together, they reflect on the OECD's Education for Human Flourishing framework and what it looks like in practice.
The conversation moves from first impressions of the framework to the school visits that brought it to life, including a robotics team reaching for university calculus and a photography program that became a student-run business. The guests consider how flourishing shows up in elementary and secondary classrooms, what the framework adds to system strategy, and whether flourishing can, or should, be measured.
Jason and his guests also explore assessment in the age of AI, the place of the humanities, the link between K to 12 and post-secondary, and what schools may need to let go of.
At its heart, this episode asks what kind of people, communities, and society our schools are helping to shape, and how leaders can turn a compelling philosophy into everyday practice.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Cold Open: A "Systematic Envelope" for Change
00:00:58 - What Is Education For?
00:04:29 - Meet Joanne Pitman, Liz Hill and Andrew Holland
00:07:06 - More Rigorous Than Social Emotional Learning
00:07:49 - Reframing the Why of Education
00:10:02 - How Do You Explain the Framework to Colleagues?
00:11:08 - In Harmony With the Natural World
00:12:41 - Not a Zero-Sum Game
00:13:42 - Inside the Ottawa School Visits
00:15:35 - The Entrepreneurial Thread
00:17:00 - Grade 10 Students Tackling University Calculus
00:18:18 - The Photography Class That Changed a Student's Path
00:20:25 - Elementary vs. Secondary: Same and Yet Different
00:23:49 - Worthy of Their Time, Worthy of Their Mind
00:25:50 - The Glue That Connects It All, and the Humanities
00:29:00 - What Should Schools Stop Doing?
00:30:57 - K to 12 Doesn't Exist in Isolation
00:34:02 - Education Was Created by Humans
00:35:57 - Can We Measure Flourishing?
00:38:00 - AI and Real-Time Assessment
00:42:59 - What Does a Flourishing Adult Look Like?
00:45:47 - Is Human Flourishing Just Aspirational Language?
00:49:28 - From Summit to Concrete Practice
00:52:36 - Who Am I, Where Am I, What Am I For?
00:54:04 - Responding vs. Leading With Vision