Who is Yong Zhao? (02:21)
Cindy:
Dr. Yong Zhao, thank you so much for being on the School Leaders Project. We're so excited to have you on the show.
Yong Zhao:
Thanks Cindy, happy to be here.
Cindy:
So I'd love for you to set the stage for us, Yong. What is the work that you do that you're most passionate about and why?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I would say how to work with schools to create space, create the time for students to become owners of their own learning. That students can enjoy autonomy, enjoy choice, and they can do something that they're passionate about and they're good at. So learning should be driven by students instead of schools. But right now, of course, schools are driven by classroom, by teachers, by textbooks, by curriculum, by testing, and I would like to change that.
AI’s impact on schools and teaching (03:19)
Cindy:
I love that. A lot of the work that I was really excited to follow from you centers around this idea that we're trying to prepare students for a workplace of the future and building those capacities. So, can you start by talking a little bit about jobs of the future and specifically how automation and abundance are shaping jobs of the future?
Yong Zhao:
Thank you. That's a wonderful question. You know, when you and I got connected, that was before chatGPT. So now we have chatGPT coming in. Well, it's very simple. I think our traditional schools will have the responsibility of preparing their workforce. So you think that workforce is a force of people with uniform skills and homogeneous abilities because governments or businesses at least pretend that we could define what future jobs can be. So we say, okay, in order to do these jobs, you need these skills, this knowledge, this content. And we sort of start with students to say, what are you good at? What are you passionate about? And we don't think that's useful. But now automation has replaced a lot of jobs, which typically were taken by high school students or under high school graduates, not with chatGPT, artificial intelligence. That's gonna disrupt a lot of our jobs in higher education. If you have a college degree, you're doing higher paying jobs right now, very likely it's gonna be disrupted. So what the future really needs is start with students. Each student develop the ability and the creativity and curiosity and entrepreneurial thinking to create jobs rather than trying to find jobs. If you look just through Google. through the internet, how many new jobs have created or they destroyed a lot of jobs. But those new jobs require human beings to become more human beings rather than smart machines. So that's, I think, the future needs to be.
Cindy:
Can you clarify a bit more of those skill sets? So what are the skills that we will need in the chatGPT future?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I think there's a very interesting, maybe mistaken approach, because in education, we have the bad habit to say, if we discover something to be good, everybody should do that. For example, recently we heard, well, growth mindset is good, everybody should have that. But growth mindset can be simple stupidity. You have to be smart. On some things, you need to give up very quickly. You need to quit. No growth mindset there. And then in some other areas, you need growth mindset because you are interested in that. So I would say smart growth mindset. I think education, we have the same habit. Whenever we prescribe something, we want it for every child. For example, in schools, we often talk about the four Cs, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, but even the four Cs, you cannot achieve at the same level. It's not for everybody individually. So what I've been arguing for is every individual student needs to develop a jagged profile of abilities, passions, and knowledge. So everybody is different. You know, Cindy, you are different because you have a unique combination of abilities, personalities, and skills. Because so that makes you a unique person. Every human being. needs to be more unique. So instead of the same, if you are the same, machines can do that. You know, so we need human beings to be unique and jagged profile of capabilities.
Cindy:
I love that. So have you been in schools where you've seen this working? Were there really embracing that entrepreneurial spirit and the individuality of students?
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, I've seen many schools and many schools have followed my advice and developing new programs and new schools within a school. This happened in Australia, in China, in the US, in different places. It's it's working and it has to work. But again, I would like to emphasize that any of these changes are really, really significant. It's not a simple improvement of school. It's a transformation of school. So any school leader who wants to make the transformation, they need to adopt the approach I call school within a school. That is you do not force the change on all students, all teachers, all parents, you want invite them. So I would start with those who are willing, who are able, who are interested, rather than trying to impose. You want innovation to be an invitation, not imposition.
Cindy:
Beautiful. You want innovation to be an invitation, not an imposition.
Yong Zhao:
That's Right.
Cindy:
a cool quote.
Yong Zhao:
Yes
Invitation to early adopters (08:11)
Cindy:
so how do you do that with those early adopters? What are some of those baby steps that we can take to start making those changes in our schools?
Yong Zhao:
You know, actually, we did this is many years ago. We did something in Douglas County, Colorado, you know, where the Castle Rock is. You remember
Cindy:
Yeah.
Yong Zhao:
that? Yeah, yeah, so we did that. So many years ago, we proposed the idea. I think there was one high school, just was brand new high school and many teachers went there, went to innovations. And so, but... The district couldn't do it. So what happened in the end is that the school built a school within the school. So you want to say, you know, you would basically make an announcement, what the school would look like with a new approach. You want to say what parents want to do and what students want to do, teachers want to do, so they joined and then they recreate. So you have the intention, but you invite people who wants to do, because I really don't think it's time that we want to waste all our time to convince people. to impose on people because in every school, in every school you have willing students and willing teachers.
Cindy:
That makes sense. So in the school within the school, what are some of the innovations that you're seeing?
Yong Zhao:
Well, massive, you know, we can go start from, for example, is completely project based, for example, that's one that you can teachers can lead that. But that's not enough, you know, you can move on to completing the student driven. Your students say, okay, you know, like I've been running programs like this in China, actually in Australia to say, ask the students what problems you would like to solve and why and why do you think you can solve the problem. And then, and we start from there, you know, to say what problems and you justify your problem. And then we say, okay, how are you going to solve that? So you lead to authentic products. So it's all student driven. Some students say, okay, I want to write a novel. Others said, I want to play the piano. Some people say, okay, we, I said the traffic light is not working. I want to do research on that, but they all want to start with a problem, but they have to justify the problem. Like I said, you know, why do you think this problem is significant? How does it matter to anybody? And the second thing is like, why do you think you can do it? You know, why do you think you have the ability? And third of all, you say, why do you think this is a good time? So we need to justify the problem. I think all school teaching should start with authentic problems. I actually think the future lies in a person who can use his or her unique abilities to solve problems that matter.
Cindy:
So in that context, do you see any role for curriculum, for a set curriculum that students follow or are you saying let's throw all of that out the window and just teach skills and knowledge on an as needed basis?
Just-in-case vs. Just-in-time teaching (11:18)
Yong Zhao:
Well, the original meaning of curriculum is like a running course. So it really, a curriculum right now, you know, in many schools, they say, Oh, we have a preset curriculum. For example, the international baccalaureate and the IB program. I know many international schools do a lot of your clients are international schools. And, and I think it's a, it was a good idea. It was what I call, it's the best of the past. So, so, but, but it's, but it's like, predefined, you have to do this course, this course, you take the test, you do this. And, but in this new model, you know, all those knowledge may be there, but it's driven by the problem. So you would not have a preset curriculum for every student that follow the same way. You don't pre-teach, you teach, we call just in time learning.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Yong Zhao:
And now with the artificial intelligence, with the Google, with, you know, you know, the chatGPT. People can do that. So it's kind of just in time learning. Traditionally, we do the just in case learning, right? So just in case you might need this. So we prepare you for that. But now we have arrived at the time is just in time learning. So there, yes, there is a curriculum, but it's not predetermined. The curriculum is what students goes through. And so that there is a set curriculum, but the set curriculum can be very fluid allow students projects.
Cindy:
Might I ask you a kind of challenging question? So I'm thinking about a student who's really, let's say, art-centered, and they decide early on in elementary school, art is their form of expression, right? Would you advocate then for, like, should they have some level of basic literacy and math skills, or do we just develop that area of passion?
Yong Zhao:
Well, first of all, when you have a student who's doing art, you actually cannot avoid math and literacy, but you don't emphasize that. So like a student who is interested in art, okay, you have to come to different kind of art, you know, expressive art, you know, or visual art. You want to make movies, you want to make a video, you want to act, you want to dance. There's all kinds of things. You want to be a film critic, you know, can go a long way. But none of those activities actually can be carried out with that basic literaries and math. But I would not pre-teach them. You know, when a person said, you know, I'm really interested in the history of films. You gotta read, you gotta watch something. So when you read, you are developing your abilities. But I do not say, well, let's pre-teach you so you just in case you might need that. So I don't, but another thing is that, I think right now in schools, we overly advocate math and reading, for example.
Cindy:
Yeah.
Yong Zhao:
And we definitely already do that. And we also add a lot more math than what students need. It was algebra too, calculus. Do they really need that? If they need that, they can do it. Again, it's individual students because you want to create a context when you cannot avoid learning other things.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Yong Zhao:
It's impossible to avoid the basic things. And but also at the same time, you may want to ask another question about special education, for example, right? You know, dyslexia, for example, can be extremely, you know, preventative for some students to learn to read. If you are on the extreme end of the spectrum of dyslexia, I probably say don't force them to read. They can listen to a lot of things, because when you force
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
them to read, you might be introducing a lot of problems of confidence.
Cindy:
So I'm just hearing a constant theme of relevance and responsiveness that as teachers and leaders, that's the question we must ask ourselves. Is this relevant and how are we responding to the actual needs of our learners, not assuming we know what's best?
Yong Zhao:
That's correct. I think, you know, if you look at our schools, well, you've been an elementary school teacher and an administrator, so you know this very well. No school I've seen, unless they adopt a new model, serves all students well. And you've seen that no matter how good a teacher you are, how good a school you are, if you are following the traditional model of being obedient to the curriculum. to the testing, you will not serve all students. So the key is to be responsive to students' needs, to say, you know, I would encourage every school, elementary school, high school, middle school, to say, you talk to students to say, what are you trying to learn? You know, how many students are disengaged now from our schools? Massive amount, why? Because they never had any say in their curriculum, in their learning. and we keep reforming curriculum, reforming teacher education, but really the real problem lies, who are our students?
Cultivating student strengths vs. “fixing” student deficits (16:34)
Cindy:
I love that. And some of the language I'd love to call out that you've used in the past is this idea of educators cultivating strengths rather than always trying to fix deficits. Can you speak a little bit to that?
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, that's really a very important message. As you know, in the US and in many countries, for example, we have this fantasy about closing the achievement gap, for example, which, of course, has never closed. Any country has never closed. You know, first of all, achievement gap is the result, is a symptom. of a much deeper social inequity. So that was a social inequity, historical inequity. That's big problem where schools
Cindy:
systemic.
Yong Zhao:
not solve. But at the same time, we have students coming to our schools. You know, we got millions of kids going through our school. So schools have to do something. So when you have child comes to a class, in school, you cannot read, I'm gonna make you read, but I cannot read, I'm gonna make you read more. So that is actually a horrible remediation model. What do you need to do is to students come to school and say, okay, what are you good at? What are you interested in? Let's do something to engage you first. If we can engage you with your strength, with your passion, we have a chance to educate you. Otherwise students, you know, they learned something called learned helplessness. You know, I said, I cannot do much. You know, if you tell children come to kindergarten, first graders, you're not good at reading. Those guys are good at reading, but you are not. So I'm gonna fix you. You... take them out of arts, out of music, out of sports, out of recess. You're not helping them.
Cindy:
No.
Yong Zhao:
You're isolating them. So what we need to do is to look at every child. I believe every child has some strength, some interest. Again, you know, Cindy, from your elementary school experience, you know that every child comes to school with some passion. They so love learning. They want to do something. Why don't we just start from that?
Cindy:
leading with that, leading with strengths.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly.
Cindy:
I love that. So I think this requires a different kind of teacher because we've all gone through this system, right? And in a way, a lot of our creativity has been squashed. So do you think there are ways that we can kind of unschool adults to prepare them for this kind of context?
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, I think it's possible. Human beings are very resilient learners. Human beings can learn, can change. But the question is this, is why? Right? You know, do teachers want to change? I'm sure there are teachers who want to change. There are also teachers who may be forced to change, but there also are teachers who say, why do I want to change? You know, because if you believe in what you do, you don't want to change. I think that's why many schools instead of providing the professional development to say, we will change your teachers, but I would really invite all teachers to talk about why we want to change. Talk about legacy, talk about really, like as a teacher all your life, do you want to leave children to memorize your numbers, your historical facts, or do you want to have students who actually love you, who actually feel transformed by you? who feel they have grown like a human being. I think schools need to have a different kind of professional development. It's not really the how-to. I really think teachers can do the how-to. Every human being can come up with a how-to. And it is, however, the why. That matters.
Cindy:
So not just putting the Y as a value that lives in the top of our school building, but actually embedding that within our practice of what do we truly believe and what might that look like.
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, as a teacher, I'm sure like when you are teaching, you always worry about the children's future, not only worry about the curriculum. But a lot of times, schools, policies, testing, assessments, you know, programs force our teachers to focus on the content, not
Cindy:
Mmm.
Yong Zhao:
on the children. You know, when I teach, you know, I teach mostly master level and doctor level students, I always focus on the students to say How would this course matter to you? How does it help you grow as a professional, instead of trying to say, this is what I must teach you?
Cindy:
It's so interesting because the way that we've moved forward is this concept of backwards design, right? This is a success criteria, and this is the steps that we take. And you're almost saying, nope, we're ready for the next step beyond that, where it's just completely responsive design.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. I think, you know, in education, we have this fantasy that is we can predetermine what you need to know. So once, you know, schools come up with the curriculum, curriculum standards, we say, okay, this is where the end is backward design. This is what you need to do. You are educator, you know, learning is never like that in human
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
beings. If you want to learn something, You go learn. Like, for example, like you're asking, can teachers change? Well, I would say, you know, like Americans, um, Thanksgiving dinner have improved because of YouTube. You know, it's not your grandma's recipe anymore. You know, every time when you cook turkey, you go out on the YouTube, you'll find different ways of doing this. I'm sure actually the overall cuisine quality in America has improved tremendously because of TikTok and YouTube. You want to learn, you learn, right? You go find some, that's what you do. The quality has improved. I think in schools, lots of times is that we do not believe children are active, progressive, natural born learners. They learn. And learning does not have to be taught. Did you say, I think we have this belief, teachers control everything. That's why I know every time I go somewhere said, we gotta go change the teachers. I said, no. You change the students. Teachers signed up to their job and they were trained to teach certain ways. You can change them, but you have to have a reason to change them.
Cindy:
Very cool. Teacher as facilitator. And I think we could all get on board. There's so many resources like you were just saying that just if you can flip that mindset, the tools are there to do it already.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. I mean, I think teachers can change it. During COVID, all teachers changed. I mean, everybody changed without preparation. They changed. They had a lot of innovations and teachers are smart and creative. They work hard, but they have to have a reason to say, why do I want to change? We look at it right now in the US, you got standardized testing. That in every state has that. You force teachers to teach to the test, right? There's nothing you can do about that. So teachers are working in a very, very much controlled environments by systems, by governments. You know, I love the IB, but I have to say IB can be restrictive as well.
Cindy:
framework that you put in place comes with a set of restrictions and then it comes with that mental set of restrictions that others imply and put into practice.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. I think, you know, in education, in any country, if we want to improve education, you have to recognize individual human beings are different. Individual human beings have abilities that others may not have, and individual human beings are unique, and they are not just a workforce.
Cindy:
So you're describing a very drastic change to education. So I guess I've got kind of a two-part question. One, do you think that there is a catalyst that will make all of this change happen? Like we had COVID and we changed. Is there something that will happen that will force us all to stop the standardized test to start embracing individuality? I guess that's part one of the question.
Yong Zhao:
Well, I think what I'm arguing is not really that so dramatic because over the history of our education, there have been a lot of criticism about the one size fits all traditional education. And people recognize schools do not meet the needs of individual students and every school. Maybe they're lying, but they say, well, we are here to liberate your children, to help each child realize their full potential. Remember those those we have those slogans, right? Every
Cindy:
Yeah.
Yong Zhao:
school, you know, we're here to to liberate you. We're here to help each child realize their potential. I love that one. I said, that's a lie. But, you know, we say that. So so in many ways, what I'm arguing, everybody recognizes that we need to do this. But at the same time. Schools have been operating God since the Prussian model for over 100, 200 years. And we have this so-called grammar of schooling. We got 45 minutes a period.
Cindy:
Mmm.
Yong Zhao:
We got one teacher managing group of students. We want the efficiency. A government wants accountability. So all of those are in conflict with this. But what I think is what we need is really return to the idea that individual human beings are fundamentally good.
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
Because we suspect, you know, children are not good. So you, you know, again, you're an educator, you go out buy books, half of education books about classroom discipline. You know, if a child is interested in this, why would you need to discipline them? They are not, they're good, fundamentally good. And second thing is human means are fundamental learners, they want to learn. I mean, like, you know, how do you punish people? You deprive them of chance of learning. That's why you call them your timeout. You know, why do you lock people up in timeout? You don't have a chance to learn. That's just miserable. So I think
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
we need to change that. But most important is to change adults' definition of what will make you successful in the future. What makes children successful and not necessarily what we create for them. You look just how, just look at TikTok, look at YouTube. How many children have been successful making their own money? Success doesn't only mean making money, you can do a lot of things.
Cindy:
That's
Yong Zhao:
But
Cindy:
one metric.
Yong Zhao:
just look at how new possibilities we have created.
Learners without borders (27:53)
Cindy:
Yeah, I think in education there are so many buts and shoulds and musts baked into the system that is in essence a system of control. And what I'm hearing you say is, let's just shake that up. We all have these beliefs. Let's get rid of these implied buts and just go for it.
The curriculum is the floor, not the ceiling (28:10)
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, I mean, at least partially. You know, like I wrote a book called Learners Without Borders.
Cindy:
Hmm.
Yong Zhao:
I say, you know, we have, we create all these borders for children. You have to go through kindergarten, grade one, grade two, grade 12, college, you know. We have this test after pass. I said, what if we don't, we said, okay, let's remove those borders. The governments, of course, just say, okay, because it's taxpayer dollars, students pay. Every student, for example, should learn some of the basics. You're American, for example, you have to be able to participate in the civil discourse. You have to be able to learn how to vote. You have to learn the basic math. So governments, maybe you can control one third of the curriculum. And every school, every district, Colorado Springs, wherever you are, you say, okay, we have unique features. We're in Colorado. We've got the mountains. You can add another third to show, you know, the state. the local school, but then you should give another 40% to students. Students can become who they are. So you have the common good, maybe like 40% or 60%. Then you have the unique good that is the private, that's 40%.
Cindy:
Cool.
Yong Zhao:
So you have to think about it like that, right? You have the common, everybody should do this. We use taxpayers' money, you gotta have common good. But then you have to have what makes a person thrive because in our curriculum right now we don't talk about like what's the basic I call the the floor expectation and then what makes a person successful that's the ceiling expectation so we should have two levels of expectations like in our schools you know I'm sure you you did your Colorado test so your students you know like say oh okay how what's percentage of students meeting But is that reading expectation the floor or is that the ceiling?
Cindy:
Often the floor, most often the floor,
Yong Zhao:
Right,
Cindy:
right?
Yong Zhao:
yeah, yeah. So because you're really in the most basic level, it doesn't really get you successful, you just have to survive. But why do we spend so much time, so much money forcing people just to cover the floor when most people can do a lot more than the floor?
Cindy:
That's really cool. So I'm hearing civic agency, foundational skills as the base, but prioritizing far more time for that flexibility and freedom. Might a first step in this be something like a 20% time or a genius hour in schools?
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, I think, you know, again, you know, I'm not a fan of any title of anything like genius hours, you know, a maker space, you know, all of those were created to to do something. You know, once you have that model, genius, our passion, our, you know, people, this thing to think is a program. And so what I would like to say, maybe every school should from kindergarten on you, you, you, you began to build something called a strength. profile for each student. Whether it's like IEP, it's like IEP, right? It just students come to say, okay, so Johnny, what do you think you're good at? I'm sure the kindergarten, I'm good at something, you know? And they say, what do you want to do? So then let's plan with your parents to say, can we have a plan for this semester? You will do this and you'll achieve this and you'll come up with a solution for this. If we build that, students, you know, through high school. Each year they're thinking about their abilities. They're thinking about their passion. Because right now, if you go to kindergarten, high school, it's very hard to find something what are you passionate about? I don't know. I think we need to cultivate students also their introspection among them for themselves too. What do you think you're good at?
Cindy:
Mmm.
Yong Zhao:
Because I think schools forced students to do a lot of things that they're not good at. When I was joking about growth mindset. You know, for example, I don't want to have a growth mindset on the football field. Many people say I can teach you play football, you know, but yeah, you know, but how many Chinese have you seen playing successful on football field? I'm small, I'm tiny and I can do it. You know, so, so, so I'm sure the Broncos will never hire me, you know, just to play football and say, why would I do that? You know,
Affirming identity through education (32:37)
Cindy:
I just love the concept of how identity affirming this sounds. That it just throughout your entire experience, school is this partnership of we see you, you're seen, you have this amazing talent, let's embrace that. And just that being the profile that follows you instead of all the mistakes that you've made kind of weighing on your back.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. I think everyone, because right now if you go out, if you ask a lot of young people, lack of confidence is a big problem for them. Have you noticed that? A lot of young people, they're nervous. They don't believe in themselves. So I've seen a lot of students, college graduates from elite colleges, they don't feel like they're able to do something. They don't feel like they can make a genuine contribution. You know, they don't feel like they're doing anything. Look at the big resignation in the US. People don't want to do anything because they have no passion. If they can make a living without going to work in a bar, you know, for five hours a day, why would they want to do it? You know, because there's no passion. There's no belief in themselves. The confidence is essential. But how do you build the confidence? You gotta know you're good at something.
Cindy:
Something,
Yong Zhao:
But in schools
Cindy:
yeah.
Yong Zhao:
we teach you a lot of things that make you feel bad. Why would you undo that?
Cindy:
I love this. It's so affirming. I really love it. I want to pivot a little bit because I see you've got a new book coming out and I think the title is just really clever. So Duck and Cover, Confronting and Correcting Dubious Practices in Education. Can you talk a little bit about just first the title? It's so cool. Can you explain where it comes from?
Confronting dubious practices in education, Yong’s newest book (34:25)
Yong Zhao:
All right, first of the book just arrived, just came out. Okay, yeah, so it's stuck on the cover. Okay, so it's actually quite, I co-wrote this with Rick Ginsburg, who is actually the Dean of Education at University of Kansas. We've been playing with a lot of education ideas. And one of the big problems is the education. There are so many ideas that actually stupid and we call it dubious. So duck and a cover used to be an education iteration in the 1950s. So when the Soviet Union was going to launch like nuclear attacks, American school said, how are we going to save our children from nuclear explosions? Duck and a cover, get under a desk and you will save your life. So it was today
Cindy:
Nonsense.
Yong Zhao:
we think it's stupid, right? But it was popular. You know, everybody knows duck and cover. You know, if you were teaching in your elementary school today, you were duck and cover yourself yourself. So a lot of educational policies are like that. For example, you know, in this book, we talk about kindergarten readiness. Kindergarten readiness. I'm sure every teacher agrees sounds like a great idea. But really, I said if a child is not ready for kindergarten, what are you going to do? Right? What are you going to do? So that's the... We examine a lot of those kind of things, you know, in this book, to say why they're dubious. They don't make sense, but they're so popular. The concept is so popular, right? The kindergarten readiness is tested in almost every state now. You know, I said, what are you going to do? Well, what do you want to do when a child comes to kindergarten and in September you test them? What are you going to do? So anyway, that's just what the book is written about.
Cindy:
love that. So I'm curious, are there policies or practices that have come out through writing this book that you're like, everyone should be aware of this one, like we should all be a little leery of this or these practices?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I can read a lot to you. So for example, another one we examined, remember a few years ago, every school was following the idea called college and career readiness. Do you remember that? CCR was really big. And I said, really, how can you have students be ready for college? Which college? Be ready, Colorado, you know, University of Colorado, you say Boulder, you say Denver, or some community college, but what major? dancing, music, writing, engineering, business. You know, there are thousands of major, how can you be ready? And then career ready. Do you know to be career ready, there'll be no future. Career is made by students. So what career are you gonna do? You can't predict, but we love that idea, right? In the schools
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
pile up, and if you take four years of English, four years of math, three years of physics, then you'll be ready.
Cindy:
You're ready. Yeah.
Yong Zhao:
I know you're not, you know, so that's another one, bunch of ideas, you know, for example, or another one is social and emotional learning. Everybody talks about SEL, you know, socially, how stupid can you be? Social and emotional learning. Of course, learning has to be social and emotional. But now every state is adopting social emotional standards. It sounds like almost racist, you know, like you're, you know, the way you laugh, the way you dance is different from me. But should I be considered socially emotionally not successful? Another thing learning, genuinely speaking is if it's truly engaged learning, you are happy. If you're solving a problem, you're happy. You don't have to schools have a lot of decline in social emotional well-being. It's because schools have not been interesting for students. They've been tortured. Why would they be happy? So why would you now introduce new courses, new models? You don't need to do that. We got some achievement gap for language, educational technology, class size, time, teacher evaluation is another one, teacher evaluation, for example. Every school, every teacher gets evaluated, but no one gets truly fired until students are not very... you know, you don't perform. But then nobody fires to excellence. You should never fire teachers. You work with them. Every teacher is like student. They have their uniqueness, their capabilities. They can do a lot of things if you work with them, not fire them or threaten them. But anyway, so I got a lot more, you know, in this one. So it's a fun book to write.
Going beyond slogans, no one size fits all solutions (39:16)
Cindy:
So it sounds kind of like to generalize, like it's almost like we have these weird band-aids that we put on bigger problems in education and rather looking at like the cause or the why we're just like, here, just put this program on top of it. So is that kind of what the book is challenging, these kind of bizarre policy
Yong Zhao:
Yes,
Cindy:
band-aids?
Yong Zhao:
you're very insightful. Yes, the idea is that in education, I would want to parents, educators, to be very honest, to look at our students, who they are, instead of trying to adopt the slogans to say, okay, we got a slogan. And then government, you know, policy makers. I mean, typically, the policy makers, they don't know what education is like, but they want to be responsible. partisan makers because they're elected, so they want something. So they typically quickly align with themselves, oh, we are up for standards. Like everyone said, no, we want all American students to succeed by this, think about new child left behind, right? By this year, everyone be proficient. I said, that's impossible, but we do that, right? So another thing, like we said, okay, graduation rates, we want to improve our graduation rates, but how do you improve that? It does mean if you graduate from high school, are you better? Or you simply graduate from high school. And some people said, no, we don't want graduation rate. We want high quality graduates. That's why they have that. Every student has to pass a state test to graduate from high school, like in California. But now a lot of students cannot graduate. They cannot even go work for McDonald's. You deprive them of a diploma. So there's a lot of really practical things we wanna deal with that this book deals with.
Cindy:
Very cool. Our audience is mostly leaders. If you were talking to a leader and they're saying, hey, I wanna evaluate my practices, I wanna evaluate my policies and make sure I don't have any of these kind of inconsistencies, is there a question a leader can ask themselves about a policy or practice to align themselves?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I think a simple question is this, is every student engaged?
Cindy:
Hmm.
Yong Zhao:
I always ask, I say, go ask your students, your bottom quarter in terms of testing, are they engaged? Do they feel the school is helping them developing their strength and passion? Whatever that is, so ask that. That is very, very important.
Cindy:
So lead with that. I think just coming always back to trusting our students and that if they're interested, a lot of these problems solve themselves.
Yong Zhao:
Yeah, I think so. I think if you, you know, I've seen a lot of teachers, for example, a lot of schools, they have rules to punish students. I said, why do you punish them? You know, it's like, we know even in adult organizations, punishment
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
does not really work. People are not afraid of you. I mean, like some parents too, you know, younger kids, you might kind of beat them, you know, but really it's the, but really when a student, for example, if you have a 13-year-old at home, And he or she said, I'm not going to school anymore. What are you going to do? There's really nothing you can do. So what I want people to say, okay, let's look hard at individual students to say, what would you like to do? And how can I help as a genuine help? Because schools may be the last sanctuary for many children, for disadvantaged children. You know, they come to school. looking for a loving caring environment where they can grow.
Cindy:
Mm.
Yong Zhao:
But we make it worse for them. Why would they want to come?
School Leaders’ Countdown: The Final 3! (43:04)
Cindy:
Beautiful. I think that is a lovely spot to kind of pause. Yong, we have a set of the final three questions that we ask every guest who comes on the show. So are you ready for our final three? Amazing. Okay, so the first question is, what is the book that you've read that has had the most profound impact on your practice?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I have had, I've read so many books. There is no one book, but one book that really changed my thinking was called Manufactured Crisis. Manufactured Crisis. That was done by David Berliner out of Arizona State University. That book in the 1990s, basically took the data in many different angles. For example, you know, there was decline of SAT scores. You know, you look at all SAT scores is in decline, American education is getting worse. But then you analyze that, you know, 1960s, 1970s, not many people took the SAT. Now you got everybody take the SAT. Of course you will say decline, you know, you got more people taking this, you know, this, I mean, before you only have people who won't go to college and who are good. They take now, you know, all states require students to take the SAT. Of course you say the score decline. So that was an amazing book. Got me rethinking about data.
Cindy:
So how do we zoom out from data and really see the whole larger picture and not just assume that the number tells us the whole story?
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. So that's why I know in the document cover book, I was, uh, we are examining the data for we call people said third grade reading is important. So they have the data as those who can read by third grade succeed better in the future. But then you examine who can read, cannot read by third grade. It's family income, family background. Right? So you're basically predicting if you're from a poor family, you won't be as successful. So that's how we have to rethink about what data means.
Cindy:
Right, get behind the guys. We're seeing this, what's the truth? That's cool.
Yong Zhao:
Yes.
Cindy:
Okay, second question. This is my personal research question. And I'm exploring this idea of the balance between sustainable, joyous workplaces and delivering, right? How do we find spaces where people are happy, joyous, productive, but also where we're successful and highly producing? Do you think there's any keys to success for that?
Yong Zhao:
Well, I think the individual interest and passion, you have to make a place, a workplace enjoyable. Because in modern society, honestly, most professionals have choices. If they stay in a place they don't like, they cannot exercise choice, they cannot exercise their self-determination, it's not gonna be productive. So I think we truly have come to a time that this old traditional stringent accountability doesn't work. It is you have to inspire people and they have to know why am I doing this? And I'm enjoying this.
Cindy:
It all comes back to engagement.
Yong Zhao:
Yes.
Cindy:
Love it. Okay. Final question for you. You, as we were talking about earlier, you've traveled all around the world, teaching leaders. Your job is to train the next leaders of tomorrow. So if you could get on a stage and tell the entire world of educators, one thing, what do you think is the advice that would have the greatest impact on their practice?
Yong Zhao:
That's a tough one because typically it would take me an hour or two hours to talk to school leaders. But I think if we have to force that, I would say think about yourself as a human educator, not an implementer of curriculum or government mandates. Yourself as a human educator. What? impact you want to leave on other human beings as a human being matters.
Cindy:
humanity that just
Yong Zhao:
Yes.
Cindy:
consistently education is a tool for humanity.
Yong Zhao:
Exactly. I think we need to return to humanity. That's not driven by math scores, reading scores, the seven-sevens on IBE or five-fives on the AP. Ultimately, we are preparing humanity and human beings have to be better.
Cindy:
Amazing. Young, I just love how practical you are in all of this, how it just, it's such a simple answer and it seems so complex when we get into these systems. But really when it boils down to who are we as humans and how do we highlight and raise up a community of people who are gonna make the world a better place.
Yong Zhao:
Indeed, indeed, human beings. I just want everybody to remember we are all human beings.
Cindy:
I love that. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I think our audience is gonna just have so many ah-has and mind-blowns. So thank you so much for being here today.
Yong Zhao:
Thank you. Thank you. I enjoyed it.
