Heretical education

Earlier this week I spoke to a room of secondary school principals[^ Many of whom are existing or new subscribers to the museletter (hi!).] from the state of Queensland. Sensing that this may be my last keynote[^ I have spoken at quite a few events for principals in Queensland over the last three years. The pattern seems to be something like: three on, three off. As in, once you have keynoted at an event, it will usually be three years before you speak at the same event again.] with this group for some time—I thought I might be a bit more explicit in surfacing That Which Needs To Be Said.

So many large events are so terribly patterned now, following a predictable script. Thought leadership groomed to serve the appetite of ‘the market.’ Manufactured insight. Artificial intelligence. Safe, comfortable, and all-too-familiar.

But some of us have dared to quest beyond the Overton Window. And some of us are finding and feeding the leaks. And some of us, sometimes, have an opportunity to tell about it.[^ Yes, I’m hinting at Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life.]

Which means: deviating from the standard script.

Deviancy, heresy, and other generative things

“Deviancy,” James P. Carse writes in Finite and Infinite Games, “is the very essence of culture. Whoever merely follows the script, merely repeating the past, is culturally impoverished.”

Events need to be a little disruptive. Wondrously heretical, and somewhat at odds with what is generally expected. “Genuine ‘thought leadership’ is suspect and counter-intuitive to conventional narratives,” I write in footnote 13 of a previous musing. “If this is not the case—if it has immediate face validity—it is unlikely to be thought leadership.”

There are many things we are just not talking about.[^ This may be partly due to their antimemetic nature.] Most of our day-to-day roles don’t allow time or space for this—but conferences and events do. In fact, they are some of our most important spaces for surfacing the conversations that need to be had.

Which is why it’s so painful to witness this opportunity squandered simply playing out the predictable script. Such safe antics perpetuate cultural impoverishment.

Subversive leadership

My role, in much of my work, is to awaken and ꧁enliven꧂ that which we might call subversive leadership. That is, leadership that is “grounded in knowledge and wisdom which allows leaders to recognise changing circumstances, make sound judgement, and act expediently.”

This is a quote from a paper titled Subversive Leadership and Power Tactics that was published in the Journal of Educational Administration in 2018. It was written with school principals in mind—but it offers well-articulated sensibilities that are widely applicable across many contexts.

From the abstract:

“Principals’ leadership has become a subversive activity that is carried out strategically to challenge and disrupt the status quo and resist policies and practices that are counterproductive to their work.

[...]

The study shows that leadership involves upholding morals and values, even if this means having to use subversive practices to ensure inclusive, equitable, and just outcomes.”

In my keynote-provocation to the gathered principals and education leaders, I channelled much of what is already on the minds of many (but just not overtly spoken of). I think most intelligent adults know that young people have it much, much harder these days.[^ Here’s a summary assembled by Claude. “Young Australians are growing up in the shadow of an accelerating climate crisis that threatens their fundamental sense of future security, while simultaneously facing an economic system that has made traditional markers of adulthood—homeownership, secure employment, and financial independence—increasingly unattainable for their generation. The convergence of environmental catastrophe, a housing crisis, job insecurity driven by artificial intelligence, and growing wealth inequality has created what researchers describe as ‘existential anxiety’ among youth who question whether democratic institutions and social systems can adequately respond to these systemic threats. This generation witnesses fossil fuel companies receiving billions in subsidies while they accumulate unprecedented student debt, observes the erosion of protest rights and civil liberties, and experiences the psychological burden of inheriting global problems they did not create but must somehow solve. The cumulative effect of these interlocking crises manifests in widespread mental health challenges, democratic disengagement, and a profound questioning of societal structures that previous generations took for granted. Understanding these existential pressures is crucial for secondary school principals, as these are not typical adolescent concerns but fundamental challenges to young people's sense of agency, hope, and belonging in Australian society.”] I also gave a quick overview of the metacrisis that gives rise to the poly-crisis we find ourselves in the midst of now.[^ This conversation is never quite fun. But it’s necessary if we are to move towards the hope-beyond-hope. Otherwise: we will remain naïvely and narrowly invested in trying to ‘fix’ the system—whilst never addressing the paradigm that perpetuates the metacrisis we’re in.] This is compounded by the fact that our society-at-large is still very adolescent. There are very few True Adults that support the flourishing development of our children.

Our children who live in a world where adults in power are enacting a genocide upon the children of Palestine, with mass starvation being used as a weapon of war. We are also living through the 6th mass extinction.

It’s beyond me. I don’t know what it would be like to be a parent having to explain how this is happening to their own children. I myself at least had the naïveté of half-believing in ‘progress’ as I grew up (whilst watching David Attenborough nature documentaries). What do the children of today have now?

“We are very systematically betraying the youth.”

This was a line that Dr. Zachary Stein, a philosopher of education, recently shared a conversation with Nate Hagens on The Great Simplification podcast.

If you’re a principal, an education leader, a parent, an uncle or aunty, or even just a principled person who cares about our planet and the world we are co-creating—you ought imbibe some of the work of Zachary Stein.

Education in a Time Between Worlds

We find ourselves questing—amidst the metacrisis—in a time betwixt worlds.

Or well, at least some of us are. I’d like for it to be more of us.

That concept of a time between worlds[^ Related yet distinct from two-world mythologies.] comes from Dr. Zachary Stein, whose work I have long admired. These two books in particular—Education in a Time Between Worlds (written by Zak himself) and First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come (written in part by Zak)—are what I found myself mentioning to the assembled leaders at this event. I promised I’d share them in a museletter, and so here we are.

Jonathan Rowson—chess grandmaster and co-founder and director of Perspectiva—writes the foreword to Education Must Make History Again, an essay by Zachary Stein. We will get to Zak’s work soon, but Jonathan’s framing is important.

“For those working for a better world, the stories we are part of may be climate change mitigation, or reducing political polarisation, or the promise of new technologies, or an image to guide action, like doughnut economics. But these endeavours are all part of a bigger story that needs to be inhabited today. Until we grasp that we are in a time between worlds it is hard to see the deep structures of societal immunity to change that keep the old world on life support. Without trusting that a new world will be born it is hard to see the possibilities for radical renewal, possibilities that are neglected because they can’t be perceived within the prism of the world to which we are habituated.”

I would like for more of us to grasp that we are in a time between worlds. In my profession[^ Ostensibly: a wizard who works with leaders (particularly as a precursor to strategy).] I encounter far too many folk who still subscribe to the naïve progress narrative. Much as the chap who asks the question at 31 minutes into a presentation on The Flip, the Formation, and the Fun: A response to the Metacrisis by Jonathan Rowson.

If you’re someone who thinks: ‘sure, it’s not perfect, but things are getting better and better all the time’ then you might benefit from this presentation.

“During times between worlds,” writes Zachary Stein, “there emerge certain ideas and thinkers that are, properly speaking, without a world. Their work is about creating a new world, by necessity. Let us call their workspace the liminal. Not within the old world or the world to come, the liminal is exactly that which is the bridge and fulcrum between worlds.”

My very close and dear friend Joe Lightfoot coined the term ‘the liminal web’.[^ And mapped it.] It’s where most of the coolest (and warmest) people I know dance. And then later, along with Peter Limberg and The Stoa, a death ritual was conducted—which, aptly, has made the liminal web even more alive.

My point being—come, join us in the liminal!

Hospice the stories that no longer serve, and join those of us who quest amidst the thickets of the dark forest and all the entangled mess of emergence. Let’s together co-create our way towards a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim).

A summary of a summary

Firstly, I... don’t generally like summaries.
Samples, yes. Summaries, no.

I worry I’m already entering my grandpa arc here but, really, the world has become far too impatient. Too many of us will willingly bypass learning on the path to obtaining knowledge in order ‘save time.’ Except it won’t be knowledge we obtain—merely information.

“[...] You have to think about your epistemic supply chain,” Zachary says. “That's why I still read, write and talk long form, and would never not. [...] You have to keep the ability to be a speaker, be a thinker, be a writer.”

Recently, I came across the blog of Artem Zen, a developmental coach who generously shares direct quotes from books he has read.[^ Perhaps too generously? 😅] I have a copy of Education in a Time Between Worlds myself, but still: this site has been handy.

Of course I recommend you buy and read the book proper. And yet it is a book that requires a depth of attention that is seemingly so rare these days. Ergo, allow me the liberty to share a few direct quotes from Dr. Zachary Stein.

A small sample selection of thoughtful provocations, skewed to my bias towards meaningful (wide-boundary) progress (as distinct from the narrow delusions of progress that are easier to measure).

On grown-ups

“In most cultures around the world, so-called ‘grown-ups’ are usually quite immature relative to the full spectrum of human capacities and potentials that are latent inside them.”

“Many grown-ups are actually emotionally young, having been infantilized by consumer culture and traditional religion or alienated from their own creative powers by dull and meaningless jobs.”

On the education system

“Education today cannot be primarily about achieving a functional fit between new generations and the existing social system, because the existing system is in a state of flux.”

“A few wealthy organizations are drastically and unilaterally impacting the shape of schooling, displaying without disguise the interests and power of capital in shaping human development.”

“When social systems are in periods of rapid transformation the role of schools becomes contradictory. They teach knowledge that is no longer relevant, socialize individuals into roles that no longer exist, and provide the mindsets needed to continue ways of life that are rapidly disappearing.”

“Those preoccupied with ‘fixing’ the existing system of schools do not stop to ask questions about what schools are for, who they serve, and what kind of civilization they perpetuate.”

On teaching

“Schooling still largely consists of teachers filling passive students with information and then asking them to recite it back.”

“We appear to have been so amazed by our unprecedented levels of access to information that we have forgotten how to ask questions about the quality of information.”

On measurement

“A measurement crisis occurs when society loses touch with reality because it has institutionalized a systematically distorted measurement infrastructure.”

⁠⁠“Measurement infrastructures are difficult structures to change once they have been in place for a time.”⁠⁠

⁠⁠“Path dependence… once a complex system is far enough along a particular path it becomes cheaper and easier to just stay on that path.⁠⁠”

⁠⁠“Humanity must find a way beyond measures of total abstraction.”

“Measurement practices enact realities. They serve as lenses and function to represent aspects of the world in ways that garner consensus, thus profoundly shaping individual and cultural perceptions of reality.”⁠⁠

“Measurement is intrinsically related to power. Those who have the power to create and institutionalize measures and standards control society.”⁠⁠

⁠⁠“Measurement induces reflection. We see ourselves through our measures and standards.”⁠⁠

“There is a historical correlation between the availability of bathroom scales and incidents of anorexia, beginning with their widespread introduction into homes in the 1950s.”⁠⁠

“To measure something is to show it exists, and to think you see it clearly. This can be empowering or dangerously misleading.”⁠⁠

“Measures determine what counts as research and science.”

“To make a new measure is to catalyze an expansion of what can be known, as well as what ‘counts’ as known from a social systems perspective.”

“We are over-measured, super-standardized, and caught in a web of complex self-shaping infrastructures — all this right at the moment when we are least sure of what the shape of our humanity ought to be.”⁠⁠

“Simplistic summary statistics are totally inadequate for the task of understanding dynamic systems.”

On ‘educational’ technologies

⁠⁠“Today it is mostly market dynamics that determine what educational technologies are available, and there is no oversight or quality control in the educational technologies industries, which are rapidly growing nonetheless.”

⁠“Educational technologies should be bringing people together away from screens — not isolating individuals alone in front of screens.”⁠⁠

⁠⁠“Adults largely use the internet to engage advertisment-laden streaming content and social media.”⁠⁠

“The internet does not facilitate the kind of transparent freedom of expression that is suitable for healthy socialization and learning. Rather social media-based forms of communication involve a basic funneling and distorting of expression and discourse, which become wrapped in surveillance by advertisers and government agencies and then packaged to induce narcissism and addiction.”

On our humanity

⁠⁠“Our species is playing out an identity crisis on the world stage, and for the first time we are collectively facing the fact we do not know what it means to be human.”⁠⁠

“Pathological narcissism is a sign of a weak ego structure — of a personality not convinced of its true uniqueness.”⁠⁠

“Narcissism involves compensating for doubts about one’s unique worth by emphasizing separateness and specialness, and thus setting up comparisons in which others are seen as less special.”⁠⁠

“The cure for the narcissism that plagues our culture is, in fact, a deepening of considerations about uniqueness.”

On a new vision of education

Here Zachary offers 13 pathways. I’ll just share one small sample.

“A truly ideal and just educational system would be freed from all subservience to economic considerations and entirely dedicated to the furtherance of human potential.”

There’s more to be found in Artem’s summary. And, of course, yet more still to be found in Education in a Time Between Worlds.

Thou shalt not rob epiphany

Here’s a question—from Zak—I posited to the room, after a short exposé of the nature of money and the guiding logic of our economy (which is consuming the very substrate we depend upon for Life).

“Without money as the dominant metric governing society, what alternative hierarchies of value might emerge?”

I offered this as something for the gathered school principals and education leaders to contemplate and sense-into together.

Then, during the fabled ‘Q&A’, someone asked me to suggest what some of the solutions might be. I only had a few minutes remaining, and thus opted to side-step the invitation.

I have a sense, of course. But to offer any singular ‘answer’ would have collapsed the generative ambiguity and possibility-space that had been cultivated. It would render all the brimming potentiality of what I had stirred up into a singular response that rational minds could too-readily dismiss. If I had offered two alternative suggestions, it would have created a weird binary dynamic. Folks would weigh-up the merit of both ideas, sure. But it wouldn’t be an expansive frame. Offering three wildly different suggestions might have been useful and generative, as it would evoke a sense of the underlying relationality amidst them all. Because, with much of these things, it’s more about the relations between notions (not the notions themselves).

Alas, I only had a few minutes. And so I did the deft and frustrating thing of not answering the question directly. Surreptitious obliquity, we might call it.

And to quote from one of my all-time favourite grandpa characters, Dave Snowden:

“Working obliquely also means less public commitment to solving a particular problem and more time to watch for unintended consequences. It also gives more space for solutions to emerge rather than be manufactured or imposed.”

The final moments of a keynote really play into the peak-end ‘rule’, in that they are incredibly influential in how an experience is remembered. This is where many motivational speakers will ‘close the loop’ of a story they opened, ending the presentation with some sort of inspired emotional resonance, cue standing ovation. My style is more one of keeping the questions alive. This means no neat pithy aphorisms or linear 3-step plans. Instead: space for solutions to emerge rather than being imposed.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed, as Wendell Berry writes.

These times call for subversive leadership.
Live thy questions.