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From Meritocracy to Human Interdependence: Redefining the Purpose of Education w/ Yong Zhao
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In a 2021 interview, Michael Sandel, author of the book The Tyranny of Merit argues that if merit can be understood as competence, a good thing to be clear, “The principle of meritocracy, simply put, says that if chances are equal, the winners deserve their winnings.” But as we grapple with meritocracy, or systems built around the idea that those who get ahead are deserving, he says, “What makes merit a kind of tyranny is the way it attributes deservingness to the successful.” How are we supposed to understand the great problems of our time: United States’ incredible wealth and income disparities, child poverty, life expectancy gaps, infant mortality, student debt, or even incarceration rates through a lens of meritocracy? Sandel offers, “To rethink meritocracy requires, among other things, rethinking the mission and purpose of higher education.” But what about education inequality and the construction of affluent white suburban public schools as “Good Schools”, where the social and economic advantages of their proximity to wealth compound upward into higher property taxes, more funding, smaller class sizes, more course offerings, higher test scores and higher graduation rates?
And that’s a lens my guest today, Yong Zhao, Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies & Educational Psychology at the University of Kansas, wants to expand into redefining the purpose of K-12 education more broadly, from meritocracy to human interdependence.
He’s co-authored an open-access piece for the ECNU Review of Education by that name that you can search yourself or find in the show notes, and it’s the focus of our conversation today. “[Meritocracy’s] focus on ranking individuals according to flawed metrics fosters unhealthy competition, overlooks diverse human talents, fails to account for unequal starting points, and ultimately hundred both individual fulfillment AND societal progress,” they write, “We propose an alternative framework, the Human Interdependence Paradigm, which….emphasizes cultivating unique individual greatness, realizing [it] through applying it to solve meaningful real world problems for others, [and] fostering a sense of purpose and mutual reliance. The Human Interdependence Paradigm [for education] aims to create learning environments that promote collaboration, social intelligence, and ultimately, a more equitable and flourishing society.”
You can email Prof. Zhao @ yongzhao.uo@gmail.com
From Meritocracy to Human Interdependence: Redefining the Purpose of Education
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Transcript
Introduction to Meritocracy Critique
00:00:00
Speaker
I think meritocracy emphasizes more of a very selfish idea that you become better than others. You beat others.
00:00:10
Speaker
You know, like now in any school, we're always beating others. The top 15%, top 5%, everybody can be top five if we redefine it.
00:00:22
Speaker
Everybody can be or should be, you know, the bottom five because it depends on the spectrum of merit you want to measure. you
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Human Restoration Project Podcast. My name is Nick Covington. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are David Nuffel, Darren Ushinowski, and Janet Clark.
00:00:47
Speaker
Thank you so much for your ongoing support. We're proud to have hosted hundreds of hours of incredible ad-free conversations over the years. So if you haven't yet, consider liking and leaving a review in your podcast app to help us reach more listeners.
Meritocracy's Impact on Inequality
00:01:01
Speaker
And of course, you can learn more about Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, and connect with us everywhere on social media.
00:01:13
Speaker
In a 2021 interview, Michael Sandel, author of the book, The Tyranny of Merit, argues that if merit can be understood as competence, a good thing to be clear, quote, the principle of meritocracy simply put says that if chances are equal, the winners deserve their winnings, end quote.
00:01:31
Speaker
But as we grapple with meritocracy, or the systems built around that idea that those who get ahead are deserving, he says, quote, what makes merit a kind of tyranny is the way it attributes deservingness to the successful, end quote.
00:01:47
Speaker
And how are we supposed to understand the great problems of our time the United States' incredible wealth and income disparities, child poverty, life expectancy gaps, infant mortality, student debt, or even incarceration rates through a lens of meritocracy.
Proposing a Shift to Human Interdependence
00:02:04
Speaker
Sandel offers, quote, to rethink meritocracy requires, among other things, rethinking the mission and purpose of higher education, end quote. But what about educational inequality and the construction of affluent white suburban public schools as, quote, good schools, where the social and economic advantages of their proximity to wealth compound upward into greater property taxes, more funding, smaller class sizes, more course offerings, and higher test scores and higher graduation rates?
00:02:36
Speaker
That's a lens my guest today, Yang Zhao, Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership in Policy Studies and Educational Psychology at the University of Kansas, wants to expand into redefining the purpose of K-12 education more broadly, from meritocracy to human interdependence.
00:02:55
Speaker
He's co-authored an open access piece for the ECNU Review of Education by that name that you can search yourself or find in the show notes. And it's the focus of our conversation today.
00:03:06
Speaker
They write, quote, Meritocracy's focus on ranking individuals according to flawed metrics fosters unhealthy competition, overlooks diverse human talents, fails to account for unequal starting points, and ultimately hinders both individual fulfillment and societal progress.
00:03:25
Speaker
We propose an alternative framework, the human interdependence paradigm, which emphasizes cultivating unique individual greatness, realizing it through applying it to solve meaningful real-world problems for others, and fostering a sense of purpose and mutual reliance.
00:03:42
Speaker
The human interdependence paradigm for education aims to create learning environments that promote collaboration, social intelligence, and ultimately a more equitable and flourishing society." end quote And you can email Professor Zhao at yangzhao.uo at gmail.com.
00:04:12
Speaker
It had been so long since we talked for the podcast last. I went and looked at and the podcast thing. it was February 2020, which is like, my God. It's like um five years, you know, yeah. Oh, yeah. And like a microsecond pre-COVID too, right? So yeah yeah if we think about everything, the world has shifted since then. Well, we have shifted, right? You have shifted. I mean, look, this last five years, it's it's great change for you, you know?
00:04:41
Speaker
Oh, it's, it's, yeah, it is wild to think like just where, i mean, this work was at. And then yeah now to, I guess, put front and center the language that you guys use in the piece. I've got it printed off here with all my notes on it. Moving from meritocracy to human interdependence, redefining the purpose of education.
Global Events Disrupting Education
00:05:00
Speaker
I mean, I saw the title. I was like, I have to, you know, reach out and pick Young's brain about what influenced this and where did you um and your co-author ah huh But I'm wondering for the audience's sake, I mean, five years have passed since that past conversation. If we're going through the HRP archives, like we talked a bit about how we've changed here at the organization. But what have you been up to? what What have you seen in those trends in your travels um to Slovenia and ah ah and beyond in the last five years, you
00:05:32
Speaker
Well, i mean I think over the last five years, you know COVID was definitely you know significant, but the second is significant was probably the emergence of ah generative AI i mean and the widespread, I think.
00:05:48
Speaker
And of course, with the they are The wars, human conflicts have increased, political division, you see, society has become completely disrupted. And and also, you know if you remember before COVID, before 2020, the human society was very different than today. And I would say today you see a lot more anxiety, you say a lot more depression you said like less hope ah you see a lot more more, you know, economic downturns, upturns. I think you see all this disruption. I think at the same time, you look at the schools, there's also a general recognition of um
00:06:38
Speaker
the lack of success of traditional school reforms. And, you know, but if you look at um Test scores have not gone up.
00:06:50
Speaker
ah a Achievement gap has not been closed. As I kind of predicted almost 10 years ago, you won't be able to close. And also you you see ah the rise and actually achievement gap is is increasing. And you you also see the rise in inequity among humanity, right? You know, there are,
00:07:14
Speaker
ah Family income, you know, that's a big problem and division of, you know, the wealthier gets wealth you know the wealth gets wealthier, the poor get poorer, the disappearance of the middle class. So a lot of those things really have problems.
00:07:30
Speaker
I think, shaped education. You know, unfortunately right now, i think schools are at a loss many, many times because they have to ah be subject to the increased control of ah of governments, you know, through standardized testing. That, unfortunately, has really settled schools. You know, if you go anywhere talking about school change, everybody,
00:07:59
Speaker
references the state tests. And it's a ah Nick, you know it's quite um interesting to watch that. you know they education reforms over the last three decades has always been about what I would call centralized decentralization. You we centralize testing, centralize accountability, the way allow every school to have their own power to decentralize, to do whatever they have to do, which is really sad because if you control
00:08:34
Speaker
testing, you're basically driving schools to do that. And no matter how decentralized you are, you're in essence centralized to commit to one common goal, and that does not work in age of AI.
00:08:51
Speaker
So anyway, the the article you were referencing to, you know, from meritocracy to human interdependence is really to point out and the obvious. that a traditional education paradigm, which everybody seem to have accepted, you know, is about meritocracy, is about human competition in a very narrow field without accepting that people have different talents, different interests, different contexts, different family backgrounds.
Historical and Ongoing Educational Inequities
00:09:22
Speaker
and
00:09:24
Speaker
That is actually what education's ultimate problem we have to solve is because AI is also recreating a world. If we want a better world, we want better future creators. That's our students today.
00:09:40
Speaker
you pointed out so much tension in the system just through that phrase, the centralized decentralization. It's almost set up so that way schools can't ever change.
00:09:51
Speaker
So then they'll get docked in the standardized tests. And yet they're given the freedom to, you know, change if they should so choose. But but there's a ton of counterintuitive, um I don't know, nonsense in there along the way. And and what I see you pointing to here is,
00:10:10
Speaker
maybe that the meritocracy, or as you call it and define it, as you call it out in that piece, expressed in education systems is sort of the root, both of the tension and of the negative side effects. I guess, how how have you seen meritocracy directly related to, you know, these,
00:10:29
Speaker
negative trends that you see, right? Both with declining test scores, increasing anxieties, um gaps, all of those things. How in your mind is meritocracy like at the root of those?
00:10:40
Speaker
Well, mean, if you think historically from Plato, the philosopher King in the West to Confucius in the Chinese way, it says the best educated go serve the government.
00:10:56
Speaker
I mean, education practically has practiced sorting students for a long time. And of course, you know, you don't have to care so much about, you know, like 2000 years ago or three even 300 years ago, because at that time, only the wealthy, the privileged could have access to education. And emperors, kings, they were sorting people. into those leadership positions. So they used to train the governor and the governed in that sense. But the modern education follow the same idea, you know, in essence, that is trying to say, okay,
00:11:37
Speaker
Some people deserve to go to better schools because they have ah merit or they have more merit than others. So the high score ah you know students who perform well academically, go to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, you know and the others go to community colleges, graduate from high school. And then We redistribute resources that way.
00:12:02
Speaker
And but so that's why, you know, in the 1950s, Michael Young wrote the book, The Rise of Meritocracy to Criticize Meritocracy. And he was actually right as a satire. But unfortunately,
00:12:16
Speaker
and the rich, the privileged, happened accepted that to say that, you know, we have merit, we deserve to be in better positions. where The merit is defined right as ah ah intelligence plus effort, as if that has nothing to do with the family background, with the community. And so this is a ah very unfortunate thing. So meritocracy was a bad idea, but has been embraced.
00:12:48
Speaker
So today, even the poor people accept that. you know know I'm not good at school, therefore I don't deserve. So when you think about test scores, in essence, it's a reflection of the traditionally defined merit.
00:13:02
Speaker
you know It's that your your math, your rating, your social studies, your science, without counting other things. That's why, you know, one of the things I said, the achievement gap can never be closed because you are measuring achievement based on a few subjects and which favored the more privileged than the immigrants, than the disadvantaged, than the people who are in remote areas. you know We did not think about that. So now with standardized testing, ah if you look at test scores, we're always punishing the disadvantaged.
00:13:40
Speaker
I mean, still very much today, test scores is a reflection of your family background. than anything else. So this is why I think now with the the widely accepted meritocracy, we continue to sort people in that way. But again, with technology, with this modern society development, we don't need to do that. Even look at how many YouTubers have become Wealthy, if you look at Instagram, and I'm not basically, I'm not necessarily endorsing any of this. I'm just pointing out the useless can be useful.
00:14:17
Speaker
So why would a school stick to the idea of sorting people and pushing people into competition rather than focus on developing individual uniqueness, individual talents, individual passions, so they can work to support each other. And another big part in in the article, I mean, our thinking is also about, ah you know, your value has to be realized through creating value for others.
00:14:47
Speaker
You know, like ah you guys doing the HRP, you're in essence is creating value for a lot of people, for the community, for students, for teachers. And when you create value, you have value.
Transcending Meritocracy in Education
00:14:59
Speaker
I think meritocracy emphasizes more of a very selfish idea that you become better than others. You beat others.
00:15:11
Speaker
You know, like now yeah in any school, you know this, we're always beating others. The top 15%, top Everybody can be top five if we redefine it.
00:15:24
Speaker
Everybody can be or should be you know the bottom five because it depends on the spectrum of merit you want to measure. Yeah, in any kind of league table, all other things being equal, someone has to be first and someone has to be last. Exactly. theres There's no way to avoid that. And another thing is that people think, oh, yeah, you know you you have ah you have merit because you have intelligence, you work hard. That's not true. You know, most, a lot of the so-called merits do not necessarily come from so-called you know intelligence or work hard. A lot of people work hard.
00:15:58
Speaker
A lot of people are smart. They don't never get the chance to do that. One note that I wrote in the printed off version of the article that i I read and took notes on was ringing through my head that old quote from Stephen Jay Gould.
00:16:12
Speaker
i'm I'm probably paraphrasing, but he says something to the extent of I'm less interested in the folds of Einstein's brain right, as an appeal to that that IQ part, as the people of equal talent that have ah lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops, right? is ganging that Yeah, changing that vision of from the ranking and sorting lens of meritocracy, which i I see being as twofold, you know, it not only keeps us trapped in like a scarcity mindset, yeah you know, we're we're always only allocating or rationing a scarce resource, whether that's college admissions or school finance or any of those other things based on these particular outcomes.
00:16:56
Speaker
But then the scarcity mindset becomes self-justifying of meritocracy. And I think yeah You get trapped in like this negative spiral, right? Where you say, oh the only way to do X is Y and the only way to do Y is X and you can never break out of this paradigm. And I i guess what I'm asking for you, Yong, is how do we transcend you know the meritocratic paradigm paradigm?
00:17:21
Speaker
I don't know, in both in school and society? Do we need to do one or the other? Or how do you see those things
Redefining Success and Embracing Diversity
00:17:28
Speaker
intertwined? Well, Nick, um I think the first thing is, ah you know through conversations like this with you, I hope, you know, we will...
00:17:38
Speaker
be able to spread the idea that meritocracy is a false statement. You know, it doesn't really exist because that that that's something people have accepted as a fair way to judge people as a way to justify that your kids are doing better than my kids or my kids are doing better than yours. I think that's first need to do to say that the fallacy behind the concept in a meritocracy, I think that's the first thing we need to to deal with. you know We need to confront that idea that's been so well embedded in our culture. We need to rethink about that.
00:18:19
Speaker
The second that thing think schools or actually our human society needs to really embrace the idea that human beings are diverse and the diversity matters. That diversity means everybody has a jagged profile of talents. That no matter what you do,
00:18:43
Speaker
no matter where you are, you can be on what call top and so in ah in some way. So you are great in some way. Every student is truly talented. you i recently wrote an article several years ago, said, the rise of the useless, because we have arrived at a time If you can create value, psychological, physical, whatever value you can create for others, you can become valuable. But our schools have not accepted that.
00:19:18
Speaker
you know I think our schools are still stuck with the idea of merit. you know Whatever the school subjects are, we think there's merit you know in that regard. So we need to change that. And the third thing is schools need to change curriculum.
00:19:35
Speaker
You know, if we want to help everybody to become best in their own way, we have to create opportunities for everyone to become best in their own way.
00:19:47
Speaker
You know, many years ago, ago i joked about it. said, I want to go through school district. Why do they force my child to learn math? But my child only wants to learn music. I mean, that that why why can't you create opportunities? You know, so so I think that's something the curriculum shifting. And of course, you have to move towards assessment. You know, if you we need to rethink about assessing individuals instead of comparing them to a group. I think you you mentioned Steven Jay Gould, who's really talk a lot about human
00:20:23
Speaker
the human instinct to rank people. That's why it standardized tests came about. We really want to rank people, and i know which we don't really need to. But but you know actually, i was thinking about this.
00:20:36
Speaker
you know Ranking so pervasive. like like You take your child, your baby to a pediatrician. You want to know height. My child is like 95%. But what if your child is the bottom 3%? What are you going to do?
00:20:50
Speaker
I mean, really, but but but what what are you going to do? Somehow we think height matters. I mean, so so I think all of this, we need to change assessment because in the age of ai we need to completely reimagine the idea.
00:21:05
Speaker
You know, they i just... um Actually, yesterday I just had a new book published. We can talk about this book next time. It's called Fixing the Past or Inventing the Future.
00:21:19
Speaker
So this this is, um you know, let me actually send this to you. So it's it's really talk a lot about the age of AI, we need completely rethink You know, like John Dewey always talked about education, recreate the society.
00:21:36
Speaker
If we want a different society, we need to recreate education.
Fostering Human Interdependence and Collaboration
00:21:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Again, another note that I wrote on this, I was like, i wrote like John Dewey, right? Because that's what it made me think of. And I worry...
00:21:50
Speaker
you know that this reimagining towards human interdependence sounds very dewey and dewey in his own time right was criticized for not necessarily having the the practical to match up with the his his sort of idealistic or the pragmatism that he was talking about at the time And this is where I think I so appreciate your perspective, Young, just being um international, being global, having traveled and seen so many educational contexts as you have, where or from what contexts or classroom practices or systemic education models have you seen that, in your mind, have shifted us closer to this ideal model of human interdependence as you envision it?
00:22:32
Speaker
Well, I've been... ah experimenting um programs in China, in Australia, in some US s schools, in different, in from some work in Canada, in Argentina, different places. I think ah the program I've been running in China um with actually my co-author, Ro Jun Zhong, is called ICEE, Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship Education, which really has three basic principles. One,
00:23:04
Speaker
personalization of learning. It's not personalized learning, it's really personalization. Make learning personalizable so you give students agency, you give them autonomy so they can exercise self-determination to decide what's worth learning instead of trying to prescribe them what's worth learning. And in the age of ai that's completely impossible.
00:23:28
Speaker
Number two is what we call problem orientation, that we want all teaching starts by asking students to find problems and solve problems. You know, learning to find problems, learning to solve problems is probably the most important skill that we all need in the age of AI is asking the right questions. But Schools don't teach that. Then the third one is human interdependence, which is about you finding and solving problems for others.
00:24:03
Speaker
finding So you sure care. So this is actually interesting because schools teach kids to become selfish. We know everybody's self-interested. Selfish means you want gain your best interest right now. But self-interest is really you You will gain what you need by offering something to others. That's much more rational. That's much more, you know, farsighted.
Challenges to Traditional Education Models
00:24:29
Speaker
So that's the, you know, so we've been running this experiment for eight years. We use AI. We also run a summer camp in China to encourage students to pilot the three programs.
00:24:42
Speaker
possibilities. And there are many schools do this, but I i have not seen many schools' education paradigms trying to emphasize human interdependence to say, you create value for others. Like we we have a theme we call explore me through we, or understand me through we. If you want to know yourself,
00:25:04
Speaker
you have to be known in the context of others. you know Like Nick, you cannot be Nick without others. you just well i don't know what he would do. you know just is your Your existence is defined by others.
00:25:19
Speaker
There is so much on the spectrum from radical individualism or maybe the rugged individualism, the held up as an American ideal and some radical form of collectivism on the other side. We need to learn to ride ah the the interdependence between these two things, seeing the individual in light of the whole and the whole in the light of the individual. um Even individualism, right? I mean, yeah some individualism are self-destructive, you know right? i mean So you want even individualism to rise you know for the benefit of individuals, right? I mean, some individualism completely self-destructive if you're so selfish without thinking about others. So i think our education is really trying to think about how to recreate
00:26:10
Speaker
a potential society where we would not to say I am better than you. You say I'm better than you in some areas and my betterness is to help you and your betterness to help me. I think that's the big shift.
00:26:24
Speaker
A nation of rugged individuals, or you know ah if we're all just independent contractors out here seeking our own zero-sum benefit to everybody else, is not a society at all. It's just different warring fiefdoms. It won't work. I mean, if you look at our society today, yeah I mean, globally, I don't mean even the America...
00:26:47
Speaker
not many countries don you know now are accepted from political or cultural division. I think right now, you look at the US and other places,
00:26:59
Speaker
We basically have come to a place of, um you know, insustainable. Our societies, if you look at the the income divide, if you look at how the culture, religious, in everything, division. Division is not what human beings need.
00:27:16
Speaker
That human beings must find a fun fundamental economical and cultural way to exchange your strength with other people's strength?
00:27:28
Speaker
How do we create value for you? So education has to advance more in that direction. But again, to do so, we need to change our cur curriculum, we need to be more personalized.
00:27:41
Speaker
One interesting way that we're trying to address this with the schools and teachers that we work with is, you know, so much of our attention gets focused on um shifting assessment practices away from, say, ah test and move on or test and forget model towards one where you're curating portfolio artifacts and reflections um and an instructional model that matches it by trying to move away from, ah say, a prescripted curriculum, you know, that's moving at a certain pace and scope and sequence where you're accumulating that knowledge over the course of the year in theory, towards one that is more open-ended or project-based, problem-based, place-based, all these based education models. And the other thing going alongside this that, frankly, we've run into as one of the biggest ah mindset shifts in the system is really from a model of like classroom management
00:28:33
Speaker
which again, ah ah ah implies that there's some sort of hierarchical structure that the teachers are managing the kids to one that we've called community resilience and stewardship, which really we think flips the model away from this idea that, again, who takes care of us, right? Will we take care of us? Not the teacher doles out punishments and rewards and everything like the like a B.F. Skinner in his laboratory or something to all of us lab rats in our desks, but one in which we contribute positively to the culture. And when one of us is harmed or um ill or falling behind, it makes all of us less positive.
00:29:14
Speaker
well. And so we
Student Involvement and Engagement
00:29:15
Speaker
need to wrap our arms and support around that person, not necessarily view it as a deficit and say, oh, this is my chance to finally get ahead of that person now that they've taken a sick day or something. But those are where I've kind of seen those three shifts happening, right? Instruction and assessment, but also in this classroom management piece. I'm i'm curious how you see that too.
00:29:37
Speaker
That's very powerful because in our model, When we work with students, we always ask them if they're in a state. They come from different countries, you know, for the summer camp.
00:29:48
Speaker
You know, they can be, once they're in a dorm, the the first thing they have to do is negotiate a contract with each other. and When they're in a classroom, they always negotiate a contract and they revise that because everybody has to learn to manage themselves. Everybody has to learn to contribute to the community because again, that contribution is not altruistic. That contribution is self-interested because you want a better environment.
00:30:17
Speaker
What would you do? You know, what would you, and you also have to say, it has to be agreed upon. You know, like when this summer in Beijing, We had students from Australia, from Hong Kong, from different cities in China, about 200 of them. You know, in the storm ah at night, some students began to order food because in China, speed delivery, like DoorDash kind of things go fast.
00:30:44
Speaker
And then that actually puts pressure on other students because now, you know, you can have extra food, you can invite others to join your food. Some students may not have the money and they may not want to do it. So the summer camp decided, okay, we should ban this. But the next day we banned and then we had a big meeting with everybody to discuss this, to say, what do you think?
00:31:08
Speaker
What should we do? You know, we also have kind of safety reasons. If you go out at night, pick up your food. is you know, there's a 12 to 18 year olds. I mean, in the end every different dorm has their own plan.
00:31:21
Speaker
And, you know, adults always have a role too, because, you know, we have supervisors and, well, if you drag us into this that night, is that fair? So it's a very longer conversation about who we are, what we want.
00:31:36
Speaker
When do we sacrifice personal things? When do you actually enhance the community? What's better? I mean, that's, I think a lot of times schools don't involve students making those decisions. because they may not even be aware of all the implications, the possibilities. Once you become aware, you know you might be different.
00:31:55
Speaker
So I like what you said about your classroom management. And I'm not even sure which one enables which, right? ah
Politics, Finances, and Educational Reform
00:32:03
Speaker
It's just as we've been working in this with schools to ask the questions like, why aren't these shifts in assessment and instruction really right taking root or what's sort of the barrier there. The thing that we landed on was like, well, we have to change our whole perspective of this interaction and why we're here and why we're doing this. Like what's really the purpose? Well, I mean, i think, you know, Nick, and another thing have you you're asking about what I've learned, you know, over the years, and another thing is it's politics and the money.
00:32:35
Speaker
ah politics and finance, I think, play a very big role. It's not only about good educational ideas, it's about good political ideas, you know, because politics or politicians want votes. So, you know, like right now, for example, in the U.S., a lot of, lot of legislation, you know, ah state houses are debating about the science of reading or i mean America has been over read for a long time. you know which you know As the most developed country, we're still debating about reading. It's ironic concept, right? I mean, i we really why?
00:33:13
Speaker
It's lot of money involved in reading, a lot of money involved, a lot of votes involved in reading. And this is a lot of times, so you and I can talk about great educational ideas, but we need to think about the political ideas.
00:33:27
Speaker
You know, when would politic politicians come out to talk about human interdependence? you know You might see some, and there I think there will be a few politicians who would like to.
00:33:38
Speaker
They are talking about that, but not by any chance in the mainstream yet. But we need to think and talk about this. Yeah, there's the idea of, you know, sowing seeds in fertile soil. We got to, you know, ah I don't know. I'm always grappling with this young. Like, is this a chicken and egg problem? Do we change the schools to change the society? Or do you have to change society to change the schools? I think you need to change both. You need to treat them as both. And now you have eggs and chickens. You got to deal with both. You know, yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
You know, you got to deal with, I would actually be interested to say, if you get your teachers in your Michigan schools and even students to read and paraphrase the article I wrote, how would they respond? What would they do?
00:34:23
Speaker
Because I think students are creative. I think teachers are creative. They're all innovative people.
Creativity and Innovation in Education
00:34:29
Speaker
How are they going to react? I'm actually curious what they would create. I bet they will come up with good solutions.
00:34:36
Speaker
Oh, that would be so great. And and i'll'll I'll let you in here too into the into one of the conversations we were having and the other week with ah with schools there about you know how projects are going and everything else. And one of the teachers that we were working with, I'm not talking out of school or anything, so I think this is okay. um had mentioned, they're like, well, what if for the next one, for this next project, we let students, you know, ask these ask and answer these questions? If the conclusion we're coming to is that, you know, kids might not be engaged or have a lot of buy-in with this adult-designed project, maybe the solution is to have kids ask and answer them to generate engagement and buy-in. And that was a solution that they came up with you know in their own regard, in their own right, to this problem of perceived lack of motivation with the with the current project as it was. And it was just of them. That's very smart. Teachers came up. Because in all our programs, we we we we never want to impose questions on students. We want them to be the one to ask that.
00:35:36
Speaker
We want them. you know like Project-based learning's failure is imposing the projects on students. Because students, no matter what you think, If they're not interested, there's no intrinsic motivation.
00:35:49
Speaker
So in our program, where I said personalization, problem orientation is that students have to be the one to pose questions, to find problems and justify why it's worth solving, why it's you know ah it' you know it's valuable. So I think that's, you know your teachers came up with something
Implementing Educational Reforms in China
00:36:10
Speaker
great. I really believe teachers when given their autonomy and opportunity they can do? And students come up with wonderful questions.
00:36:19
Speaker
And I'm thinking, of Ben, about that, what you said about chickens and eggs. We've got chickens and eggs and we've got to deal with it. And I'm thinking about the program that you were talking about situated there in China, where, I mean, there they have a high stakes, you know, college admissions situated in, i you know, ah different ideals, perhaps from an American lens of meritocracy, but they're there. That scarcity and meritocracy is there nonetheless. How do you right i'll I'll flip the script and ask you then, how do students and the adults in the society in China perceive you know the way you're you're turning things upside down on it?
00:36:55
Speaker
About eight, nine years ago, we're working with probably the best school. It's called Chongqing No. 8 Secondary School in Chongqing. Chongqing is a city of 31 million people. It's huge.
00:37:07
Speaker
And the school is... really historically the number one test score school. you know is' they they're really They got got over 20,000 students. and and so But we we did not want to change the entire school. So when they they approached us because they they see the problem with test taking,
00:37:27
Speaker
their students may have great test scores, but they are not necessarily happy, not necessarily purposeful, not necessarily, you know, service driven and all those. So we we said, well, we we want to work with that your willing parents, willing students, willing teachers.
00:37:44
Speaker
So we we developed this school within a school model. We explained and then they so they they they allowed us to pilot with 120 students first. And then we changed um a big part of the curriculum, a lot more personalization, problem finding, human interdependence development. Now they actually have spread this to several thousand students. and so we we started by, actually we do this a lot in different countries. We always do school within a school.
00:38:19
Speaker
And we had a school Western Australia. They have been successful in transforming school within the school. So don't try to change everybody. You know, once Nick, you reach certain age, I don't have time to convince everybody. You want to start with those who are willing.
00:38:35
Speaker
And in education, no one model serves all parents or students. But actually, that's another problem. You are public schools. You are the monopoly. Let's say you're in Muskegon. You're a monopoly.
00:38:49
Speaker
But you are serving one model, which will never be successful anyway. So you should always try to diversify offerings. Well, Young, if people wanted to learn more about the program that you're building in China around human interdependence or you know your your work abroad, in addition to checking out, and I didn't know we were going to get get a new book out of this, Young, but Fix the Past or Invent the Future Moving Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Education, we will certainly follow up for that conversation. But where can people find more about the work that you're doing on the ground?
00:39:23
Speaker
You know The best way to promise to email me. I'm not very much into websites to promote certain things because I really believe every innovation starts with the school. So I would like to work with schools, support that. mean, we've written this you know on my website. We have articles about it. And but You know actually, the the school principal just shared this with at the Digital Promise event in Shanghai with educators from several countries. So that's a lot of information.
00:39:56
Speaker
And actually, you know, Nick, you and I might want to talk about we could run a summer camp in the U.S., s like what we did in China. We've been running that for eight years in China. We always bring students from different countries. You know, Muskegon is actually quite cool, you know Lake Michigan. So we we could chat about that. But I mean, overall, me they can just send me an email. I think it would be great. Yet the book, Fixing the Past or Inventing the Future, has...
00:40:24
Speaker
a chapter about the school within a school reform model. And we are, by the way, we have a center at the University of Kansas called yeah called the Center for Reimagining Education. And we're working with schools in Kansas to do the similar kind of ah paradigm shifting changes in Kansas. And we wrote an article in Kappen, which might come out in a couple of months about this model.
00:40:52
Speaker
Oh, well, I'll have to keep an eye out for that. And then I'll put all the links to emails, websites, books, the University of Kansas, all of that in the show notes for folks. But Yong Zhao, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:41:05
Speaker
Well, thank you, Nick. Let's keep in touch.
00:41:11
Speaker
Thank you again and for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change. If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
00:41:22
Speaker
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