The twelfth season of The Wheelhouse commences with a critical inquiry into the essence of building coherent human systems in educational environments. We delve into the pivotal question: what does it truly mean to create such systems, and why is this endeavor of paramount importance for enhancing the student experience? Throughout this season, we will explore the alignment of leadership, instructional practices, and student care, emphasizing the necessity of coherence in fostering an educational landscape that values dignity, agency, and belonging for every student. Our discussions will challenge the prevailing transactional nature of schooling, advocating instead for a transformative approach that prioritizes the human elements of education. Join us as we embark on this journey, seeking to establish a future where innovation is intricately intertwined with humanity.

Additional Notes

The commencement of season 12 of The Wheelhouse podcast heralds a profound exploration into the intricacies of educational systems, specifically focusing on the imperative of cultivating coherent human systems. The episode delves into the pivotal question of what it truly means to construct such systems and the consequential impact on the student experience. The hosts, alongside their esteemed guests, engage in a dialogue that emphasizes the need for alignment among leadership, instructional practices, and student care, rather than mere adherence to isolated initiatives. They argue that the future of education hinges on fostering environments where hope flourishes, opportunities abound, and innovations are designed to serve the needs of the students, rather than the systems themselves. By centering the discussion around the dignity, agency, and belonging of every student, the episode sets the stage for a season dedicated to examining how coherent human systems can transform educational landscapes and enhance the experiences of learners across diverse contexts.

Takeaways:

1. This season of The Wheelhouse focuses on the importance of coherent human systems in education.
2. We aim to explore how the alignment of leadership and instruction can enhance student experiences.
3. The future of education requires a commitment to radical humanization, fostering hope and possibility.
4. Coherence in educational systems is not about uniformity but ensuring student experiences align with what we say we value.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. studentsmatter
2. learnharbor

It's season 12.

Welcome back to the Wheelhouse, a students matter podcast.

Today, the Wheelhouse team takes on a defining question.

What does it actually mean to build coherent human systems?

And why does that matter for the student experience?

A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.

The future of education depends on the radical humanization of schools.

Places where hope is cultivated, opportunity is real, and innovation serves people, not the other way around.

We begin by cultivating hope.

We ensure possibility is accessible.

We design futures rooted in humanity.

The future is already here.

The question is whether it will be deeply human.

The Wheelhouse exists to build an inclusive community of educators who believe schooling must move beyond transactions, but than toward transformation.

We envision districts, schools and classrooms where every student feels confident, capable, supported and emboldened not simply to achieve, but to become.

Each episode explores the knowledge, practices and stories that bring this vision to life.

Our team can Kathy mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe and I, Dr. Grant Chandler, alongside our guests, take on a central challenge.

How do we ensure every student experiences dignity, agency and belonging?

Welcome to season 12.

This season explores a truth schools are living every day.

Future ready schools are not built through isolated initiatives.

They're not built through surface level innovation.

They are built through coherent human systems.

Systems that align leadership, instruction and student care around what truly serves leaders across this season, we'll examine tactical leadership and how it shapes decisions under pressure.

How instructional excellence becomes consistent, not occasional.

How powerful student care becomes infrastructure, not aspiration.

And how all of it converges to create future ready schools.

These conversations are not about programs.

They're about alignment.

They're about humanity.

They're about the daily choices that determine whether innovation deepens learning or quietly drifts.

This is season 12 of the Wheelhouse.

Future ready innovation rooted in humanity, built through coherent human systems.

Good morning.

I'm Grant Chandler.

Welcome to season 12 of the Wheelhouse.

What an exciting day as we begin to record yet another season season of the Wheelhouse.

Super exciting.

I am here with the wheelhouse team, Kathy Mone and Michael Pipa.

Good morning.

Good morning.

It's awesome to be back.

So good to be back.

I've missed you so much.

What a duet.

Yes, we are.

Dr. Monroe is performing some other duties today, so she will not be joining us.

She's hosting a really exciting civil rights event out there in the east.

So we wish her good luck and we will miss her, but she is here in spirit.

So are you guys excited about season 12?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Hard to believe season 12.

It was a long hiatus.

That was too long, too Long?

Yeah.

Almost two months.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't do that to us again.

Okay, so next time it's a week, right?

You know, no, maybe a couple.

Maybe just a couple of weeks.

Yeah.

So for those of you who are listening, you're going to be hearing this in March.

Happy spring, right?

Is it finally going to be spring?

I certainly hope so.

Yeah.

There's no stopping it.

I don't know.

I mean, there's a couple feet of snow over there.

It's some areas on the east coast, so I bet they're not feeling very springy right now.

You know, there's no stopping the tilt of the earth.

Yes.

Sunny and 80 in beautiful San Diego.

Yes.

Wow.

We have this, you know, this diversity of weather across these United States.

So, hey, let's dive in.

We have so much to talk about as we start to frame the theme for season 12 ahead of amazing guests that are going to join us.

You know, this season centers on a single idea.

Future Ready Schools, which was our theme in season 11.

But this time in season 12, we're going to take it a little step further because Future Ready Schools.

Innovation.

Rooted in humanity.

They're built through coherent human systems.

And that phrase really matters.

Coherent human human systems.

Let's define that.

It's a set of aligned adult decisions, structures and routines.

And I love this part.

That consistently produce the student experience a school claims to value.

We'll repeat that definition in just a few minutes.

Alignment, not agreement.

Reinforcement, not independence.

Consistency, not personality.

In a coherent system, leadership decisions, instructional practice, and student care strengthen one another instead of competing for attention.

Wow.

We could talk about that forever.

Students experience clarity.

They experience predictable expectations.

They experience belonging.

That doesn't depend on which adult they encounter.

Coherence is not control.

It's not uniformity.

It's not about doing the same thing in every classroom.

It's about whether the daily experience of students matches the values adults say they hold.

When systems are coherent, innovation deepens learning.

And when they're not, even good ideas drift.

So this season is not about exploring new programs.

We're examining whether the systems around students are aligned deliberately around their dignity, growth and future.

Because coherence isn't accidental.

What do you think of that, my friends?

I would appreciate if you read that said that over and over again.

You know it.

Don't expect you to do that right now.

We could do a whole episode with you just reading that over and over.

There's so much in there to unpack and really thinking about.

I was as I was preparing for this Conversation and preparing meaning, just thinking about where.

Where we going to, where we're going to go.

There's so much work that's.

That's done with systems alone and not the human within those systems.

So I think about our work grant that we did for years with thinking, helping districts build systems.

And not that we didn't think about the humans within those systems, but that wasn't the focus, which was such a missing piece.

And, you know, we know that now, but that the piece that stood out to me was that it isn't accidental and it's not competing.

So when you have these coherent systems, these coherent human systems, the humans within those systems aren't competing.

There isn't a sense of creating different versions throughout the district that then compete against each other.

I think about all the different reasons people come to the work of learning and education, and there's so many.

There's such diversity in that that when we talk about coherence, I feel like often what ends up happening in schools is we make some unfortunate assumptions that we all have a common understanding of the kind of experience we hope our kids have.

I feel like the conversation needs to begin there, like, what is it that we hope our students experience in their learning journey in this community and explore the diverse takes people are going to have.

Because there are going to be an infinite number of ways of expressing what people feel and a huge diversity of what they're after.

And until there is some common ground and alignment established in that big Venn diagram of where we all see the center, where things coalesce and we feel its power and strength, I don't think coherence is possible.

And I feel like there's gotta be a tremendous commitment to keep that conversation going daily.

Because it looks different in one classroom than it does in another, as it should, because each of us is a unique person.

But there is alignment about what we are hoping our children experience.

That's huge, right?

That's huge.

And there are two lines that I read that for Kathy.

I'm going to read again because I think they're just.

As you guys were talking was like, these are the lines that really stuck out to me before we tear that definition apart.

And one line was, they experience belonging.

That doesn't depend on which adult they encounter.

That's beautiful, right?

It's just beautiful.

And the other line that I think is so important is it's about whether the daily experience of students matches the values adults say they hold.

I think those are just absolutely huge.

Again, we could spend the entire Episode the entire season talking about those two things.

And as you guys were thinking, I was thinking about where we've been.

Right.

And talking about this transactional nature of schooling and this focus on test scores which has done nothing but alienate children and render their identity to a reading level proficiency, an English language learner level of proficiency, which is not what it was intended to do.

Right.

That was not the focus.

And I'm going to be speaking today in a state far, far away from me about this human connection.

And I think it absolutely fits what we're talking about here today.

So let's read the definition.

I'm going to read that again.

The definition of, you know, we're talking about coherent human systems.

Let's just hear that one more time and then let's tear it apart a little bit.

A coherent human system is a set of adult decisions, structures and routines that consistently produce the student experience the school claims to value.

So what makes that definition human when you listen to it?

My dear friends Kathy and Michael, what makes that definition human?

The student experience.

Yep.

That, you know, what, what do they say?

What does that look like for them?

Often build these systems away from students, away from student voice and really understanding that what we say and those adult decisions and what we value, Is it what students need?

Is it what they're experiencing?

How do we know that?

Yeah, it's the difference between our intent and what actually happens.

And Kath, the student experience, it means we have to bother to ask our students about what they're experiencing in their learning community.

Does that experience match our intent?

What do we do when it doesn't?

That's the human piece for me.

And so many students across the country are telling us that there's a problem with what they experience.

Right.

Because chronic absenteeism is on the rise.

Classroom boredom is on the rise if we listen to students.

And I'm super excited because we're going to talk to students this season in the wheelhouse.

We're going to ask them some of these really important questions about what it is that they want to experience in our classrooms, what they want to experience in their relationships with the adults and with their peers.

I think that's going to be really exciting to listen to them and to hear them and to see what they say about what they want from this educational process.

If we arrived at.

Arrived.

Such an interesting word.

Right.

If we were successful and building future ready schools where innovation is rooted in humanity, and we do that with aligned and coherent human systems where what we intend is what kids actually Experience.

And it's what we value, what we say we value.

What would students experience in that coherent system?

What's the goal?

What would we want students to experience from our lens?

I think a sense of belonging and their place in that learning community, that it feels like their school, their class.

They feel seen and understood and an important presence.

And their absence is felt.

I think that would be first and foremost.

And that the learning that they experience feels extraordinary to them different because it makes them see the world differently and their capacity in it more largely, I think when any of us have seen kids really excited about school and their learning in school, it's because they're having experiences like this.

The Quelia Institute.

Dr. Russell Quealey does student voice surveys.

He's surveyed hundreds of thousands of students all over the country.

And one of the questions that he asked, which I love this question.

Right.

And I try to include it when I do surveys of students from his work is, my teacher would miss me if I were not at school.

And the sad percentage of students.

Right.

The last time I looked at those national results, the 43% of students, less than half said that would.

That would occur.

Yeah.

It's just so sad, you know?

And it's that moral.

Our moral imperative and why we choose.

Because it's a choice to be an educator, to be in the world of education.

I had this beautiful experience yesterday with a group of elementary students.

And I typically don't work directly with students in my role as a district administrator, but this elementary student, it was just.

To me, I think he.

He said it beautifully.

He just said, Mrs. Moni, I don't usually see you.

Thank you.

Thank you for spending this time with us like that.

Me being present, him seeing me.

Me seeing him in this short amount of time that.

To meet that sense of belonging and connection and taking that time to be in that shared space, to share space with students, to be seen to know.

I would want every educator to be voicing to students the same that he voiced to me.

Thank you for being here.

I see you.

I appreciate you sharing this with us today, whatever that is.

But knowing if I'm not there, knowing if something is off with me, knowing that I. I'm here for you, as hard and difficult and exhausting as that can be, with all of the needs of each and every student.

That's why we choose education.

And students deserve to have that in every space in which they're in.

So when you.

That coherence and that set of adult decisions that are made across the board and that it doesn't matter what space a student is in.

They know that.

They feel that because that's our intent and therefore it's their reality.

And that goes for the student who is at the top of their class.

And that goes for the student who's struggling.

Right.

Who's struggling as an English language learner, who's struggling because they learn in different ways, who's struggling because they're below grade level and they just want to catch up.

Right?

So this goes for the student who struggles as well as for the student who finds this game called education pretty easy.

Right?

Goes for everybody.

Each and every one.

That's why we use the word each.

And those human systems include all humans within that system.

So the adult.

That includes the adults.

It includes the students.

It includes, just as you described, Grant, every.

Each and every student, regardless of how they come through the door or through our computer screens or whatever venue that might be.

That goes for the adults within those systems.

Absolutely.

I'm thinking of two schools in the city where I live.

It was reported in our local news this morning.

These two schools have been added to a list of schools in our city that have been placed on receivership, which is a designation in our state that indicates a school that for three successive years has not shown improvement on standardized tests and an additional metric like attendance and chronic absenteeism.

And as any of us in the conversation might predict, these are schools in under resourced communities and they are populated by children.

These are elementary schools who are as beautiful as the child you described Kathy, moments ago and staffed by teachers who have chosen to stay and not leave, who care about their kids.

And I think about those communities and the conversation about what they know they need that isn't reported, along with the news of them going into receivership.

I think about the need for coherence.

I think about the need of the conversation about what do our children need?

What brings us to the learning project every day?

What is the sweetness they should be experiencing every day along with the hard work?

How do we provide environments that make our children want to run into this building to see us and not look forward to having to say goodbye each day?

And that to me, is where coherence is so desperately needed and the conversations that nurture it and foster it and promote it and develop it.

And it isn't accidental, which is part of what you said at the beginning, Grant.

It isn't accidental.

And the older our children get going through life, not just the school system, the burdens that can serve as impediments that become weighty and slow progress, they increase with each year.

So by the time our children get to middle level education, by the time they're in high school, those challenges, you know, they've had a chance to develop and they require greater prioritization, they require greater focus.

And often because of a lack of coherence, that doesn't occur.

No, what we see is we see lots of initiatives, right?

We see lots of things that people try.

We see lots of things that they grab onto because they want to solve the problem, right?

They want to solve the issues.

They have good intentions, but they grab onto buzzwords, right?

Like innovation.

And although we think of innovation, and we're going to talk about that in a minute, this relationship between innovation and coherence, because I'm not saying innovation is a bad word, I'm not saying, right?

But I'm saying we have to, we got to frame it in, in not just grabbing at everything that we can grab to be able to solve our problems, right?

We have to do it.

We have to do it in a way that is coherent.

Coherent, again, meaning that what we value is what students experience, right?

And so that's a filter because that means that innovation has a.

It's got some limits to it, right?

It's got some limits to it.

I have a sentence I want to read I'd like you guys to respond to.

Innovation that doesn't change the student experience is just theater.

Innovation.

Kathy laughs, she always laughs at me.

Innovation.

Sometimes you're funny, sometimes I'm funny.

Okay?

Apparently I'm funny right now.

Innovation that doesn't change the student experience is just theater.

Why did you laugh, Cathy Mone?

Because I just think about this performance and being, you know, going through the motions of the script of, you know, and I'm, I'm a huge theater fan, so I'm very, you know, you know, a huge advocate for, for theatrics, but not when it comes to the well being and the success of our children that we're entrusted with.

So thinking about this next kind of shiny object script and it being an act and just wait because there'll be another, there'll be another script coming soon.

Yeah, that's why I laughed because that's, that isn't, that's just not fair to kids.

It's not fair to any of the humans within the system.

And we've seen firsthand what happens.

I'm all about accountability.

I'm all about holding schools to be accountable.

As long as we're holding them accountable for the Right.

Things.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we're measuring it in the right ways and we're thinking about things in a different way.

And of course, what we know is that the accountability system, that.

And every state has different accountability systems, but they're all based on, you know, a very, very narrow look, a very, very narrow look at what.

What makes a school good and what.

And what doesn't.

And when schools get identified, there's fear because there's a lot of tremendous public backlash on a school that gets identified.

Right.

Because when they get identified, they get told they're bad.

Right.

They're bad.

The people in them are bad.

Right.

And so they grab.

Right.

Because they're afraid.

They grab any.

What did you say?

Any golden nugget, Kathy.

Any shiny object.

Shiny object.

Right.

They grab those because they desperately want to do things differently.

Right.

And time is of the essence and the pressure is high, and so they grab those shiny objects.

Right.

In the forms of initiatives, or we mask ourselves and call it an innovation.

Right.

And the question that we have to ask that I'm throwing out there in the space for us this season is those in and of themselves are not bad, but are they coherent and are they supported in coherent human systems?

Which means if we do that thing, if we do that thing and we do it well, will students experience what we value or no?

Right.

And what happens when there's a misalignment?

What happens if there's a misalignment between what we value and what students experience

and a misalignment between what we think we understand about the communities we serve and what that community's experiences actually are.

You know, I think about our neighbors who experience poverty, who are living in communities that are under resourced and their children are attending schools that get placed on receivership.

I think.

Has it gotten any easier to experience poverty in this country over the last 30 years?

Probably harder.

Some schools are supposed to perform this miraculous social, economic alchemy that cures the economic reality and context in which families are struggling to survive.

But that isn't part of the conversation.

And oftentimes as educators, we are not aware enough of what our families, our households, our kids are experiencing.

And in that gap, we make stuff up.

Yeah, absolutely.

Alicia often will say, well, channel Alicia, because she's not here.

In her work with Whole Child in the Whole Child five that she's written, one of the questions that she asks is, who are we and who do we serve?

Who are we and who do we serve?

Who do we serve and how do we know we serve them well.

That's right.

How do we know we serve them well?

And what do we do when we discover that we're not?

When our school is placed on receivership, when our students routinely do not demonstrate proficiency, when they routinely stop showing up?

So coherence then is a moral commitment and not just an organizational goal, is it?

Not absolutely is having our students experience each student every day experiencing what we intend for them to experience, and it aligns with our values.

That's pretty profound, right?

As a moral commitment.

So we had better understand our values and we had better understand if they align or not.

We better listen to our students to make sure that what we value is what they value.

And none of that, my dear friends who are listening, none of that is measured in accountability systems.

So again, not faulting the accountability system, but that means that we have to do that on our own.

That has to be part of our moral lens that we look at when we think about innovation rooted in humanity, built by coherent human systems.

That's what it's all about.

If that is our goal for, and our theme for season 12, what do we want listeners to pay attention to in this season?

What do we hope they hear from us?

And from our guests in season 12, what do you want our listeners to pay attention to in season 12?

I want them to hear that there's hope within the work that we do, that it isn't doom and gloom around the work that, that needs to be done or is being done throughout the educational systems in our.

In our country and other countries.

I want, I want them to be able to hear again back to that sense of hope, because then it ignites the change or it supports the changes that are happening around building and sustaining systems, coherent systems that are rooted in humanization, that they're human systems.

So not that, my goodness, there's so much to do, but my goodness, we can do it.

So we better solve everything.

Oh my.

This is gonna be a long season.

That's so well said, Kath.

You know, that sense of hope, I want our listeners to experience what I always want them to experience, some recognition of themselves in the voices that they encounter this season listening to our podcast, that they feel their work is represented well and accurately.

I want them to feel seen and connected to us.

I desperately want that.

And I want them to hear things that breathe life into that beautiful commitment that brought them to this work and help them take a breath free of exhaustion and one, like Kathy says, instead imbued with hope.

So future ready schools are built through coherent human systems.

Coherence is not control.

It's not uniformity.

It's not about doing the same thing in every classroom.

It's not about scripting a teacher.

It's about whether the daily experiences of students match the values adults say they hold.

And when these systems are coherent, Innovation rooted in humanity deepens learning.

We'll see you next time in the Wheelhouse.

And that's a wrap of episode one of season 12.

A sincere thank you to the Wheelhouse team, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, and Dr. Alicia Munro for helping chart this journey toward future Ready Schools.

Innovation rooted in humanity built through coherent human systems.

If you believe the future of learning must remain deeply human, we'd love to stay connected.

Follow Students Matter on Instagram or LinkedIn, or connect directly with Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Munro, or me, Dr. Grant Chandler.

You can learn more about the Students Matter ecosystem on our website or through our learning platform, Learn Harbor.

Links are in the show Notes.

Until next time, keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.