The Wheelhouse has recently garnered recognition from Tal Gur and Elevate Society, an acknowledgment that resonates profoundly with our mission to uphold the essential tenets of human-centered education. We contend that schools ought to be sanctuaries where each student is not only seen and valued, but also challenged and supported in their quest for meaningful futures. However, this commendation also amplifies our responsibility to confront the pressing conditions that jeopardize this vision, which we will delineate throughout Season 13. In this inaugural episode, we shall methodically identify and explore six critical issues plaguing contemporary educational environments: lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion. These are not mere abstract challenges; rather, they manifest tangibly in the daily experiences of students, educators, and families alike, necessitating our urgent and collective attention as we strive to navigate them effectively.

Additional Notes

The recognition bestowed upon the Wheelhouse by Tal Gur and Elevate Society profoundly resonates with our collective mission and aspirations. This accolade serves not merely as an affirmation of our efforts but as a clarion call for responsibility in our educational endeavors. At the core of our discussions lies the unwavering belief that educational institutions must embody human-centered principles, whereby every student is acknowledged, cherished, and equipped for future endeavors. However, the stark reality is that various conditions threaten this noble vision. In this inaugural episode of Season 13, we delineate six pivotal challenges confronting our educational systems, namely lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion. These issues are not nebulous concepts but tangible obstacles that manifest in the daily experiences of students, educators, and families alike. By explicitly naming these conditions, we aim to navigate through them, fostering a dialogue that is both candid and constructive. This season promises to explore these dimensions in depth, encouraging educators and leaders to confront these challenges head-on, as we strive for a more coherent and humane educational landscape.

Takeaways:

• We must confront the harsh realities that threaten our vision of human-centered education.
• This season will critically explore six pressing conditions affecting our schools, including fragmentation and dehumanization.
• By naming and understanding these conditions, we can begin to navigate and improve the educational landscape.
• Recognition brings responsibility to address the systemic issues that impede meaningful learning experiences for students.
• The challenge lies not in the educators' intentions but in the complexities of the surrounding systems that impede alignment.

Learn more about Elevate Society:

https://elevatesociety.com/

Explore, Tal Gur's book, The Art of Fully Living: 1 Man. 10 Years. 100 Life Goals Around the World:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B007WJKC6E

Read the entire Elevate Society review of The Wheelhouse:

https://elevatesociety.com/the-wheelhouse-podcast-review/

Follow Students Matter, LLC on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn with each of us individually: Kathy Mohney, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, and Dr. Grant Chandler.

To learn more about the Students Matter Ecosystem, stop by:

Students Matter

LearnHarbor

Until next time remember: See every student. Keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.

Recently, the Wheelhouse was recognized by Tal Gur and Elevate Society in a review that truly moved us.

Not simply because it was generous, it noticed and reflected back the very thing we've been trying to hold steady from the that schools are human places, that dignity matters, that belonging matters, leadership matters, instruction matters, and every learner is distinctive and irreplaceable.

That recognition also raises the stakes.

If we believe schools should be places where students are seen, valued, known, challenged, supported, and prepared for meaningful futures, then we also have to tell the truth about the conditions threatening that vision.

This season we're naming six of lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion.

These are not abstract problems.

They're real conditions showing up in the daily lives of students, teachers, leaders and families.

And once we can name them, well, then we can begin to navigate them.

Season 13 of the Wheelhouse begins right now.

Let's get Oriented.

Welcome back to the wheelhouse.

I'm Dr. Grant Chandler and I'm grateful to be joined again by the Wheelhouse team, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, and Dr. Alicia Monroe as we begin season 13.

Before we turn toward the season ahead, we want to pause for just a moment of gratitude.

The Wheelhouse was recently recognized by Tal Gurr and Elevate Society in a podcast review that captured so much of what we've tried to build across these conversations.

The review named our commitment to dignity, belonging, student growth, leadership, equity, innovation, and human centered learning.

And honestly, that meant a great deal to us.

The Wheelhouse has never been about chasing educational trends.

It's never been about adding noise to an already noisy field.

It's always been about helping educators, leaders, students, families, and communities stay oriented around what matters most students purpose, instruction, humanity, possibility, and the belief that every learner is distinctive and irreplaceable.

Recognition is not just affirmation, it's also responsibility.

If we believe schools should be human centered, places where students are known, valued, challenged, supported, and prepared for meaningful futures, then we have to be willing to name the real conditions that make that work difficult.

That's what season 13 is all about.

This season we're going to explore six real conditions schools are facing lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion.

These conditions do not always announce themselves loudly.

They often appear slowly.

A strategic plan that does not shape daily practice, a set of initiatives that never became a coherent student experience data conversations that lose sight of the child behind the number innovation that leaves instruction untouched, future ready language that doesn't fully wrestle with the Future students are actually entering and good people working hard inside systems that are not always aligned, coherent, or human enough.

So in this first episode of season 13, we're not going to solve all of that.

We're going to name it.

We're going to orient ourselves.

We're going to ask what these conditions look like, why they matter, and what they require of us as educators and leaders.

Although these conditions are real, they are not our destiny.

Once we can see them, we can interrupt them.

Once we can name them, we can lead differently.

And once we can align the work around students, purpose, instruction, and humanity, schools become more coherent, more courageous, and more worthy of the students they serve.

So let's begin season 13.

Let's get oriented.

A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.

Good morning.

I'm Grant Chandler, and this is the beginning of season 13 of the Wheelhouse.

It's a Tuesday morning again and I am with my dear friends and colleagues Kathy Mone and Michael Pipa.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So good to be back.

Although we, you know, we haven't.

Haven't really been gone, have we?

We haven't been gone at all.

Couple of weeks for a little planning, but otherwise recording our hiatus episodes.

So we can't.

We just can't get enough.

Just can't get enough of each other and the work.

How y' all doing?

Good.

I'm really good.

Drying out here.

We've had some much needed rain, so.

Awesome.

Well, welcome to season 13.

Welcome back.

We have another amazing set of 10 episodes to launch throughout the summer.

We should note, of course, that our fourth colleague, Dr. Alicia Munro, is traveling today.

So we hope she's somewhere safe right now flying in the air and that she lands safely in her destination.

So we will be hearing from her later.

So, hey, you guys, it is good to see you.

Let's talk about our big news that's happened in the hiatus and certainly since we launched the third of the hiatus episodes.

We got this amazing review by the Elevate Society in Talgur.

And I was so incredibly humbled that we got that.

That he reached out and Elevate Society has put us on their website and has gone in depth to talk about the Wheelhouse.

And I think the most exciting part for me is that he nailed what we're about completely.

Absolutely.

I mean, just being able to listen and choose to review and lift up the significant pie of what we are all about.

I too, was very humbled by that review.

It's great to know that people are listening that closely and carefully and thoughtfully that was a real gift.

So the wheelhouse is being listened to in 77 countries all over the world.

Right.

That he reflected in.

For me, he reflected in the.

In the review, that the heart of what we talk about is, of course, dignity, belonging, student voice, human centered leadership, and the possibilities that we're striving for for each and every student.

And so, yay.

Thank you very much for that and for noticing that, because at the end of the day, that is what matters most, is that he deeply understood what the wheelhouse is all about.

And it is so good to do this work with the three of you.

So I am thrilled to do that.

And so now, exactly where are we headed in season 13?

So I should say first, before I open this up for discussion, right.

Schools are not failing because people don't care.

They're struggling because the conditions around the work, as we know, have become more complex, more fragmented, and more difficult to interpret.

So in season 13, we will explore six real conditions that schools are facing every single day.

Lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion.

That's a mouthful.

Yeah, Just a little bit of work for season 13.

In 10 episodes, right?

In 10 episodes.

Done.

Yeah, with guests.

Yeah, with guests.

You know, just.

Just really exploring those real conditions that schools are facing.

Yeah, just just a little bit.

What I hope people notice when they.

When they listen is that, you know, when we say things really strongly, right, like schools are struggling, or sometimes we even say that with stronger language, we do not mean that the people inside them are struggling or bad or don't care or are doing bad work.

The pressure's high.

The pressure is strong.

And that means we really have to think very deliberately, very intentionally about what we do and how we do it so that we can best serve students.

What we know.

What we know without reservation is that many of our students are not experiencing school the way we want them to experience school.

No.

And I'm so glad that you've lifted that up.

You've said that a couple of times now in this opening, is that it doesn't mean that the people don't care.

And oftentimes that's where we go as educators.

We start to talk about these pieces, and we want so desperately for our students to succeed, to experience this humanization within the spaces that.

That we work.

And all of these pieces that you.

That you lifted up, these six conditions do get in the way.

And that is.

Doesn't mean that I'm.

I'm bad, but we take it that way.

We just immediately Think that, oh, when you're talking about lack of alignment or drift, for example, it's just, you're talking that I'm saying I'm doing something wrong.

It's me, it's me, me, me.

And that isn't the case.

Somehow shifting that mindset to really understand that this is about the whole.

In these systems in which we, we attempt to do the really good work in.

Yeah, like complex human enterprises with lots of inputs and finite resources are going to experience a whole array of dysfunction.

That's just how it goes.

So there has to be real disciplined intention around this work in order to avoid drift, in order to achieve coherence.

Because we all care.

Absolutely we do, right?

Absolutely we do.

I mean, I think by and large I'm going to say most, because when you say all, there's a problem with all.

But most educators care deeply about their work and about the students that they are, I will say privileged to serve.

But what's really been, what's always been, and this isn't new.

I've struggled to understand this for decades, right?

For decades, right?

As a teacher, when I was in the classroom and kids weren't doing well, I never said to myself, oh, Grant Chandler, you're a horrible human being, you're a terrible teacher, blah, blah.

I was like, okay, so somehow, right, Somehow what I tried with really good intentions didn't get the result that I wanted it to get.

So I've got to be open to like, oh, okay, that didn't work.

Okay, try something else, right?

Move on to the next big idea.

Because, you know, I've got.

I've got 10 kids who are like, dying on the vine.

They don't have no clue what it is that we're trying to do.

But I never said, oh, oh, you know, you're a horrible.

I never equated.

I never equated my worth or thinking about that with whether or not students were being successful.

It was simply, hey, I tried that.

It didn't work for these kids.

I got to try something else.

I never got into the headspace of am I or am I not?

Or blah, blah.

This never occurred to me.

So it's always interesting when people are, when they choose to interpret comments that when we say, I mean, there's no doubt that in this country there are millions of children who need something differently, right?

Just listen to the kids.

They'll tell you, right?

But that doesn't mean that we're bad people or we're doing bad work.

I wonder too, if it's just Part and parcel of how we have learned to talk about failure, which is such a prevalent feature of learning for adults, for younger learners.

So if something doesn't go well, for many of us, it is a knee jerk reaction to self blame.

But that's not helpful to learning, not at all.

And yeah, failure is that essential component.

So, you know, what does it say about our culture if we continue to regard failure as somehow self indictment?

It's when really what we need is to be asking the kind of questions you've been asking.

So let's talk about.

I'm just gonna really quickly define for everyone these six conditions and then we'll talk about.

Because this sets the foundation for the entire episode.

So as you recall, because we were in a planning meeting a couple weeks ago and we were talking about five conditions and then Dr. Monroe's like, I want to throw out a sixth one.

And that was lack of a L alignment.

And in fact, lack of alignment is kind of like the gateway condition, right?

It's the one that really causes.

Right.

Helps to bring about all the others.

So when adults aren't not aligned around purpose, priority, student experience, instructional design, everything becomes harder.

And you know, when they are aligned.

We called that in the hiatus episodes, coherence, when leadership and care and instruction and systems were aligned to what we wanted students to experience, we called that coherence.

And the lack of that.

Right.

The opposite of that is this lack of alignment.

And lack of alignment causes drift.

And drift is when we move away from purpose, from students, instruction and humanity.

Drift, fragmentation.

Good work piles up, but it does not always connect into a coherent student experience.

Things are fragmented, dehumanization.

Students become data points.

This one we've talked about forever, right?

I absolutely cannot stand that.

We narrow down our perception of students to data points, right?

Students become data points, teachers become implementers.

We all, we work feverishly toward one goal, which is the end of course, assessment.

As if that's the only measure of anything that matters.

That fosters compliance, it fosters managers, and it makes families and students problems that educators have to solve, which is sick.

I'm just going to say that because it's our show that's sick.

Instructional erosion.

You know, schools talk about innovation, they talk about belonging, culture and future readiness, but the learning experiences never change.

So we erode.

It erodes away and then finally future confusion.

So we're trying to prepare for students for a future we don't even fully understand or are able to interpret.

And you see a lot of the future confusion around AI right now.

And the dialogue and the debate around what, you know, how do we keep it in, how do we keep it out, how do we throw it away, how do we, you know, and we're going to explore a little bit of that at some point in this season.

And we've had, we've explored AI previously when we had Janice Gobert on talking about inkids.

What an incredible, what an incredible set of conversations when she talked about, you know, having the human in the loop.

So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll go there again.

So those six conditions, right, are the real problems that schools are facing.

I'm just going to say them again and then we'll jump into conversation.

Lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion.

So, my dear friends, when you hear those six conditions together, which one feels most urgent right now?

Answer that any way you want.

Yeah, I don't even know where to begin with saying the future.

Just thinking about that, you know, which feels most urgent.

I mean, the absolute piece to me in my heart is that dehumanization.

I mean, I think it's.

I don't know how anything else happens in education if it isn't grounded in this connection as humans.

You know, I know we said that lack of alignment and that gateway and these conditions, but.

And I agree, however, I'm going to agree with a.

However.

I just don't know how.

And I mean, it happens.

It's happening every day all over the world.

I just don't know how education can even begin without this human connection, you know, with adult to adult, adult to students.

Every student we have had as a guest has vocalized this.

Every single student in their experience, you know, pre K20, it's.

It doesn't matter.

They just want to be seen.

They want to be known.

They want educators to, to know them as humans.

So to me, everything is grounded in that.

I agree.

I agree.

You know, and when I think about dehumanization, the concern it raises for me is how often we as school people start our planning, strategic planning, and every other kind of planning, stepping over some essential questions, like this essential question, what do we hope students experience as a result of their time here, of their time here in this unit of study, of their time in this course, of their time in this school and school district, and we just jump right to the things that should be measured.

And when we start with that essential question, we end up centering humanity and we get really clear about the experiences that matter for us as human beings and learning that's transformative and changes our ideas about our own potential.

And that causes us then to say, well, we're going to have to be talking with students at every step because they're going to be the best indicators for us that our intention is matching these actual outcomes.

The complexity of this work is the elephant in the room.

Right?

It's the elephant in the room.

I would say I'm going to.

Well meaning legislators.

I say that with a cringe on my face.

Well meaning legislators who don't know any.

They don't know better because they're not educators.

Right.

Have tried to figure out how we measure, how we know when schools are doing good work.

And so they did what they know how to do.

Right.

They identified some measures and there they are.

And now we can categorically compare one school to another.

And that's happening in various ways all over the country.

When that came out, I was afraid because it showed up in evaluation instruments all over the country as well.

And yes, there's an element that says, as a teacher, I should be held accountable for my results.

Do not confuse what I'm about to say with the fact that I do not believe I should be held accountable for my results.

Right.

If I'm supposed to be teaching children how to read, then I need to be able to teach them how to read.

Done.

But when we put that in an evaluation system, what happens is that we make enemies of kids because Kathy's students are stronger academically than my students, therefore her evaluation is going to be better because it's an easier lift than my students who are struggling.

I got struggling readers.

Kathy's got grade level readers.

So now, you know, so then the focus becomes on that.

Right.

Because you start telling teachers whether they're good or not, and it's hard for them to let that go.

And so this just snowballed.

Snowball to the point where we're hurting kids.

Right.

Where we're hurting kids.

And so one of the conditions that we have to deal with, and I think Kathy, when you were talking about dehumanization is the first one, I was thinking, absolutely.

And then I was like, but I can't separate that from lack of alignment or lack of coherence.

Right.

Okay.

Because you stop that.

Right.

You stop that madness.

When you think about how leadership care, instruction and systems are aligned to what we want students to experience.

And right now, what we want them to experience is this dehumanization.

And we don't really want that in reality.

Yeah.

I don't think you can Separate any of these.

That's why it was like, oh, so.

You think those sets are inextricably linked?

No, they are, yeah.

Like there's a method to your madness, of course.

But I don't think you can because you, you, you do.

I mean that, that drift starts to happen you without you even knowing that you're moving away from purpose and students and instruction and humanity.

Like, you don't, you don't even know that's happening when you're in a space within a system that doesn't have the alignment.

So when that lack of alignment and oftentimes that erosion has just happened for years and years and years.

And so when educators are coming into these fragmented systems, they, it's just, it's what, okay, it's just what we do, it's what we know.

And then you fight up against that, knowing that this isn't right, something's wrong.

But you have to have these team of people that get that when you think about the leaders understanding and working towards that alignment so that all of these other conditions can be honored and put into place.

Right in the opposite.

When I say conditions, I really mean like the opposite of, of everything that you know, that you listed and defined for us.

Yeah.

I'm thinking yesterday of a colleague who at the end of the year has arranged for a space in his building in the high school where he works to have his students in this technology design course exhibit their work and explain it for members of the community.

And he had a great showing.

All sorts of folks were coming, including representatives from Homeland Security.

These are folks who are working in a different capacity than some of the folks we see in the news.

They were really interested in an original app that students working in a group in this class had created for hearing impaired adults who are experiencing an emergency and cannot use 911 the way we use it.

So they're tackling original questions using an inquiry based model and working in groups through a very carefully orchestrated series of design steps that this teacher has helped them create.

And they're coming up with solutions that, that agencies in the community and in the state are interested in.

I told him I think this is the model for all learning.

And among the people who came, unfortunately, were not the building's leadership.

They were busy doing other things, going from meeting to meeting to meeting all day long.

And when we talk about dehumanization and when we talk about drift, that's how it happens.

And this teacher has had to swim upstream week after week, month after month, year after year to Keep this course alive and to honor the incredible work these kids are doing and having gone in previous years to this wonderful program.

And it's public moment, it is jaw dropping work.

And these kids are the docents.

They take over all of it and they explain everything that's going on.

And it's astonishing to me the quality of the problem solving, the quality of the questions, the problem seeing the design breakthroughs and the pride.

It's year after year hanging on by a thread.

And that's the key.

You know that right there is when you think about that instructional erosion, when you think about that future confusion, you think about the work that this teacher's doing, working to combat that instructional erosion, the future confusion, all of those things, one classroom at a time.

And that.

That's exhausting.

It is.

And that intellectual passivity that he encounters among students when they first come into the course, just tell us what to do.

Because they're not accustomed to that.

They're not, you know, when we're just herding students through a system that is so broken, shouldn't take that.

When students experience a single classroom in high school, that something then matters and.

That they have the capability to create useful questions and they learn to trust it.

Let's go back to that whole lack of alignment.

Dr. Chandler and Dr. Monroe said, okay, all of this is absolutely correct, that these are compounding patterns within broken systems.

But it all centers on and starts with that lack of alignment.

Yeah.

Why does this lack of alignment cause so much confusion downstream?

Because we're all working in our own, you know, space.

This four walls and every space looks different.

So I can't even have a collaborative conversation with my colleagues because there isn't any alignment.

Yeah.

So that lack of a common purpose, how can we even begin?

I mean, that's back to the beginning of this exhaustion.

I feel like you're saying I'm doing something wrong because I'm kind of just fighting up against these, this broken system.

In a conversation I had with a teacher the other day asking about how the end of the year is going, he was excited because there's been space in between grading exams for teachers to gather.

And I have conversation in the hallway about some of the big pieces that remain undone this year.

And then getting wistful about their hopes for things that they can accomplish programmatically, departmentally, for kids in the coming year.

And then there's in a short hallway conversation of 15 minutes, there are two or three ideas where they're like, oh my gosh, and now a plan to have lunch somewhere during the weekend.

And so we just had to wait until June for that.

And so the lack of alignment that happens when things are initiatized and done piecemeal.

And what you experience in a classroom, you know, that's the learning priority for you and your kids.

But you get talked out of that pretty quickly when leadership is saying, well, no, this is going to be our focus going forward.

You'll still be expected.

Take care of all that other stuff and the way we've engineered things.

There isn't time for collegial discourse about the work people are anxious to do.

Lack of alignment.

Lack of alignment.

Lack of alignment.

Dehumanization.

When or where do our systems become efficient but less human?

Efficient but less human.

The moment they step into a school, you know, I'm just gonna, you know, when they, when they start.

I think it.

To me, the efficiency starts with leadership.

It starts with, what is.

What does that look like from that superintendent, the head of school that, you know, what.

Whatever that position's called.

And with the.

The board of education, we think about, you know, many have local control, so there can be this lack of efficiency between what members of the board are expecting or thinking that is their responsibility to then not necessarily just govern, but to get in the weeds and be a part of the day to day.

And then pulling the superintendent in all of these different directions, and then they've got to answer to the board in order to keep their job, and then they're pulling people.

That is not then focused on humans, but it's focused on answering in this, yes, accountability, but this level of accountability that doesn't make sense for the kids that weren't trusted with.

So lack of alignment again.

Right.

I feel like there's this inverse relationship between the development and implementation of policy and process and the experience students end up having.

We invest so much in compliance with policies and the development of processes to ensure that and so little in creative and productive ways to investigate what did students actually experience and when.

That's the relationship and student voice is so impoverished, that's when I feel like everything begins to fall apart.

Yeah.

That's where the lack of coherence comes from.

Right.

When leadership care instruction systems are not aligned to what we say we want students to experience.

And when the pressure is up and the pressure is high, then we really know what schools value.

And it often is not the student experience that we are seeking.

There are.

I'm not going to name them.

And we know there are systems out there that districts are implementing all over the country trying to implement them efficiently that also dehumanize students.

That's not the intention.

That's not the intention of the system, but it ends up dehumanizing students.

And so we have to really be careful.

That's why this coherence and alignment is so important.

Because what fundamentally looks like a really good idea on paper, we start putting it out there, sometimes results in.

Right.

That's what Kathy, when Kathy was like, I can't pick one.

This because it's hard, because they're all completely, inextricably linked.

Because once we think about systems that see students as data points, and even if we do that system well, we're dehumanizing students, we're making families and students the enemy.

And it becomes really, really complicated solving these issues.

Solving these issues is not easy.

It's not easy, but there are.

But it can be done, right?

It can be done, but it begins with coherence.

Kind of like why we talked about what we talked about in the hiatus episodes was so important, right?

That we have to recognize, right?

We have to think about what happens when leadership, care, instruction and systems are aligned to what we say we value.

But we have to be really clear about what it is that we value.

Do we value those things that we are being forced or told to value?

And again, if you're listening, don't think that I don't.

That doesn't mean that Grant Chandler doesn't think kids have to learn how to read, write, and do math.

Because they do.

Because they do.

Those are 21st century skills.

But you know what?

The World economic forum identified 21 outcomes that are really important skills that are really important for the 21st century, not just three.

So when we only think about the three, we're missing 18 that are going to be really important, like resilience and grit, right?

Those become also really important to success in the 21st century.

And so we have to be really mindful of what is happening and how we go about doing that differently.

What do we hope?

Because this is a complicated topic.

It's a complicated set of conditions that we're going to be talking about in season 13.

What do we hope folks take away as they listen to season 13?

What's your hope for this summer season?

I hope that just like us, that we're engaged in conversations that are pushing our thinking, that they're challenging us and those conversations are happening elsewhere, that people listen, that they want to talk to people, that they want to say, yeah, that's spot on.

That's what I'M feeling now there's, now there's a.

There are words for it.

There are ways in which I can have these conversations that during this summer, when many educators are are taking a bit of their own hiatus, they're able to reflect and think about how this matters and how this can help center them and their true north.

And knowing that these pieces are pretty relevant across education.

And I'm not a. I'm not alone.

And again, now I have.

I have experiences and language that I can share with others during this season that then helps me share these experiences with my colleagues.

Yeah, I'm.

I'm.

I'm feeling that desire to.

Well, that desire that our listeners feel encouraged to keep dreaming of the kind of schooling and learning that makes them, their colleagues, and their students feel joy.

And to keep dreaming what that schooling experience must and needs to include.

And to not feel that that is somehow a waste of energy or unimportant work, but to feel encouraged to believe that it is the essential work.

So these six conditions are real, but they're not our destiny.

Once we can name them, we can interrupt them.

Once we can see them, we can lead differently.

And once we can align the work around students, purpose, instruction, and humanity, schools can become more coherent and most importantly, more worthy of the students they serve.

That, my friends, is season 13.

As we close this first episode of season 13, I want to return to where we began.

We are deeply grateful for Talguran elevate society, for recognizing the wheelhouse, and for seeing the heart of what this podcast has always tried to protect dignity, belonging, student voice, human centered leadership, meaningful learning, and the belief that every learner is distinctive and irreplaceable.

But the best way to honor that recognition is not to admire it.

It's to keep doing the work.

And this season, that means telling the truth about six real conditions.

Schools are facing lack of alignment, drift, fragmentation, dehumanization, instructional erosion, and future confusion.

These conditions are not about blaming educators or shaming schools.

They're simply about paying attention.

Good people can drift, strong teams can become fragmented, caring systems can become less human, innovative schools can leave the learning experience mostly unchanged, and schools can talk about the future without interpreting fully what the future is asking of students, families, educators, and communities.

But here's the hopeful conditions can be named, patterns can be interrupted, systems can be realigned, learning experiences can be strengthened, and schools can become more coherent and more human when leaders are willing to stay oriented.

In the episodes ahead, we'll take these conditions one at a time.

We'll ask what they look like, how they affect students, how adults unintentionally contribute to them, and what it means to lead them through clarity, courage and care.

To Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Dr. Alicia Munro, thank you for continuing to help hold the center of this work to our listeners.

Thank you for being part of the Wheelhouse community and for continuing to believe that schools can be places of dignity, belonging, learning and possibility.

Season 13 has begun, and as always, stay oriented.

We'll see you next week for another episode of Wheelhouse.