April 15, 2025, No. 183
Deep Dive Into the Big Questions
Question 1: What is Sacred? (Part 1)
The ongoing disruptions in the world are forcing us to make important choices. Despite the seemingly never-ending stream of tools, programs, and methods being offered as “solutions” to what’s broken in education, pause to consider: what are the aspects of school that we want to preserve 10 or 20 years or even longer into the future? What is at the core of our purpose as schools in the world today? In other words, what matters most?
Over the past half-century, the perceived value of schools has been changing. Once seen primarily as a public good, a place where students were prepared to contribute to and flourish in both local and global communities, today the emphasis has turned more to being a private good. As evidenced by the “Varsity Blues” scandal where parents were prosecuted for cheating on their students’ college applications, school is increasingly valued as a way to rise or maintain personal status in the face of an uncertain future.
Accordingly, the emphasis in schools has become more about what’s measurable, as in standardized test scores, grade point averages, AP exam results, and getting top-tier college acceptances. US News and World Report’s annual rankings of schools are heavily weighted toward these metrics in conferring “excellence.” Ask most realtors in the U.S. what story they tell about the local high school, and the answer will be similar. Outside the U.S., the pressure on children for high test scores in order to ultimately ensure a scarce spot in a prestigious national university seems to grow in proportion to a sense of global and national social and economic insecurity. Even the wealthiest, most privileged individuals are giving in to this anxiety. As actress Felicity Huffman described her motives for paying USD $15,000 to falsify her daughter’s SAT test results: “it seems like … that was my only option to give my daughter a future.”
Without stepping back to reflect on what actually contributes to our children’s long term benefit and well-being, this sort of thinking dooms us to an unattainable achievement spiral. If someone with that much power and privilege feels such a sense of insecurity and desperation about her child’s future, what about the rest of us?
Lost in the primacy for the measurable and the focus on scarcity, however, is the value of the immeasurable, those dispositions and mindsets that arguably today will determine a child’s ability to thrive in the world more than any test score might. In addition, the well-being and mental health of our children has been sacrificed to the focus on metrics. It’s just one of the many ways that we have lost our connection to what’s most important in schools.
Ironically, the pandemic did much to remind us that wellness and physical, mental, and spiritual health are paramount for learning (and for teaching.) Not long into the move to hybrid or fully remote schooling, stories of fatigue, frustration, and overwhelm on the part of students and teachers were rising to the top of the list of concerns, even as folks were staying inside to stay healthy. In response, many schools cut back on schedules and curriculum and general expectations; but many others “went back” to a full schedule, with the expectation that kids sit behind a computer for 6-7 hours every day, following strict discipline guidelines, then complete a night of homework behind their screens.
When we wrote the 9 Big Questions in 2021 we urged a sort of recalibration for a much different reality. We advocated for going back to the most foundational aspects of our work with children: The things that really matter. Our non-negotiable values. Those aspects of school we consider sacred.
Since that time, our work with educators and communities made it crystal clear that for meaningful, sustainable change to happen, schools must ground their work in their deepest beliefs and values. Asking “What is so sacred about the school experience that we would fight to keep it into the future?” is the first place to start. It forces us to get to the core of what’s most important about our service to children.
(This is an excerpt from 12 BIG Questions Schools Must Answer to Imagine Irresistible Futures click on the link for your free copy.)
In Peace,
Homa
Learn (and Partner!) With BQI
If you are making decisions for next year’s budget, consider partnering with the Big Questions Institute. Some of the areas we will be accompanying schools and educators in the coming year include:
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Professional learning for faculty and leaders (topics include: building belonging and cultural competence; exploring the Big Questions and auditing classroom practices using fearless inquiry; designing classroom experiences for student agency and real-world relevance; AI tools)
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AI integration with curriculum
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Strategic planning
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Board governance and capacity building
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Head of School and Board evaluations and goal-setting
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Engaging parents and families in big questions around the direction of school and education
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Support to build the effectiveness of teams around personal aspirations and strategic goals
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Coaching individual leaders and aspiring leaders
