So what can Education learn from National Standards, Covid 19 and the Infinite Game?
/Introduction to the Infinite Game
In a BLOG post by Carolyn Stuart in response to reading Simon Sinek’s book, ‘The Infinite Game’, she asked the question, “How might we create a national “Just Cause” for NZ’s education system? What is our country’s “vision of the future that does not yet exist”?
In his book, Simon Sinek describes the difference between business played out as a finite game and that played out as an infinite game. A finite game, for example, is played by known players, has fixed rules and there is an agreed upon objective that ends the game when it is reached. On the other hand an infinite game is played by known and unknown players. There are no exact or agreed-upon rules – mostly because the rules that are needed to play the game successfully are not yet known and may continually change depending on need. Infinite games, as their name suggests, have infinite time horizons with no practical end to the game. And there are no winners in the infinite game because the aim of the game is to keep playing it, to perpetuate the game.
Sinek argues for playing business as an infinite game. He says it moves organisations “in a better direction”, and that when organisations adopt an infinite mindset they “enjoy vastly higher levels of trust, co-operation and innovation.” Their success can be measured “by the desire others have to contribute to that organization’s ability to keep succeeding, not just during the time they are there, but beyond their tenure.”
The Infinite Game and National Standards
So what does this have to do with education? Carolyn Stuart suggested that we can use the framework/metaphor of the finite and infinite game to explain what has happened in education over the last decade or two. She suggested that with the introduction of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum and its vision for students as lifelong learners, education became an infinite game. However, with the introduction of National Standards just a couple of years later education became a finite game once again and the curriculum narrowed. My view is that it is not that the government of the time didn’t agree with the New Zealand Curriculum or its vision for learners as “Confident, connected, lifelong learners”. And they absolutely cared about equity and the “20% tail of underachievement”. Rather, they didn’t understand that you cannot lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game which is exactly what they tried to do. When you play a finite game to achieve an infinite vision, “…it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation”. Does that sound familiar? Some years later, we are still trying to overcome the loss of trust and cooperation in our profession.
Finite strategy in the Infinite Game
I can think of a few times as a principal when fear of failure has driven me to turn to a finite game (finite strategy) for a short period of time in a school that very clearly communicated that it was playing an infinite game. Though the finite strategies I took worked in the short-term, the longer term negative impacts were noticeable, particularly in terms of the impact on trust. I had acted a little bombastically, in a way that staff did not perceive to align with my strongly espoused vision for education, and there was a price to pay. Fortunately people are gracious and forgiving. Returning to a finite game is often driven by fear and the belief that our purpose will best be served by controlling our environments and outcomes. The infinite game is big and unwieldy, it stretches back to our infinite past and forward to an infinite future. We grasp at it and like sand, it slips through our fingers. There is so much that is unknown. It feels chaotic, at times, and it absolutely cannot be controlled by us. It is not an input/output, linear process and, at times, it requires a great deal of courage to stay the course.
However, there are times when playing a finite game in the service of the infinite purpose is right. In times of crisis, extreme risk, stress, pressure, chaos and fear such as the unprecedented pandemic we are experiencing right now, it is absolutely right to employ a finite strategy for a finite period of time. “Stay home, save lives”, is a finite strategy for extreme times. However, a finite strategy will only work if it is played very clearly within the bigger context of an infinite game, where the infinite game stretching beyond into the future and back into the past can still be seen or sensed even though the finite strategy looms large. The oft repeated statement that, at this point in time, our wellbeing as a country is best served by a health response, is a clear reminder to us that we are in an infinite game and this short term strategy of “Stay home, save lives” is an urgent and necessary play in a longer term game. Knowing this, has helped New Zealanders (and people all around the world) to comply with very difficult limitations to normal life and huge risks to livelihoods.
The implementation of National Standards and Covid 19
So, returning to the introduction of National Standards and what we can learn as a sector. There were several problems with the introduction of the finite strategy of National Standards by the Government. The problem was not so much that it was a finite strategy, because as we have seen, this is an appropriate and necessary response at times; but, rather, that there were significant miscalculations in how it was communicated and implemented. Firstly, we have seen from New Zealand’s response to the “Stay home, save lives” strategy that people had to perceive there to be a real and highly significant threat for them to give up their freedoms and comply. New Zealanders could identify with the risks and they could all see that they would be personally affected by the threat if it was left unchecked. Thousands dead, especially our old people, was unacceptable.
I have no doubt that the concern that prompted the government’s National Standards strategy was real and deep. Significant underachievement of Māori and Pacific students is an intolerable situation. And let’s be honest, our performance as a sector had a lot of room for improvement, and we were not taking sufficient responsibility for sorting it out ourselves. However, at that point in time, many New Zealanders, including many teachers, did not feel the “threat” as sufficiently urgent or personal to make the sacrifices that the change would require. Instead of laying the groundwork, as Jacinda Ardern has done throughout her leadership by telling us, for example, that “they are us”; the teaching profession, seemingly completely out of the blue, were hit over the head with their failure of these groups and the finite strategy was introduced in a bombastic way with no opportunity or invitation for teachers to join the “just cause” or to be part of formulating the solution. Rather, we were told! Just having a compelling purpose or a just cause, is not enough. Enough people have to feel compelled by the cause. A call has to be put out (“We are a team of five million”), an invitation given to do something great (“Stay home and save lives”) and people have to answer the call (zero cases for two days). In the case of National Standards, this did not happen, or at least not in any way that the sector recognized.
Secondly, finite strategies are appropriate at times, but the strategy must not completely eclipse the infinite game. The National Standards strategy eclipsed the New Zealand Curriculum. It almost completely hid the infinite game it was simply supposed to support. This undoubtedly was not intentional, but it certainly was the impact. Hence, the new New Zealand Curriculum – the expression of our infinite game - went on the back burner. National Standards essentially became the curriculum, and no-one was well served by any of it. In fact, it did huge damage to “trust, cooperation and innovation” and we are still suffering from it.
Thirdly, to be truly effective and to serve the infinite game, any finite strategy and its implementation, must align with, and serve, the goals and vision of the infinite game. When the two are in conflict, the infinite game will lose and the damage will be considerable. Governor Cuomo reminded the people of New York State that they were still in an infinite game when he said of coming out of lockdown, “Let’s not rebuild. Let’s reimagine the future.” The strategy of National Standards clearly conflicted with the New Zealand Curriculum, when it privileged specific aspects of a curriculum which was focused on a holistic, real-life, problem-solving approach to learning and a broad curriculum. It conflicted when the New Zealand curriculum encouraged the development of students as agents of their learning, having voice and choice, but the implementation of National Standards treated teachers as naughty children who needed to be told and coerced with sticks-as-league-tables, for example. These strategies were incongruent and worked directly against the infinite just cause or purpose signaled by the New Zealand Curriculum.
Now, let’s look at ourselves
The negative impacts of the finite strategy of National Standards was exacerbated by the binary thinking that characterised much of the education sector. National Standards was introduced into a sector where many of the players were finite-minded; who did not like surprises, feared disruption, who do not like things they could not predict or control and that upset their plans (Sinek, 2019). We only need to look at social media to see how reactive some teachers can be and how hard some fight to maintain the status quo for evidence that this is so. Hence, the eclipsing of the New Zealand Curriculum by National Standards was inevitable, though not intended. The sector, in general, was not able to see that the two ideas did not have to be mutually exclusive. Some schools used both/and thinking, and were able to keep their eyes on the infinite game, and subordinate the finite strategy of National Standards to their just cause. However, many were not able to do so. Neither did the Government nor the Ministry provide leadership by showing how the two could work together effectively. It seemed that the Government had also lost sight of the infinite game it should have been leading.
However, I am not prepared to lay all this at the feet of Government or Ministry. As a sector, we should not have needed to wait for an invitation, or to be coerced to end the tail of underachievement. We should have been stamping it out, just as we are currently collectively stamping out the long tail of Covid 19. We are self-responsible teachers and school leaders. We profess to care deeply about our students. We should have shown this by taking responsibility ourselves for those students for whom our education system was not working and changed our approaches to become inclusive and transformative.
What can we learn?
So what can education learn from Covid 19, National Standards and the Infinite Game?
We need to realise that education is an infinite game not a zero sum game with an infinite vision, purpose and just cause; and, actually, I think we know what that just cause is even if we don’t yet have shared elegant and simple phrasing to express it.
If we want the education system to change, teachers need to believe in the cause and feel it personally. It has to touch our hearts and lives.
Communication is key. It needs to embrace all people as insiders and include an invitation to join the quest. It needs to contain the message for everyone that their contribution matters – that everyone can and will make a difference.
There is a place for finite strategies in the infinite game. But we should be intentional about any and every strategy that we use and finite strategies need to be recognizable as part of the infinite game and subordinate to it over the long term. Alignment is essential.
As a sector we need to move away from binary thinking and embrace postformal, paradoxical, both/and thinking (Evolving our ability to think). This will protect us (and our students) from the mistaken, though, perhaps, well intentioned, finite strategies that will challenge our sector from time to time. If we do, we will be empowered to mitigate the potentially damaging aspects of inappropriate strategies, while also having the capacity to use the strategy positively to enhance our infinite game. We will then no longer be at the whim and whimsy of every “good” idea, but will be able to stay the course, and remain focused on our infinite just cause.
And most important of all
Finally, and the most important and empowering learning of all, we, as a sector, do not need to wait for a leader to invite us to join the quest. The invitation to ensure the dignity of all people in our schools, to assist all children to continually fulfil their potential and to create the spaces where every child (and teacher) discovers their unique contribution to the world –where I discover the thing that only I can do and no-one can do in my stead (Biesta, 2017) - has always been out there for all of us, waiting for our RSVP. It doesn’t require an organized movement (though this might develop over time), but rather it requires a personal response and personal commitment. It can be driven by each one of us as we take on board what Dr Anne Milne discovered, “After a lifetime of education, I firmly believe the greatest barrier to each of us making change in our schools is our own thinking—which we do have the power to change.” We can each choose to open our hearts to absorb the challenge, to hold every child/person as though “they are us” (though not necessarily the same as us, to be clear), to be open and willing to change, and to begin the long journey towards finding the ways to play this infinite game to achieve the purpose and just cause in our homes, classrooms, schools and communities.
Welcome to the Infinite Game!