First I wanted to entitle this post : The Goldilocks Zone of pedagogical innovation and educational reform. But then I liked the idea of having a Minister of Education called Goldilocks.
But let's be serious for a moment. Do you know what the Goldilocks Zone is?
The Goldilocks Zone is the zone where life is possible, where it is neither too hot nor too cold but just right so that water won't boil and evaporate or freeze, but where it will remain most of the time in a liquid state.
This concept can easily be applied to pedagogical innovation or educational reform. In effect, to be accepted at a given time in a given socio-cultural and economic system, change in education (on a larger scale) usually only happens in Goldilocks Zone.
Reform is accepted when there are differences enough to the standards in use, innovative enough to be noticed as such, intentionally new but not threatening or too challenging. And change has to be conservative enough to be accepeted by stakeholders that emphasize the benefits of a traditional system in place.
Every person taken alone operates in such a zone if he wants to nourish his image as an innovator without taking the risk to be evaporated or frozen. For some people this zone is very large, for others - less courageous or should I say blessed with more political intelligence - it is very narrow.
When more stakeholders are involved - and usually, it is not one person alone who takes all the decisions (at least not in democracies - although our Prime Minister is sometimes suspected to take all the decisions alone) the Zone is obviously small. The acceptable change has to take place in the limits of the intersection of all stakeholders depending on their relative importance, status or power : The Ministry of Education, the Government, the Teacher Union etc. The more stakeholders involved, the smaller the intersection area will be where a consensus is possible, and of course the slower change will happen, resulting in a kind of Darwinian evolution of the educational system. And we all know how slow such an evolution operates, don't we? Only very long-term observation could reveal change - if there is change. (So far nobody has seen the giraffe's neck grow longer. Or could it be that it is shortening?).
But there is also different concept of evolution - one which is not slow and continuous but rather jumps from a certain stage in a very short period to a very different stage. According to this scenario educational reform could be experienced during a teacher's working life, or even a child's school career
I am curious to see, if the new school law will be followed by an evolutionary jump or if educational reform will take place in the shared and very narrow Goldilocks Zone of all the stakeholders involved.
