By Leila Armesto
We sat down with Andy Hargreaves, a visiting professor in the Faculty of Education and internationally renowned expert on educational change and collaboration. Co-founder of the International Centre for Educational Change and current president of the International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement, Hargreaves has written or edited more than 30 books, including the award-winning Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School (with Michael Fullan, 2012).
What led you to the field of educational reform?
I grew up in a small working-class community in northern England, where a brilliant primary-school teacher inspired me from an early age to pursue a career in education. Unfortunately, the teachers that followed in high school were very top-down, didactic and not engaging with the lives of students. I taught in a primary school briefly and realized that the real problem teachers faced was not the students but other educators. So I decided to tackle this issue by understanding, then trying to transform, the culture of teaching so it becomes more inspiring for the teachers – which, in turn, makes things better for the kids.
What’s one thing in particular that you think teacher training programs should emphasize?
Childhood is not just a preparation for adulthood – you don’t spend 20 years preparing for something else. Those 20 years have value in their own right. Education isn’t just about what we’re preparing young people for, but what the life they live now is like. Pay attention to that, and I think we prepare kids more effectively for what follows.
What’s the hardest thing to change about school culture?
I can think of two things. The first is reassuring teachers of the value of collaborating with students, who need to be part of the change. Students need to be subjects in the change, not objects of it. We also need to highlight the importance of democracy in schools. It doesn’t mean just ticking a box, but students being knowledgeable about the world they’re in, able to see their place in it and be inclusive of those who are different from them. They need to participate actively, in terms of doing as well as thinking, and think critically about other people’s ideas and about how we change the world. Ultimately, our job is not to prepare children for democracy, but to have them live democracy.
How did you end up in Canada?
My brothers moved to Canada before I did. I made the decision to move here around the time that Thatcherism was spreading across England. I got a job offer in Toronto, we moved there and became citizens. Later I went on to teach at Boston College. When I retired, we decided that we wanted to be in Ottawa for this phase of our lives, close to family. We have our grandchildren here and live up the street from them. I also have a strong professional community in this part of the province and at this University, so I have two “homes” in Ottawa: a professional home and my family home.
Having travelled to more than 40 countries, what can you say about your global experience?
Interestingly, I travelled very little for the first 37 years of my life. But after moving to Canada, I discovered that when you move from one place to another, you learn a lot about yourself. The differences between one place and another generate new ideas. This also applies to learning and collaboration in education. I have learned globally to connect theory and practice, and to do qualitative research that has allowed me to learn from others and take that learning elsewhere.
What would you most like to achieve at uOttawa?
Canada is one of the leaders in teacher collaboration, and I see a strong potential for professional collaboration here. A long-term legacy is where we continue to create opportunities for other people as well as ourselves. I’m interested in what I can bring to help build and strengthen community, to increase the impacts of things that people already value here.
It’s unlikely that I’ll be teaching courses here at uOttawa. I’m focused on the global work right now, but would be very happy to meet with students, sit on committees or contribute to classes. We’re in the capital city of Canada, one of the highest-performing, most inclusive, democratic, multicultural, bilingual nations in the world. Wherever I go, it’s fabulous for me to be able to say I come from the University of Ottawa. It’s a wonderful brand to have as part of my own identity.