'Good enough' should not define your child's education

Mike Stopforth, guest · [00:42]So, so the email is, is, is part of a, a, a marketing initiative around a business that I run. The business is interested in what, lies at the intersection of leadership and technology and impact. And I, I deal a lot with business leaders who are trying to navigate some of the challenges around digital transformation. And my theory is that digital transformation works or fails almost entirely based on the culture of an organization, and that, as we all know, is largely, determined and dictated to by the style of leadership of that, that entity. And I wanted to use the analogy of picking a school for my six-year-old daughter, an appropriate, primary, school for my daughter, and we, we landed up picking initially a school that was super convenient, really close to where we lived. It was the most easy, pain-free decision to make, and, and we believed that we were based almost exclusively on the amount of money that we were paying, making a good decision that would be kind of endorsed The quality of the, the institution that we were investing in. We only realized that maybe that wasn't the best decision when we got a phone call from a school that we'd put her name down at earlier in the process. Didn't imagine we'd get in there. and when we got the phone call, we went for a meeting, again, kind of reluctantly, because we were sort of happy where we were, met with that school, and we're just really blown away, really astounded at the contrast between that experience and, and what we were kind of okay with already. And yeah, it got me thinking a lot about the role that leadership can have in making two completely otherwise similar entities substantially different in the way they're approached, in this case, the, the topic of educating our children.

Mike Stopforth, guest · [07:53]Yeah, sure. So, I mean, it's worth pointing out, though, that the difference in the, in the commutes between these two schools is, in the one case it was four minutes, in the other case it's 22, 23 minutes on an average day. so it's, it's quite substantially different, but it's not insurmountably far. we're not driving 45 minutes, because I think if it was 45 minutes, we would have, she would still be in the previous school, if I'm honest with you, I don't know if we would have made that, decision. It was within the, the, the realm of what was still reasonable for us. So I think it's still a big factor, and in a, a load-shed Johannesburg one out of 17 traffic lights working world, that's definitely, definitely has some weight. Okay, so that's the, that's the first thing. The massive distinction for me, and, you know, being, being really interested in how organizations are formed and how they create value and how they run and how they run over, over years as they evolve, was the substantial difference in an institution that was clearly created and, and running for the purposes of being able to report a profit back to, to shareholders. And then an institution that existed for the purposes exclusively of being essentially its own end, the, the very best school that we can be with the resources that we have available to us, for all intents and purposes, kind of a nonprofit mindset, for lack of a better, better phrase. Neither of those are, are perfect models. They both have their pros and cons. But in our, in our instance, and in our experience of this particular example, the one that intended to be a school in and of itself, first, had what appeared to be a far greater focus on the quality of the team that worked around our children, the quality of the instruction and development of those, talented teachers, the level of intentionality, the, the kind of Community feel, a lot more investment in building the parent-teacher-student community. So there, you know, there were just subtle things that became big things when we added them, all together. Having said that, it's not lost on me that I could have gone to that meeting and been sold a wonderful story by, obviously, the person who's best positioned to tell me that story. That's their job, right? And then, you know, the first teacher that my child had in grade one could have been, there could have been a significant personality clash, or it might not have worked as well as it did. We, we got lucky. you know, I, I, I know the, the impact and weight and the kind of ripples through one's life of the impact of a really good teacher at those formative, stages, well, any stage of one's educational career, but especially those early, early years. We got lucky. she loves her teacher, but it could have been different. It could have been somebody that she didn't connect with. So, yeah, again, I, I'm not suggesting that the one is a perfect model and the other isn't. There's just so many variables in what makes it work for one and not for another.

Mike Stopforth, guest · [12:31]I, I imagine so. I'd hope so. and I suppose, again, it depends on who you're having that conversation with and their role in, in reinforcing those principles. But yeah, it's, it's, if you'll excuse the pun, it's really interesting to me that the impact of more corporate-styled schooling, more, call it brand-based, building these, these incredible, schools across the country that have a very high standard of education and give access to so many more people for, for a really high standard of education, that's been a revolution, I think, in education in South Africa over the last 20 years, and I don't want to poo-poo that at all. but I think what, what we certainly experience is that the variance in the experience of that individual institution can, can be quite dramatic depending on who, who's running that particular school. That was, that

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [13:19]was really the crux of your, your email, that you felt that it was the leadership style or the, the leadership intention that was different between the two schools, because one leader was reporting to shareholders and, and whatnot, from a corporate perspective, whereas the other leader didn't have those pressures. They didn't have the corporate pressures. Their pressures were more on education delivery, and how do I get that right?

Mike Stopforth, guest · [13:44]Yeah, I love a wimpy. I'm not an expert on much, but I'm pretty, pretty, authoritative when it comes to wimpies in my local area. But I'm being facetious, but, but like everything is the same in a wimpy, everything, even the size of the store, the menu, the stuff it's printed on, the, the, how the food tastes, how the eggs are cooked, everything is standardized. The only thing that could possibly be different is how staff are engaged and motivated, and you can feel that. Right. You feel it, you know, if everything else is the same, that's the one thing that will feel different, and it can feel substantially different. And, and so I think that's what I'm saying is that, what it ultimately comes down to, and this is not unique, obviously, to education, but it's, it's It feels like it's exacerbated in that environment. the role of the principal and the intentionality of the principal and the amount of buy-in and support that, that he or she has from the community of people that make their jobs possible, one of the hardest jobs in the world, that has a massive, massive impact on the way the school comes to life.

Mike Stopforth, guest · [15:19]Yeah, so, so I mean, it's worth giving a bit more context, because this is not the first time I've made a decision about where to send a child to school. I was married before, I have two older kids, one is 17, and another one is four, 13. Oh my God, I hope she doesn't listen to this, 13. And then the little one is, is six. the two older ones, my, my ex-wife is a, is a school teacher. Again, a, a grade one, primary school teacher, read into that what you want. And what was really interesting was in, in that relationship, I kind of outsourced almost entirely the decision-making process to, to Wendy, because she is absolutely the authority in our dynamic on the topic. she would do instinctively a lot of the due diligence. She would, you know, chat on the teacher grapevine around what options were available and, and, you know, when, when we were, when we lived in Benoni and when we had to make a decision about where to send, my eldest, we did a lot of homework. And actually, Wendy and Ethan kind of moved to the same school together. So she got a new position at a very good primary school in Benoni, and he was at the school as well, and that worked amazingly well for us, for a very long time. Until they moved down to Cape Town, then we had to make a completely new set of decisions about schools that we really knew absolutely nothing about whatsoever. That was a different experience. that came down to where Wendy could get a, a teaching post, and she felt most comfortable having the kids at the same school that she was. Also, just logistically, it was easier. But that, That the first school in Cape Town was almost certainly not the right school for them. Now, again, in retrospect, once we were able to compare or create contrast, it was the best solution under the circumstances for us, but definitely when we looked at it and evaluated it afterwards, and Wendy and I have spoken about this at length, it was, you know, it wasn't. Now, my second wife, Anna, defers to me on school decisions because my mom's a teacher, and I've had two kids, so I'm supposed to have more experience in this realm. So it's really interesting that, like, my experience of the decision-making around these, you know, tectonic moments for our children have been very different depending on the two relationships. Now, not everybody will have that experience, but in this instance, I think when we went to have that introductory meeting, there was something that rekindled, something I recognized as being a very familiar Feeling about, and, and, and that feeling was I was just, I was extraordinarily lucky as a young kid to go to three pretty remarkable schools on the East Rand, a lot of variability in them. I went to Benoni Junior, Benoni West, and Benoni High. Managed to avoid Benoni Technicon, thank God. but, but yeah, so they, but they were extraordinary schools, in no small part because the, the principals that were in those schools, one of them, Brian Lotto, who is at Benoni High School for many years, is legendary. Points I'm making is that I got a sense at that age of what it meant to be in a safe, inspiring, encouraging, challenging, resilience-building environment, where people really, really cared about what was happening on your education journey.

Mike Stopforth, guest · [21:16]So, Jax, there's a couple of things that I want to pick up on there. so as much as I've used, big adjectives to try and describe how seriously we took this decision, I do also think that our children are incredibly adaptable and incredibly resilient, and you can obsess to the point of a paralysis, picking the exact right path for them, and land up actually not being able to act, and that can be just as bad. the, the important thing to remember, I think, about your child's educational journey is that it is a partnership with you and them, and that it is a discussion, and that obviously they don't just get to go out and feel like doing this, or I don't want to do it, or whatever it might be, but, but there is certainly room to go, is this the right journey for you, and, and how do we know that, and, and, you know, what are you experiencing, and, and so on. And, and like we say, we could, we could put them in the best environment, and they could land up in a classroom with a, a very unpleasant element that makes, you know, a bully or whatever, that makes a great environment a terrible environment for them, and all the other variables might be right. So, you know, it, it's difficult to know to any degree of certitude, but I think I think parents need to take comfort in the fact that you can change your mind and you can evolve your thinking about what's right for your child and so on. And my brother had a very different schooling journey to me because he has very different needs. So, you know, my ex, Wendy, she was at Benoni High School too. She hated it. She landed up at, at Queens and, and Joburg and loved it. So, you know, no two children are the same. And so we've got to, we've got to be very open-minded about that. I think there's a substantial difference between involving our children in decisions, any decision, and having them make the decision. I think, I think a level of shared accountability and responsibility is so important in terms of their feeling, like I have equity in this, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm accountable, I, I helped choose this journey. Yeah, there's buy-in. I've looked at, yeah, so I've been thinking about this a lot with my son and his university, choices now. And I don't know that we've gotten it right, but it feels like him and I have done a lot of thinking and a lot of talking about it and a lot of due diligence and where we've been able to, we've tried to invest in getting him connected to people that have been to different institutions and different faculties and really, you know, kind of get into the meat of, yeah. And again, I don't care if he changes within six months, but at least we gave him the right foundation to, to think about it himself and, and share equity in the, in the decision-making process.

Mike Stopforth, guest · [39:58]Yeah, yeah. Asking piercing questions. I've got this weird thing where even at the age of 42, if I'm in any principal's office, I start to have like heart palpitations. So we were, but I, there's actually a deeper thing around this, which I, I, I don't want to get into, into too much depth right now, but certainly my generation of privileged, certainly white South Africans were bred at a very young age to trust centralized educational institutions, largely because those institutions were, you know, they, they were propagating a very dysfunctional system and had to do a very good job of forcing us to trust the way they worked. You know, that was how it worked. if you could indoctrinate people at the ear, earliest levels, I mean, I was telling a bunch of young guys that I trained with the other day that I remember at six, six years old, having somebody come into Benoni Junior School, it's 1986, with a, a black wall model. Extruded model of, of like grenades and mines that you had to be careful of if you saw in the school playground. I remember that. No, I remember it. I swear to God. I hope I'm not imagining this. Gav, Gav's shaking his head like he remembers it. Thank God. All right. But no, I re- like that was the schooling environment. So now, what I'm saying is the product of that is that we, we were bred to trust centralized educational institutions as being immutable forces of authority in our lives. And part of what we need to unlearn is, is you're, you're in partnership with the, with the school. You, you are working with them to get to the right outcome, and then you must, you must ask questions like you would of a fund manager, to go back to, you know, Gersh's analogy earlier on, like, are we making the right decisions about where we're investing this money, and how do I know that, and how do we develop that trust and that simpatico, not just a yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, I appreciate you, you, you know, offering us the privilege of having our child in your school. It's a partnership.