TV

00:00 You can try and assume that AI doesn't exist, for example. Or you can try and block and ban things, but that's

00:08 actually not going to help young people to navigate their future. Ships are safe in harbors, but that's not what ships

00:15 are for. You know, ships are meant to go somewhere, and as educators, we need to move forward.

00:31 Hello and welcome to the educator TV.

00:33 I'm Kylie Spear and joining me today is Dr. Phil Lambert, director at Phil Lambert Consulting. Bill has been named

00:42 as one of the winners of the educator most influential educators for 2026. A

00:49 very warm welcome to you, Phil, and thank you for joining us today. Oh, Kylie, it's a pleasure and I'm deeply honored to be receiving this award.

00:58 Deeply honored.

01:00 Well, firstly, Phil, you've had a front row seat to education reform for decades, from leading schools to shaping Australia's first national curriculum.

01:12 Looking back, what's one idea or assumption that educators were absolutely convinced about 20 years ago that you now think we got wrong?

01:24 Well, I think for several decades there's been a view that there's something greener overseas that we can policy borrow. We can land it in our context and somehow it's going to work.

01:35 It hasn't. It never has. Uh there are elements that we can pick up uh and we can utilize. But when I speak to uh

01:44 policy officers and educators in other countries uh and particularly those that we somehow feel have something special

01:51 to offer, you know, there's a reality for them. Uh they're well promoted of course what they're doing. Uh but it

01:59 never quite works. And so uh we see it from time to time still here. Uh it'll pop up. uh something from the USA or

02:07 something from uh the UK will be seen as you know the next initiative. Uh it never works. It needs to actually be

02:15 recognized that uh within our own country we have expertise to draw on.

02:21 One thing that stands out in your career is that you've worked at both the classroom level and the policy level.

02:28 Where do you think that the biggest disconnect still exists between what policy makers want schools to do and

02:36 what school leaders are actually dealing with every day?

02:40 I've had a fabulous career that I've totally loved every position I've been in from being a teacher, being a principal, being a bureaucrat, and now

02:49 the work I do uh here in Australia and internationally. I've learned a lot over that time. And what I've learned more

02:57 than anything else is uh a recognition that policy officers uh have a role to play. You know, they need to support

03:05 governments and governments are looking for, you know, new ideas and initiatives. That's fine. Uh they, you

03:12 know, look to what will uh uh resonate with the public uh and and therefore, you know, they're looking for a catchy

03:20 title and so on. I find educators are far more pragmatic. you know, they whenever there's an initiative, an idea,

03:27 a new program, they look for what will actually work in the classroom with their students. Uh they're really good

03:34 at sorting out the elements of some new idea that'll actually work. Uh and the other elements of it that probably

03:43 won't, they know won't work, uh they're quite comfortable with putting those aside. So I think there's that the

03:50 disconnect is you know there's a a wellpromoted uh program or initiative um that has new terminology new excitement

03:59 around it for teachers it's uh more pragmatic more of a reflection on well actually how will that work and what's in there uh in there for my my students.

04:11 Phil, as you've just mentioned, you've worked with education systems all over the world. When you look at Australian

04:19 schools today, what's something we're doing particularly well that we probably don't give ourselves enough credit for?

04:28 And what's an area where you think we're still leaving too much potential on the table?

04:34 Yeah, that's good questions, both of those. is the first one really uh I think what we have is a very balanced

04:41 approach to uh the curriculum for learning uh other countries clearly uh they have their own approaches uh I've

04:50 worked with you know as we've said across various countries and universally literacy and numeracy are priorities we

04:58 we get that we understand that we know why that is but what Australia does well is we recognize the arts we recognize

05:06 the humanities, we recognize the sciences, all of the sciences. We recognize the health and physical

05:13 literacy are really important and so we give emphasis across all of those areas in varying ways. Uh that's something

05:22 that you don't actually see across the board in other countries. In fact, uh when countries are looking to benchmark,

05:30 you know, what's best practice across the globe, Australia is regularly included in those benchmarking reports

05:37 because it is recognized. What we do is we recognize that across the curriculum

05:44 there are many opportunities for young people to demonstrate what they can do, their strengths, and the areas for development. And all of those areas have

05:54 elements in them that are fundamental to a better country, a better globe. And so I think we should be very proud of that.

06:03 We actually underpromote what what we actually have as our quality. Uh the second question uh related to what we

06:11 could do better um embedded within the in the curriculum we have um crosscurriculum priorities. We have

06:19 general capabilities. These are areas like critical thinking about personal and social capability about uh ethical

06:28 responsibilities and and understanding about intercultural understanding. So we actually have a range of what some

06:36 people would call soft skills. These are important skills that are recognized across the uh globe, but we have the

06:46 opportunity within our country because we've embedded in our in our curriculum to be able to lift that. There's

06:52 variable uh response to that across the country. I think we could do better in not only recognizing the importance of

07:00 these, but the new importance. Our young people need this for their future and our nation needs this for our future.

07:08 Yeah, amazing response, Phil. Thank you.

07:12 A lot of principles tell us they're drowning in competing priorities. If you were stepping back into a principal's

07:20 office tomorrow morning, what would be the first thing you'd stop doing and what would you spend more time on instead?

07:28 Well, interestingly, my my doctorate looked at this very area. What is it that makes some schools feel like they're overcrowded? they're overloaded.

07:38 While there are other schools where I interviewed that wasn't the case and what it came down to exactly what you're

07:45 asking in the question there is how the principles how the leaders in the schools are able to determine what's

07:52 important and what's not. There's a lot that comes across the desk of the principal and into schools. U many of

08:00 those things are exciting. They'd be lovely to do. There's pressure applied uh maybe from the local community, from parents, it might be from some other

08:09 source or there might be within the school. There might be teachers that are particularly keen on something for the school to do. Principles that are able

08:17 to recognize that the first stakeholders in anything we do are the students. They've got the most to gain or lose.

08:26 And so therefore, it's important to look at your data. It's important to look at where your strengths are and areas for

08:33 development and how can we address those areas and not overload us with so many interesting and exciting things.

08:41 There'll be time to take those up in measure, but it's important to recognize what we need to do now and what we need

08:49 to focus on. And I find that principles that really have uh what I call a kind

08:55 of a a strong backbone. They're able to actually make decisions. Sometimes they may not be overly popular, but they're

09:04 the right decisions. They're absolutely the kind of leaders we need.

09:09 And finally, Phil, your latest book is called The Knowing and Caring Profession. In an era increasingly

09:17 shaped by AI, data, and accountability measures, how can school leaders make sure education remains deeply human

09:26 without falling into the trap of resisting necessary change?

09:31 Yeah, that's a very good question and it actually resonates with me because I recently wrote an article u called safe

09:39 harbors or turbulent seas and it was all about this. It was about contemporary times very challenging across the world

09:47 globally uh not just within schools but external to schools but those things are brought into schools as well. And what

09:55 we need is leadership that recognize we need to be transformational. We need to take people in the right directions and

10:04 we need to recognize that there's going to be push back. There's going to be complexities with that. And what I meant

10:10 by safe harbors or turbulent seas was that, you know, you can retreat. You can look for no change. You can try and

10:19 assume that AI doesn't exist, for example, or you can try and block and ban things, but that's actually not going to help young people to navigate

10:28 their future. it's not going to help the teachers to actually navigate through the complexities of life and what's uh

10:36 uh we're faced with technology and with a whole range of social um issues that confront themselves uh from time to time

10:44 and as I said before make their way into schools. So there was a wonderful quote I found from the 1880s when I was

10:51 thinking through this article. It's that uh ships are safe in harbors, but that's not what ships are for. You know, ships

11:00 are meant to go somewhere. And as educators, we need to move forward. We need to recognize that uh change is constant and there will be turbulence.

11:11 There will be push back and so on. But as I said earlier, the best leaders I've experienced are those with a backbone,

11:18 but also they've got the human touch, right? You've got to have both of those.

11:23 They're not competing qualities. They're actually important dual qualities. Being able to actually care about the people

11:32 in your care, that's the students and the staff and the community, but also having a backbone, which means you can

11:40 make the right decisions. And as I said earlier, they may be unpopular, but people will accept them because they

11:48 know you care. They know you're going somewhere. you know, you're leading they you're leading them somewhere. They know

11:54 that you recognize that change is needed and that ultimately that's going to be beneficial not only for the school but

12:02 clearly for the young people in your care.

12:06 Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today, your incredible insights, and of course, huge congratulations once again, Phil.

12:15 Thank you. I'm so honored and thanks for the questions. They were great questions. Uh, and I hope I did them justice.

12:23 You absolutely did. And thank you, of course, to our viewers for watching the latest episode of The Educator TV. We look forward to seeing you again soon.