I recently attended the Toddle Canadian Curriculum and AI Summit 2026, where Trevor MacKenzie opened the summit with a question familiar to every educational leader: How do we navigate through change?
It's always a pleasure to see Trevor in action. His engaging, thought-provoking approach invites educators to reflect on their contexts while respectfully challenging some of the assumptions that shape our work. Trevor spoke about organizational values, the systems and practices that support them, and the conditions teachers and departments need to navigate change.
Whether we are navigating the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence, reconsidering approaches to mathematics instruction, or responding to evolving learner needs, the challenge is not simply adopting something new. It is understanding how the proposed change connects to what we value, what it requires of educators, and what difference we hope it will make for learners.
As I listened, I found myself connecting his reflections to my doctoral research, which explored how educational leadership can mobilize strong relationships and shared commitments into coherent, collective action for improvement.
One of the central insights from that work is that shared values and strong relationships, while essential, do not automatically translate into consistent practice or sustained improvement. Coherence requires intentional leadership, aligned organizational conditions, and opportunities for educators to learn together.
This brought me back to a question that has become increasingly central to my work with schools and leadership teams:
How do we create coherence between what we say we value, the systems and practices we establish, and what children and young people actually experience?
Values: What Do We Believe Matters?
Every school has values. They appear on websites, in strategic plans, on classroom walls, and in conversations about school culture. Words such as belonging, respect, inclusion, relationships, curiosity, and growth express our collective aspirations for the learning communities we hope to create.
Consider a school that identifies relationships as a core value. This signals that connection, trust, and belonging are essential to learning. Or a school that values acceptance, reflecting a commitment to recognizing each learner's uniqueness and responding to their needs with empathy rather than judgment.
But what happens when these values meet the realities of everyday school life?
In my doctoral research, I worked with a school community characterized by a deeply relational, trauma-informed culture. Care, trust, and belonging were evident in the relationships and commitments of staff. Yet opportunities for coordinated professional learning and shared inquiry were not consistently embedded across the organization.
The challenge was not a lack of commitment or shared purpose. It was how to translate that commitment into greater coherence.
Values become meaningful not simply because we agree on them, but because they influence the decisions we make, the systems we design, the behaviours we demonstrate, and the opportunities we create for others.
Systems: Do Our Structures Enable or Restrict Our Values?
Schools operate within complex systems. Timetables, policies, assessment structures, curriculum expectations, staffing arrangements, and organizational routines all influence what educators can do.
Some of these structures are within our control. Others are shaped by external requirements, available resources, or broader educational policies.
When navigating change, we need to ask:
What can we influence? What constraints must we work within? Where might we have more flexibility than we initially recognize?
If we expect educators to adopt new practices, collaborate more effectively, or respond differently to learner needs, we must consider whether they have the time, resources, professional learning, flexibility, and leadership support required to do so.
We cannot expect sustained changes in practice without examining the conditions that make those changes possible.
Practices: How Do We Bring Our Values to Life?
Practices are the everyday actions through which our values become visible.
Consider a young person who refuses to participate in a learning activity.
One response might focus primarily on compliance: How do we get this learner to complete the task?
A values-aligned response might begin with curiosity: What might be happening for this learner? What barriers are they experiencing? What would help them feel safe, connected, and ready to participate?
Both responses seek engagement, but they reflect different assumptions about learning and behaviour.
Importantly, coherence is not the same as uniformity. Educators may work from common values and shared understandings while responding differently to the needs and circumstances of individual learners.
This requires opportunities for educators to develop a shared foundation that supports thoughtful, responsive approaches without losing the flexibility learners need.to examine their interpretations of shared values, question assumptions, and learn from one another.
Coherent practice develops through collective learning, not simply shared expectations.
Outcomes: What Are Learners Actually Experiencing?
This is the question that matters most.
Our intentions do not necessarily reflect our impact.
A school may emphasize relational approaches, yet some learners may still feel unheard or disconnected. A school may value inclusion, but do all learners experience genuine belonging?
The gap between what we intend and what learners experience is an opportunity to learn.
It invites us to move beyond asking, "Are we implementing the right practices?" toward asking, "What difference are our practices making, and for whom?"
This connects closely to the inquiry-based approach that informed my doctoral work. The Spiral of Inquiry, developed by Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert, places learner experiences at the centre of professional learning. It invites educators to listen carefully, question assumptions, act on new understandings, and examine whether their practices are making a meaningful difference.
When we place the experiences of children and young people at the centre of improvement, we shift our attention from what we intended to do toward what our actions are actually making possible.
Creating Coherence: Connecting Values, Systems, Practices, and Outcomes
Meaningful educational improvement requires us to connect four elements:
Values ↔ Systems and Supports ↔ Practices ↔ Learner Experiences and Outcomes
Our values inform the systems we design. Our systems create the conditions for practices to flourish. Our practices shape learner experiences. And what we learn from those experiences should influence how we refine our practices, reconsider our systems, and deepen our understanding of our values.
But recognizing these connections does not necessarily mean we know how to strengthen them.
This also requires humility. We must be prepared to discover that practices we believe are supportive may not be experienced that way by everyone, or that systems designed with good intentions may create barriers for some learners.
The question then becomes:
"Given what we value and what we are learning about our young people, what do we need to do differently, and what conditions must we create to make that possible?"
Explored collectively and revisited over time, this question creates a stronger foundation for meaningful improvement.
From Individual Commitment to Collective Responsibility
Although values are often deeply personal, educational change requires collective responsibility.
A school community may agree that curiosity, critical thinking, and student agency are central to learning, yet educators may interpret what these values mean for the use of artificial intelligence differently. One educator might see AI as an opportunity to personalize learning and encourage exploration, while another may worry that it could diminish independent thinking or meaningful engagement with learning. Both perspectives may be grounded in the same values, yet lead to different decisions about practice.
These differences are natural. They also reveal why shared values require ongoing professional dialogue about how we interpret them, the decisions we make, and the experiences we want to create for learners.
One of the most significant insights from my doctoral journey is that coherence is not a destination. It is an ongoing process of making sense of complexity, learning together, and strengthening the connections between what we value and what we do.
It requires the courage to question familiar practices, the humility to listen when others' experiences differ from our intentions, and a willingness to adapt as the needs of learners evolve.
Ultimately, the measure of an organization’s values is not how clearly they are articulated, but how meaningfully they shape our collective practice and the experiences of those we serve.
Further Reading and Reflection
Trevor MacKenzie — Inquiry-Based Learning and Leadership
Judy Halbert & Linda Kaser — Leading Through Spirals of Inquiry: For Equity and Quality