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TRANSCRIPT

[Upbeat music playing. After a while, a male voiceover starts.] 

Welcome to the Educational Leadership Series proudly brought to you by the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning. 

[Upbeat music continues for a bit.]

[Podcast host Sam – male voice]

Hello and welcome to the second episode of the podcast series on Educational Leadership, organized by the Global Innovations Network for Teaching and Learning. I am Sam and I work on international collaboration in the field of education. In the first episode of this series, we explored the concept of educational leadership. In this episode, I will be in conversation with Kamala Mukunda and Josephine Moate to discuss the topic of pedagogical leadership. Kamala is the Co-founder of a teacher-run school in the outskirts of Bangalore in India named Center for Learning and author of the book series What did you ask at school today? Josephine is an adjunct professor of bilingual and multilingual pedagogy and the Department of Teacher Education at the Ģ��ֱ��. Kamala, Josephine and I will be in conversation around the concept of pedagogical leadership. What it is made up of, its manifestation in different professional capacities, and its role in fostering communities of learning. 

[Upbeat music]

[Podcast host Sam]

Welcome, Kamala and Jo to the second episode of the podcast series on Educational Leadership and Learning Communities. How have you been and what have you been doing since we last got together, Kamala?

[Kamala Mukunda]

 I've been teaching, I've been, I've been preparing for a couple of new courses and I've also been thinking about workshops for teachers. I had to give a couple, one for science teachers and one for a regular school. Yeah, I've been think. Thinking about what will excite teachers to know about learning, and I've been enjoying my summer holiday also.

[Josephine Moate]

This spring, I've been teaching my courses and doing some different parts on the research project, or research I'm involved in, and then I also had the opportunity to work with some teachers in the South of Finland. They've been developing, or implementing, bilingual education, different forms of bilingual education in a number of different schools, and the schools are working in very different circumstances. Those been very interesting to get to hear the teachers, their reflections, their concerns, their interests. And to then try and meet them where they are and provide something useful that would then support their ongoing development.

[Podcast host Sam]

It seems like you do have things in common in what you've been doing, and probably what you're setting out to do, and it's it's a privilege to have both of you on this episode. In the first one we had, which was, which was the title episode, the the first episode. Had Mika Risku and Darshan Bhat. Mika is the head of Institute of Educational Leadership here at the Ģ��ֱ�� and Darshan is the founder of the CreatNet Limited of which CreatNet education is a part. They opened up the conversation on the title of the podcast, which is educational leadership and learning communities. They both brought up the concept of pedagogical leadership and how essential it is as its own form of leadership within educational leadership and the the key role communities play in enabling deep and meaningful learning and how they could play a key role in the in shaping the future of education and the future of learning, learning as and through communities. And I couldn't think of two better people in my circle to speak on the topic of pedagogical leadership and the role of communities in  the field of pedagogical leadership, and as in the last episode, let's start with the definitions which I'd like to hear from you. Kamala, what does pedagogical leadership mean to you? When does a pedagogical expert transcend into the realm of a pedagogical leader and who essentially is a pedagogical leader.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Sam, if you don't mind, I speak entirely from my own thinking and expertise. I'm not speaking from any given definitions.

[Podcast host Sam]

Absolutely, yeah. And and from your work at Center for learning.

[Kamala Mukunda]

So if we start actually with what good pedagogy is or what pedagogy is. To me, I feel like human beings are instinctive teachers, just like we're instinctive learners. I do feel, feel that they're instinctive teachers. Everybody knows how to show somebody how to do something or explain, even from a young age, that instinct to teach is there, I think. But then what? What makes a teacher a professional teacher? You take that instinct and you build around it, you build around it all the different ways that one can teach, right? Because teaching is not just one thing. There are so many ways to communicate and to convey and good, better, is that flexibility to have in your quiver or in your toolbox, lots and lots of ways of explaining something or showing something or facilitating a student’s learning. And you have to have that kind of at your fingertips and be comfortable with all these different pedagogy, be they, you know, even traditional ones. There are some very good traditional pedagogies, play pedagogies, discovery pedagogies, you name it. So if I look in good pedagogy being that I feel like you can't really learn that in the 2 or 3 or I don't know how many years it is in Finland that you train to be a teacher. I don't think you can really learn that in those years. The teacher training years still are a bit theoretical even even though you do, you are given internship time at least in India, it's quite limited. Those who learn to be teachers don't get that much time in a real school with real students, so you really develop according to me, good pedagogical knowledge with experience and it happens and happens and happens. It's partly a function of your personality, whether you’re adventurous, whether you're willing to try new things, whether you're willing to learn from others. Maybe there is some innate, you know, some gift that some people have. Also I don’t know. And so then when you come to pedagogical expertise, I think there are thousands and thousands of pedagogical experts just in in India, all over the country, really good teachers in this sense, those who are flexible and who can adapt their pedagogy to meet the needs of particular kind of students or situations or topic, but they may not be recognized in any way, like no one may know that this person is a pedagogical expert I think there are thousands like. That so then what converts a pedagogical expert to a pedagogical leader? I wondered. I was thinking about it. Is it just recognition? Is it that you know how because a leader, somebody who can influence a lot of other people, and who can inspire them? And I know that there are all these good teachers out there who just plugging away. OK. Their little sphere of influence is really small. Maybe their students, maybe a few colleagues, their parents maybe. So there are millions of schools in India around the world like that. So I was wondering what makes a leader? Is it that you know they have to be recognized for that? And systems for recognition are not very good in India. I I think there are many unsung heroes or heroines. So then pedagogical leadership becomes again, I'm speaking really about India. It becomes a domain of just a few people who have some other claims to fame, you know, like either they're also in education administration or they have very high degrees or they are somehow known. And I know that in the Government Institutes of Education in India, you have people who haven't really taught in a school classroom. Maybe never actually, but they will become the experts on pedagogy. So it it is a question. To me, actually, I I feel like a pedagogical leader could be any one of these experts if we could find ways for them to share their expertise with others, if we could find ways for them to mentor. So I could think of pedagogical mentorship more than leadership. That seems to me a more authentic. Even in my school, there are so many good teachers, they are not leaders because by the definition of a leader. But they're mentors and they have mentored so many other teachers who have gone on to teaching then in our school. Or in other school. Yeah. So this is my response.

[Josephine Moate]

I pick up from some of the things that Kamala was saying. And also Sam, in your introduction, I thought it was interesting when you drew the distinction between educational leadership and pedagogical leadership. Was the pedagogical leadership being part of that? And I think it's an, it's a curious dilemma in education that when somebody develops as an expert teacher, quite often the next step up actually takes them out of the classroom. And it kind of takes them away from their area of expertise and they maybe end up in some kind of administrative post, which is very different from the kind of teaching, although it's sort of direct pedagogical action. And I think that that can be a little bit difficult for some teachers, because they they havemoved on in their career, but they've not moved on really in the area where their strengths are. Or then the other dilemma is just as you were saying, Kamala, that that somebody is given the role of a pedagogical leader without necessarily having that expertise, that kind of hands-on, the close relationship what it is to really be working in a pedagogical relationship with somebody and teaching them and following their learning. The running different ways that work with different individuals and walking along the pathway with them, I think it's a very interesting kind of development that pedagogical leadership I think is perhaps something of a under recognised under theorised under practiced, maybe even. It's it's a nice change I think from just educational leadership. But I think it's still quite open, who are pedagogical leaders and and it's very nice somehow when expert teachers are recognized as having qualities that are of value to their peers and that they are kind of invited to share or through collegial relationships begin to share. But it's also quite a precarious position to be in because with what authority you're sharing or or sort of, how much can you share? Or then is it just a nice conversation or can you look to see how your colleague is developing? Do you have any kind of right to say “well, you didn't really listen?” But where does the line go between interesting pedagogical conversations for each remain responsible for their own development? Although when we can start to be responsible for each other 's development, I think that there may be skills and conversations that are missing from teacher education because we focus a lot on how do you work with the children in the classroom. We talk a little bit about how to communicate with parents and other stakeholders, and then collegial collaboration is often assumed. But I think that it's very difficult and challenging to really find good ways for colleagues to work together, but that need is greater than ever. I would say that the the clarity as to what a pedagogical leader really is is maybe lacking but the need to have somebody that can lead in these different scenarios is quite important. I always turn to have a number of favorite educational thinkers. One of them is Van Mannen and he talks about being a teacher. This tactful sensitivity towards the child’s or the student’s, subjective state and interpretive intelligence and moral intuitiveness and improvisational resoluteness. And I think all of these things point to the sort of quality when he goes on to speak about the moral fibre to stand up for one's belief and acknowledging the mysteries of the world also. So it's not about having sort of the right answers, but I think it's this invested relationship and the van Manen talks about this deep sense of discipline and not least the basic vitality and sense of humour. And I think that these are things that can't be taught. In that way I agree with what Kamala was saying about the like, the intuitiveness that is part of being a teacher. And then, of course, these things can be homed, owned and developed, strengthened along the way.

[Podcast host Sam]

I've been trying to look at what educators are building or creating. You have educators creating interactions, resources. You have them creating systems and then you have some who create capacity. And I think pedagogical leadership plays a key role in building or creating capacity in someone which includes a lot of environment and building and designing the learning experience and a huge part of it could be simply designing effective learning management systems or systems that foster collaboration and with increased use of technology that could be an important part of pedagogical leadership. And there are so many roles that people play in an organization, you have teachers and school leaders. Kamala, school leader is probably a professional identity you would associate yourself with? And Joe probably no – you could maybe clarify and Jo also as an educator, as a researcher? So how do you see pedagogical leadership in different roles? What do they mean in in different roles, in an organization and and how can they manifest? And can everybody be a pedagogical leader? Yes, Kamala.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Yeah, just one brief connection. While I was shaking my head when you said you see yourself as a school leader, it's only I said no only because our school is a is a teacher-run school, so we don't have we have 14 of us and we don't have a leader among us. I just happened to be one of the older one and so I've been around long. Maybe that's why my slight discomfort with the word leader, because we've put that aside for all these years. But I understand the meaning in which in which it's being used here, right? And translating it in my mind into someone being a mentor.

[Podcast host Sam]

Right. And it's wonderful that you brought it up, that all 14 of you in in the in the ecosystem are leaders. So that brings up the question can everybody be a leader. And in that case, what does leadership look like when everybody is one?

[Kamala Mukunda]

In a pedagogical way, in our school, it takes the form of co-teaching usually. So when we have the luxury, we have a main teacher for a particular course and we have somebody sitting in and the person sitting in observes primarily, and they absorb, they absorb, absorb a lot. There's a lot of incidental learning. Because oftentimes a pedagogical Expert, if I use that word, they don't exactly know what they're doing that's working so well. You know, they don't know everything. So if they were to sit and say, look, this is the way to do it, they might miss a lot of key points, all the soft things that Josephine was talking about. So I really feel like the the mentee, the learner has a lot of incidental learning to do and absorbing. So they do that and then they are assigned some segments to teach, which they do and they don't have to do it in the exact same style as the mentor teacher, but some of the key elements. And then there's a feedback that happens. So some key elements should be there. Rigor is a big thing for us. I mean, when we're communicating a particular pedagogical style to a colleague, we just keep rigor at the top because it's so easy to take the pedagogy, the way it looks and leave the rigor out, especially when it comes to learning in school, which is often about, you know, there's something playful about the pedagogy or there's something that's, yeah, there's something playful about it. It's easy to let go of the rigor. So we have to, you know, be very certain that teachers understand that you may do role play and you may or you may do this game and all. But the fun that the kids are having is not the end goal. The learning of certain things is. Yeah. So that’s the way I’ve experienced roles. Anybody can take that role.

[Josephine Moate]

Yeah, I think this is a. It's a really interesting question as to how whether I see myself as an educational or pedagogical leader, cause of course I'm working with student teachers a lot. So in that way I have kind of responsibilities. And then there are certain parts of our curriculum where through experience and expertise, you find that you are then kind of leading a certain kind of development for a period of time, but somehow, leading the development of something and establishing something that it could then have its own life within a community as it is something quite different or quite challenging that an initiative can last for as long as a person is willing to maintain it, but then handing it over to the wider community. And maybe it's right that the the initiative should then should die back in a kind of seasonal. Way, but yeah, sometimes I notice with innovations in education that they become, they're very reliant on a particular individual and and yes. And what Kamala was saying just then about the expert, maybe not necessarily realizing they're understanding everything that they actually do. In order to be able to hand it over, is is a very interesting point and I liked what you were saying about sitting in and observing each other’s lessons, and then that providing, if I understood right, the materials for a further conversation to be able to open up what's done. Because I think that that's often missing from our setting here, that we would have no teaching where different people would take on different roles or would facilitate different parts of a a lesson or a course, but then they wouldn't, and they might talk about what works well or what developed, but not necessarily go to that more personal side, to how is your teaching. This seemed to be working very nicely, and maybe this is something that you could consider developing.

[Kamala Mukunda]

When it's the luxury of so much time, right, teacher. Time. That's the difficult part.

[Podcast host Sam]

Joe, you brought up community and community is essential to the inquiry that we've been having in this Indo-Finnish collaboration. It's almost a bet that we're making on systems, policies, institutions, administration to support as something that could be an affordable, replicable, sustainable solution to capacity building or professional development is or, or even learning in a classroom is using the power of communities and enabling learning through communities. And Kamala the way you describe the Center for Learning it, it sounds like a community more than a typical school or organization where all the teachers are in a way, you know, Co-leaders of the space. And so you see a space that is akin to distributed leadership. What would you build on that? What role does a community play in in enabling Good pedagogy and also fostering strong pedagogical leadership? 

[Kamala Mukunda]

When you say Community, Sam do. You in our case, do you include our students and our parents and things like that?

[Podcast host Sam]

The way I'm approaching community is from the point of view of a collective, and who is in that collective could change, could vary, but the idea is that learning happens by leveraging the  ecosystem or the willingness in in the ecosystem to contribute in ways that are personal, contextual, meaningful and sustainable, because these could also be affordable ways of approaching professional development. Is development happening through the existing community of professionals who who may participate voluntarily or or based on some sort of monetary contribution. But again, that could you can look at that being affordable if not free as opposed to professional development happening through paid services.

[Kamala Mukunda]

There are 2 things I if I understand right, how do our teachers keep up their professional development? That's one question. Yeah. We tend to help each other with that. We don't go outside much for that. We do have friends in other schools who we occasionally interact with, so there's we don't pay for our professional development much in that sense. Minor exceptions would be when we wanted a course on learning difficulties from an expert, then we had to pay for that. But otherwise it's contacts within the community. And then if you're asking how do we share the fruits of our professional development and learning with others? That is also not a, not a monitoring system because we are only too happy. You see, we are a very small school, so we feel that we're always feeling that we have to reach out to more. We're not reaching out to that many children. We only have 75 students in such a big country. So we are always feeling that we'd like to reach out to whoever wants to be reached out to. And there are many, many people who come from all over the country. Either they're running their own schools, they may be alternative, non formal or formal and mainstream, or they may be teachers or you know, student teachers. And it's completely and we're we're very happy to give time to them. And if they are willing to stay for like a week, then they then we will even take them into our classes in small numbers, but yeah that we have done a lot of over the years.  And in that way, I think what gets communicated is not just the logical ideas. And in fact we often say you may not find a very cutting edge pedagogically. But what we communicate is the culture of the school and the philosophy of the school, which is something maybe different from that. Maybe the pedagogy is the smaller subset of that, and education is the bigger, and we share on that.

[Josephine Moate]

I think you've raised an interesting point, in your description, Sam, of the collective and the relationship with the leadership and the leveraging of capacity. Actually, the notion that pedagogy actually is capacity building, I think is really quite wonderful. The idea – if I take the idea that pedagogy is walking alongside somebody and it has to somehow be a purposeful journey. We are heading somewhere. But nevertheless the formation takes place along the way. It's it's this sort of walking alongside, sharing different perspectives and experiences and paying attention to different things and having your attention drawn to different things and. And of course with the student teacher relationship, then it's quite clear. But of course it can also be very shared that the students also draw teacher’s attention to things and teachers learn alongside students through this journey. Sort of the capacity to be able to engage with more, to see more, to, to give more is increasing. And I think that there is a great deal of capacity potential within communities that's often not allowed to come forth. Not allowed to, not given that space that's needed for it to take shape and for it to then blossom and grow, and so. But I also see the need for some kind of in a way framework is maybe the wrong way. Or maybe it's partly to do with purpose that it needs somewhere to be working towards. If I think about some of the communities I've been involved in, sometimes it's been kind of everybody can work from their own strengths. Which is wonderful. Then everybody works from their own strengths. But then people also end up very out of sync with one another. And we have many people developing different things. And maybe actually, if they were coming together, then they would be producing far more rather than duplicating, so I think that there is this need for freedom for opening up spaces for people to be. To give and develop, but there is also some kind of need for coordination, some kind of need to be working in a certain kind of direction and and sharing and and maybe in that way a little bit of accountability as well. But it's not anything goes. I think that this is maybe quite important in education. Pedagogy, it's very, it involves a lot of risk. That very often, the things that happen, even if we're working with subject matter students there in the classrooms, it's very personal. If they are reprimanded or somehow something's pointed out, that's not right. I think we have to be very sensitive in how we take, how we pick up these particular areas for development and I think the same thing can be felt with with teachers as well that it it's also it's a it's a professional vocation where you often teach through yourself. And then when critique comes that also has to be somehow shared in a way that is affirming that there is this continued potential. So yeah, I see maybe different kinds of tensions between on the one hand, wanting to give this freedom working from strength, which I think is very important, but a degree of coordination or way of somehow keeping the the collective as a collective that they are in touch with one another and responsible to and maybe we're going to go towards. Where the relationship between the leader in the community, but that was one of your questions beforehand initially. Sort of sort of figure out how the leader, yes, is very responsible for in a way forming the shape of the community. Although of course but but then your question made me think that how the community itself shapes the leader. And that was quite an interesting idea. And actually I wanted to hear what Kamala thought about how the community itself shapes the leader or the possibility of leadership within the community.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Jo, when you were saying, when you were talking about critical feedback, that’s so important. Especially especially in the school, because at least at the college or the university level, you can expect students to be able to learn from a wide range of styles, right? It's OK if your professor is not very good at explaining. You should be able to read the textbook, ask the right questions and go to the teacher outside. But in school children can really, it's like make or break for them if they don't, If they happen to get a teacher for a whole year, their math teacher, who doesn't communicate clearly. Or or you know if they can actually turn them off the subject because they're still so impressionable and they they can't use any other method of learning. So that critical feedback thing has been quite tricky to be able to – I have been in situations where I have told a colleague and we were almost contemporaries, so I didn't really feel like a leader in that situation, we’d both been around almost the same number of years, but he had a habit, when students would come with a doubt, he would never clear the doubt, which is actually a good thing, right? You don't clear it immediately. You don't. say oh that's that's how you do it. You do, but you play with that. That's pedagogical expertise to know how to give little hints and and lead them to it right? But he would just never give anything and they would leave frustrated. And I remember finding some educational papers about this that showed how, and I said, shall we read this together? Because that was the only way I knew how to – because we were equals. So we sat and read the paper together and he understood what I was saying. And I said, you know, sometimes I noticed that you don't. And I said I also don't give the answer straight away. But I, at least they leave me not feeling frustrated. At some point I'll give them a hint. I'll give them, but I honestly don't know if the penny dropped because we were contemporaries and there's a deep habit, pedagogy becomes a habitual way of teaching also. So how to change it I that was a tough one for me and I think it more or less continues because sometimes you're you don't get the feedback in such a way that you transform becomes some pedagogical methods are entwined with your personality.

[Josephine Moate]

It was a nice example of trying to find a way to constructively engage with a colleague around a really important point that was sort of at the heart of the the pedagogical endeavour to engage the students in a productive experience. And I was just thinking about if if these conversations are just few and far between and in that way, yeah, maybe habits are so deeply ingrained that it's it's hard for it to then make a difference, whereas if we can maintain more of an open dialogue around what we're doing, what's working, what doesn't seem to be working. Or what we would like to develop. Then maybe the like the material of the habit isn't quite so tightly. You sort of. It's it's possible to loosen the the threads a little bit and introduce something new.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Or there are some pedagogical methods that by their very nature they overcome your personality, right? Like if I'm doing something like collaborative learning, students in small groups. It has a power that is just going to take over. It doesn't matter if I happen to be a didactic teacher or a lecture oriented. If I am going to use small groups and discussion in small groups. It's going to work, right? There are some of those which I find powerful techniques and when we learn to use those then they they have the strength of their own. Those kids take over.

[Josephine Moate]

Just a small example, in our Spring Conference, just a couple of weeks ago there were four presentations by colleagues from different subject groups and they presented their courses or a course that they have developed over a period of time and it was so good to get what I would say like a classroom eye view. As to what they actually do, because these people, I've, I've been in the same sort of professional community with them for a long time. We have exchanged words, but we never really get to the point of talking “and what do you do, in your courses?” And so it was just so refreshing, to see what people do. I think it was a very simple thing to do to for the the organizers of the meeting to just say “please present what you're doing.”

[Kamala Mukunda]

That's great.

[Josephine Moate]

To get it out into the community. That more people would know.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Yeah, did they have some video footage also? 

[Josephine Moate]

No, they just went through different, different kinds of platforms and examples that they'd put together. And they drew on some kind of feedback that they'd received from students and also areas where they particularly tried to develop things. Yeah. Umm, sorry. You were going to say something.

[Kamala Mukunda]

No, it's OK. I don't if it comes back. Oh, no I was just gonna say that the question was about how community takes leadership. Again, in my context, it's a bit hard to say. But one thing that we have, I think that helps all our teachers to grow is that we have the trust. Of both teachers, students and parents. There's a great deal of trust in respect and. If that wasn't there and if there was pushback and then I think a new teacher would find it very, very hard to, you know, test his wings and try new things and. So there is trust, and in fact, you know, the stereotype of a new teacher coming in and being bullied by students and tested by students. It's just the opposite. I've had classes that I've been teaching for years, and they they're so you know, what do you say, noisy with me. But then the the new teacher comes in. And then immediately like an angel, and they look at each other and poke each other to say, let him finish. Let him finish and I'm like what about me, what did you do? There is a culture here of nurturing new teachers, which is really nice. Students have that. They want it to work for the new team, rather than the other way.

[Podcast host Sam]

I'd like to use the the image of colleagues creating learning experiences for each other based off a shared curiosity or a mutual interest to collaborate to to steer us to the end of the conversation. We are trying to make a case for international communities as viable platforms for professional learning and development, and of course, it varies how one defines or measures professional learning and development, and how one defines what a community is, but the idea is that there doesn't need to be €1,000,000 funding machinery of, let's say, the ministry behind fostering or enabling such communities. So what is your take on that, based on your experience with communities of such kind that have been built on the foundation of previous, like a shared relationship or a shared experience or a shared interest? And and, like Josephine says, we are also looking at how such communities can be better organized. And at the same time, how the idea of communities can be built into existing organizations.

[Josephine Moate]

A couple of thoughts come to mind. Firstly that I think one of the beauties of an international collaboration is that you can ask questions that maybe you wouldn't ask with somebody from a more immediate community. So it legitimises this kind of “what do you mean by?” and “can you explain a little bit more” rather than feeling like you should already know. These things I think that that's very important to to have this legitimate opening up of questions and curiosity as you so beautifully said, Sam. And in my experience, it's worked quite nicely as well, bringing teachers together from different levels of education and for a number of years we had a voluntary teacher community in the locality and we had teachers from like early childhood education and basic education. The lower grades, basic education, the upper grades where they're subject teachers and then high school teachers. And the idea was to be more explicit about the kind of English language pathway that they were trying to develop within the education system here. Or I could invite the teachers from each area to kind of depict what learning meant in their setting. And over time we developed these kind of metaphors. That showed the transition from one level to the next and how an earlier level anticipates the next level without losing its own character and how the next level builds on what was and somehow how it moves forward. We only had funding a couple of times for cups of coffee. We didn't have funding for, for anything bigger than that. But because it was a shared vision, there was something that the teachers could invest in and see the value of that, then nourish their own work. And I think that that's important. So I think we need the, the space legitimizing of curiosity and then we need the vision to know somehow where we're going to and yeah, to be able to sense and and take hold of the benefits as well, but they. So it's not just a nice conversation, but actually something concrete in terms of my own teaching, my own work community benefits from this.

[Kamala Mukunda]

I'm thinking of this international exchange that we had in December. And I feel like for a few weeks you, me Jukka, we worked so closely like we were talking very often almost every week, or every 10 days. But the goal was that date, when it was finished, it finished and all I took away from it. Like I liked some of the quotes that you used in your presentation and I shared it with my colleagues and some of the the pictures that you guys sent I shared, but I wasn't able to do anything more with that. I wasn't able to feel it as as I was collaborating with you in my regular work, you know. And I wonder how can we make that happen when distance is a factor. Because all my ideas of collaboration are people physically being together in the same space. But if I had, for instance, if Jo had a responsibility to teach something to my students on Zoom, I mean they have to be on Zoom and if vice versa, if I had a responsibility to take a session with of something with us. Maybe that would increase our in into each other’s teacher life, no? Otherwise I don't really know how, because all the other people that we met that day, they I think are in touch with each other, right? I'm hoping so that, that must be a very intense relationship that they're keeping in touch.

[Josephine Moate]

Yeah, it's it's interesting because these. Is, I think what you're saying there about the the need for it to like, come really close to the day-to-day to be embedded. But for a short-term collaboration, I think our conversations before Christmas were very refreshing and it it gave me food for thought at the time was kind of nourishing. Yeah, we didn't do anything concrete in terms of what we could take away individually, sort of focusing on what we could give to others. Yeah, I I think I feel the same as you were saying that collaboration is so much very much around the relationships that are built. By being there with one and that then allows that trust, that vulnerability, that curiosity, that really giving and receiving, so it needs to have some kind of shared purpose. Maybe long-term collaboration gets more challenging but short-term, purposeful collaboration – and maybe as we get better at doing that, then it becomes possible because.

[Kamala Mukunda]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Josephine Moate]

Local long-term collaboration is also challenging. I think it's also seasonal.

[Kamala Mukunda]

So it was there for the weeks that we were working together, I was constantly just saying, you know, Jo said this, Jukka said this – I was saying this at home to my husband or anyone who would hear me. But yeah. But as you say, for it to get into my work and to have an impact. That would be something else and I really don't know how we would do that. That's an interesting question. I think you guys can come over to. India, we can do a lot like that.

[Podcast host Sam]

I can only hope for such things to become possible where international educators find ways to support each other, inspire each other, work together, driven by the depth they share in relationships, in curiosity, in interest. And thank you for being here, being a part of this podcast. In the next episode we'll have Romana, Shruti and Heidi talking about sustainability and communities of learning.

[Josephine Moate]

Thank you, Sam.

[Podcast host Sam]

Thanks, Jo, thank you, Kamala. 

[Podcast host Sam]

That brings us to the end of the second episode. I hope it shed new light on the concept of pedagogical leadership. The next episode is on the role of coaching in the professional development of educators and educational leaders. Thank you for listening and wish you the best.

[Upbeat music starts playing. Male voiceover speaks]

This was an episode in the educational leadership podcast series – proudly brought to you by the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning. To listen to the other three episodes, and to find out more about the GINTL network, kindly visit