Flip the System is a new narrative reclaiming education for the teaching profession. The Flip the System movement was born in the Netherlands in 2016 when Jelmer Evers and Rene Kneyber produced the original Flip the System book and Jelmer then followed this with a TEDx talk. The message was about trusting the teaching profession and promoting teacher agency and collaboration. Flip the System UK was then edited by Lucy Rycroft-Smith and JL Dutaut in 2017 focusing on elevating teacher professionalism and empowering teachers. Flip the System USA is currently being planned to coincide with the next US election and potentially influence the appointment of the next US Secretary of Education. Lofty aims!
I was privileged to co-edit Flip the System Australia: What matters in education alongside two brilliant editors – Jon Andrews and Deb Netolicky.
At its core, the book is about teacher agency – empowering teachers to shape their profession, democratising education, replacing top-down accountability with teacher-led reform, and elevating the voices of those working in schools. It contains 27 chapters by a range of Australian educators and some perspectives from outsiders looking in from around the globe.
It is a statement against corporatism and compliance. Andreas Schleicher from the OECD describes Australian teachers as “interchangeable widgets on the frontline – just there to implement prefabricated knowledge.” We would like to see more locally produced solutions, collaborative expertise, and teacher voice. We believe that the power to transform schools lies within schools. Teacher voice is largely absent in policy formulation, on advisory boards, and on media panels. The media, in particular, often presents polarising perspectives of the teaching profession and so-called “experts” are regularly trundled out to speak for or about teachers. Teacher voices are rarely sought or valued.
Flipping the system is about building networks so that teachers can collaborate and build consensus via coalition and networked knowledge sharing. In the introduction, we describe the flip the system movement as “a collective roar”.
The three editors are all practising teachers and school leaders, working in three schools in three different states of Australia: Western Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales. We are committed to sharing the voices of teachers and school leaders, alongside scholars and telling the stories of those who are already showing us how to flip the system within their day-to-day practice.
We are deeply aware of the inequities in the Australian education system, and in education systems around the world. In education discourse some voices and groups have been privileged, while others have been marginalised, ignored or silenced.
Key themes in the book include:
The absence of teachers in policy formulation, compliance cultures stifling teacher voice, and toxic side effects to neoliberal regimes of accountability. Teaching should not be a profession without accountabilities, however education is not an algorithm.
Anna Hogan and Bob Lingard write, “AITSL has no representation from currently practising teachers or from teacher unions. A characteristic of the traditional professions such as law and medicine is the importance of professional self-governance. Teaching, in contrast, is managed by a national state authority, here AITSL, with no teacher voices represented.”
Teachers possess enormous collective experience and expertise. Andy Hargreaves, Shanee Washington and Michael O’Connor refer to “collective autonomy”, when educators have more independence from top-down bureaucratic authority but less independence from each other.
In my own chapter, co-authored with Keren Caple from the Innovation Unit, we argue that schools are difficult places to enact meaningful change because they are constrained by the weight of standardisation. Schools protect the status quo and reliance on ‘safe’ pedagogy often goes hand in hand with a climate of competition between colleagues, subject departments, and schools. Rather than looking to each other, teachers have a habit of seeking out external experts to deliver seductively simple answers to complex educational questions and chase the shadows of evidence-based teaching.
The strongest influence on teacher professional practice is advice from colleagues, and teachers get better by working in teams on teaching issues. The most powerful source of information about teaching and learning in a school is the student and teacher work that occurs in classrooms. Building lateral capacity and expertise is the best alternative to external control.
Too much education reform remains top-down, imposed on schools without drawing on or supporting the development of capacities within the system. Flipping the system is about shifting the narrative to one of trust and agency, subverting hierarchies and reforming from the bottom up.
Melitta Hogarth opens our eyes to the continual dismissal of Indigenous voice and perpetuation of the notion of Indigenous peoples being ‘inferior’. Kevin Lowe writes about ‘cultural interface’, the place where new knowledge can be constructed between Indigenous and western knowledge systems. Ben Lewis argues that the education system needs to value, listen to, and include Indigenous experiences, voices and ways of knowing.
Kelly Cheung writes about inequalities of birth circumstances and Pasi Sahlburg asks, “Can Australia afford to continue to fund inequity in its school system as it seeks to bring its overall educational performance to desired level that requires that all children will learn well?”
Another key theme is about reconsidering and reconfiguring who has power and control over what and how teachers learn. Ryan Gill and Carla Gagliano write, “When our colleagues were able to see that they were in control of their own professional learning, we moved from a top-down approach to something that was fundamentally different. We flipped the locus of control into the hands of those that needed it most – those that knew their students and classroom context best: the passionate educators within our school.”
Finally, Flossie Chua, David Perkins, and Daniel Wilson note the exciting possibilities of educational change when school leaders invite teachers into the discourse on what matters most to learn, and value them as drivers of change.
Ray Trotter issues a healthy reminder when he writes, “It is by listening to and sharing the voices of students that we can truly flip the education system to one that is based on the voices that most count.”
Conclusion
Democracy is facing a performance crisis. Rising authoritarianism, white supremacy, the use of social media, inequity, globalisation are tearing at the seams of political stability and it would be wrong to assume that democracy is anything but a historical blip. Current threats to democracy in Australia include apathy and disillusionment with politics, the rise of Chinese soft power, hacking, decline in press freedom, and ongoing issues around race and identity. We know that democracy requires active work and, if we are serious about democracy, it is about how we teach. It’s about supporting curriculum disobedience in the same manner that academics protect their academic freedom, and advocating for professional ethics in the same manner as the medical profession adhere to the Hippocratic Oath. At a moment in time when we are splintering into filter bubbles and echo chambers, it falls to teachers to create safe spaces for students to make sense of their multiple identities.
The tacit knowledge of teachers is often devalued and teachers are often voiceless in discussions about education policy. Flipping the system means trusting and listening closely to the people within the system. Flipping the education system is a vision for empowered teachers and a world in which the privileged few do not eclipse or speak for those pushed to the margins. Ultimately we believe that education is a political act. This is about professional honour and organising ourselves. It is too easy for teachers to put our heads down and plug away, not thinking too much about the bigger picture. All teachers are activists and the Flip the System movement is a call to resistance.
While we aim to ruffle some feathers, our message is one of hope and empowerment. We invite you to flip the system with us.
“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” — Audre Lorde