A question worth paying attention to: “Miss, what’s the point of this?”
At some point, nearly every teacher, including me, has heard a student in their classroom ask:
“Why are we doing this? What’s the point?”
Early in my career, I didn’t think too deeply about how I answered. I’d say things like, “Because reading is important,” or “This novel has a powerful message,” or, when I was out of energy: “Because it’s in the syllabus, and this is what I’m paid to teach, so could you stop talking and do your work please?”
There were times when this question raised some professional insecurity in me. Had I not explained the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria clearly enough? Was I delivering the content in a boring way? But almost a decade later, I was leading a large-scale project across a P-12 system of schools. Collating the data from students who were surveyed about career education and its role in learning, I stumbled response after response from students that echoed the exact same sentiment: I can’t see the point of why I’m learning.
I have spent a lot of time wondering about this question. Why is it being asked - and by the very person the learning is meant to serve? Were these students disengaged, disruptive, or simply bored? Was it the result of pedagogical approaches - or of the constraints imposed by curriculum and assessment systems? Donella Meadows, a foundational writer and thinker in the field of systems thinking, would suggest that the answer lies in looking beyond each of my theories in isolation to consider how they interact and interconnect within a system (Meadows, 2008). And a system, according to Meadows is so much more than a collection of things; it’s an “interconnected set of elements that are coherently organised in a way that achieves something” (Meadows, 2008, p.11).
“Out of our frustration, we often finger point to regulatory bodies and bureaucratic authorities, saying that the ‘system is broken’. I have an alternative view to this. I don’t think the system is broken – in fact, it’s still working, at times with impressive efficiency. But the question is: working for whose benefit? And in pursuit of what?”
At the heart of this question, and I think what the students are trying to communicate to us, is the incoherence in schooling and learning design. The hard truth is this: we can have all the programs, strategies and frameworks. We can say we’re preparing students for an evolving future on our websites and marketing collateral. We can deliver a compliant and high-quality curriculum, supported by cutting edge technologies and pedagogies. But if the student sitting in front of us still can’t see the value in what they’re learning and still feels lost or disconnected...well then, I think I’m with the kids on this one. What is the point?
The dictionary defines coherence as the quality of being logical and consistent, the practice of forming a unified whole. It comes from the Latin word cohaerere, meaning to ‘stick together’. In the work of Coherence Co-Lab, I define it as, “The degree to which different parts of a school system (i.e. strategy, practice, relationships, culture) work together towards a lived and shared purpose that is centred on the student (Fullan & Quinn, 2016; Kaufman, Wang, Kennedy, Schweig & Giglio, 2023). And when we talk about shared purpose – it’s not just the one that’s on a strategy document or an improvement plan – it’s the one we internalise, and as Peter Senge would say, we enrol ourselves in; the one we talk about when no one is listening in staffrooms, at dinner with friends, at home with our families.
Interestingly, there is emerging research about the effects of incoherence in schooling, indicating that it can have impacts on student wellbeing, motivation and academic progress (Kaufman, et. al., 2023). But students aren’t the only ones affected. Teachers bear the brunt of competing priorities and incoherent policy and processes, and this can lead to increased depletion and burnout (Kaufman, et, al., 2023). Out of our frustration, we often finger point to regulatory bodies and bureaucratic authorities, saying that the ‘system is broken’. I have an alternative view to this. I don’t think the system is broken – in fact, it’s still working, at times with impressive efficiency. But the question is: working for whose benefit? And in pursuit of what?
Coherence in schools is about making the invisible visible and naming the forces that shape our day to day: compliance pressures, historical legacies, unspoken expectations, measurement culture, power dynamics, performative and academic language. These forces are rarely talked about in daily school operations, but they are deeply felt. Yes, schools operate within larger political, social and economic systems, and there will always be forces beyond our control, but part of the work of coherence is about recognising and naming our own actions, habits and assumptions that have contributed to the reality within our schools - and what we can do to change it.
“Part of the work of coherence is naming the invisible forces that shape the day-to-day reality of schooling. Compliance pressures. Historical legacies. Unspoken expectations. Measurement culture. Power dynamics. Performative and academic language. These forces are rarely explicitly named in daily school operations, but they are deeply felt. ”
In the present, schools are navigating unprecedented disruption and change. We are seeing (amongst other things) changing curriculum, policy shifts, staff shortages, rising complexity in student needs and increased absenteeism and school refusal. When we layer on the accelerating pace of external change, AI automation, climate challenges, demographic shifts and new expectations and habits of work and life, it can be hard to work out forward momentum amidst the noise and confusion.
As change accelerates, it is easy to see that there will be more demands and pressure on schooling, not fewer. But when everything feels urgent, I think schools face a risk of short-termism and increased reactivity without a clear through line. Slowing down to pause and reflect on the coherence of our school systems may feel counterintuitive, yet I believe it’s essential to how schools evolve and how we reimagine education with both focus and imagination. The 2026 Skills Horizon Report from the University of Sydney captures this idea as well. In it, Meredith Whittaker, President of the software company Signal, joined other senior leaders who were responding to the growing volatility and disruption in their industries by urging that now is the time to “move slowly and fix things” (Peter, Riemer & Norman, 2025).
In the work of Coherence Co-Lab, coherence is positioned as a lens through which we can view schooling and learning design. If you are familiar with the manual operation of an SLR camera, you’ll know that by adjusting settings and twisting a focus ring, you can zoom in or out, you can change how much light enters the frame, how much is in focus and how much depth is in the background. In the same way, the Coherence Lens allows schools to shift how they design through a lens that is focused on the young person; to see the future and imagine the possibilities, connect their systems to purpose and move with intention and action in the present. Underpinning the practices of ‘see’, ‘connect’ and ‘move’ are the disciplines of futures thinking, systems thinking, adaptive leadership and human-centred design. Each of these disciplines gives schools tangible tools and strategies, but also mindsets that enable the practical re-imagination of schooling for in a complex and disruptive time.
“In the work of Coherence Co-Lab, coherence is positioned as a lens through which we can view schooling and learning design...by adjusting the settings and focus rings, we can zoom in or out, change how much light enters the frame, how much is in focus and how much depth is in the background. ”
Coherence is not just a buzzword. I believe it’s what will truly allow us to adapt our schools for a changing world without losing focus on our core purpose in education: young people, and the lives they are living now and the lives they will live long after they have left our institutions. This work asks us not only to learn to lead and teach in new ways, but also to unlearn what has worked in the past. But this is why Coherence Co-Lab exists - to help schools make sense of complexity, not with silver bullets or off the shelf solutions, but with human collaboration and experimentation.
Human-centred, future-focused schooling that makes sense in the present - that’s the goal. And I know it’s one that I share with so many of you. Let’s create the future we want for our schools and our students together. Thanks for being here.