The Interview: Christian Long
Editor’s Note: Christian Long is an educator, school planner, and passionate advocate for innovative learning communities, having spent the last 20 years teaching, coaching, leading experiential education programs, and designing schools.
Prior to the launch of WONDER, BY DESIGN, Christian helped develop and lead The Third Teacher+ studio within the global Education practice of CannonDesign. Previously, he founded Prototype Design Lab as a way to empower young creatives and educators to solve real problems in the real world in real time; and he created the TEDxClassroomProject, the only TEDx license granted in the world for a non-event.
As a speaker, he regularly delivers keynotes on the relationship between design and the future of learning at events around the US/world. Additionally, he has also spoken at TEDxIndianapolis, TEDxGreenville, TEDxOverlake, and TEDxFurmanU(niversity.).
Christian hold’s a master’s degree in education with a concentration in school design from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a bachelor’s degree in English with a certificate of secondary education from Indiana University (Bloomington). Additionally, he was a Klingenstein Summer Fellow for emerging school leaders at Teachers College, Columbia University
Back at home, Christian (along with wife and 2 kids) resides on a nine-acre farm with a sledding hill, a swimming pond, and lots of wildflowers and hummingbirds in a small college town northeast of Columbus, Ohio. He hopes to one day ‘retire’ as a summer camp counselor. This interview originally appeared in the December 2017 issue of the 1635 newsletter. Subscribe here.
1. My experience in my school was…
Fragmented. And unaware. My memory of school feels like ‘pieces’ rather than ‘whole’. We moved quite often; several times during the middle of a school year, so I often felt like the ‘new kid’ trying to figure things out. This feels true even when I stayed at the school. My kindergarten shifted at the mid-year so that ‘morning kids’ went in the afternoon (vice versa), but for some reason my family had me attend morning kindergarten both semesters, so I was effectively the ‘new kid’ both halves of that school year.
And while I have strong memories of school along the way, what I really picture is a kid who really didn’t have strong mentoring connections with my teachers or who didn’t always know the hidden social rules among my peers. Despite all of this, I thrived academically and appeared to know what I was doing on the surface.
2. When I think of education, I…
Always come back to wondering if we’re really meant to discuss schooling or if we’re really meant to discuss learning. While they are not mutually exclusive, they are not always connected.
3. If I were telling the story of education…
I’d want to follow a single student through a day in their life. Or perhaps dozens, even hundreds of students as they make their way from home to the final bell. And I’d be most interested in the ‘B-roll’ shots where the true texture of a student’s unique experiences came into focus. From there, I’d want the audience to ponder the unexpected questions that arise.
4. Your work at Wonder, By Design, which helps schools see the future, in a way. How is Wonder, By Design helping schools innovate and see past the “same old, same old”?
We are essentially a multi-disciplinary design studio that works with schools / learning communities to design their future. Much of this is architectural in nature, but all of it is about creating the conditions for learners to thrive in the future given what is truly unique about their context.
For us, its less about old vs new — or traditions vs trends — and more about how to remain agile within one’s values.
If anything, we want a learning community to be brave about their values but to be willing to let go of some of the traditional tactics used in the past in order to be more response-able about what’s coming in the future. And we want to ensure that we consider how the most vital design concepts a school might embrace — say collaboration, transparency, etc. — can be applied to the entire learning ecology from space to culture, from curriculum to brand, from time to technology, from professional development to governance.
5. What are some of the biggest trends we can expect to see come to life in 2018 and beyond when it comes to education, in your opinion, and through your experiences working with so many different types of schools?
Certainly, there will be increasing emphasis on existing K-12 trends such as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum, Design Thinking and other innovative strategies, personalized learning models, 3D printing and coding, project-based/problem-based learning, and 1:1 and mobile technology integration. But truthfully, the vast majority of schools are so inundated with pressures to teach to the test or to react to shifting funding/political realities that much of this will occur at a superficial level or perhaps not at all for most students.
But when I look out at the real trends — both in society and in K-12 — I can’t help but wonder a) where will teachers actually come from in the future; b) can we truly sustain the current assumption that all graduates must go to college; c) what careers/jobs will actually be relevant in the future (as opposed to how we currently align schools to work); and d) when all information will be available in an intuitive and just-in-time manner, what will we actually focus on in classrooms?
In terms of the role of design, both space and everything else, this means that we are being invited to challenge every assumption about what school has and could mean. And depending on one’s vantage point, this is either a powerfully exciting time or it’s almost paralyzing.
But no matter what, everything is up for grabs.
1635 is a newsletter and a monthly moment to propel us forward in public education. Each month it features long-form content from those working both inside public education and from those on the outside looking in. We can learn so much from both viewpoints. The newsletter delivers the last Tuesday of every month. Subscribe.
