Ep 108 — Human-Centered Schools is a Minimalist Approach with Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss

Control is the quiet habit that shapes most school days, and it’s also the habit that drains joy, curiosity, and agency from both students and educators. We sit down with Dr. Randy Zeigenfuss, professor of practice at Moravian University and founder of the Human School, to unpack what human-centered schools actually look like when you stop “playing the game of school” and start redesigning learning around real people.

We talk about the compliance culture that starts early, the way grades can replace growth, and why student agency is so often treated as risky instead of essential. Randy shares how music class became a rare space for curiosity, how technology in education can backfire when it’s bolted onto the same old system, and why transformational leadership is less about initiatives and more about relationships. If you’re a teacher, principal, superintendent, or instructional coach trying to simplify your work while increasing student impact, you’ll hear a clear throughline: leaders don’t change people, they create the conditions for people to see something different and choose it for themselves.

AI in education adds another layer. Randy names what many teams feel but don’t say out loud: transformation includes loss. When identity, routines, and “the way we’ve always done school” get disrupted, fear shows up. The most human response isn’t to push harder. It’s to slow down, make room for dialogue, and use good conversations to navigate competing demands from boards, parents, and accountability pressures.

If something here sparks a rethink, share the episode with a colleague, subscribe, and leave a review so more educators can find the Minimalist Educator Podcast. What’s one conversation you need to start next?

This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

This week we welcome Dr. Randy Zagenfuss, talking to us about human-centered schools. His pay-down pointer is There is no problem that can't be solved without a conversation. Randy is the professor of practice at Moravian University and founder of the Human School. He works at the intersection of learning leadership and becoming more human in systems that often forget how. He has been a teacher, technologist, superintendent, professor, and now a guide for people navigating change. He's obsessed with good questions, unfinished thinking, and the quiet moments when someone realizes they're allowed to redesign the way school works. He builds with curiosity, leads with empathy, and treats AI as a thinking partner, not a shortcut. The tension between what is and what could be fuels his work daily.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Minimal Educator Podcast. Today, Christine and I are gifted with Randy Ziegenfoos, who is an amazing, brilliant brain of a person. So we are super excited to talk to you today about all the things transformational leadership and human-centered education, how that intersects with AI, which is super interesting because sometimes it doesn't feel like a human thing. So thanks for joining us, Randy. We are excited to talk to you today.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Sounds good. Very nice to be here. And that was quite the intro. So I hope I can hope I can reach the bar here. So anyhow, it's really nice to be here with both of you and to spend a little time and chat.

Playing The Game Of School

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, no, it's, I mean, I'm always interested in the things that you have to say, whether it's in your human school newsletter or just the post that I see from Murray University where you lead a transformational leadership program. So let's start with what led you to this kind of this kind of like thought work where you're like, I need to work in this space of transformational leadership.

Music Class And Student Agency

Tech Promises That Backfired

Relational Leadership And Redesign

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Well, it's definitely been a journey. It's definitely not one single moment in time, although I can probably maybe pick one that I can share. I think that I can I can go back to all the the time that I was in the K-12 schools, and I was good at playing the game of school, but I knew that there was something that wasn't quite sitting with me. But I was also in a system, too, where people like my parents and my teachers were sending me these signals like, this is what you need to do. You need to play this game. It doesn't really matter how you feel about it. You just need to play the game because you need to get good grades. Here's the story: you need to get a good grades, you get a good grades, you get into good college, you get into good college, you get a good job, you live a good life. And so I was like, okay, I guess I have to play that game and just sort of like not be terribly curious in most aspects of my K-12 education. But there was the area of music where I felt like that was the area where I could be myself. I could be curious, I could do things that made me feel like a human being. And so I ended up graduating, going to university to become a music educator. And so um I got to be that educator that sort of sits in the island off to the side of school that nobody really cares about, because you're usually you're you're in the operational system of school, you are the teacher prep time. So whatever you do is fine. In fact, I remember even starting, and we didn't have a curriculum, and at some point we had to make a curriculum, that sort of thing. And so being in the music class was was nice because I began to see like here was a here was a space in school where somewhat like me, when I was in K-12, that students got to sort of find their place and feel curious and have a respite from the standardization pacing guides and all the other stuff that was part of school. So I did that for a while, I was a music teacher, and then technology started to come into play. And as I tinkered with that, I began to feel like there was some potential here if we did this right. And I think it was at that point where the idea of agency sort of emerged, and that that was I began the realization of what felt uncomfortable for me in K-12 when I was there, was that people were robbing me of my agency. I didn't know it at the time because they were sending me signals that I shouldn't be curious about that. And so as I got into the tech space, I left the classroom and really was one of those people that were thinking about technology, like, ooh, this is this is a great moment for us that we could actually like give kids more agency if we use these things right. But of course, we didn't. Of course, we used we tacked on technology onto a system that just sort of didn't change. And it just the technology amplified those things about the system that weren't very good to begin with. And so after the tech thing, or sort of in conjunction with that, I that's when I moved out of teaching, so to speak, and and went into administration and so leadership. And, you know, I hate to admit it, but there's weird things about happen when you get into leadership, and that is suddenly you you feel like if you've got a title, that you have some agency to do something that you didn't have before when you didn't have the title. And so going through various roles until I got to be a superintendent, and then I was like, okay, so the buck stops here. So now I kind of actually get to set the agenda and work with people around conversations, around agency and how we do things and what feels good and what doesn't feel good. And that was really the first role where I felt like I had the agenda and I could sort of set it myself. And I don't exactly like saying that because I don't believe that you need to have a title after your name to be able to have a voice or to say anything. But I think I was also in a system that didn't allow me or didn't expect that of me until I had that title. And then I was also in a small system where I think built relationships with people. So leadership was more of a relational thing that we did rather than just like initiatives and pointing at people, telling them what to do. And I think through building relationships, one gets to know people and gets to know what makes them tick, what are their gifts and assets and the things that they bring to their work. And I think it was at that point that I that I bumped up against an organization called Education Reimagined. And they had a vocabulary and a language that was like, this is what I've been looking for. And somebody actually speaks it. And they had a whole whole, they were assembling a network of people who were really into transforming K-12 education. Like, and I use that word as like redesign. Like, let's not just bring in the next initiative and tack it on. Let's actually have conversations around what is not great about this system and how we might reimagine it and re-redesign it. And so if there was a moment, that was probably the moment when I discovered them that I was like, there's really something here. And so I would my curiosity led me to be like, okay, so how do these people lead these environments that were and are still speckled around the country? And so my colleague and I, we started a podcast where we had conversations with these folks, and we tried to use that to inform our practice, but also to help other people who wanted to do this kind of work understand what was involved. And then I retired from public ed about five years ago, hard to believe it's five years already, and then started to move into the higher ed space. And when I got to the higher ed space, I was like, wow, this is like a petri dish of the the leadership world of just see what everything's going on. And it's it can be pretty dysfunctional. And well, K-12 was pretty dysfunctional too, but it's been really interesting to use the space of higher ed to sort of develop these ideas a little bit more about living in the world that we live in that is so chaotic, anxiety-inducing, unpredictable, irrational. And how do we actually move organizational organizations and folks to the point of being able to see that there could be or should be something different? And so that's sort of that was a very long answer, but that's sort of my trajectory as to where I started. And and I think the thing to highlight there is like we are all in systems that reinforce our biases, our assumptions, and we oftentimes don't even see them. And so tying that to the piece of agency, I believe that one of the ways that we really need to lead these days is leaders don't change people. I can't change you. But what I can do is create a space for you to see something different yourself, and that becomes sustainable. When I don't rob you of your agency and I don't say, here's the blueprint, just follow it, and you'll be, you know, you'll get to the other side. It's so yeah, that's the kind of work that I really enjoy doing now.

Why Compliance Feels So Normal

SPEAKER_01 10:57

That's a really fascinating look back, especially that idea of agency and how you know you you mentioned it was like playing the game. So as a student, as a teacher, or you know, all the way through, you would kind of have this idea of playing the game until scarily you got some agency right at right at the superintendent level. It's quite, you know, a shame to hear that that's where you really felt like you had had a say. But it made me really think about the idea of of compliance and how really maybe a lot of what happens in our school organizations is this idea of compliance. And you I'm sure there are aspects of it that we need to have to make sure that we're accountable and we're doing what we need to be doing. But do you think compliance has just gone way too far in our school systems? And that's where we're sort of shutting down that idea of agency.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah. So the other day somebody asked me a question of if we want to reimagine schools, what's the one thing that we should give up? And I said, control. It's really about control. It's so much of our and and again, we've we're we're we've been bathed in these systems our entire life. And it's really, there's the hierarchy, you know, federal government, state government, school boards, superintendents, uh, other school leaders, teachers, and students, and everyone complies with whatever the other, the higher groups want. And it's all about control. And I guess the question is, why do we feel we need to control? Because control means I'm robbing you of your agency, basically. Now, there may be good reasons why we need to do that. If there's if you know there's some something happening that's putting you in danger, you know, you're gonna comply with whatever the the procedures are to navigate through that. But those are sort of known known quantities. They're things that happen that we know what the solution is. So we come up with a blueprint or a list of procedures. And I think what we're talking about in terms of learning and learning in a world that is so rapidly changing, compliance is not a good thing to live all the time. I think that our I see it now in higher ed, like a lot of students are really just about like, how do I get through this program? I just want a career. I'm gonna jump through all the hoops. I don't care if I really learn anything. Just tell me what I need to get an A, just tell me what I need to pass. You know, that's compliance. Instead of saying, like, how how do you how do you want to thrive as a human being? And what are you curious about? Like, own some agency. But I also believe that in agency, in creating space for people to have agency, a lot of people find that uncomfortable because now I'm held accountable because I get to make the choice. And what if I screw up? And again, the system tells me if I screw up, that's a bad thing, and I should be sanctioned and graded and put out to pasture or whatever. And we have to sort of get through that too. Like, it's okay to make mistakes. In fact, that's actually what we call learning. Woo-hoo, you know, I want you to fail. Like, I in my class now I tell people like, I want to see the crappy versions of things. I want to see where your thinking is like not developed. And I want to see how you navigate that. And I want to help you do that if you need some help. But you know, you're it's it's okay to see what that process is. But we also have a signal in our system that says, I don't care about the process, I just care about the grade, the final grade, the final product. And then I'm gonna give you a grade that's probably fairly meaningless, but it plays the game of school. And our students, our learners, take that in and they say, okay, well, that's the game I'm supposed to play. And we rob them of their agency and their curiosity and all that other good stuff, too. So hopefully that answers your question.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

It really makes me sad. This is how, you know, just in so many places, this is the experience of school for people because even, you know, in classrooms, in kindergarten classrooms, like it really is about compliance and there's no joy in the learning right now. Like, what happened to like kids learning through play sometimes? And I mean, not saying that's happening everywhere, but I've seen it recently where there's just no playtime built in and they're five. And how do how do we help kids develop curiosity and to ask questions if they don't have opportunities to do it at a young age, and then they don't feel so fearful later on? So my thought is where we are in such a large-scale system of compliance. What would be the first thing that educators or even just people in general can do or think to themselves or ask themselves like, is this me making the decision, or is someone else telling me to make this decision? Because, like you had mentioned too, it's discomfort, right? Like there's this fear that I'm afraid to have the agency because I just want to be told what to do sometimes, and I need someone to make the decision for me. And there's places for that in our lives, but how do we just get past that at some point? Like I we're just so comfortably sitting in it all the time. I know that was like very nebulous.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

No, I know.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

What do you have to say?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

I go back to what you the first few words out of your mouth when you when you asked this question, and you said, I'm sad. I feel sad. And I think that that brings me to, and I'll get to answering your question in a second, but it brings me to an element that I think we don't look at as leaders, and that is that you have a realization that you and others in the system have the realization that it's not the systems in which we reside are not aligned to our values and what we truly believe once we uncover them and once we interrogate them. And I think that's a missing piece too. So maybe an answer, a first answer to your question is how do leaders, and it could be anybody, it could be your teaching partner who sees something different. And how do we create how do those leaders create a space for other people to see that there's something else that's possible? Okay. So I think that's the first step too. And that happens through dialogue. That's the uniquely human thing. And I think that too many leaders go through leadership school and learn about leadership as you know, initiatives, strategic planning, all that sort of non-human stuff. And what we don't learn about is that there's a relational piece to this work. So when somebody, a teammate, a teacher, a principal, a student feels that dissonance between their values and the signals that the systems in which they find themselves within they feel that dissonance, how do we uh acknowledge that that sort of loss, like that remorse? You're sad because I think you're sad for a couple things, maybe you tell me, but most people are sad when they feel that experience because they it's the first time that you're feeling like wow, there's something different. And I have been behaving in a way that reinforces the system that I didn't really feel good about. So it's like this sense of like implication. And I think that leaders have to create space to help people navigate that sense of loss too. So I've become really interested lately in figuring out like how how do we help people focus in on that human piece of transformation means basically. If I'm if a system is going to transform, it really means that the people within it see something different in terms of their beliefs and values, and they undergo their own personal transformation, which then leads to a system transformation. And when we're going through that personal transformation, there is a sense of loss. I see it in higher ed now around AI and the old scholarly way of doing college. Like here are people who spent decades, they have been in no other place but higher ed academies. And now there's something that has totally obliterated decades of work, and it's better than them, it teaches better than them, it thinks better than them, and and I know there's debatable whether AI thinks or not, but it it it gives the illusion of better, and they are scared because it's like my identity is now blown up. And so, how do leaders and when I engage with professors, I think how can I create a space for you to feel like you can mourn what you're losing because you're gonna lose it. And so that I think the first step is going back to that relational piece. Like, how do I connect to people as human beings? How do I have dialogue with them to understand what's happening up here? And I'm not gonna fix them, I'm not gonna take their problems off their shoulders, but I can create a space for them to go through that normal human experience of in a transformation, I'm actually losing something. And in a transformation, someone will always lose something. And I would say that's why we don't normally have transformation. We just like tack stuff on because then we still have that identity, we still have that world in which we live in. It just becomes Frankenstein.

Slowing Down Competing Demands

SPEAKER_01 21:34

I'm glad you brought up the role of leadership there. And I I hear what you're saying about, you know, giving that space for dialogue and building those relationships. But school leaders do have a lot of different voices and and you know, wishes getting pulled from side to side. You know, they might have an education board saying we need the data, we need the statistics, we might have finance saying we need to make this school viable. You've got parents. Parents saying this is my child's future. They've got to have the right grades and get to the right college. So, how do you, even if you do truly want to make that space for the relationships and the dialogue, how do you deal with those competing interests if you're if you're in a leadership role?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

So I think one of the first things that the system sends us that we're in is that we want that we want answers and we want them fast. Okay. Transformation that we're talking about here as a leader, if I'm if I'm in a system and I want to change that system and I've got lots of competing voices, the system wants it done fast, typically. And so I think as a leader, I have to slow that down. And I have to, and the the the thing about leadership and a title is that you actually you actually get to do that if you want to. And how you do that in a very human-centered way and not a tactical way, I think will allow people to say, okay, I'll slow down for a bit. And really listen to those people. And I think the art of leadership is slowing down, saying, we've got an opportunity here to do something a little bit different, and an opportunity for all these diverse stakeholder voices to come together in agreement on something that we can move forward on. And I have to slow down to do that. I can't, I can't actually listen to people if the treadmill is going 100 miles an hour. So somebody needs to give me permission. And if I'm a principal and my superintendent is telling me, nope, got to have that today, I'm gonna have to have that conversation that says, okay, here's why. So again, I'm not trying to get that person to change their mind. I am not trying to get them to change their mind. I'm creating a conversation in which they say, Oh, Randy has an idea. He needs some more time. Let's talk about that. And then we can negotiate. Like maybe he has legitimate reasons why he's feeling pressure of time. And then maybe I need to modify a little bit too. But that relationship, that conversation, I think doesn't happen most of the time. It doesn't happen. We make these assumptions because it's chop, chop, chop, got to get this done now. You don't have time for that conversation. Just, you know, shoot and aim later, kind of thing. And so if I had, you know, five different stakeholders, I'd be like, okay, this is a really good opportunity for us to slow down and come up with something that neither of us can think of individually. And that's the other thing too. Like as a leader, how do you how do you create the space and send the message that everyone has gifts and assets? And if we you if we figure out how to uniquely combine these things together, we can come we can do some really good work. And you but you have to slow down to do that. There's there's like no other way to do that. And so, you know, a lot of that is courage. And I think a lot of leaders don't have the courage to to push back against the system, to, to have the that conversation with their superintendent to say, I think we're going a little too fast here, and here's why. Let me explain to you my viewpoint. I'm curious about yours as well, but I need you to hear me. I need you to listen to what I'm saying because I think there's a real opportunity here. And I think that's the art of leadership. And you know, we don't, you can't read that in a book. You gotta, you gotta have conversations with people like this, and uh, and you have to change your own mindset about and and push back on object to those those messages that the system's sending us about the way that we should operate. So I know there's a lot of complexity in that answer, but hope that made sense.

The Pared-Down Pointer On Dialogue

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yeah, it it gives us a I mean, when people listen to this episode, there's just so many things to think about and which, you know, like what's gonna grab people to say, oh, you know what? This is something I am gonna just mention this to my principal or to my like somebody, where like it this is all going to hit people in different ways, I think. And it'll be interesting to hear back from people what is the thing that stuck with them or the things, because there's so many things that you've mentioned. We're already at our like half an hour mark, which is crazy. Yeah. And so we we love to ask our guests, like you said, so many things that I would pull out as a pear-down pointer, but if you were going to choose something from all the things you said today or some add on something else, what would be a pared down pointer that you would offer our listeners to say, like, if you want to start, you know, your own personal transformation, like here's the point that you could start at, or something, you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah. I I think the the message that I've been coming back lately is there's no problem or challenge the world has right now that can't be solved with a good conversation or multiple good conversations, not just one. Yeah, uh there's a lot of complexity out there. But I think that we in the world that we're living in right now, we are missing that relational piece. We see too many people pointing the fingers. And and when you see people pointing the finger, that is not agency. They don't want agency, they want to blame somebody else. That is not agency. Yeah, when you hear people pointing the finger, hold the mirror up. Okay, because you have to ask yourself, what am I doing to contribute to that problem? So I go back to, I think my my best piece of advice would be whenever you're experiencing a challenge, ask yourself, how can a relationship move this forward? Who do I need, who do I need to have a conversation with to do this? So if I'm feeling pressure from those constituents, who do I need to build a relationship with? If there's a student who's a nudge, who do I need to have a relationship with? And it will definitely be the student, but also who else to do that. So I just think that and I like that message because we live in a world where we're so worried about the technology and the AI taking away what it means to be uniquely human. And I think the more that we can practice being uniquely human in systems that are are very good at dehumanizing, building the relationship is always a good first step.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Thank you so much, Randy. That was such a powerful conversation. Can't wait for more future conversations with you. Thank you for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Gonna be epic.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yes.

Sponsor, Listener Share, And Closing

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Thanks, Randy. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit plan zeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.