Temporary Failure: What a Collapsed School Move Taught Her About Trusting Students with Dr. Marta Medved Krajnovic

Dr. Marta Medved Krajnovic came to her first headship convinced that anything was possible. As a board member of Stockholm International School, she pushed to relocate the school after two decades of failed attempts, only to watch the plan collapse when a real estate partner walked away, after the move had already been announced publicly.

Marta traces what went wrong (a decision made without enough of the school's own people at the table) and what she built instead: a role dedicated to stakeholder relationships that found the school a permanent home years later. At Western Academy of Beijing, she applied the same lesson at scale, training more than 50 students, from grade five through grade twelve, to lead the school's own strategic planning conversations. WAB later won an international award, not for the strategy the process produced, but for the process itself.

Marta's takeaway: change holds when it's built systematically, with the people who'll live inside it. Students turn out to be more capable of that than most schools assume.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Evolution Stories by Middle States. This interview series is devoted to teaching you how to lead change in education. We're here because facilitating change in schools has never been harder or more important. So this is your place to learn from those who are leading the way. Welcome back, everybody. My name is Christian Talbot. I am the president of the Middle States Association, and I am extremely happy to introduce our guest for today's episode of Evolution Stories, which is coming from my hotel room here at the AAIE conference in Toronto. So a little unusual for the setting. But Marta Medved is a spectacular leader in international school education. She's currently the head of school at Western Academy of Beijing, better known as WAB. But she's been in education for 30 years, and actually her career started in higher education as a researcher and a teacher in applied linguistics at the University of Zagreb. And actually, she got into international education initially as a member of two different boards of trustees. So I am extremely excited to talk to you, Marta. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Thank you very much for having me. And thank you for this very nice introduction.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah. Marta, when in your life did you come to the realization that you want to change things, that you want to lead change in an organization?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

I think very early in my career, because one of my first um projects in education was when I was still a graduate, undergraduate graduate student, and I joined a project, a national project in Croatia. University professors within my field were looking at what is the optimal age to introduce foreign language teaching within the context of Croatia, which is my home country. And because you know, you children started learning normal languages at in grade four, so at the age of 10, and we were exploring is there a better age, so that they start with one foreign language earlier, and then later they acquire another language. And it was still the time you know when internet was not really existing and so on. So the only exposure within Croatia to a foreign language was actually through TV and maybe tourists that were coming. And anyway, so I joined that project as a student and then um then got offered a position as a young researcher at the University of Zagreb, also within that project. And that project actually lasted for 10 years. So it was a really true longitudinal project. We were doing other things at the same time. Uh, but you know, we we really um I I I would say uh collected very relevant data uh that were that were showing that the optimal age would be around age seven, eight. Uh so like two or three years earlier than what children were normally doing in Croatia. Anyways, it took from the start of the project, then until the implementation of the of the of most of the ideas of the project, it took almost 15 years. And uh that was the moment, and we really wanted to change that, but that was also the moment when I thought, oh my god, it takes such a long time to to change a national system and so on. And um because then because of my uh husband's career, we started living internationally, and my children started attending international schools. And our first true international school was Yokohama International School, and Yokohama was at that point uh introducing MYP. So that was 2009, 10, something around that. And um, and I joined a parent group. I was just a parent, I was on my maternity leave with my third child, and I joined a parent group that was that was like a focus group for the school to discuss and you know and support the implementation and uh of the MYP. And at that moment, kind of it dawned to me uh how actually international schools, independent schools, how flexible they are in terms of when they want to change something that they are uh that they want, that they feel should change in education. And I think that that was my first spark of thinking, hmm, maybe international education uh system is better for my character that really is, you know, a type of character that sees something that I feel you know would nice to would be nice to change, and then you know, trying to work towards systematically, but also within a some kind of reasonable time span, or at least what I thought would be a reasonable time span.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

What was it that you noticed specifically about uh maybe it was Yokohama or or or a subsequent school? Is it was it that culturally the school was more open to the idea of change? Was it uh resources? They had more resources to be able to do this, whereas you know, at you know, in Croatia they might have wanted to do it, but they didn't have the resources. I don't know. Um, or was what what was the thing that you you said, oh, like they can do this in a way that maybe was not as possible to do in my home country?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, I think you know, the more the more systems that decide in a in a certain situation you have, the harder it is to decide in a in you know in a in Croatia. We had university system, it had to trickle to the government system, to the Ministry of Education, then further up because you know um uh resources were needed, and if you want to implement something at the national level, of course, it's not the same as you know within a microcosm of uh of a school. That's that's one part. Uh but the other thing is I I think uh would be the culture of schools. I I worked as a head of school in in two different as a board member I was in two different schools and as a head in two different schools, and each of these schools had a very specific culture. And if I now look back, each of these schools was very differently ready for change, whatever change that that might be. So I I would say the culture is the first thing. Then it's also the capacity. You could have the the culture, but maybe not the right or enough people or the right type of people. Um you know, maybe they might be willing, but not really having the right type of competences. Sometimes, sometimes there is financial, uh, the lack of finances, so yeah, several several things, but I would put culture first.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah. Just to say a word about the first thing, the nested systems that you described.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Within the system.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It makes me think about um really, I think, very powerful research from Tom Arnett at the Christensen Institute, the Clayton Christensen Institute. Um, he's done a lot of work on extending Clayton Christensen's theory of value networks. And what he's discovered with schools is that you know, schools sit within an ecosystem, um, which really is like a bunch of systems that are all affecting each other, and he calls that the value network. And they they become kind of like fixed in their positions. Um, there it is a dynamic kind of stasis, but they all have an incentive to stay where they are, which makes change very difficult when you have multiple actors who are all trying to kind of keep things the way they are. Um so it makes a lot of sense that.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

And I I would say, you know, when now when you are describing that, I think that's what's really happening now in this moment. You know, we all feel there should be a change in education. We all feel this transition is coming. And I've been really for the last five to ten years very much involved in different in different contexts we were talking where we are talking about what what needs to change and how it needs to change. But you have these fixed systems that you know are trying to keep the things stable. When I was talking about the first big project I was involved with uh with this national project in Croatia, it was quite the opposite. The systems were changing too quickly. So, you know, there was you know one party or national party and then another party. So, you know, kind of the the governments were changing. Yeah. So the for that one, I think there was too much change in the system for things to to happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, yeah, that's that's a whole other kind of problem.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Well, let's talk about a change project that you were involved in, whether you let it or not, and uh maybe it failed or maybe it didn't succeed the way you wanted it to, and what did you what did you learn from that experience?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

One one project that I still and probably will remember till till the rest of my life that didn't really succeed was um trying to find a new uh new home for Stockholm International School. So I came to the school as a board member in 2011 or 12, and um the board was discussing that the school really needs to move from the city center location, or at least from the building where it it was, which was a beautiful old school, but old school almost 150 years old. Oh wow. And um and and the board was also saying that they've been trying to find the school uh for the last new school for the last 20 years. Uh and I came with that attitude, everything is possible. So, anyway, so it was primarily the board and myself talking about that and you know, and trying to move the school. When I would talk to the to the you know to the faculty, to the teachers, everybody was saying, oh, we tried so many times, it's it's impossible. And I was saying it's possible. Anyways, so we found a partner, uh, an entity that wanted that said that would that they would like to rent us um a beautiful space, which was a bit outside of city center. And again, the faculty was saying, uh, no, no, no, but we would like to stay in the city center. And so I said, but no, this is better, you know, we have beautiful grounds there, there is water nearby, and so on. Anyways, um after we hired architects, and that that um process didn't happen with a lot of staff involvement and so on. I was this was that was my first um headship, so I was, you know, I think I was pretty naive and inexperienced. Anyway, what happened in the end? The partner who offered us a space walked out, walked away. Uh, and you know, we already publicly announced that you know that we would be moving and and so on, and we developed plans and and so on. So that was a really you know um interesting situation to to be in. Um way to describe it. I actually thought it would be um a lot of backlash, you know, from the parents' community, from the teachers and so on. But it actually seems there has been a relief, which was which was good. So people were definitely not ready, ready to move. Um so I mean, one big lesson for me, then it was it was that you know you should always involve all the stakeholders, more brains, more minds, think uh think better. Uh, that was in my last year of headship there. It was anyway planned. I already had a job at Western Academy of Beijing, so it was planned for me to move. Uh, but then what I realized in that process is okay, we need more competence in our staff, someone who will really be dedicated to trying to find um uh a place. And then the last thing that I did was hiring someone who would be working on that, building external relations and trying to find the place. Uh, we did that hiring, I did that hiring together with the new incoming director, so that we, you know, we I've started the process, but with the finalist, she was my my colleague Marisa, uh who became um a new director, Marisa Leon. She um we together decided who would be that next person. And a few years later they found a space, and now Stockholm International Schools has two homes.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Okay, so it was wonderful. It was a temporary failure.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

It was it was a temporary failure. So, an interesting thing is now a colleague um colleague and I, uh Christian Long from Bonafire, we are together doing an online um or teaching an online course about uh transformative learning spaces, but one of the key things that we talk about is the why of changing a space and who we need to to involve. So that was a big learning that now hopefully it turned into something useful.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah, there's there are two specific things I want to follow up on. First is is what you just mentioned, so that the audience knows this is an incredible resource, this course that you and Christian teach. The other Christian, Christian Long, who's also a longtime friend of mine, um, and who helped me in my first head chip with environmental space design at Malvern Prep. Yeah, and that was transformational for what happened with learning there. Um, and those those that course is offered through AICH, right? Through AI, yeah, the National School of Kids. So I just want people to know that that's that's a good resource for them if they're um because I think changing the physical environment, especially prototyping changes in small ways, yeah, is a huge lever for bigger change. Like it can really be a helpful process. So I I hope that people will check out that course that you and Christian look at.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

And and actually now in the Western Academy of Beijing, which has phenomenally beautiful facilities, uh, and I walked into these beautiful facilities, uh, at the same time uh we were also trying to more radically change the pedagogy. Uh the school was already innovative, but it was, you know, kind of there there was a wish for more innovation in line of you know new research what students really, really need. And there uh we uh we started changing the spaces, but really started small, from small prototypes, learning from there and then then scaling up.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah. The other thing you said that I I want to hear you say a little bit more about is at the very beginning of that story, you said you almost sort of like it was almost like a throwaway comment, but you said because I think that anything is possible.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Um that that's my I don't know whether that's true, but that's my that's my kind of spirit in a way.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

So yeah, like say more about that.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Okay, maybe anything is possible is a is an a exaggeration. Uh there are things in life that you cannot cannot change. But I think in um let's let's focus on education. I think if there is um if there is a true why, if there is a true understanding of the situation, and a true need to change, and when I say a true need to change, it can come from different uh types of direction, it it can come from research, it can come from res uh from the population you uh you are having, it can come from your immediate uh context. Uh I think if you systematically, if you uh so really you know, kind of research the context and have a clear idea where you would like to be. And if you systematically build towards that, um uh build the capacity, build the learning, understanding, build, you know, let's say financial resources, I think you can really get closer to that uh ideal that you wanted. I think it can never be exactly what you wanted because while you are developing things, you are you are learning, new factors come, especially nowadays. I mean new factors come uh into display. It is all an ecosystem and a dynamic system, you know, and from the dynamic systems theory, you know that a small thing can, you know, have a big effect on how things will will change. But I think still systematically building towards something gets you gets you somewhere and you can change things.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I think the reason it struck me is because uh, and this is not something I don't I don't know that I would have noticed it if we were doing this conversation on Zoom, but I'm sitting here in the room with you, and and when you said it, it was like I could picture myself as a faculty member at Stockholm International School and like realizing, okay, this leader has conviction. Like this leader is going to make this happen. It may not happen exactly the way she thinks it's going to happen, but I trust that that she's committed to this and that she believes that this will happen. And you know, there's lots of of technical stuff that has to go right in leading a change effort, but originating with the leader's conviction around the why, as you said, the purpose behind it and the willingness to do whatever it takes, zigging and zagging towards um success is so vital. Um and it comes through, like just you know, sitting here across from you. And um, it's probably a good lesson for the audience to know that um you have to be, if you really want to change uh a system that's been doing things the same way for a long time, you you have to have the conviction that anything is possible with the right purpose, with the right why. Marta, what about an experience of leading change that was successful? Um I mean the what the first one actually was successful, it was just not the first try.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, no, not the first try. Yeah, exactly. You know, so yeah, and then you know, it's it's you know, when you when you you know, it I mean in my mind that that that was definitely, you know, a temporary failure. Yeah. Uh, but then you know, thinking what needs to happen next, and you know, why did it fail? And it was because of the capacity, I would say, of the people we many reasons, but the key was for capacity. There should have been someone knowledgeable of the context and so on who who could support that. And I thought, you know, the that you know the board was knowledgeable enough, but it wasn't, and also the board was board was busy, they were all kind of um professional people who were busy with other things.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So it's something that has has kind of worked well.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, yeah, or at least uh maybe more more quickly.

unknown 17:50

No, quickly.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Uh I would say that's the the innovation process at at WAP. Uh it was all it also started on rocky grounds, despite the school culture that is that has been innovative from the very, very start. You know, uh WAB was founded 30 years ago as a school that wanted to be different from other schools. So um, and um, but I would say the way how myself, but very much you know, the the whole team, the whole leadership team and wider team, how we've been, how we have been uh leading innovation, I think it's working because we've changed quite a number of things. You know, slowly we are building up. I think there is a vision in terms of um vision in terms of what students really, really need. Uh and um or maybe uh the conviction and and knowledge what they need now and then vision what they might need in the future. And we've been slow, we've been slowly changing, iterating from how we use space to how we use time. Sometimes space comes first than time, and sometimes time directs space. Uh the way how we we've been bringing into that context people who believe in the change, because in international schools there is always quite a lot of turnover. Bob has a bit less turnover than maybe some other schools in the region, but still there is. So you you can bring being very open of what to prospective, you know, kind of teachers or leaders, what kind of school we are. So getting the right people on the board. Um, I have also um getting the right people also on the uh governing board, uh very important. And then you know, building that vision, you know, partly having the vision, but also building that vision together with with everyone. And we build it with staff, but we also very much build it with the students. We do listen a lot what our students have to say. So I think you know that that whole process of iterative change is one that has been successful so far, and it's it's continuing.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

When you say uh it's really interesting to hear you talk about students, when you say that you involve them, is that uh like structural involvement, or is that more cultural, like what you know, it's common to walk down the hallway and stop a kid and ask them a question, or do you have structures in place where you know by design you're getting insight from students, or is it both of those things, or maybe other things?

SPEAKER_00 20:21

It's a lot of things actually. It's um you know, it's it's walking and small talks, uh, but that's maybe less less of it. It's um it's getting different type of input from from students, from you know, from surveys, from some small workshops and so on. However, it's also more significantly involving the students. So for example, when we were designing or when we entered or we started developing our or rethinking our vision, um more from the perspective, because uh just to go a bit a bit back in time, there has been a big process of ideating uh innovation around 2015-16. And my previous core uh colleagues, my colleagues actually that were there before, uh the previous head of school and uh deputy director, director of learning, uh they were leading the community in these conversations and everyone was involved, students, parents, teachers, and so on. And out of that came this idea of Flow 21 as a very visionary um um uh set of ideas how education should should change. And when I came uh came in, um I came in actually uh inspired by that that flow 21. And then when I came in I realized and I thought everyone was inspired by that, but when I came in it actually seemed that not everyone was inspired by that. So there was a bit of bifurcation in the community. But anyways, but then in um then COVID came a year after I I uh I uh came to China, but since China really Close the country immediately and so on. 2021, when the world was grappling with COVID, was actually a good time in China. So we couldn't travel anywhere and so on, but it was, you know, we felt safe. And 2021 was when we, together with the whole community, starting looking, okay, the world is changing around us and where we are with our vision, with our innovation, and so on. And then we decided to do something different. We decided to help students to train students to lead the strategic conversations with the community. So we partnered actually with Inspire Citizens who were then just starting. And together with them, we developed a leadership workshop for the student that lasted for, I would say, about half a year. We had a lot of students there, I think over or maybe 50, 60 students, because we also wanted to capture a lot of students who would like to experience that course and then eventually engage the community in strategic conversation because we knew students come and leave and so on. So we wanted to have this big group. And basically we helped students understand how you lead workshops with other other stakeholders. So they were and we developed a very, I would say, easy process of how to capture ideas. So we we said let's go through this kind of uh well let's let's imagine a future WAB alumni, an alumni doesn't have to be a graduate, so anyone who is attending WAB, whether it's students, parents, staff, let's let's create a sticky you know kind of figure and engage in a conversation from the perspective what should a WAB alumni uh think, do, feel. Uh and so students from basically grade five till you know grade 12 uh were forming small small groups and having these conversations about WAB alumni with uh with teachers, with their peers, with parents. It was wonderful to observe that uh that uh process. And actually WAB also um won a, I don't know, one of the global awards, rounds up, I don't know, maybe it was International School Research Award, I don't know. But uh not for the strategy that we created, but for the process we had in developing this uh this strategy.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah, that's so interesting. What did anything in that process did the students do or say anything in that process that surprised you?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

I think what I was um not um well that okay, so that was maybe the start of the for me of of my thinking how much more capable students are than we think they they are. And um, you know, I I always believed in you know in the power of young of young people. Um but I wasn't thinking that this process will go so so well. I was thinking that students would be a you know a bit goofing around and so on. Uh especially in terms of also responses that would come to the students who were leading the process and looking at them, how they are, you know, grappling with an unknown process for themselves. Yes, they have the leadership academy, but still, you know, when you start really doing them, so then from those first conversations with with parents, you know, and to to then actually helping us make sense of of data, there was so much wiz wisdom in that those small, you know, yeah, small or young young uh young beings. And um, and actually how they how seriously they engaged in that in that process. So I think for me that the the surprise was really not the surprise, but the revelation was I should trust students and believe in them even more.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, I love I love this idea. I totally believe it. I completely agree with you that students are capable of far more than schools typically allow them to be capable of. Yes. Um and I think there's this, you know, there's this interesting idea in change theory, in organizational change theory around constraints or bottlenecks. Like where like find the place where you know there's the most constraint to the change and break that bottleneck or you know, you know, somehow loosen that constraint. And you know, for a lot of organizations, it's they don't have enough time, they don't have enough money, so they need to resource things differently, right? But often I think the most important constraint is psychological. Like if you don't think kids are capable of more, you're never going to create situations in which they're capable of more. Yeah. But if you change your thinking, if that's the constraint, suddenly all new possibilities open up.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

All new possibilities. And for example, for for us in that process is um, you know, we often in schools you have those go-to students, students that you know that are capable of everything. Right. And we said, you know, if we are really believing in student agency, it it can't be just those three, five of ten students. It has to be more, also because students come and go. And that's why, you know, we we cast this invitation very, very open, you know, to students. So who wants to engage? Uh and um, and then also, you know, I I often got a question, uh, and then you know, some students would would engage, and then some they some would lose interest, and you know, because WAB also offers a lot of opportunities for students. So, you know, and a strategic process and conversations, it's a long, it's a long process. So some would new lose interest, but new would come. And then, you know, then the I would often get asked by people who were, you know, curious about the process. They said, but you know, this student wasn't there at the very beginning. I said, it doesn't matter, it's collective student agency. They are building on what happened, happened before and moving it, moving it forward.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah. I love that. It's and it's funny you say that collective student agency in a different evolution stories interview. I was talking with Brian Kelly at uh Carol Morgan School in Dominican Republic, and he used that term collective agency to talk about the faculty, that he needed to develop it in the faculty. But it's a really powerful concept, collective agency. Um, that, yes, there are the three or five or ten kids that you can always turn to because as individuals, those those are high agency kids. But when you create the opportunities for lots of kids, yeah, that's creating a different kind of, as you said, collective agency that brings a whole new energy and set of possibilities to change. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

And for for us, that was a game changer, thinking, thinking like that.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah, that's great. Well, this has been a great conversation, Marta. Thank you so much for sharing your your wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Thank you for giving me space to share.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Thanks a lot.