What Twenty Years of Asking Questions Has Taught Me About Education

From the moment I stepped into my first classroom, I wondered whether education really fit the world our young people were growing up in.

I wasn't questioning education because I thought it was broken, nor because I believed I had all the answers as a beginning teacher. I simply looked at the students sitting in front of me and wondered whether what we were asking of them truly reflected the world they were living in.

Were we preparing them for the future they were stepping into, or asking them to succeed in a version of schooling that had changed very little from the one many of us had experienced ourselves?

After being recognised as one of The Educator's Most Influential Educators 2026, I found myself reflecting on where that journey had really begun. Looking back now, I realise that question has quietly followed me throughout my entire career. It has evolved as my roles have changed, but it has remained the thread connecting every chapter of my journey. If anything, every experience has simply encouraged me to ask better questions.

As a classroom teacher, I became obsessed with engagement. I wanted every student in the room to want to learn. Eventually, I reached a point where I simply couldn't understand why I was teaching the same novel in my English class that had been taught for decades when the students sitting in front of me were telling me, often without words, that it wasn't connecting. Rather than accepting that this was simply "how English had always been taught", I challenged it.

That questioning eventually led to one of my favourite teaching memories. Two English classes learning together in an agile learning environment, exploring nine different novels at the same time. Students selected texts that genuinely interested them while also providing the right level of challenge. The curriculum hadn't changed, but the experience of learning had, and for me that was the moment I truly understood that engagement isn't something we demand from students; it's something we intentionally design for. Too often we ask why students aren't engaged, when perhaps the better question is whether we've designed learning that gives them something worth engaging in.

As I moved into leadership as Head of Drama, the questions became bigger. They were no longer simply about what was happening inside my own classroom. They became questions about the experiences we were creating for young people more broadly.

If I'm honest, my mouth probably got me into more trouble than anything else. I've never been particularly good at staying quiet when I believed decisions were serving the system more than they were serving students. I know I was probably a pain in the backside for more than one principal over the years, not because I enjoyed challenging people, but because I struggled to accept, "That's just how we've always done it," as a good enough reason.

Everything shifted again when I stepped into a wellbeing leadership role. For the first time, I wasn't just seeing what was happening in my own classroom or department, I was seeing the broader experience of young people across an entire school. I met students who were capable, creative and full of potential, yet increasingly disconnected from learning. That was probably the moment I realised this wasn't simply about improving my own teaching. It was about asking bigger questions about the experiences we were creating for young people, and whether education itself needed to evolve.

That curiosity continued to grow.

When iPads first emerged in schools, I wasn't interested in technology for technology's sake. I was fascinated by what might happen if we used it thoughtfully to deepen engagement and learning. My Year 8 class and I became the first in our school to trial iPads, and while the devices themselves were exciting, they weren't the biggest outcome. The conversations they sparked ultimately led to our school's first Learning Management System. What started as curiosity in one classroom became something that influenced learning more broadly across the school. Once again, I found myself returning to the same underlying question: what might be possible if we were willing to think differently?

One question, however, stayed with me longer than any other.

Why were so many middle years boys disengaging from learning?

That curiosity led me to spend a year undertaking action research with Harvard Project Zero, an experience that remains one of the most significant professional learning opportunities of my career. Not because I found the answer, but because I realised how much there still was to learn.

As a mum of three boys, I still find myself reflecting on that research today. I often wish every educator had the opportunity to explore learning at that level of depth. Then again, that's both the challenge and the beauty of education. There is never enough time to know everything. Every answer simply opens the door to another question. That experience also reminded me that professional learning isn't about collecting strategies or finding silver bullets. It's about developing better questions. The more deeply we understand how young people learn, the more we realise there is no finish line. Great educators remain students themselves.

Over time, my questions evolved again. They led me to strengths based education, learner agency, project based learning, contemporary assessment, school culture, leadership, artificial intelligence and what it truly means to prepare young people for an increasingly complex world. Looking back now, every role I've held has simply given me another perspective from which to ask the same underlying question: How can we make learning better for young people?

As I stepped into broader leadership roles, including Deputy Principal and eventually Principal, my thinking evolved again. I found myself asking different questions, not only about teaching and learning, but about the culture of a school, the structures that shaped it and the wider community that surrounded it.

I became increasingly fascinated by the conditions that allow great learning to flourish. Why do some schools create cultures where curiosity, collaboration and innovation become part of everyday practice, while others struggle to move beyond the way things have always been done? How do leaders create environments where teachers feel safe to experiment, reflect and continue learning themselves?

At the same time, I found myself looking beyond the school gates. There was a whole world out there, changing at an extraordinary pace, yet schools often felt disconnected from it. I began wondering how our communities, industries, parents and organisations could become genuine partners in learning rather than simply supporters of schools. If we wanted to prepare young people for the future, surely the future needed a place in the classroom.

Looking back, this was another significant shift in my thinking. Educational transformation wasn't just about improving individual lessons or even individual teachers. It was about intentionally designing cultures, structures and partnerships that enabled great learning to happen every day. That realisation has shaped much of the work I've done ever since.

It's also why Derek and I created EduShift.

Not because we believed we'd discovered the answers, but because we believed schools deserved partners who were willing to ask great questions alongside them. Over the years I've come to realise that transformation rarely begins with a new framework, a new technology or even a new strategy. More often, it begins when a teacher or leader has the courage to ask a question they have never asked before.

Looking back now, I don't think the defining thread of my career has been the roles I've held or the opportunities I've been fortunate enough to have. It has been the questions. The questions that have shaped my thinking, the remarkable colleagues, mentors and students who have challenged me, and the countless schools that continue to wrestle with how education can better serve young people.

Education has never been work we do alone. Every teacher, every leader, every student and every school I've had the privilege of learning alongside has shaped my thinking far more than I could ever have shaped theirs. If there is one thing this recognition has reminded me, it is that meaningful change has always been, and always will be, a collective endeavour.

Twenty-something years later, I still find myself asking many of the same questions I asked as a beginning teacher, although perhaps with a little more perspective and a great deal more appreciation for the complexity of the answers. How can learning be more meaningful? How can we create greater agency for young people? How can schools better prepare students for a future none of us can fully predict? These are not questions I expect education to solve once and for all. They are questions I hope we never stop asking.

Every meaningful shift I have witnessed in education has begun because someone was willing to question an assumption, challenge an established practice or imagine that there might be a better way. Progress has never depended on individuals having all the answers. It has always depended on educators who are curious enough to keep learning, courageous enough to try something different and generous enough to share what they discover with others.

That is what gives me hope.

Wherever I have the privilege of working, whether it is in classrooms, leadership teams or school communities, I meet extraordinary educators who care deeply about young people and who are committed to creating better learning experiences than the ones they inherited. They ask thoughtful questions, they reflect honestly on their practice and they continue showing up every day believing that education can evolve.

After more than twenty years in education, I've never been more convinced that our best work still lies ahead. Not because we will ever arrive at the perfect model of schooling, but because I continue to see educators who are willing to learn, adapt and grow together. If we can hold onto that curiosity, that courage and that unwavering belief that education can always be better, then I have enormous hope for the future.

Perhaps that's why I remain so optimistic about education. Not because the challenges are getting smaller, but because every week I have the privilege of walking alongside educators who refuse to stop learning. They are curious enough to question, courageous enough to try something different and generous enough to share what they discover with others. They remind me that the future of education isn't shaped by a handful of influential people. It's shaped every day by thousands of teachers and leaders who continue asking, "How can we make learning better for young people?"