The Domain of Political Economy, with Homa Tavanger

Many international schools are working hard on confronting issues of inequality, justice and global politics. Involving the wider school community can be challenging without a guide or a framework to follow. Our guest in this episode, Homa Tavanger, poses some thoughtful questions to start the conversation.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we talk about student activism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, thinking about the future in a liminal age, and confronting colonial heritage. 

Homa Tavangar is the co-founder of the Big Questions Institute and the Oneness Lab.

She brings 30+ years’ experience helping diverse organizations and individuals to build cultural, racial and global competence, strategic governance, and visionary, generative leadership in diverse schools and organizations. She coaches leaders on accountability for equity, leading through crisis, and advises on strategic design and planning across five continents. She has co-authored seven books for educators, and is the author of best-selling Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World (published by Random House) and Global Kids (Barefoot Books). Her most recent publication is 12 Big Questions Schools Must Answer to Create Irresistible Futures with Will Richardson (forthcoming, 2025).

A graduate of UCLA and Princeton, Homa was born in Iran, has lived on four continents, speaks four languages, and has heritage in four world religions. She serves on several Boards, including ISS (International Schools Services) and is a judge for the Templeton Prize, considered the “world’s most interesting prize” with a purse calibrated to exceed the Nobel Prize. She is married and the mother of three adult daughters, and resides in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

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Find out more about MSB and download our paper, Futures-Focused Leadership for International Schools, at www.makingstuffbetter.com

Contact the team about our Futures-Focused Pledge at https://zcal.co/t/makingstuffbetter/talktotheteam

You can find us on Linked in at

Matt Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hall-msb/

Naomi Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-ward-098a1535/

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

Matt Hall: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to Principled from MSB. 

Naomi Ward: This season offers international school leaders a provocation to think differently about the future of education and their role in the creation of this future. It's an opportunity to continue thinking seriously and deeply about the legacy that school leaders leave behind through concerted action in the present.

To frame this provocation, we will be bringing together the latest research and thinking about futures focused leadership, alongside insights from interviews with experts from across the international school sector and beyond. 

Matt Hall: Each episode, we will explore a different domain, and in the following episode, we will put the thinking through its paces with a panel of school leaders, some highly experienced, some new in role, and some emerging.

We're so pleased to have you join us. Delighted to be back again for another episode of the principal podcast. [00:01:00] And this week we are diving into the domain of political economy with our expert specialist, um, speaker, Homer Tavangar, who's going to be joining us today. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation, Naomi.

Naomi Ward: Yes, this is someone who you may know, and certainly looking at her work, we felt that pull towards the questions she's asking, the stance she's taking in education already around futures literacy. And, um, with a real passion for this particular domain. So, uh, yeah, someone we're looking forward to learning from.

Matt Hall: Absolutely. Let's dive in.

Well, it's lovely to be here. Um, again, moving through this journey of exploration into futures focused leadership. We're here, here with Homer today. I'm really curious to, to jump into this conversation, [00:02:00] considering the work that you do and, and the, the contribution contribution you're making to the world.

So, so we, we tend to, to start. with this question, not always, but, um, a sense, a lot of wisdom and experience. And, and, and with that in mind, I'm, I'm curious, where do you think the world is now? 

Homa Tavanger: Ah, um, well, you know, this idea that the world is vuca, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. A lot of people are embracing this now, but that's not a new idea.

That's been around since the early 1970s. So 50 years, people have been describing VUCA and I, you know, often say that for many people who are in a more privileged position, we're discovering that it's VUCA, but for the majority of the world, [00:03:00] it's always been VUCA. So, that's one thing. Nonetheless, I do think VUCA is a helpful frame.

So, where is the world now? One way to describe it, we are in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous place. Another way, and I think there are a number of frames that we can use to think about where we are in the world. Another frame is that, um, as Amy Webb, who's the futurist out of NYU, describes, we're in a Generation T.

Transition. So, you know, we have all these generations living at this moment now, X, Y, Z, millennial, zero, you know, all these generations, but all together. We're living through a time of intense transition and so often we frame our work in liminality. So we're living in a liminal time which is like a time between worlds, [00:04:00] a time between stories, where the old stories that probably many of us grew up with such as Go to school, get good grades, get a job, live happily ever after.

That story is largely breaking due to many different factors. And there are many other stories as well. Many of the institutions that people rely on, they are losing trust if they have not lost trust altogether. And, um, actually a lot of the work that I do ends up being. In a place of recognizing if there is a loss of trust, how do you work together, for example, in a school to benefit children, when you don't trust each other, or there isn't trust across different parties.

So where the world is now and, and one more frame. So VUCA, Generation T, and then the third is a process [00:05:00] that I see of a simultaneous disintegration. And an integration. So while old structures are dying, where, you know, some authors like Vanessa Andriotti or. core teachings and like world, you know, philosophies and faith traditions, indigenous faith traditions, the Baha'i faith, many others talk about this process of the kind of dying of the old order, the need to hospice modernity as we know it.

And then the integration that is simultaneously occurring that is the place where I think hope lives. So it, I don't feel hopeless. I feel that there are many incredible innovations and breakthroughs in every context, every [00:06:00] sector, every generation. And so it's like, how do you build from that while we're living in a liminal time?

So there is this sort of simultaneous, kind of like a birth and a death that we are living in the middle of. 

Naomi Ward: And as you're, as you're speaking there, imagery of nature comes up and that wisdom and there has to be grief with loss. Um, 

Homa Tavanger: yes. 

Naomi Ward: So that's coming up for me, how we're not great at feeling that, and I'm also hearing and feeling a great sense of trust in you, that.

You're sharing questions, um, not those answers with teachers who, who we, we trust to very deeply, um, in the work we do. So, yeah, I'll just land that there and see what you run with. [00:07:00] 

Homa Tavanger: Well, we're, we're really deliberate about leading with questions. We, um, Don't call our organization the Big Answers Institute for big questions because nobody, I don't think anyone really has the answers.

Um, even if you're the smartest in the room or in the world, you're probably wondering. And so being in that state of wonder and curiosity, And having that, we like, I like to think about an explorer's mindset, which is, you know, a really good explorer comes with the best tools, but they know that they're going into uncharted territory.

So it's really humble. It's, it's really, I think, about a humble posture of learning. It's a humbling disposition and always learning, always being open to new possibilities as an explorer of what you might [00:08:00] uncover, discover, and then maybe recover as well. And uh, I really appreciate your talking about the grief because I think having the space for emotions and, uh, That inner work that is so vital to, let's say, if you're being a leader, and I would say teachers are leaders, students can be leaders, heads of school can be leaders.

I think sometimes we want them to be more leaders than they actually feel themselves to be. But, um, taking the time for the inner work and, um, grief is part of that. What does that mean? That has really big implications. It means that things might go a little slower than what people expected. Um, I appreciate that in your, um, structure, you know, you talk about many of the structures needed for change, including time [00:09:00] and thinking about the role of time in learning, in, um, connecting with oneself and with others, building relationship.

I think relationship is sort of the, the answer to so many of our challenges, relationship with nature, with one another. With our environment, uh, you know, kind of our contexts. That is a means to the solution and it is the solution. Um, so grief and these other emotions and dispositions, I really think are part of that picture.

Naomi Ward: And I feel an energy in me as you talk about mindset, exploring, curiosity, you know, just the language does something to our stance. As we look at these themes that you are so active in, you know, around social justice [00:10:00] and, and belonging, and I love what you said about home and, and all these complex areas that people have fear around.

Um, I'm wondering how you guide people into that, or, or if there are Yeah. You know, we're talking about sort of futures literacy and, and so on. Mm-Hmm. , how, what's your, what is you, what are you learning in that area? 

Homa Tavanger: As you mentioned, like you get a certain feeling when we just name things like grief, wonder, curiosity, inquiry.

And so I think pausing and taking a step back to, uh, think about the sort of meta and name many of the things that are happening that are creating a sense of instability, uncertainty with people who've normally been [00:11:00] extremely confident leaders is really important. I work with many boards of directors of some of the larger international schools around the world.

As well as, um, leaders in companies and larger non governmental organizations. And there is such a common sense of concern about where we are now and a huge sense of concern for our children. And to step back and name some of those concerns is really powerful. For example, we start with the questions. So, If we're thinking about the future of schools, our very first question that we pose in our big questions is, what is sacred?

So we start with what matters most. So not sacred in a kind of religious sense, but in a sense of if you return to this school in [00:12:00] 10, 20, 30, 50 years, what would you hope remains? What matters most and giving people time and space to think about that, to explore it, to wonder, um, is a really powerful starting, a shared starting point.

And what we hear from everyone is essentially the same answer. People want to. See, relationship, connection, joy, nature, um, learning that is maybe hard fun, critical thinking, curiosity. No one ever says grades, homework, standardized tests, nobody feels like those are sacred and yet we spend all, AI, they don't say AI is sacred.

They're concerned about it. And so we're not saying throw out everything [00:13:00] that doesn't show up on what is sacred, but you have a really clear starting point. So beginning by naming some of the concerns, acknowledging what is sacred, and also recognizing some of the big challenging contexts, um, whether it has to do with, um, economic inequality.

Racial injustice, climate fears, the loss and lack of trust, uh, many issues connected not only to gender and sexual identity, but also to a growing gap in terms of sort of gender inequality, almost like some people would say, like, the, uh, Old fashioned gender inequality that is very much revisiting schools and young people today because of influencers on social media, economic [00:14:00] insecurity, you know, many different.

Um, sort of, I would say threats in the context that we're leading and learning in that we have to acknowledge as real and then confront even if it's uncomfortable. So I would say those are some of the ways to kind of get meta and get started in imagining like what's our current story? And where is the story that we want to go to?

What do we want to create or aspire to? 

Matt Hall: Another one I want to throw into your list, which I think was there implied, but it's certainly, um, perceived as sacred in a lot of the international schools we work with is that historical context and the tension, as I see it now of, you know, elite, wealthy, relatively, [00:15:00] um, often, not always, British curriculum schools in kind of assuming a neocolonial role in, in different corners of the world.

Um, which to a lesser or greater extent I see as being seen as sacred, that heritage as being sacred. And yet somehow in the way of, of those schools being the schools that they really want to be. Um, and you can hear me bringing my own judgment to that question. I'm curious about your perspective on that.

Homa Tavanger: So, I do work with a number of schools that are, you know, kind of have a long tradition of a certain kind of education that gets you into a, you know, Oxford or Princeton or Yale or Stanford or, you know, whatever the university of choice might be for that population. And I think that Something that's really being exposed as one of the [00:16:00] big challenges to international schools.

I sort of identified oftentimes, like in a board retreat training, like sort of confronting three really important challenges. The first one is that global contexts. Now and into the future, we require a sort of re examination of the entire purpose of schooling and education and that what students and employers are really looking for is an education that's more relevant, more just.

I think of regenerative as opposed to only sustainable because you're not just trying to sustain what you have. And I know you. I value that word regeneration as well and healthy. So that's one thing that isn't quite around the traditions, but then when it comes to the traditions, the second big challenge that I see is that because of [00:17:00] social media, vast instant connection across, especially young people around the world.

This has exposed practices of power and privilege in many international schools. You really saw this in 2020 when In the United States, in the height of COVID, the whole world witnessed the murder of George Floyd. That was in a neighborhood in Minneapolis that couldn't be farther from, say, an international school in Beijing, or Dakar, or Cairo, or Vienna, Austria.

And yet, those students, Singapore, they created Instagram accounts. That were, say, black at Singapore American School, or Me Too at, [00:18:00] uh, whatever school, or they held forums, they held meetings to kind of expose what was happening. It made a lot of press. And um, people began, even though this was not an event that was proximate, that was spurring these questions.

It's almost like we can't go back to not confront the challenges around justice, colonization, connection with our local communities, and that students are really asking for this. We want to have challenging academics, but we also don't want to be isolated from the realities in which we live. And when we are more integrated with our environments and we gain new literacies, you talk about futures [00:19:00] literacies, I would also say Global, cultural, racial literacy, environmental literacy, wellness literacy, digital, media.

There are all these new literacies that are needed to be kind of a functioning, successful, if we're thinking about success, professional. So that idea of tradition becomes really complicated. I'm not saying. Throw out celebration, throw out excellence, foundations, but also bring more voices to the table to consider what are the traditions that matter most and are worth keeping.

Naomi Ward: I noticed that in your big questions, one of the questions is, are we literate? 

Homa Tavanger: Yes. 

Naomi Ward: And I think what I'm hearing is the students are and will be, you know, [00:20:00] almost first. And there's such a tradition, isn't there, of student activism throughout history. And maybe there's some catching up in that literacy for, for leaders to do.

Homa Tavanger: Oh, definitely. I've been noticing, for example, in, you know, as I mentioned these various literacies, oftentimes, for example, on global literacy or being a global citizen, I almost feel like there's this unintended, like, that's for the kids. They can be global citizens, but how many of the adults and the leaders lead as global citizens?

That requires a new literacy. So there are, it, it's a whole, um, actually theme that I'm thinking a lot about. The new literacies, the new skills, the new new dispositions that leaders need. So those include things like anticipation, leading with [00:21:00] complexity. Um, as you've talked about futures literacy. So what is futures literacy?

It's, we create the future that we want to live in, that we. You know, kind of UNESCO talks about empowering the imagination, the ability to prepare, recover, and invent. As changes occur, most leaders I know did not learn these skills in school. Um, and so literacy takes on a much wider definition than reading, writing, arithmetic, that's the beginning.

It's not the end. 

Matt Hall: With that in mind, I, I always, Nomi knows this, like to put on my, well, this is all very well, Homer, but you know, I'm, I'm running a big school in China with 2000 kids all trying to work their way through the IB or A levels. And, you know, I, I'm, I feel bound by what parents want and I feel bound by what my board wants and I feel bound by the exam system [00:22:00] and the curriculum.

These parents are paying for 

Homa Tavanger: right 

Matt Hall: now you want me to do this you want me to ask these questions 

Homa Tavanger: that's right well i mean we know a ton of research around happiness says that if you have a purpose if you have some meaning to your work you're much happier. And you end up doing better on the tests and you know it's a lot of jumping through hoops that we're forcing our children to do.

And we do that because, in some ways, we're afraid for their futures. We want them to be okay. And I really empathize with parents. I'm a mother of three daughters who have been through that exact grind themselves. Um, I'm happy to say they've come out the other end and they're doing well. Um, but you know, I actually just spent, um, a few weeks in Asia where I was [00:23:00] in wor ta working with, um, some of the boards and leaders from some of the large international schools in in Asia, now that we're talking about Asia.

And I really do think that those parents and boards are as concerned as we are in talking about all of these. And again, taking the time having, I have profound respect for what parents are going through right now and empathy. And so to begin with empathy for, and to sort of see ourselves as. You know thinking about kind of we're in it together.

We're going to work through this together I don't want to ever impose These ideas on any parents, but for example at the un international school in hanoi we did a session for parents where we talked about these big questions and these very challenging vuka [00:24:00] contexts and over 200 parents enthusiastically participated.

And it was almost a comfort to be able to lean into how challenging this is to create a space to talk about it because it's not going away. So not talking about it and doing what we've always done isn't going to help. And they all know that and their kids know that. And then we did a full day retreat for parents.

So that parents can consider how can we be better partners with the school to advance the mission vision values. It's not just we're going to run a bake sale or we're going to have like a gala fundraiser night with adult beverages, but, um, we want to be more meaningfully engaged to support our children.

As we understand, there are boundaries [00:25:00] to, you know, we're not going to get involved in choosing what books and curriculum and classroom management, but how can we be partners so that our children aren't depressed and anxious and can't wait to leave the school, but are joyfully coming in. And so ultimately, I, I really think that is what parents are seeking.

and the IB score. Is of course a priority, but it's never more than my own child's well being. 

Naomi Ward: Enough. I'm listening to you, Homer. I'm thinking about recovering agency, you know, that, that there's meaning and purpose and agency are resourcing. Um, and I'd love to be part of that conversation at my, my daughter's school.

Uh, what a great idea. And there's a question here and I think, I think we really heard so much, not enough about your work and we'll, we'll [00:26:00] direct everyone listening to where they can find out more. It's a big question, but I'm, I'm wondering what's the future that you're creating in what you do? 

Homa Tavanger: We often are taught to think about a dystopian future or that's what our media, our movies, video games, They're all about, mostly about a dystopian future.

But what if we got it right? What if our leaders today were able to come together, to unite, to, um, listen to who was unheard, to recognize, you know, you talk about agency, the agency that many people have. And, if we did it right, what would it look like? And, I have had the incredible privilege to be in the room where people share what it felt like to go into a time machine in 30, 40, 50 years where your students are now the leaders and they're [00:27:00] thinking about what you got right.

And then we walk back and we think, well, what was it? What did we get right? And then how do we plan backwards from there? And it will be very unique to each circumstance, but there are some things that everybody says. Uh, when they go into the future, it's greener. So there's a lot more in nature. It feels simpler.

So I think that's something we yearn for. And it's very relational and connected, I think, to the heart. And so those can be guideposts for what we want to build today. And to just help people, you know, we often talk about imagination infrastructures to help us exercise imagination more powerfully. And one of those is collective imagination.

So when we imagine together, this really augments our capacity. To imagine, we [00:28:00] grow in trust and psychological safety, and then to even have the vocabulary to think about an irresistible future is itself a little joy producing. And doing this in a community, um, can be really powerful and it's been really an incredible privilege to be in a room like the whole school comes together for a dream summit is something we do.

And, um, we think about the future we want for that school. And then it's up to the leaders in the school community to then plan backwards towards that. The desired future that they're going to build 

Matt Hall: got about 40 more questions, but that last paragraph is lovely. 

Homa Tavanger: I'll just tell you one thing really quick.

Um, one idea that we talk about with schools is how do you go beyond being a good, a portrait of a graduate, a good graduate. We pour all our resources into that [00:29:00] moment when our kids, you know, can leave. And all we're doing is anticipating. Leaving, graduate, go to university, get a job, get a high paying job.

And so this is another, you know, we constantly want to widen the aperture. And so another way to widen or zoom out is to think about how can you be a good ancestor? And so what is that future legacy that we might leave as educators, as schools, and that we might leave? We want for our students, our children, to not just be a competitive graduate, but an ancestor who is planting a much more expansive, regenerative, constructive future.

Matt Hall: I love that question. 

Naomi Ward: And I guess I'm thinking in a lot of cultures, that's normal, right? That's just how things are. Seven generations. Time is the trend. Yeah. [00:30:00] And I love, I love the idea of the muscle of the imagination and how it might have atrophied and like the questions and structures are like, we've got this, we can remember it.

Love that invitation. Absolutely. 

Matt Hall: Thank you. 

Naomi Ward: Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Matt Hall: Another juicy, interesting conversation that I always feel guilty about. Cutting so short, there's so, there's so much more depth to that. That, um, I want to go back to at some point. How about you? 

Naomi Ward: Absolutely. And I think those questions, um, you know, the nine questions that she's offering schools, it's such.

An irresistible invitation to walk with those questions and see what emerges. And, you know, I'm aware that we don't always trust teachers as [00:31:00] true professionals. And I think that's what she's really doing. Like saying, come on, here's some questions. Let's imagine the future and create it. So I think it puts a pin in that fear we talk about to, to move together into those questions rather than retreating from what's going to happen anyway.

Yeah. So what are you left thinking about? Any questions? 

Matt Hall: Yes. And, and, and it's that word again, it's that courage, isn't it? It's that, um, it's what, it's what is often at the core of leadership, you know, to, to take, I think she challenged me really well in saying it's easy to say we don't have time and it's easy to say I'm constrained, but actually when she talks to parents, um, and students and school communities, they want these questions, they want to explore this territory.

And it, and it just requires someone to initiate, um, and to create the right space. [00:32:00] And, and, and I'm, I'm reminded of, of that it's, it's, it lives in the same space of that. Um, it takes a bit of discipline to think differently. Um, cause we, we kind of, we elastic about, I did it in that episode, I elastic banded my brain back to people will say they don't have time.

And she kind of said, well, we've asked them this questions and they do have time. And I, and I, and I like that. I like that challenge and I feel like I want to take that challenge now out with the paper when people say this is all well and good but, um, and maybe they won't. I hope they won't. And I understand if they do.

Naomi Ward: And I think that phrase, you know, it's what we're longing for. Here's the future we're longing for. Here are the conversations we're longing for. Here's the quality of connection and relationship. And I think. Taking that to the level of subjects like cultural complexity and racial equity and economic injustice [00:33:00] does take bravery, but like she said, our students are having those conversations anyway, so we need to be doing the same.

And of course, of course, so many, um, Educators are, and I'm excited that that's at the heart of this paper as well. So, um, a conversation to be continued. 

Matt Hall: Absolutely. And if you want to, then it's really easy to connect with Homer. You can go to her website, which is homertavangard. com or as she alluded to in the podcast, head over to big questions.

Institute, um, loads of great questions and free resources for your school to create structures for asking them. Head that way. And that's all for today. See you soon. 

Naomi Ward: See you soon. You 

Matt Hall: can download a free copy of our paper, Futures Focus Leadership for International Schools, by signing up on our website.

makingstuffbetter. com. And don't forget to like and follow Principled so you don't miss an episode. 

Naomi Ward: You've been listening to Principled from MSB. [00:34:00] The podcast was produced by Emily Crosby Media with music by Lucy Farrell, released on Hudson Records.