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Essential Safeguards
The Teaching Guarantee: Three Things is a heartfelt manifesto on education, distilling a lifetime of leadership into three essential reflections: what excites, what concerns, and what truly matters in schools today. How did you decide on the “three things” structure?
Effective communication across all levels in a school community is the foundation of a well-functioning, supportive, and successful educational environment. It enhances collaboration, trust, and accountability, leading to better school outcomes and a more harmonious school culture.
As a school leader, effective communication is a priority for me. As with everything I do, I ask myself, how can I improve this? How can I ensure that my message reaches everyone? It is by no means an easy thing to accomplish.
Towards the end of 2022- 2023, I experimented with the 3 Things approach at weekly school assemblies. It ensured my message was simple, pertinent, and received. Ramble on too much, and any message can get lost and quickly forgotten. This approach enabled effective communication!
Ever since then, any time I talk, I relate it to the three things framework. My first mention of the model was in The Teaching Guarantee: Every Day is Different (Chapter 63: School Assemblies)
You express optimism about AI in education. What safeguards do you believe are essential to ensure it enhances rather than harms learning?
Drawing on decades of educational leadership experience, here are the essential safeguards I believe schools need for AI implementation:
Academic Integrity Foundation
The most critical safeguard is teaching students when and how to use AI appropriately, not simply banning it. Just as we taught proper research methods when the internet emerged, we must establish clear guidelines for AI as both a learning tool and a shortcut.
Teacher Professional Development
First Having led through multiple technology transitions, I’ve learned that successful implementation always begins with comprehensive teacher training. Educators need hands-on experience with AI tools before they can effectively guide students. Without this, we risk either complete avoidance or misuse.
Graduated Implementation by Grade Level
Primary school students need different AI exposure than secondary school students. I recommend starting with AI as a brainstorming partner in upper elementary, progressing to research assistance in middle school, and finally introducing advanced applications in high school.
Transparent Usage Policies
Students, parents, and teachers must understand exactly when AI use is permitted, required, or prohibited. These policies should be as transparent as our existing guidelines for calculators, spell-check, or internet research.
Critical Thinking Enhancement, Not Replacement
The key safeguard is ensuring AI amplifies human reasoning rather than replacing it. Students should learn to question AI outputs, verify information, and understand AI limitations.
Regular Assessment of Learning Outcomes
We must continuously monitor whether AI is improving learning or creating dependency. This requires new assessment methods that distinguish between AI-assisted and independent student work.
The technology has changed, but the fundamental principle remains: any educational tool should increase student agency and understanding, not diminish it.
What advice would you give to new teachers feeling overwhelmed by bureaucracy and burnout?
Drawing from five decades of watching new teachers navigate these same challenges, here’s the advice that has proven most effective:
Start with Your “Why”
When bureaucracy feels suffocating, reconnect with what brought you to teaching. Keep one photo or note from a student’s breakthrough on your desk. I’ve seen countless teachers weather difficult seasons by anchoring themselves to their core purpose rather than the administrative noise.
Master the Essential Ignore the Optional
Every school has required tasks and “strongly suggested” initiatives. Learn quickly to distinguish between them. Focus your energy on what directly impacts student learning and meets actual mandates. The rest can wait.
Find Your Teacher Tribe
Identify 2-3 very experienced teachers who still love their work despite the challenges. These aren’t the complainers in the faculty room, but rather the ones who have learned to work within the system while maintaining their passion. Their wisdom is invaluable.
Create Non-Negotiable Boundaries
Decide your work hours and protect them fiercely. I’ve watched too many promising teachers burn out in their second year because they tried to do everything perfectly. Excellence in a few areas beats mediocrity across all areas.
Document Everything Simply
Keep basic records of parent communications, student interventions, and administrative requests. This isn’t about distrust—it’s about protecting your time from repetitive questions in the future.
Using What Works to Improve What Doesn’t
Reflect deeply on your approaches that work well with your classes. Identify the key actions or processes that ensure success. Then apply these to those approaches that do not work to your expectations and enjoy the difference.
Remember: This Too Shall Pass
Educational initiatives come and go. I’ve witnessed six major reform movements. The bureaucracy that feels overwhelming today will likely be replaced by something else in three years. Focus on timeless teaching principles.
The students in your classroom need you to survive and thrive, not to burn out trying to satisfy every administrative demand.
In your experience, what’s the single most underappreciated quality in effective school leadership?
Institutional memory.
After 52 years, I’ve come to believe this is the most underappreciated quality in effective school leadership—and the one that separates truly transformational leaders from those who simply manage crises.
Most leaders focus on immediate challenges: this year’s test scores, next month’s budget deadline, and today’s parent complaint. However, the most effective school leaders I’ve known—and have learned to become myself—understand that every decision exists within a larger institutional narrative.
When I see a principal who knows why the third-grade team resists new math curriculum (because they lived through three failed adoptions in five years), or who remembers that the current discipline problems mirror patterns from a decade ago that were solved through specific community partnerships—that’s institutional memory at work.
This quality manifests in several critical ways:
· Recognising which “new” initiatives are recycled ideas that failed before.
· Understanding the deeper cultural currents that drive staff resistance or enthusiasm.
· Knowing which community relationships took years to build and must be carefully maintained.
· Seeing how current challenges connect to historical patterns.
Technology has changed dramatically since I began, but the human dynamics in schools follow remarkably consistent patterns. Leaders with strong institutional memory can navigate these patterns more effectively than those who constantly reinvent solutions.
Without this quality, even brilliant leaders find themselves fighting the same battles repeatedly, wondering why their excellent ideas meet unexpected resistance, or why their predecessor’s “failed” programs might have been ahead of their time.
Schools are living institutions with long memories. The most effective leaders honour and learn from that institutional wisdom.
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The Teaching Guarantee: Three Things
Ken Darvall’s The Teaching Guarantee: Three Things is a reflective, candid, and highly structured look into the world of education through the eyes of a seasoned school leader. In this third book of his series, Darvall boils down the vast landscape of modern schooling into three simple but powerful categories: what excites him, what concerns him, and what he believes is important. The book’s structure—sixty short chapters grouped into those three sections—invites educators, parents, and even students to engage with education not as an abstract policy debate, but as a deeply personal mission. Whether he’s praising the role of AI in the classroom, critiquing bureaucratic inertia, or urging accountability and authentic leadership, Darvall’s message is consistent: education must be grounded in values, driven by purpose, and oriented toward practical action.
What I liked most about this book was its clarity. Darvall doesn’t lecture. He shares. And his voice, though authoritative, carries the warmth and weariness of someone who has seen it all and still chooses hope. I found myself nodding along with much of what he wrote, particularly his points about personalised learning, student wellbeing, and the critical role of integrity in both leadership and the classroom. His excitement about the future of education—AI, hybrid learning, global collaboration—felt genuine, even contagious. At the same time, he doesn’t sugarcoat the hard stuff. He lays out his concerns with unflinching honesty: inequity, disengagement, mental health crises, political meddling, and the crushing weight of endless meetings. And yet, he never slips into cynicism. He always circles back to what matters.
The bullet-point style and repetitive emphasis on familiar themes (growth mindset, lifelong learning, team culture) occasionally felt like being in a lengthy staff development meeting. But then again, maybe that’s the point—his book mirrors the very structure of a school year: full of lessons, reinforcements, goals, and gentle nudges. It isn’t flashy or revolutionary, but it is solid. Dependable. Much like a good teacher.
I walked away from Three Things feeling inspired, even reassured. It’s the kind of book that reminds you why education matters. It doesn’t promise to solve every problem, but it gives readers a clear compass to work with. I’d recommend this book to school leaders, aspiring teachers, policy influencers, and anyone who’s ever sat in a staffroom wondering if what they do really matters. According to Ken Darvall, it does—and he backs that up with more than fifty years of experience, reflection, and love for the craft.
LITERARY TITAN 