Schools Are Grown,
Not Managed

A few years ago, I launched an initiative at Yingjian: rebuilding human relationships in education.

That sounds grand, I know. But my starting point was very concrete. I was tired of the prepackaged binaries that define school life — manager versus managed, knowledge-giver versus knowledge-receiver, service-provider versus client. These roles lock people into fixed positions: you're a department head, so your job is to control. You're a teacher, so your job is to deliver content. You're a student, so your job is to listen. You're a parent, so your job is to comply. Everyone is defined by their role, never by the person inside it.

I wanted to break that. I wanted everyone in Yingjian's educational ecosystem to be a learner. Teachers would not be "knowledge dispensers," and students would not be "knowledge receptacles." Administrators would not control — they would support. Parents would not be customers — they would be members of a shared community. Every single person — myself included — would be an independent, equal individual, supporting one another and growing together.

I led by example. When I talked with students, I would crouch down to meet their eyes. When teachers challenged my decisions, I listened carefully and responded seriously — never pulling the "I'm the principal" card. In the hallways, when a student said hello, I actually stopped and talked with them for a moment, instead of nodding in passing.

The ripples started with me. Middle managers said, "Principal Wang is different from other principals." Teachers said, "At Yingjian, we can speak the truth." Students said, "The principal actually listens to us." Parents noticed too — their kids were more eager to come to school, more willing to open up.

And then the reform stopped.

When middle managers interacted with teachers, the old model crept back in: "This is the principal's directive — you must implement it." When teachers interacted with students, the old model returned: "The standard answer is this one — don't overthink it." When students interacted with classmates, the old model reasserted itself: the academic monitor supervised group leaders, and group leaders watched over group members. They had enjoyed the equality and respect I gave them — but when it came to treating others the same way, they couldn't.

This tormented me for a long time. It wasn't that I hadn't pushed. I repeated this philosophy at every faculty meeting, and I genuinely lived it. But a school has over a hundred people, and every single one carries their own habitual patterns. Old patterns cannot be replaced by one speech or one handbook.

This failure taught me more than any success ever could. It made me truly understand something: the construction of culture has its own clock. I can be a seed, but I cannot grow into a forest on my own. A forest requires every tree to take root and grow in its own place. And the pace of that growth is not something my will alone can dictate.

Schools were never designed by some sage sitting at a desk.

The academies of ancient Greece took shape as Plato walked and talked with his students beneath olive trees. The private tutoring traditions of old China emerged when literate elders in a village were invited by neighbors to teach, gradually settling into a form. The modern subject-based school was forced into existence by the Industrial Revolution's need for masses of literate workers.

Every shift in form follows the same cycle: the old form is no longer sufficient → try something new → the new form stabilizes → it becomes insufficient again.

Nobody ever sat in a god-like seat and drew up a "blueprint for the school," with humanity faithfully executing the plan. Schools are the product of thousands of years of educational practitioners building on what came before — experimenting, filtering, retaining — growing little by little.

What we're doing at Yingjian today — exploring new teaching models, new forms of assessment, new teacher-student relationships — is not a "revolution." We are simply the contemporary page in this millennia-long cycle of construction.

The relationship between systems and culture is often misunderstood. Many people think that systems sit on top and culture follows below — once you set the rules, the culture obeys.

The reality is the reverse. Culture is the deeper operating system. Systems are the application layer; culture is the kernel. You can install a Mac-style skin on a Windows computer, but underneath it's still Windows. Run it long enough, and everything will re-adapt to Windows logic.

I once saw a school where the principal created an exquisitely detailed "Encourage Innovation" system — monthly innovation awards, innovation bonuses, innovation sharing sessions. The policy document was textbook-perfect.

But the core evaluation system was built entirely around end-of-term exam rankings. Teacher promotions were tied to those rankings. Parent chat groups compared scores every single day.

Guess how long the "Encourage Innovation" system survived?

Three months. After three months, teachers returned to their familiar operating patterns. It wasn't that they didn't want to innovate. It was that two opposing forces were pulling at them — and the deeper force, the evaluation system, won.

As a principal, I carry two clocks in my mind. One tracks the days — curriculum pacing, project milestones, admissions and outreach, daily operations. The other tracks the seasons — shifts in teacher cognition, the cultural evolution of a class, the sedimentation of school values.

These two clocks run at entirely different rhythms.

The frustration many principals feel comes from using the daily clock to measure seasonal work. They introduce a new teaching method at the start of the semester, get anxious when midterms show no effect, and abandon it by finals when results still haven't appeared. Then they switch to something else.

Teachers barely reach the threshold of a new approach, haven't yet internalized it, and are already told, "We're done with that — now we're doing this." In schools that constantly change direction, teachers are forever starting from zero.

You cannot command culture into existence. But you can cultivate it — just as a gardener cannot command a plant to grow, but can create the conditions for growth.

A single, clear-direction system sustained for five years beats five "perfect" systems that change every year. The core of culture is stability of expectations — teachers and students need to know "what this school actually values," and that valuing must be sustained and credible.

If this year you emphasize scores, next year you emphasize holistic development, and the year after you swing back to scores — everyone enters "wait-and-see mode," riding out each wave until things return to normal. Consistency creates safety. Safety is the soil in which culture grows.

Culture is not the principal's solo work. It's an emergent product, slowly deposited through daily interactions — like a coral reef — by everyone in the school community.

If the system is "formulated" in the principal's office, "communicated" at faculty meetings, and "implemented" by teaching teams — it will forever remain a system. It will never become culture.

Let teachers participate in the construction process. Not token consultation — genuine co-design. When teachers feel "we figured out this rule together," compliance transforms from "obedience" into "identification."

When an old culture dissolves and a new one forms, there is a phase of minimum efficiency. The old ways have been questioned, but the new ways haven't been mastered yet. During this period, the school's operations look "messy."

Many principals panic at this stage and rush to restore the old system — "stability above all." But that is precisely the moment they sever the possibility of a new culture taking shape.

The inefficiency of the transition period is growing pains. You cannot negate the entire process just because there's no instant payoff.

An architect draws the blueprint, the construction crew builds to spec, and the building stands. The process is controllable. The outcome is predictable.

A gardener is different. A gardener scatters seeds, waters, fertilizes, pulls weeds, and then waits. While waiting, you cannot pull at the seedlings to make them grow faster. You cannot tear up the plot and start over because the shoots are growing too slowly.

A school is a gardener's endeavor, not an architect's.

Systems are your toolbox. Culture is your garden. Every tool in the box has its use — but none of them can replace sunlight and rain, and none of them can replace time.

The construction of school culture has its own clock. You can create the conditions, but you cannot do the growing for it.

Lesson one of being a principal: learn to wait.