Why there was no happy new year

Hi,

You might have noticed that this update didn’t arrive in the first weeks of January, and that it didn’t start with a cheerful Happy New Year. That wasn’t a planning issue. It was a matter of being true to where I was.

On December 30th, my best friend of more than 30 years took his own life. Something none of us saw coming. The day before, we spent the entire day together: a long walk through the Belgian Ardennes and dinner at my place in the Netherlands.

After that, I went into survival mode. First things first. Doing what needed to be done. Planning his farewell and taking care of his family. And then, somewhere along the way, I fell silent.

I simply couldn’t bring myself to do what I love to do — thinking and talking about education — let alone concentrate on writing about it. What I write here always reflects what occupies my mind at that moment, and at the start of this year, I couldn’t bring myself to wish people a happy new year.

I didn’t stop writing because there was nothing to say. I paused because I wasn’t ready to move forward yet. And in that pause, something became very clear to me, something that feels deeply connected to education.

We often expect learning, motivation and reflection to follow a fixed rhythm: weekly lessons, planned moments, clear timelines, as if growth politely shows up when the schedule says it should. But real development doesn’t work like that, neither for children nor for adults. Motivation isn’t something you can force.

Sometimes people need to pause before they can move again, and not only after major, visible events like this one. Often it’s about much smaller things. Things we don’t see from the outside, things you might not even realise yourself. Moments we don’t need to know about, explain, or solve. Moments where trust is enough.

Silence, then, is not disengagement. It’s processing. And not pushing forward can be the most honest form of progress. We see this with students all the time. After a long summer break, they often return differently: more mature, more grounded, with a stronger sense of responsibility. Maybe that’s not despite the absence of pressure, but because of it. For a while, they weren’t being pushed. They moved at their own pace, and something had time to settle.

And that’s why I want to encourage you to allow more of that space. Not once a year. Not planned into neat weekly schedules. But regularly, even daily, in ways we don’t control but consciously protect.

That’s something we too easily forget in education. We worry when learners don’t immediately respond, label a lack of output as a lack of motivation, and fill the space quickly with explanations, pressure, or well-meant interventions. But what if that space is exactly where something is happening?

This reflection also connects to a small change I’m making this year. Based on the survey many of you filled in last year, for which I’m grateful, I’ll be sending the allLearners Update every two weeks instead of weekly. Not to say less, but to create more room for what actually matters.

And maybe one last thing I want to share, because it feels important to say it out loud. At the farewell, I ended with the words enjoy life. Not as a slogan, but because that is what he truly stood for. That’s how I choose to remember him, and that’s what I intend to carry forward in my life, in my work, and in how I show up here.

Thank you for staying connected, even when it’s quiet.

Warmly,
Rob