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Are we there, yet?

7/31/2017

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Last month an educational vendor approached me to complete a task: view over 350 educational videos of teachers teaching and educational experts presenting their research and align them according to a university’s framework. I gladly accepted the assignment. The videos were recorded between the years of 1997 and 2017. I did chuckle a bit as I watched the videos that were eight-ten years old and noted the hairstyles, clothing, and even the quality of the video. Yet, as I listened to the educational experts from that time, I heard the same message repeatedly: if educators didn’t begin the process of empowering our teachers in order to empower our students, then our educational system wasn’t going to progress to meet the level of rigor needed for not only the demands of the Common Core Standards, but the workforce of the future. How prophetic; and this was echoed continually in many of the videos from the late 90’s!
 
This past May (2017), Edutopia posted an article about a Connecticut superintendent. When he assumed his post, he provided time for teachers to collaborate. His purpose was “to build trust to support reinvention” in order to breathe life into a stale system. That small change made a big difference as he discovered, “…the best ideas don’t always come from the superintendent’s desk. Sometimes it comes from our students or our families and many times it comes from a great teaching staff.”
 
The superintendent took direction from his staff and as professional development through collaborative conversations progressed, teachers transformed the system by “identifying and driving improvements across the district.” The rate of suspension decreased and student achievement increased significantly as a result of the superintendent empowering the teaching staff and school community in the system’s 12 schools (who serve a diverse population of 8,000 students-71% free/reduced price lunch).
 
This is a success story (and his work is to be commended)! Yet, when I read this story, I note that this superintendent assumed his post in 2010 and I question why this story is actually news. In other words, why isn’t the practice of empowering the school community, and most importantly our teachers, commonplace in schools throughout our nation… or our state?
 
I do wonder why we aren't "there," yet? I also wonder how many systems continue to struggle with creating a culture that empowers teachers to empower students? In 1990, researcher Kenneth W. Thomas studied the cognitive elements of empowerment within organizations. He defined empowerment as an increase in the motivation related to an assigned task. The assigned task must address four cognitions or mindsets.
It must:
  • Provide the learner with a sense of impact,
  • Contribute to a person’s sense of competence or self-efficacy,
  • Hold meaning and purpose in order to intrinsically motivate the individual, and
  • Offer choice to the individual, so one identifies him or herself as the originator of the idea.
At the time this study was published, this form of organizational management was referred to as a “non-traditional paradigm of motivation.”
 
When I see a news story celebrating this mindset of leadership in action, I am convinced it is still considered “non-traditional.”
 
Consider the societal implications related to the massive number of students who, for the past ten years or longer were (or continue to be) educated in systems where teachers were not (and still aren’t) provided the time or permission to collaborate. When a culture of collaboration, empowerment, and innovation is present (and encouraged), the capacity of the entire school community is amplified and achievement is increased.
 
This leaves us with some questions to consider:
What can be done to amplify this type of mindset in our school leaders?
How can those who are presently working in a stagnant system spark a grassroots effort to promote a culture that builds capacity from within?
How can those who are presently working within our schools make sure it doesn’t take an additional ten years for this practice to pervade our schools in Pennsylvania?
 
If you have some thoughts or some answers, feel free to comment below.
 
Dr. Anthony Muhammad will have those answers and more at Learning Forward PA’s Fall Institute on October 5, 2017 to be held at Harmony Hill Estate in Middletown, PA. Don’t forget to register by August 15 to get that Early Bird discount!

See you at the Institute!
​Fran Miller, Ed.D.

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Getting School Culture “Right”

7/9/2017

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It’s summer! 
 
One of the joys of summertime is considering new ways you are going to make a positive difference during the next school year.
 
Many of you may be reading and thinking of ways that you are going to transform your school buildings and classrooms. After all, education is one of the few professions where we “get to start new” every school year in the fall!
 
What kinds of things are you thinking about? Creating collaboration time with your leadership team and / or professional learning communities? Utilizing educational technology into the classrooms? Developing common assessments and better interpreting data in your district? Working with design thinking and innovation projects?
 
What makes your “top 3 list” to implement for the new school year as changes in your school or classroom?
 
There are so many worthwhile and positive goals out there now in education to pursue…

 
Can I ask you this?
 
Do any of the three goals you listed deal directly with your school’s culture?
 
Dr. Anthony Muhammad (@newfrontier21) asserts, “Culture eats structure for breakfast.” In other words, if you are only planning for technical/ structural change and aren’t addressing cultural change, the chances that your technical changes are going to be successful and make a systemic positive impact are very low.
                                                       
A school’s culture is like the soil, while technical/structural changes are like seeds. As any farmer or gardener will tell you, the size of the harvest is very much dependent on the quality of the soil. Poor soil often leads to a less than stellar harvest, no matter how good the seeds are.
 
Have you thought about this? Do you have a plan? How are you going to positively influence and grow a positive school culture to support your other targeted change initiatives?

 
Rick Ackley (@Rickackerly) in his blog on Decision-Making: The Key Variable in School Culture (June 17, 2017)  makes this assertion, “Making schooling educational requires changing school culture. School reform keeps failing not because of standards or curriculum or poverty or parents or privatization or technology or tests or textbooks or money. It certainly doesn’t fail for want of trying. It fails because of culture.”
 
Ackerly explains in his post why school culture matters so much, and how, in many schools, the culture results in low access to undistorted information, low student decision making, low student risk taking, low student ownership, and low student feedback.
 
It is so easy to overlook the culture of your staff and the culture of your school given all of the other things to attend to as a school leader or teacher. However, getting the culture right is the single most important factor in the long-term success of a district or school building in creating favorable conditions for universal student achievement.

 
Looking at a school’s culture is not only important for students, it is also critical for staff and securing teacher buy in.
 
Muhammad,
“Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division (Leadership Strategies to Build a Professional Learning Community),” conducted formal and informal observations in 34 schools across the United States in every geographical region of the country of staff (teachers, counselors, administrators, and support staff) interacted in the school culture and articulated their beliefs through their behaviors. In every school he visited, he found a war of belief systems between four distinct groups: Fundamentalists, Believers, Tweeners, and Survivors.
 
Each group has distinctive characteristics and weapons (behavior and tools) that they use to exercise their will. Two of these groups are actively engaged in a battle to make their belief system the norm of the school. Muhammad stated, “I determined that in order to transform from a toxic to a healthy learning environment, it is essential for leaders to understand and influence change within these groups of educators within the school” (p. 29).
 
Resistance to change poses the biggest and most critical challenge to schools seeking to implement needed change, to create equity for all students, and to improve student achievement.
 
Look back at your “top 3 list” of changes that you want to implement in your school or classroom this upcoming school year.

 
Are your selections “technical” changes, “cultural” changes,” or a balance?
 
Do you have practical methods that both administrators and teachers can use to loosen resistance, overcome staff division, and focus the school on its primary purpose: student learning?
 
Learning Forward PA (LFPA) is honored to host Dr. Anthony Muhammad at our
annual Fall Conference on October 5, 2017, at Harmony Hall Estate in Middletown, PA.

We would love to have you join us to share some of the strategies you are using to build, enhance, and grow your positive school culture, and we invite you to join us as we learn some high-leverage strategies from Dr Muhammad.
 
Between now and August 15th,  LFPA is running an “Early Bird Special” registration drive at the discounted registration rate of  $150.00.
Please consider joining us!
 
Kind regards,
Learning Forward PA
(Author: D.Spangler)

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