Phil Ridden Phil Ridden loves education. But he is worried about teachers. So many seem to have lost their sense of purpose. They feel put upon and powerless. They feel alone in a difficult job. There are many things over which teachers have little control and which are difficult to change - but teachers can change how they view the challenges they face, and how they deal with them.
This is a unique book, which ought to be read by every teacher – at every level, in every subject, in every school.
Australian Council for Educational Research
Dr Phil Ridden has been the Head of the Primary School at St Stephen’s School in Western Australia for nearly 20 years. His career in education has spanned many years as a primary and secondary teacher, curriculum writer, professional development consultant, deputy principal and principal, school council member and parent, in government and independent schools.
ISBN 978-1-74286-017-6
9 781742 860176
Phil Ridden
For Those Who Teach draws on the author’s wealth of experience and on his passion for teaching. Much more than mere homilies or sage words of advice, this book seeks to actively engage teachers and help shape their attitudes. In a succinct, direct and positive manner, For Those Who Teach addresses the realities of the profession: from context to curriculum, from collaboration to community, from understanding teaching as a calling to the days when we struggle to cope. Whether a neophyte teacher-trainee or a veteran of many years standing, For Those Who Teach will inspire teachers to regain their balance, their focus, their motivation, and their determination to make a difference in students’ lives.
About the author
For Those Who Teach
For Those Who Teach
For Those Who Teach Phil Ridden
For Those Who Teach Phil Ridden
ACER Press
First published 2011 by ACER Press, an imprint of Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd 19 Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell Victoria, 3124, Australia www.acerpress.com.au
[email protected] Text © Phil Ridden 2011 Design and typography © ACER Press 2011 This book is copyright. All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent amendments, and any exceptions permitted under the current statutory licence scheme administered by Copyright Agency Limited (www.copyright.com.au), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, broadcast or communicated in any form or by any means, optical, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Edited by Rebecca Leech Cover and text design by ACER Project Publishing Printed in Australia by BPA Print Group National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Author: Ridden, Phil. Title: For those who teach / Phil Ridden. Edition: 1st ed. ISBN: 9781742860176 (pbk.) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Teacher effectiveness. Effective teaching. Teachers–Social conditions. Teachers–Training of. Dewey Number: 371.1
Contents
Acknowledgements vi About the author 1
Introduction What’s your attitude?
2
Our attitude to context: Be aware of the big picture
vii 1 3
5
Interpret the big picture 5 8 Understand the present Anticipate the future 9 11 Future ways of change Reflect 11 12 What’s your attitude?
3
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
13
Accept the inevitability of change 14 14 Understand the process and impact of change 19 Understand principles of change 21 Be prepared to take the initiative Reject trained dependency 23 24 Lead the reform agenda 26 Power beyond measure Reflect 27 27 What’s your attitude?
4
Our attitude to our calling: Buy-in to teaching
30
Consider your calling 30 31 Explore your motivation Revisit your calling 34 35 Renew your passion Reflect 36 36 What’s your attitude? iii
iv Contents
5
Our attitude to curriculum: Be committed to learning
39
Value learning 39 Articulate learning 39 42 Celebrate learning 43 Expect and recognise learning excellence 45 View learning beyond place and time 46 Go deeper 46 Go wider 47 Go where students take you Reflect 48 What’s your attitude? 48
6
Our attitude to caring: Commit to others
50
Understand care 50 51 Define a context for care 52 Focus on relationships 53 Create a culture of care 54 Expect dilemmas Reflect 55 What’s your attitude? 56
7
Our attitude to community: Help others to belong
58
Why a sense of community? 58 59 Understand community 60 Build a sense of community Reflect 70 70 What’s your attitude?
8
Our attitude to collaboration: Partner with others
72
Break the pattern of isolation 72 76 Collaborate purposefully Collaborate widely 77 78 Build and rebuild connections 80 Collaborate deeply 81 Reculture the school Reflect 81 81 What’s your attitude?
9
Our attitude to challenge: Grow with others
83
Question accepted practice 83 84 Evaluate your current practices Develop new skills 85 85 Take risks with new behaviours, new practices and new ideas 86 Use learning opportunities effectively 87 Stay fresh Lead 89 Reflect 90 90 What’s your attitude?
Contents v
10 Our attitude to coping: Seek balance
92
Be committed to your own survival 92 Seek meaning 93 95 A change in attitude Reflect 95 95 What’s your attitude?
Endnotes97 References101
Acknowledgements
As always, this book is dedicated to Kylie. It is also dedicated to the teachers of the world, whose passion for their work and their students overcomes all impediments, sometimes at great personal cost. You transform lives, communities and nations. It is particularly dedicated to the scores of colleagues who have shaped my thinking and attitudes over many years. With special thanks to Janelle Morris, Julie Budworth and Darnelle Pretorius, who provided valuable feedback.
vi
About the author
Dr Phil Ridden has been the Head of the Primary School at St Stephen’s School in Western Australia for 19 years. His experience is broad and he has a passion for teaching and learning, developed over many years as a primary and secondary teacher, curriculum writer and consultant, professional development consultant, deputy principal and principal, school council member and parent in government and independent schools. Dr Ridden is the author of a number of books on school management, including the highly successful Managing Change in Schools and School Management: A Team Approach, both published by Ashton Scholastic.
vii
1 Introduction
I love education. I love working with the young, helping them to discover their abilities, achieve new things, find direction for their future. But I am worried about teachers. So many have lost their sense of worth, and their sense of purpose. They feel put upon and powerless. They have lost the excitement of teaching. They feel alone in a difficult job. I understand why. Teachers are confused about the many changes being forced upon them; resentful of the presumption of expertise by people who have no real concept of what happens in a 21st-century classroom; depressed by the unending expectations of politicians and the community; hurt by society’s lack of respect for the work which most teachers do with a deep sense of care, commitment and purpose; and frustrated by the many demands of systems, governments and the community that take time and energy and often make no contribution to learning. I understand, but I am aware that much of this is unlikely to change in the short term. Cycles may pass, particular issues may change, but the feelings will remain, transferring to new issues. Fullan puts it bluntly: ‘There is no point in lamenting the fact that the system is unreasonable, and no percentage in waiting around for it to become more reasonable. It won’t.’1 Unless ... It is the ‘unless’ which is the purpose of this book. There are many things about schools over which teachers have little control and which are difficult to change—the social and political context, the total physical and staff resources, the particular staff appointed, the parents, the students, the buildings and facilities, and so on. We can influence these, but decisionmakers may choose not to listen. We do, however, have control over our own attitudes—how we choose to respond to these things. Our attitudes affect our actions, and therefore
1
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our work. How we look at things, think about them and understand them has a significant impact on how we deal with them. By changing our attitudes we are able to change the quality of the teaching and learning in the school. We are also able to change our own feelings of worth, and our ability not only to cope with the pressures, but to influence the agenda ourselves and to forge a path ahead. Does that sound unreasonable? It shouldn’t. You have probably made a similar argument to your students. We tell them if their results and behaviour are below their abilities, and that to improve both is well within their capabilities. We tell them that all they need to do is to change their attitudes, to take a different look at their school and their studies. Put simply, we don’t see the world as it is but as we are. Sharma explains it this way: One of the greatest freedoms each of us has as people is the freedom to choose how we view our roles in the world and the power we all have to make positive decisions in whatever conditions we happen to find ourselves.2
And further: In truth, no condition is either bad or good. It just is. The way we perceive it makes it ‘bad’ or ‘good’. The excellent news is that perception is within our control.3
While circumstances may be difficult to change, our attitudes towards them can be changed. This book, therefore, suggests some attitudes that are relevant to successful teaching in the current and emerging context. We begin by looking at our attitude to the political and social context of schooling, because we need to be aware of the big picture. Too often, we feel that it is just our government, our system or our school which is under pressure—but in reality, the difficulties you face as a teacher are the same as those faced by teachers in all western countries. Our attitude to change will affect the way we cope with current and future changes, because we need to be comfortable with uncertainty, to have a more relaxed approach to doubt. The only thing certain about the future is that the rate of change will not ease. But there are ways we can cope with the change. This leads us to explore our attitude to our calling, because this work is not worth doing unless we have some commitment to it. It is important that we teach because we believe we have a contribution to make to the future through the current generation of youth.
Introduction 3
Our attitude to curriculum will determine the emphases we bring to our teaching. We need to be innovative and creative, committed to finding better ways to help students learn. Our students—and their families, and our colleagues—need more than academic learning, so we explore our attitude towards caring. Beyond care, schools need to be places of belonging, so critical to our life in schools is our attitude towards community. We struggle if we try to do it all alone. We need to tap into the synergy of working with others, so we explore our attitude to collaboration. Change challenges our own skills, so we explore our attitude to dealing with challenge, our commitment to our own professional growth, and to supporting the growth of colleagues. Finally, we acknowledge that we will be unable to give ourselves to others in this demanding work if our own lives are out of balance. So we look at our attitude to coping. As we bring it all together, I suggest that we seek for ourselves and our colleagues a sense of worth, a sense of achievement and a sense of community.
What’s your attitude? Did you see in the news that a principal has expelled a group of students who were involved in cyberbullying another student? I did. What a disgusting way to behave. And yet the principal was not disciplined in any way. The principal? She did the right thing. The students should have been charged with slander or assault or the like. Eh? That’s not the way I saw it. I thought the principal’s actions were over the top. What? The victim suffered serious trauma and couldn’t face going to school. She obviously needed a bit of counselling. As a teacher, doesn’t it worry you what will happen to the students who were expelled? What will this do to their life opportunities? I believe in consequences as a way of learning to change your behaviour. I am sick of people in our community destroying the lives of others under the guise of a ‘bit of fun’ or because it’s ‘normal behaviour’. Well, I guess it depends on your attitude to these things.
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I guess it does. On a lighter note, that reminds me that, yesterday, one of my students, whose attitude is a bit carefree, told me that his Dad said that school is like eating broccoli: Just eat it up, because one day you’ll realise it was good for you. That’s like saying that school is like a big nose: You’re stuck with it so learn to live with it. Or school is like being in a shipwreck: It was a great experience, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. Not every student feels negative about school. Some might say school is like a massage: It’s not about what you learn; it’s about making you feel more able to face the world. I guess our attitude affects how we respond to things, doesn’t it? Sure does. So, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? I don’t know. How many? Just one, but the light bulb must want to change.
Our attitude to context: Be aware of the big picture
2
Changes in education are not confined to particular locations nor particular governments. The forces for change and the responses to them have common threads throughout the world. Unfortunately, although change has been the dominant issue on the education agenda of many countries for the past 30 years, the ideas behind the changes have remained sketchy in the minds of teachers. Handy writes: If we wish to enjoy more of the opportunities and less of the risks we need to understand the changes better. Those who know why changes come waste less effort in protecting themselves or in fighting the inevitable. Those who realise where changes are heading are better able to use the changes to their own advantage. The society which welcomes change can use that change instead of just reacting to it.4
In order to make sense of the variety of changes imposed on schools by governments, teachers need to ensure that they understand the big picture.
Interpret the big picture The major forces impacting on schools and teachers are not the result of secret agenda created by any one person or group. There are many ideologies, interests and issues constantly driving the economic, political, social and educational agenda. What is more, the agenda are very public. They are debated by politicians and business people, reported by the press, written about in books, joked about by comedians, and expressed in the storylines of movies and television shows. How do the changes come about? Typically, we find that books by business gurus and futurists set the scene for changing expectations of business and the economy. Social commentators ground these in the 5
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local context. Educators translate the ideas into an educational context. Governmental authorities review the ideas with formal reports or position papers, leading to manifestos for the future using ideas adapted, or simply adopted, from others. We can argue that the initiating authors have themselves influenced the agenda by promoting their opinions with fervour. However, these writers have become highly reputed, and therefore influential, because their assessment of the present, and their directions for the future, strike a chord in readers and listeners. Education is not quarantined from the political, economic and social agenda. We cannot ignore the fact that schools cost money, taxpayers’ money, and lots of it. And schools are getting more expensive. Smaller class sizes, the insatiable costs of computer technology, the higher expectations of building standards, and the push for higher teacher salaries, for example, constantly add to the cost of schooling. When our personal budgets are under pressure, we begin by looking at the big-ticket items. So do governments. When they need to prune spending, schools loom as a key target for analysis. Not only is there concern about the vast resources consumed by education, but also about the lack of transparency in how these resources are directed towards educational goals. When countries suffer high levels of unemployment, face economic uncertainty and perceive changes to the community’s social fabric and historical values, decision-makers look critically at schools. Are schools equipping youth with the requisite skills for employment? Are they teaching society’s values? Are they preparing students for a competitive global economy? While we, in schools, might vigorously question the validity of these goals and the role of schools in meeting them, politicians, employers and the community as a whole will continue to see these questions as fundamental to the effective development of society. In addition, schools are seen as the major place of education of children in social and moral matters, with the family seeming to play a smaller and smaller role. Therefore, it is seen as the fault of schools when a student leaves school ill-equipped for the workforce or with a lack of interest in employment, when juvenile crime is on the increase, or when youth are perceived to lack ‘appropriate’ morals or values. This is illustrated by Beare’s summary of Australian educational reform over six decades. He identifies the following periods: • Post–war reconstruction. In this period the emphasis was on development. Education was a priority, with a redesign and explosion of education. Universal secondary education was introduced, Commonwealth funds were directed towards secondary science laboratories and libraries, new teachers’ colleges were established, and teaching was a respected career.
Our attitude to context: Be aware of the big picture
7
• Reconstruction and upgrading of schooling in the 1970s and early 1980s. It had become clear that society’s expectations of schools could not be met with the limited state government funding available, outmoded buildings, and dated curricula and teaching approaches. The Australian Government provided extensive resources to schools, facilitating new curricula, new building design, innovative teaching, new independent schools, new approaches to assessment, decentralised system offices, new approaches to involving parents in schools, and more. • Economic rationality of the 1980s and 1990s. The rate of spending could not be sustained. New governments in the United States and Great Britain promoted economic rationalism, a reaction to the highspending expansion of government services, including education. The community wanted evidence that it was getting value for money from government services. More educational decisions were vested in schools, with a contradictory increase in central expectations, especially of principals. This was a period of school-based decisionmaking, competition between schools and a customer service approach to schooling. • The technology revolution from the mid 1990s onwards. The influence of the computer challenged teaching and learning methodology, and the very nature and structure of schools and schooling. Expectations of educators changed dramatically, and the new generation of teachers welcomed those changes. • The one-world, end-time convulsions, into the 21st century. The current period involves a genuine globalisation of schooling and learning. The international movement of goods, services, employment, finance, information and ideas cannot be controlled. National performance data are compared internationally. In addition, there is now a significant shift in the cultural and economic power base away from western nations. All of these things impact significantly on what is taught in schools and how.5 You will have experienced some of these periods. You may recall community issues and educational priorities associated with those times. They will have been evident in political speeches and newspaper headlines, as well as changed regulations and other signs of reform. School reform is aimed at how schools and systems are run. It is a political movement. The policymaking about education has been taken from the grip of educators and placed in the hands of political, community and business leaders who have set the agenda for teachers. These policymakers sometimes omit educators from the process or seek
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For Those Who Teach
their participation only to refine and implement what governments have already decided. School reform, unlike the bulk of the policymaking done by any government, is an issue that captures mainstream media attention and makes its way into legislation, party platforms and campaign speeches. Governments are powerful actors in education in all countries. They are learning from each other, and models of school reform are crossing international boundaries.
Understand the present Teachers tend to see themselves as victims in this. Some key understandings from the previous discussion may be helpful, however, in helping teachers to change their attitudes by understanding the larger context of change. Understand that the changes are not confined to your local system or region. The influences come from all over the world and influence education systems throughout the world. The ‘big’ changes are not confined to our country, our state, our system, our sector or our school. Nor are they owned by particular governments, although their ways of responding may be. Rather, it can be seen as reassuring that many governments are making similar responses to similar issues and that these responses are independent of ideology. Realise that schooling is one of many areas of change. The changes which impinge upon schools do not begin, nor end, with schools. Their purpose is social reconstruction. Schools are expensive and influential elements of society, shaping the values and skills of the next generation of adults, so they tend to be priority targets of political action. However, to put it in perspective, each trend also impacts on business law, taxation law, community services, government funding arrangements, and so on. Understand that there is a motivation behind the specific ideas. Try to understand why a particular idea is being promoted. What is it that this change is expected to achieve? What are governments trying to achieve, for example, with ‘high stakes’ testing and the public display of test data? What is behind increasing autonomy of government schools? What is to be achieved by increasingly meaningful community participation in schools? If you are uncertain what is behind a particular idea, try looking at the idea from another perspective. Set up a role play in which a politician, business leader, director of education, parent, principal and teacher talk together about a particular change, giving their own perspective on why it is necessary, what it has the potential to achieve, and what the added
Our attitude to context: Be aware of the big picture
9
advantages might be. You may surprise yourself by agreeing with some of the ideas behind the change, if not the way it is being imposed. Avoid taking the changes personally. While it is sometimes hurtful to hear community leaders disparage teachers and schools, these things are usually said to add pressure on teachers to make the changes desired. The speaker is usually not intending to attack you personally, nor even teachers as a group. Accept that school leaders also struggle. If your principal or other leaders appear to be responding to the changes in ways which you find unsupportive of teaching and learning, discuss this with them. They are attempting to respond to their own pressures. Explore the ‘big picture’ with them, and work together on a school-based response.
Anticipate the future What about the future? What changes are next? Can you learn to read the signs in the political and educational environment? Guthrie and Koppich offer some useful guidelines, including the following indicators, which imply some key questions to consider in order to identify future changes:6 • Education reform is a delayed political response to social disequilibrium. What areas of social disequilibrium are being highlighted by politicians? These could include youth crime, disengagement or unemployment. • Reform occurs during periods when values are confused or unstable. Is there a values disequilibrium? For example, is there a division within the community about traditional values or religious education? • The reform may coincide with a significant political shift. Is a significant shift taking place in political ideology, decision-making powers, regulatory permissions or prohibitions or the distribution of resources? For example, has there been a change of government, a change of leadership or power groups within government, significant funding initiatives in a particular field, new laws or regulations? • The reform will have been proposed earlier, but not successfully taken up. What reforms have been proposed earlier, but not well implemented, which could be applied to the problem? • Reform depends on a policy entrepreneur or champion. Is there, for example, a new government minister or community leader being outspoken on issues for which education reform could be seen as a solution?
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If you can observe the socio-political scene and note some of these indicators coming together, you may be able to guess at future directions for the education agenda. Of course, we cannot fully predict what changes the future will bring to education, nor can we predict how insistent those changes will be. What we can do as educators is to realise that schools are not protected reserves where politicians and governments may not tread. Increasingly, we will have a range of people tramping through our garden, directing us to plant here and weed there. The first step in being prepared to cope with this and even to fight it is to know who is coming and with what agenda. We do this by moving from a defensive stance, from which we complain of persecution, to a proactive stance, from which we seek to be informed about the current and impending changes. What might be the issues in 2030? Possibilities include: • Globalism: Resources, services, information and ideas will be shared throughout the world. Education will facilitate collaborations between students in diverse locations. Courses and assessments will not be national, but selected from a range of international options. • Tribalism and community: Globalism will have a downside. Many people will feel intimidated and isolated by belonging to the whole world, yet to no particular part of it. They will respond by withdrawing into local groups and seeking face-to-face connection with real people. Education will respond to this by insisting that students spend a specified amount of time each day in contact groups. Depending on age, student ‘attendance’ will be measured as a combination of physical attendance and online participation. School buildings will be scaled down in size and cost. Many teachers will work partly from home and partly from school buildings. There will be industrial issues about monitoring teachers’ hours of work. Emotional intelligence and relational competencies will be assessed regularly by the school. • Transparency and privacy: Personal identity theft, the worldwide publication of confidential information about individuals and organisations, and the demoralising effect of so-called ‘transparency’ on disadvantaged schools and communities will result in an increased call for confidentiality. Schools will minimise whole-school data sharing. Governments will not support league tables nor the publication of school data, although there will be independent sites which display what they claim is accurate data. As educators, we cannot emphatically predict the future big issues nor the responses governments will make to them. However, we can watch the sky, hold a wet finger up to the winds of change, and listen to forecasts, which will ensure that we are not taken by surprise by the coming changes.
Our attitude to context: Be aware of the big picture
11
Future ways of change Not only will the big issues continue to evolve, but the process of change will also be driven by new approaches. Hargreaves and Shirley identify three ways of implementing change in the past 60 years.7 As they describe it, the first way to implement change involves state support and professional freedom and innovation, but also results in inconsistency between schools. The second way to implement change is through market competition and educational standardisation in which professional autonomy is lost. The third way tries to navigate between and beyond the market and the state and balance professional autonomy with accountability. Hargreaves and Shirley also suggest a fourth way that we might implement change in the future. This way seeks change through democracy and professionalism. It places trust and confidence in the expertise of highly trained professionals, a fundamental shift in teachers’ professionalism that offers schools greater autonomy and introduces more openness to and engagement with parents and communities.
Reflect • What are the key changes which have been imposed on schools in the past decade or two? Try to identify the ‘big issues’ behind them. • What are the changes which are currently featuring in the rhetoric of politicians and education leaders, in the media, and in education journals? Try to identify the ‘big issues’ which are driving them. • What are the ‘big issues’ you foresee driving education 10 years from now? • How do you feel about these changes and issues? • What impact have they had or might they have on student learning and education? • What impact have they had or might they have on your day to day work? • What strategies have you used to cope? • In what ways will you cope with future changes?
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What’s your attitude? I’m sick of these changes that keep landing on me. I’ve heard people say to keep your head down and let them all blow over. How do you cope? I apply what I call ‘The Clay Blob Theory for Coping with Change’. I haven’t heard of that. How does it work? There are many changes blowing in the educational wind. Some of them are mostly fluff. They are thrown into the air, but are so lightweight that the wind simply blows them away, never to be heard of again. Some changes contain grains of clay. The material scatters over a wide area, leaving little spatters or grains sticking on assorted surfaces. These changes are irritating, rather than impacting. With little effort they can be mopped up or just ignored. But occasionally there comes a change which is a large blob of clay, falling in a sticky mess right in the middle of the classroom or school. It can’t be cleaned away. These are the changes which matter, which are beyond our control. Well, exactly! What do you do about those things? Some teachers spend a great deal of energy trying to pretend the blob doesn’t exist, covering it up, finding ways to skirt around it, or rationalising its presence as unobtrusive. You’ve been watching me, haven’t you? You, and thousands of others, and myself, sometimes! I’ve learnt that a better approach is to roll up your sleeves, dig your hands into the clay while it is still wet and mould it into a shape you find attractive or useful. If you get into it soon enough and vigorously enough, before it sets, you can remould it to your purposes. You may even get to like it! You make it sound like fun! But how do I know what to discard and what to mould? The first step to survival is to understand the big picture. Watch the press, educational journals, politicians and others, and you’ll get better at discerning the clay blobs from the pieces of grit and fluff. I have a new slogan: Be bold—mould!
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
3
The previous chapter suggested that the changes imposed on schools are part of the big picture of changing social, economic and political concerns and emphases. Far from being insulated from these changes, schools are often significant targets. Consequently, sometimes it seems that schools are being attacked from all sides. Parents, worried about their children’s employment prospects, want teachers to achieve more and more with their children academically. The community, suffering from juvenile crime and disillusionment, want teachers to better equip children, socially and psychologically. Business leaders, concerned about the increasingly competitive global economy, want schools to focus all their energies on better equipping young people for the workforce. Politicians, trying to cope with the escalating costs of schooling, want teachers to do more and more with less and less. Education authorities, hijacked by management experts, aren’t sure what they want teachers to do. As long as everyone in the community is happy, they can allocate a score to education and it doesn’t cost anything! As a result, changes are foisted on schools, often with little affirmation or encouragement by education employers or the community. In addition, teachers must constantly face their own sense of inadequacy when challenged by emerging technologies, students with a totally different frame of reference from our own, changing family and community values, new curricula, and more. Is that how you sometimes feel? In this chapter we explore ways to understand change, and how we might cope with the changes which continually beset us.
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Accept the inevitability of change Teachers need to be comfortable with the light at the end of the tunnel being turned off until further notice! Teachers can protest that there have been enough changes and plead for a time of stability. Yet few leaders and decision-makers will hear, and even fewer will take note. The only thing we can be sure of is that change will continue. If we are to survive and thrive, therefore, we must learn to be comfortable with uncertainty, moving forward with open eyes and open minds, walking where there is no path, and reaching out to explore the future as it unfolds before us.
Understand the process and impact of change In addition to having a more relaxed attitude to change, it is helpful to understand the impact of change on people, and to have an understanding of the process of change. As you try to deal with the changes occurring in your school, it is helpful to have some kind of mental image into which to fit the things you observe and feel. Here are three ways to conceptualise the change process.
A process of changing emotions The process of change can be viewed from the perspective of emotional responses. Despite what we might like to think, the reason for our support of or opposition to a new idea is not just an intellectual evaluation of the potential value of the innovation. It is also an emotional response, and our emotions often influence our actions more strongly than our intellect. As we go through the process of change our emotional response to the change alters (see Figure 3.1). We begin by denying the need to change at all. It probably won’t happen, we tell ourselves. It’s a bit like ignoring the dark clouds gathering on the horizon, while we set out hiking under blue skies. We feel that if we ignore the clouds, they won’t affect us. This is a time of avoiding. Eventually, however, we realise that we are going to get wet. When we begin to realise that things are going to change, we resent it. We become irritable about the fact that we are going to have to change, and apprehensive about how we’ll cope with it. We become quite anxious as the implications of the change become apparent. Will we have to learn new ways of doing things? Will we need to work longer hours to keep up? Will we be as successful in the new ways as we were in the old? Will we be left behind? Fear and powerlessness often cause us to fight. Initially, we may try to oppose the change, seeking to discredit it or its proponents, to
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
15
APPROPRIATING
AVOIDING APPREHENSIVE
ADVOCATING APPLAUDING
ANXIOUS AFRAID
ACTIVATING
ANTAGONISTIC
ANTICIPATING
AGGRESSIVE
ACCEPTING
ANGRY Figure 3.1: Emotional responses to change
undermine it or to obstruct it. We may become aggressive and angry if we feel that no one is listening to us or concerned to assist us. All of these emotions reflect our concerns about the changes to which we are subjected. While it may be natural for us to experience these emotions, it is also important to move beyond them. They leave us feeling insecure and upset, and these feelings colour all of our responses. Look at this in terms of your colleagues. There may be a number of people in your school stuck at the anger stage. They may not be clear what it is they’re angry about—they’re just angry. It is evident when, in a staff meeting, two staff have a major confrontation or altercation about some trivial matter; when several staff react angrily to someone’s suggestion of a very minor change; when a phone call from a parent questioning some matter is seen as an affront to the integrity and commitment of the entire staff. Perhaps there are colleagues still at the stage of anxiety. This is evident when an idea for a small event to break the routine is greeted with more difficulties than mounting the Olympics; when a teacher begins talking about a problem student and bursts into tears; when teachers have to be dragged from the staffroom before school and after the breaks; when classrooms lack vibrancy and excitement. It is important for the school and for each person in it that we get off the slippery slope of emotions and begin climbing out of the dip. Once we do that, we become accepting of the change. That’s not the same as wanting it or even liking it, but is an acceptance that change is here to
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stay. That attitude alone is a significant step, which allows us to look at things differently. A more positive perspective can enable us to see the potential value in the change, and to begin anticipating the possible advantages of it. Sooner or later, under various influences of coercion or encouragement, we begin implementing the change, sampling and trialling it in small bites. Given time, we may see positive benefits. Ultimately, if the change is worthwhile, leading to real success in the classroom, we become champions of it, and begin advocating it to colleagues. We might even find ourselves appropriating the change and improving it, so that it achieves even more than the original concept, and becomes truly ours. There are some important points to note from this: • The range of emotions we face is normal. It’s all right to feel apprehensive, anxious and afraid about the change we’re faced with. • Each person moves along the spectrum of emotions at his or her own rate, and the rate is not constant. The rate is different for each new idea. • This range of emotions usually follows a sequence. Sometimes the sequence may vary a little, but it’s a useful guide. That means that we have to get through one stage to get to the next. The value of looking at change this way is that people need different types of support at different stages along the path. If someone is showing serious anxiety or fear, there is not much point in issuing them with an ultimatum to implement the changes immediately or leave. They need a patient listener—someone who will acknowledge their fears, help them to understand their feelings, assure them that these feelings are normal, explain the support they will receive, and guarantee them that they will not be sacked if they perform inefficiently for a while as they learn the new approach. Perhaps they could meet with someone from this or another organisation who has gone through the same changes and who can reassure them that it is worth it. At the other end of the spectrum, if someone is anticipating the change, they should not be held back until everyone is ready to move. They need to be encouraged to begin implementing the change. As they begin to work with it, they need lots of opportunities to comment on how things are going, and plenty of encouraging feedback from their workmates and leaders. Not all staff members need the same support and feedback at the same time. What is relevant depends on each person’s location on the spectrum.
A process of changing concerns A variation on the previous conceptualisation is to view change as a developmental process of addressing concerns. As indicated earlier, what
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
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destroys a new idea is not the inherent merit of the idea, but our response to it. In this conceptualisation, our specific concerns change as we work with a new idea.8 We begin with concerns about the new idea itself. How will we have to change our familiar and routine ways of doing things? How much extra time will this take in our already busy day? Will we actually be able to make the changes? Will our professional image and reputation be damaged by our inability to adjust? When we conquer these concerns and succeed in incorporating the new approach effectively into our daily planning and practice, then we address concerns about its impact on classroom organisation. Will this damage my management of student behaviour? Will I have to teach students new ways of relating or behaving? Will this change the look and feel of the classroom? When the innovation is incorporated into the classroom structure, we move on to concerns about its effectiveness. How is this impacting on student performance? Is it delivering better learning? Are there any unintended effects—good or bad—on students? Finally, we are able to consider the place of the new idea in the whole-school program. Is it consistent with other aspects of the school’s structure, values and expectations? How can we ensure it fits the school? If we reach the final stage, we are able to look at ways to refine the entire concept. How can we adapt it so that it is even more effective? Again, there are important points to note from this way of looking at change: • The range of concerns we face is normal. It is all right—initially—to have selfish thoughts when faced with change, to worry more about how change will affect us than the students or the school. • Each person moves through the process at their own rate and the rate is not constant. • The stages follow a sequence. We begin by being concerned about the effect of the new idea on ourselves, then progressively on our work, our students and our school. As in our previous conceptualisation, people need different types of support at different stages. In trying to implement a new teaching strategy, we will first need to be assisted in making changes to our routines and professional practice. Later, as we realise the value of the new idea, we may need assistance in evaluating the progress which our intuition suggests is occurring. When we are confident that students are benefiting, we can explore ways of meshing our practices with those of colleagues and implementing whole-school structures and expectations. While we might accept that staff members need support to implement change, the
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specific support provided to each teacher needs to be targeted to each stage of implementation.
A strategic process While people’s responses to a new idea cannot be ignored nor imposed, some people will prefer to visualise the implementation of an innovation as a strategic process, a structured and sequenced series of strategies.9 The first step is to predispose the school toward change, by creating a change mentality, developing trust and ensuring effective communication processes. The next step is to stimulate the desired change by upsetting the equilibrium and getting key people on side. The time is then right to clearly define the change, so that the expectations and goals are clear, and then to carefully plan the change, so that key actions and people are identified, and so that intentional action can be taken. As staff members implement the change, steps can be taken to provide appropriate and timely support and feedback, and to evaluate the change, to ensure that it is being implemented in a way which is consistent with the initial intentions or is achieving acceptable outcomes. Finally, steps need to be taken to sustain the change, so that the effect is not lost with a change of staff, the withdrawal of special funding or the loss of momentum. This way of looking at change has these implications: • There are clear steps that change managers can take to achieve change in a school. • The steps follow a rough sequence. There will be times when a step may occur out of sequence or when more than one step may be taking place at the same time; however, the process begins by focusing on the organisation and then the new idea. By understanding the steps in this view of change, you can plan the introduction of change and monitor its progress, even if you are not experienced in managing change. Of course, following the steps does not guarantee success. No process which involves changing people’s thinking and actions can guarantee success! But it will enable you to consider all the issues and to act with reasonable understanding of the issues involved.
Which concept is best? These three alternative ways of visualising change are not mutually exclusive. They are like three images of a building—one captured by a professional photographer, one drawn by an architect and one painted by an impressionist. All are images of the same building but each portrays it differently. There are other images that could also be viewed.
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The key point here is this: Change is a process. It is about people, not things. So it is a process of changing people. At any stage the process can grind to a halt—for individuals or the whole school—unless staff members are supported appropriately in moving onto the next stage. Leaders need to understand this process, to be able to recognise where each person is in the process, and what form of support or direction they need to help move on to the next stage. It will help if you can identify your own pathway through the process and thus understand your own responses.
Understand principles of change With this background, it is helpful to identify your beliefs about change. These will influence your decisions in the short and long term. The following is a list of principles or beliefs about change.10 They are based on research and a great deal of experience, but are still open to challenge or addition. • Change is not easy. The process of achieving change is often complex, and is rarely accomplished easily. Implementing change requires more than simple enthusiasm and the desire for it to take place. • Change is a process. Deciding to change is not the same as achieving change. Real change involves implementing and institutionalising change. • Changing the school means changing people. Although we may talk about changing ‘things’ in a school, whether purposes, values, policies or procedures, the changes involve people. It is only by changing people’s attitudes, knowledge, skills, practices and expectations that the school itself will achieve change. • Changing people is a head, heart and hand process. Change doesn’t simply require changing people’s skills (the ‘hand’); it isn’t just about appealing to their intellect and changing their thinking (the ‘head’); it also involves dealing with emotional responses (the ‘heart’) and these are often the most challenging. • Change is developmental. When implementing a new idea, people’s concerns about it alter progressively—from how it affects them, to how it can be managed in their work, to its impact on students, and finally to its inclusion into the school’s policies and practices. The rate at which people become familiar with and implement a particular change will vary from one person to another and from one change to another. • Change takes time. There are different types of change, and some are achieved more quickly than others. Learning to use a new piece
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For Those Who Teach
of equipment might be a relatively easy process, but a change to the fundamental purposes and goals of an organisation may take two or more years before it can be considered an integral part of the organisation and no longer an innovation. • Change requires readiness. For successful change to occur, the school needs not only to be receptive to the particular change, but also to have the structures, relationships and processes in place which predispose the organisation towards change in general. • Change must be relevant. A change should aim to solve a perceived problem or satisfy a particular need which is relevant to the needs and aspirations of the staff, clients or members. There is no point embarking on something which doesn’t support the school’s purposes or which the school does not have the resources to achieve. Coercion may lead to the appearance of change, but not necessarily the continuing internalisation of change. • Commitment to a change can emerge slowly. It was once thought that a change would fail without commitment from the start. However, we now know that commitment may develop as people become familiar with a change and learn to implement it successfully. People need to approach the change with a positive attitude; spend time working through the problems they encounter; refrain from modifying the change before having tried all aspects of it; seek help when they encounter difficulties; and be alert for signs that the change is having desired effects. • Change should focus on the whole school. A particular change may only impact on some classes, students or teachers, but those affected are part of a wider social system—the school—so, to bring about effective change, it is necessary to influence the culture of the school. One person may have the best new idea in the world, but if everyone else in an organisation decides to oppose it, it hasn’t a chance of succeeding. One person can change an organisation, but the organisation is more likely to change the one person. • Changes can easily lose their identity. While it is valid for a change to be modified to suit the organisation, it can be so modified that it ceases to be a change at all. • It may be difficult to recognise when implementation is complete. The effectiveness of some changes may be apparent from an early stage, but they may be ephemeral. A useful guide is to consider the change achieved when there is evidence of stable, widespread use embedded in everyday practice in a manner consistent with the original goals or intentions.
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• Change is influenced by many factors. These include the characteristics of the change, including its need and relevance; the ease with which its essential features can be identified and understood; the complexity or difficulty of the changes; and the quality, soundness and practicality of the program. The style, skills and actions of leaders are important, as are staff members’ attitudes and skills, the interactions and relationships between them, their levels of participation and their motives for change. The climate of the organisation and its history of change, along with the nature of outside influence, support or opposition, may be factors. The process of implementation, including the timeline and the feedback mechanisms used, may also affect the ease with which change is implemented. • Change is idiosyncratic. Each organisation has a unique set of values, knowledge and skills and consists of people who interact in a multiplicity of ways. It is therefore not surprising that predictions about change often go awry. A change with apparently everything going for it can fail miserably; an idea with seemingly limited possibilities can lead to an exciting improvement; a particular innovation can succeed gloriously in one school, but fail in another seemingly similar school. • Change requires support. There is no point in attempting to implement change without the necessary resources. In addition to financial and physical resources, staff members need the support of their peers to help them overcome problems and develop confidence. This comes through sharing, working and learning together. Leaders must be overt in their support of the change, and provide leadership. In addition, there is a need for a change facilitator, who keeps the change moving and helps the staff solve problems. Support needs to be ongoing. Staff members’ needs will change as they encounter new problems and as their concerns focus on new issues. Long-term help is needed from credible people. • Things will probably get worse before they get better. As people begin to work with a new idea, their performance may diminish. Leaders need to be aware that this will happen and not panic or withdraw their support. As the understanding and skills of the staff improve, performance will return to earlier levels, and then, if the innovation is effective, move to new heights. Teachers need to accept that this will happen and not label the idea as a failure before it has been mastered.
Be prepared to take the initiative Educators may respond to change imperatives by modifying their practice incrementally. Evolutionary change is more typical than revolutionary
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change. However, the rapid and radical technological and social changes which are occurring in this century need a response which is revolutionary. Educators are familiar with the idea of working smarter, not harder, and this means doing things in fundamentally different ways. It is easy to be inhibited by our preconceived notions of how to do things. That does not mean that experience isn’t worth anything. But sometimes we let our experiences dictate our thinking, instead of guiding it. Every now and then, when we take the risk of throwing out our preconceptions and running with something new, we make a discovery. How can we apply radical rethinking to some of the problems in our schools? More than 20 years ago, White identified the following 15 assumptions inhibiting good education in secondary schools. Disturbingly, many of these hold true today. They include that:11 • Schools must be divided horizontally. • Years are a natural division of time that must be observed in all social arrangements. • Schools must be divided vertically. • Learning is competitive. • Some must fail. Not all need learn. • Teachers rule the classroom. • Teachers must reward and punish, but must not reward and punish. • There are good teachers and bad teachers, and this is a characteristic independent of the context of schooling. • To learn is to acquire knowledge. To teach is to cover content. • Each school year has its appropriate content. • Everyone in a class should learn the same content. • Content is valuable for its own sake. • ‘They’ determine content. Are these assumptions still dominant in schools? Which should be challenged? How might we address these, using radical redesign, with no more resources? Don’t challenge things simply by complaining over lunch; don’t leave it to others to come up with solutions to problems. Challenge yourself and your colleagues with questions, and seek answers for yourself. How we understand, anticipate and view the changes thrust upon us affects the way we respond to change. The challenge is to look at your school not as the target of change but as the centre of change; to look at yourself not as the guardian against change but the champion of it; to look at the change not as a bullet to be avoided but as an opportunity; and to look at the process of change not as a treacherous descent but as a
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pathway to adventure. Fullan and Hargreaves argue that, ‘What is worth fighting for is not to allow our organisations to be negative by default, but to make them positive by design.’12 Is this an unreasonable expectation? Where does the real educational power reside? With governments? With heads of education systems? With principals? With parents? The answer is not as obvious as it appears. While teachers are quick to express their frustration at the changes imposed upon them, governments have a right to be even more frustrated. In various times and places, governments and systems have invested large amounts of energy and resources in educational change, only to find that schools have managed to remain relatively unchanged. Put simply, improved student learning cannot be achieved by politicians or policymakers. It can only be achieved by people in schools, with direct access to students. No matter how well-intentioned, credible or enlightened innovative ideas may be, they achieve nothing if people in schools, and ultimately, teachers, do not accept them, work with them, and integrate them effectively into their practice. The powerlessness of governments and policymakers to directly affect student learning means that they are reliant on the indirect influence of their reforms on various aspects of the school and classroom culture. Despite their exclusion from policymaking, it is the teachers in schools who shape the implementation of changes. This is an opportunity which teachers have been slow to accept. This does not mean that teachers should ignore the changes which governments and educational authorities thrust upon schools; but that we should use our considerable expertise, and our relationship with students to ensure that the ideas actually improve learning and make schools better places to be.
Reject trained dependency One of the problems for education is an academic insecurity among teachers and principals which causes them to yield to the rhetoric of academics, politicians and others. Certainly researchers have specific and useful knowledge to share with schools. In their noble moments, politicians reflect to schools the views and concerns of society as a whole, which we also need to heed. However, those of us in schools also have knowledge and a perspective to share with those outside the school. Unfortunately, we seem defeatist about projecting our views. We leave it to union officials, whose own motives are often political; or we project our views inward to our colleagues, venting our frustration, but making no useful contribution to the debate.
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Perhaps the problem is that teachers have been trained into an attitude of dependency, especially within large systems. Principals often seek a regulatory response to questions which they have the authority, knowledge and ability to answer for themselves. Teachers often ask the principal or other leaders to deal with issues they are well equipped to handle themselves. The response is due to an unwillingness to deal with difficult issues if others will do it for us; a fear of being wrong or even questioned about our actions; or the expectation that we should direct all difficult issues to another authority. We have been trained to depend on others to tell us what we should think and do. This dependency makes us unwilling to debate the big educational issues. There are four components of this dependency: • We externalise the problem, blaming blockages or impediments at other levels of the system. • We assume that nothing can change until ‘the system’ changes. • We perceive ourselves to be in the middle, with those above expecting more, and those below immune to influence. • We forget that everyone has some power, most often used not to do things.13 This is unfortunate, because it is people in schools who are best placed to achieve change in schools.
Lead the reform agenda Schools cannot respond to change by ignoring it and pretending it will go away; nor by petulantly objecting to the involvement of business people and politicians; nor by pleading for the community to trust that teachers know best. The purpose of educational reform is to provoke a fundamental change of assumptions and practices about what schools are for, how they are organised, and how they operate. The challenge for schools is to listen to the political and economic concerns of the community, look objectively at schools and identify their inherent weaknesses, then set about changing them. In short, schools need to listen and learn from the community, then take the initiative to lead the reform agenda. This view is supported by Hughes: Restructuring, in whatever form, is largely an attempt by governments to obtain a better hold on a very complex and very expensive system. The fact that they have chosen inappropriate and inefficient mechanisms for that process does not deny the validity of their need to be able to define directions and limits. As educators, it is up to us to find better ways of helping that process.14
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Finding those better ways is not easy, but not impossible either. For example, there has been much said about how technology is changing and will change the classroom of the future, and a few predictions of what it might look like. The most exciting changes are being led by teachers with the dreams, technological nous, educational savvy, passion and opportunity (that is, the access to students and the focus on learning) to make the changes. Similarly, there has been much debate about getting parents more involved in their children’s schooling, and a number of structures have been implemented to try to make that happen. Where it has been effective—that is, where parents and teachers are effectively partnering in a child’s education—it is not because of regulations, but because of the initiatives of individual schools and teachers. Simply yielding to political pressures leads to ‘alienated teaching’, defined by MacDonald and Shirley as ‘instructional processes in which teachers neglect teaching practices that they believe are best suited for their pupils and instead comply with externally imposed mandates out of a sense of deference to authority’.15 The consequences are low morale, loss of self-esteem and disinvestment from teaching. So, the authors suggest, many teachers respond with protest, loyalty (one ‘goes along to get along’), going underground or exiting the system. Instead it is better for teachers and principals to use their considerable educational power to shape the reforms into effective tools to enhance learning, rather than to oppose them. If we lead the reform agenda with confidence, then perhaps, eventually, we will also lead it with the confidence of the political and economic policymakers. Dinham summarises it this way: [Educators] need to take action to move into and engage with this somewhat hostile and critical ‘outer domain’ in order to play an active part in the current discourse on education and to help shape its future. Silence or blanket resistance in this instance will be interpreted as confirmation of society’s criticisms and misconceptions of education and teachers … Teachers need to ensure that the barricades do not go up around them in a futile and counterproductive attempt to keep these outer forces at bay. Instead, they need to adopt an attitude of openness—both to the community and to new ideas—to facilitate increased community appreciation of the many good things they do and to remedy the damaging misconceptions much of the community has about schools today.16
What does this mean in practice? Begin here: • Inform parents, articulately and knowledgeably, about the issues from the perspective of the teacher and with the students’ best interests at heart. Write about the issues in newsletters; speak about them at
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parent meetings. Invite parents and students to meetings at which staff and credible community or educational speakers express their viewpoints. • Encourage discussion among parents about the issue. Listen to what parents and students have to say. Then ensure their information and insights are reinforced or balanced with the school’s perspective. • Invite system leaders, politicians and other community leaders to discuss the issue with you. Put before them, articulately and passionately, the perspective of teachers and the school.
Power beyond measure Teachers often see themselves as ‘just teachers’, powerless victims of the whims and ideologies of policymakers, but they actually occupy the most powerful positions in the education hierarchy because they are the only people with direct access to students. Along with principals, teachers can use reform to ensure improved student learning by being proactive in responding to the changes. How do those of us in schools do that? While we may not have power to dictate the agenda, we do have power over what happens in the relationship we have with our students; our relationships with colleagues; our relationships and communications with our parents; the real stuff of teaching and learning—what to teach, how to teach it, when to teach it, how effectively it is learnt; our morale; our attitudes to our work. Teachers in schools are the most powerful people in the education system. We understand learning, have a large measure of control over what is taught and how, and have direct access to students and immense influence over them. Indirectly, and often unknowingly, teachers influence homes and family life through their influence on students’ attitudes and feelings. We are powerful beyond measure. This is not power to be abused, but to acknowledge next time we feel powerless within the socio-political climate of our community. Author Alice Walker put it succinctly: ‘The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.’17
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
Reflect • If you were asked to manage the implementation of a new idea within the school, how would you conceptualise the task? What are the principles of change you would embed in your process? • Consider a new idea you have seen successfully implemented. What made the process successful? Consider a new idea which failed in its implementation. What caused the process to fail? • What is your typical response to a new idea? Do you tend to be sceptical, fearful, optimistic or excited? (A colleague may help you answer this question!)
What’s your attitude? Schools and teachers are under pressure all over the country. In the past few years, education authorities have been introducing new structures, policies and practices. And in most cases, who has to implement them? Me. The classroom teacher. I’m the bunny at the bottom of the burrow. But look at the opportunities the changes bring. Look at the things you can change. Me? But I’m just a teacher. What do you mean— just a teacher? I mean that I’m at the bottom of the ladder. I take orders from everyone. Nobody cares what I think. Who should? The hierarchy. The directors, school council, the principal. They’re all busy formulating wonderful new policies that are going to make education so much better, but I have to make all the great ideas work. Isn’t it like that in any enterprise? Maybe. But nobody ever asks my opinion. These wonderful policies are supposed to have been worked out by committees or working parties, with input from teachers. But no one’s ever asked me to be in a working party. The members never seem to be ordinary classroom teachers, who are interested in putting the ordinary teacher’s point of view. I have to read and listen to all these things that I’m supposed to do in the classroom. I make no contribution to what’s decided, and I can do nothing to protest if I think the ideas are ridiculous. I’m just a teacher. But you’re more than JUST A TEACHER. You’re A TEACHER!
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Eh? The problem is that word ‘just’. You’re the most powerful person in the system. Powerful? How? Because everyone depends on you. Those above and those below. You see, without you, nothing gets changed, nothing gets done. The reason the superintendents, directors and others have to tell you to do everything is because they can’t. If you want your class to learn about, say, environmental pollution, how do you get it done? Who do you see? Who do you have to convince? No one. I just teach it! Exactly. But if the hierarchy want your class to learn about environmental pollution, they can’t just go ahead and teach it. They don’t have access to children like you do. They have to convince YOU to teach it. They also have to make sure you have the skill, knowledge and resources to do it. And in the end, they can’t be sure whether you’re doing it the way they wanted, or not. As long as you address the basic curriculum, you can teach almost anything you like, in whatever way you like, at whatever time you like, for as long as you like. Who else in the system has that much power? I don’t know. I’d never thought of it like that. There’s something else to consider. The problem with such power is the responsibility that goes with it. As a teacher, who are you trying to change? Who are you really trying to influence? The kids. That’s right. And do you succeed? I guess so. Sometimes. In some ways. That’s about all any of us can hope for. But when a 25-year-old comes up to you in the shopping centre, shows you her children and reminds you that you taught her in primary school, what is she remembering from 15 years ago? How the Minister for Education introduced new regulations for parent involvement in schools? A new health education syllabus? The government refusing to lower the student–teacher ratio? Hardly. Of course not. What she’s remembering is a person who taught her, cared about her, and helped her through a year of her life. And most of the students remember you with fondness or kindness and respect. In ways that they may or may not recognise, they
Our attitude to change: Be comfortable with uncertainty
remember that you influenced their lives, and that a little bit of what they are now is due to you. Knock it off, you’re making me cry. When do the violins start playing? Forget the violins. Bring on the trumpets. Look who’s here: It’s not JUST a teacher. It’s A TEACHER!
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4
Our attitude to our calling: Buy-in to teaching
In the previous two chapters we commented that there are many social and political forces impacting on schools. Sometimes it feels as though everyone in the community has a say in the school except teachers. While there are many issues we cannot choose to ignore, we can choose how we respond to them. In this chapter, we explore the factors that motivate teachers and use this as a focus to revisit our calling, to renew our passion for teaching and to find our sense of worth.
Consider your calling You know well that teaching isn’t the easy job the community likes to imagine it is. Contrary to the impression created by Teacher Barbie®, there is more to teaching than ringing the bell, writing on the blackboard and saying ‘Great job’ or ‘Try it again!’ You don’t knock off at three o’clock every afternoon; you work nights and weekends. You don’t get all those holidays to yourself; you’re preparing lessons, marking work, doing long-term planning, participating in professional development courses and upgrading your qualifications. And on the occasions when you go out with friends, you’re probably struggling to stay awake, as there are few jobs which are more emotionally, mentally and physically exhausting. You work in cramped conditions, sharing space with more than 30 others at a rate of around two square metres per person. You may have to go to remote communities to work. You suffer the sheer frustration of trying to facilitate the learning of children, many of whom lack motivation or basic manners. As one teacher said, ‘If I had only one day left to live I would spend it with my students, because that day would seem so much longer!’ You find yourself responding to students, parents and situations
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with a depth of emotion that surprises you. The criticism outweighs the bouquets you receive for your efforts. There are times when you feel terribly isolated in your work, as though your problems are not shared and not able to be shared by others. While the salary may seem reasonable at first sight, there are no perks and no opportunities for overtime or bonuses. In a Peanuts cartoon Linus says, ‘Oh, Miss Othmar, how could you? I thought you taught us because you loved us! I never dreamed you were getting paid for it!’18 All of this means that if you chose teaching for fame, fortune, fanfare or flowers, you were grossly misinformed. Anyone who chooses to teach simply as a job is doomed to insanity or depression. You cannot teach without being intimately involved in students’ lives, and that costs. But before you turn the page in despair, let me remind you that there are few jobs that offer such great emotional rewards. There is no more worthwhile role than working with children and youth. If we are to succeed as teachers, we need to know that what we’re doing is worthwhile, to know that our work is important to individuals and to the community, to the present and to the future. How do we achieve this sense of worth?
Explore your motivation Not all teachers start out with a passion for teaching, nor must they. Some teachers enter teaching by default, finding their way there by circumstance rather than conviction. But most remain teachers by choice. There is something about it that motivates. What is it? The Staff in Australia’s Schools (SiAS)19 survey asked about factors which influence teacher satisfaction, and came up with some interesting findings, many of which are likely to hold true for teachers in similar educational systems around the world. Many of these motivations are also reflected in the informal discussions we have with colleagues about their experiences. I asked some teachers what motivated them in their work, not as a formal survey, but just to hear their anecdotal comments. While there were no surprises in their answers, you may identify with their words.
Student achievement It comes as no shock that student achievement motivates teachers. In the SiAS survey, more than 80 per cent of teachers identified what they are accomplishing with students as a source of satisfaction. In my conversations with teachers, they say they are motivated by ‘children producing an excellent standard of work’, ‘children putting in
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their best efforts’ and ‘seeing children achieve and learn new concepts which they couldn’t before, especially if they have struggled to learn the concept’. Good teachers are idealistic and passionate about this. As one said, ‘I get motivated by the children’s learning; when I know that I have made a difference in their lives; that they are enjoying their learning and they feel the power of involving themselves in their learning; when they know that they really can do it and learning doesn’t just happen around them; when they are active participants in it.’ Another colleague explained that ‘One of the best things I’ve had happen is to spend most of my teaching time in the lower grades. The days I dreaded earlier in the year [teaching the younger children] are my favourite days now because I can see measurable improvements.’ Teachers find their motivation in the enjoyment of being with students and seeing them grow and achieve.
Relationships Teachers are motivated by the relationships they develop. More than 80 per cent of respondents in the SiAS survey identified their relationships with colleagues, principal and students’ parents as a source of satisfaction. Although the personal and professional support of colleagues is a key factor, relationships with students also matter. Hence, one teacher I spoke with noted enjoying the humour of kids and another commented on their enjoyment of being with students. Our motivation is clearly influenced by the way we feel about the people with whom we spend our day.
Recognition Teachers, like most people, respond to recognition. In the SiAS survey, more than 60 per cent of teachers were dissatisfied with the value society places on teachers’ work. Clearly, teachers value recognition. However, while it is affirming for a profession to be honoured by society, it is more relevant and affirming for teachers to receive recognition from their peers, students and parents. While one teacher I spoke with said, ‘Being recognised for the work one does well motivates one to keep at it’, more specifically, another said, ‘I get motivated by positive responses from parents and my peers. It’s nice to know that people notice things and care. I give so much more of myself when my self-esteem is healthy.’ Even delayed recognition is appreciated. Teachers are often moved when they meet up with students or students’ parents years later, and, in conversation, are told of the influence they had on a student. Sometimes, even the students don’t realise the impact of a particular teacher until years later. Often the teacher is not aware of the particular influence they have had on a student in the course of their work. To many teachers, this
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is about knowing that we have made a difference in people’s lives. It is evidence that ‘teachers teach down the generations’.20
Challenge and variety Teachers, like most people, are motivated by a challenge, a chance to do something different and new. There are moments when we feel we would like our teaching to be routine, with no additional challenges, demands or extra thinking required. While all teachers need days like that, it is not the way to stay motivated. One teacher said, ‘I get motivated by doing something different each day—I get a little bored with routine. I like the joy of being able to adapt my lessons to how I feel or how the children feel.’ This is reflected in the SiAS survey, in which more than 70 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the freedom to decide how to do their job. A similar number were satisfied with the opportunities for professional learning. There is a view in the educational community that curriculum change causes teachers distress and loss of morale. Yet one teacher said, ‘Sometimes changes to curriculum materials or new ideas can be really motivating if I can see them working for my class.’ Principals often see themselves as the gatekeepers of change, trying to protect their staff from anything which will intrude on their comfort zone. This is not a way to keep staff motivated. Many teachers relish challenges to their thinking and practice. As one teacher told me, ‘The recent study I’ve been doing, linked with long-held concerns that I could do a lot better than I was doing in certain areas, have been prime motivations.’ Another valued ‘an environment that allows me to be the best teacher I possibly can be.’
Personal pride One teacher listed as a motivating factor, ‘I must do a job I can be proud of.’ A sense of pride in one’s work is a powerful factor in influencing performance. This means that teachers can even be positively motivated by performance reviews; another colleague told me, ‘It is good to have a professional review of one’s work and some self-directed goals to aim for.’ Teachers are typically self-deprecating. We need to reflect on our work, alone and with others, and to remind ourselves of our achievements.
Vocation One teacher was motivated by his ‘calling’ to teaching. Many teachers see their work not simply as something to do to earn a living, but as work worth doing. Teachers who are passionate about teaching believe that teaching matters for the individual students, their families and the community. It matters for the present and it matters for the future.
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Intrinsic motivation Teachers do not need others to motivate them. Apart from desiring a little recognition for the work they do, teachers are motivated by intrinsic factors, as reported by Dinham: Overwhelmingly, satisfiers were phenomena and rewards intrinsic to teaching; that is, ‘core business’, including student achievement, teacher accomplishment, changing student attitudes and behaviours in a positive way, recognition from others, efficacy and self-growth, and positive relationships with students, staff and others. Satisfiers were largely universal across sex, teaching experience, position held, location and type of school.21
Revisit your calling Why did you become a teacher? Why do you continue to be involved in schools? Is it out of a concern for future generations? Is it because you enjoy working with young people? Do you hope to equip the young to cope successfully with today and create a better tomorrow? Do you have a humble and idealistic belief in your own ability and responsibility to influence today’s youth? Do you have a concern for the values that the young are and aren’t learning? Do you want to make a difference? It is important from time to time to revisit your calling or ‘mission’. We are well accustomed now to the concept of an organisation’s mission. What about individual mission? How would you define yours? Hargreaves and Fullan refer to this as ‘going deeper’. They say, Going deeper means hard thinking and soul searching about the fundamental value and purpose of what we do as educators. It means reaching into our hearts to care more deeply for those we teach and to forge stronger emotional bonds with other people, such as parents, who share in this educational responsibility. Going deeper means staying optimistic and hanging on to hope, even in the most difficult circumstances, not as a futile indulgence, but as an active commitment that helps make real differences in young people’s lives. Going deeper, in other words, involves purpose, passion, and hope.22
What’s your mission? What do you believe or value about children and young people, their learning potential, their hopes, dreams and possibilities? What do you believe about education, about teaching and learning, about curriculum? What do you believe about relationships in the classroom, between students and between teachers and students? What are the most important goals and purposes of schooling? Why do
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you do this job? And is all this theory, or do you live it? If you asked students what they think you believe about these things, would there be a strong correlation? Would they ‘get’ who you are, why you teach and what you hope for them? And why does it matter? Our mission is not secret, even if we think it is. Our relationships and actions are a reflection of our true (as distinct from our declared) beliefs, values and attitudes. They are expressed in all we do. What we live is an expression of what we believe.
Renew your passion Good teachers are idealistic and passionate about their students and about learning. Do you still have that passion? You might get passionate about schools merging and downsizing, curriculum change, devolution and salary negotiations, but do you still get passionate about education? Do you find yourself advocating passionately for your students; trying new ways to help them learn; feeling joy at their achievements; feeling loss as they graduate? A computer will never replace you. Students respond to the passion and heart of their teachers. Understanding your motivation is helpful; revisiting your sense of calling is powerful; renewing your passion is critical. Fried describes a teacher’s passion as ‘this quality of caring about ideas and values, this fascination with the potential for growth within people, this depth and fervour about doing things well and striving for excellence’.23 It matters because it not only affects our attitudes to our students, it also affects our attitude to our work and purpose. As Fried puts it: The passion that accompanies our attention to subjects, issues and children is not just something we offer our students. It is also a gift we grant ourselves: a way of honouring our life’s work, our profession. It says: ‘I know why I am devoting this life I’ve got to these children.’ 24
If you are to find a sense of worth as a teacher, you will need to find your passion. Take a milk crate into the next staff meeting. (This is the modern equivalent of the original ‘soap box’.) Stand on the crate and give a passionate three-minute speech about education—not about salaries and teaching conditions, but about children and learning. Then invite your colleagues to take the stand and do the same. An education ‘revival’ meeting may bring out the passion among your colleagues. Continue to be an idealist, continue to believe that you can make a difference. Renew your passion for teaching.
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Reflect • Why did I become a teacher? • What keeps me teaching? Do I lack the courage to leave, or am I doing what I really want to do? (If you don’t have a clear answer to this, should you be checking the employment ads?) • On the days when I would happily resign, what do I tell myself? What could I write as a ‘fridge magnet’ for myself, to help me regain my motivation and perspective on those days when it’s all too much? • If I were making a speech to a group of school or university students trying to make a career choice, what would I say—with sincerity—to convince them to take up teaching?
What’s your attitude? I’m thinking about resigning from teaching and doing something else. Why? What’s the point? Teaching consumes several nights a week. My family complain I never have enough time for them. My holidays are spent planning for the next term or attending courses. Then some politician says that teachers should be doing a better job of teaching children to read, another says that kids don’t know basic geography, and someone else complains that we’re not teaching kids values, although if we do, we get accused of imposing our values on them. We get blamed when unemployment increases, when kids take drugs, when they aren’t physically fit. The job is hard enough, but, to make it worse, whatever we do is wrong! The job can be like that. So what’s the solution? I don’t have one. Do you remember why you became a teacher? Well, it seemed like a good occupation—secure, good pay, holiday times that coincided with my children’s holidays. And I enjoyed working with children. And what motivates you now? Think about the days when you have gone home glad that you’re a teacher, days when you’ve known that teaching is what you want to do. What made you feel that way? The kids. When Jason figured out addition, and couldn’t contain his excitement. And when Shane, after a week when I came close, several times, to throttling him, came to school with a card he’d
Our attitude to our calling: Buy-in to teaching
made himself saying that I was his favourite teacher and he was really sorry for upsetting me. And just the other day, in the shopping centre I was greeted by a young woman, wheeling a pram, who asked if I remembered her, because I had taught her in Grade 4, the year her parents split up, and I was the person who helped her through because I cared about her. I nearly cried. So at heart you want to make a difference. If we are to stay motivated in any job—not just teaching—we have to know why we’re doing it. And we need to find examples of the things that keep us going. Well what about you? Why did you become a teacher? Because I thought I could have an influence in children’s lives, not to satisfy any personal passion for power, but for altruistic reasons. I thought I had something to offer children and I wanted to offer it. I still believe that. That’s pretty idealistic. Sure it is. But I believe there is a thread of idealism in all teachers. We believe we can achieve something, sometimes against all odds. We see something good and special in each student that is worth nurturing and find ways to do it, no matter how frustrating and unrewarding it may appear to be. The thing that gets me is that the job is so exhausting. At the end of the day, I feel like something the cat dragged in, the dog and cat fought over and the dog dragged out again! Why do I feel that way? Perhaps it’s because you cannot teach without being intimately involved in students’ lives, and that costs. So who’d be a teacher? Good question! This is no job for the faint-hearted or cynical. It’s a vocation for the idealist, the person who has some concept of a good or a better society and some faith in the ability of well-guided youth to create it. So are you still going to quit? I don’t know. Do you think I’m motivated enough to keep me going? Only you can answer that. But let me give you a test. If this story tugs at your heart a little, then perhaps there’s still hope: An ancient king decided to honour the people judged to be the greatest of his subjects. Before him paraded a great architect, who had designed wonderful buildings which stood as monuments to her creativity. A doctor was honoured for her compassion and her ability to develop new cures. A statesman was honoured for the great contribution he had made to the welfare of the people and
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the management of the economy. And so the parade continued, each nominee having brought honour to themselves and their country. Finally there came an old woman, stooped and plainly dressed, but with a light of wisdom and love shining from her eyes. ‘Who is this and what has she done?’ asked the king. ‘Your majesty,’ came the reply, ‘you have seen all the other great people of your kingdom. This was their teacher.’ The people applauded mightily and the king honoured her. Perhaps there is a spark of hope left. Perhaps.
Our attitude to curriculum: Be committed to learning
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In the previous chapter, we revisited our calling as teachers. Teaching has, at its heart, student learning and student care. There are many agenda to distract us, demands and expectations which meet other people’s agenda. What matters, what cannot be argued against, what must underpin and inform all we do, is the learning and wellbeing of our students. In this chapter, we emphasise the need to maintain a focus on learning. We can do so by valuing, celebrating and exploring learning, articulating our understanding and experiences of learning, and expecting learning from our students. In the following chapter, we explore the notion of care in the context of schools.
Value learning If any real improvement to learning takes place in schools, it won’t be because of government policies but because of teachers. It will be because of how teachers view learning and teach their students to view it. In my school, learning is one of five core values, regularly articulated to and by students. Learning, we say, is our job. Parents go to work; their job may be to cut and style hair, to repair cars, to sell goods, to heal and care for people. Students go to school; their job is to learn. The job of the teacher is to help the student to learn. It is not enough for teachers to tell students that learning is important. Our actions must show that we truly value learning.
Articulate learning Teachers are experts in their field. There is a notion espoused by some politicians, parents and community leaders that, having been a student, they know all about education and learning. This has as much credibility 39
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as a person who has had open-heart surgery being able to perform similar surgery on someone else. Having eaten a pavlova does not make me an expert pavlova cook. The way for teachers to counter this logic (or lack of) is to be articulate about their knowledge. At the commencement of the school year teachers typically meet parents. Some use this time to set out their list of demands of students and parents—expectations related to homework, communication, behaviour, assignments, standards of work, and so on. This does little for teachers’ professional standing. It is one thing to list expectations; it is another to provide a knowledgeable context for those expectations. Teachers should use this time to explain their understandings about the following: • Development: what children or youth of this age are like, physically, emotionally, socially. • Curriculum: where students are on the learning continuum, the particular focus of the curriculum for this year level, the particular new skills, concepts and attitudes which they are expected to achieve this year. • Teaching: how you intend to teach students, and how this relates to the content and to students’ level of development. • Learning: how students of this age typically learn, how you intend to support that learning and how parents might support that learning. These things are teachers’ areas of expertise, and we should be articulate about explaining them. Consider the parents in your school. Can you explain to them, in ways they will understand, your theory of learning? How you believe students learn best? Why you teach in a particular way? How you help students to learn? How you assist the struggling students and how you challenge the able students—all in the same room at the same time? Why you assess in particular ways? Why the curriculum is structured as it is? Can you explain, without being defensive and without blaming students, why some students struggle? Can you explain to a parent what their child’s strengths and difficulties are when it comes to learning? The ways you are assisting them to learn and why you believe this offers them the best chance of success? What you intend to try next if this doesn’t work? In your school, what are the things that parents most protest about in education and schooling? Do you have an answer to these issues? Some of the issues may be a consequence of government or system or even school policies that you do not support, and which you may not even understand very well. You do not have to defend difficult policies, but you should be able to articulate the educational dilemmas, and explain how you and your school are addressing the issue. Some teachers respond to these issues
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by blaming the government or other authorities. This is unhelpful. If I am unhappy with a bank’s policies, I am unimpressed when the teller simply blames management. I expect anyone who represents that bank to be able to deal with my complaint, without simply criticising the management. I expect the same of teachers. If you throw mud upwards, it invariably lands on your own head! We should also articulate learning with our colleagues. In staff meeting discussions, do teachers argue from the perspective of student learning? Why is this particular issue a problem? Is it impacting on student learning? How will this solution promote student learning? What can we share about student learning? Can we articulate the issues and the solutions and debate them knowledgeably? What makes us successful teachers is our expert knowledge of how children learn, and our own personal well-considered ideas on what works best. And we need to be able to explain this. Are you able to present your personal ‘manifesto for learning’, an explanation of your understanding of teaching and learning, in theory and practice? Is your manifesto the same as it was when you left university? Does it reflect current and future directions? How do you feel about the following manifestos? • Eisner argues that education should be interesting, intellectually demanding, genuinely meaningful and deeply engaging for students. He goes on to suggest that schools should teach judgement, critical thinking, meaningful literacy, collaboration and service.25 • The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development stated in 2008 that, ‘Educated workers now need a conceptual understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with them. They need to be able critically to evaluate what they read, be able to express themselves clearly both verbally and in writing, and understand scientific and mathematical thinking. They need to learn integrated and usable knowledge, rather than the sets of compartmentalised and de-contextualised facts. They need to be able to take responsibility for their own continuing, lifelong learning.’26 The writer goes on to suggest that the most effective learning environments will exhibit customised learning for each student; the availability of diverse knowledge sources from around the globe; collaborative group learning from authentic, inquiry-oriented projects; and assessment which evaluates deeper conceptual understanding, the extent to which their knowledge is integrated, coherent, and contextualised. • Meyers highlights that our world is characterised by digital technology, constant networking, instant gratification and global connectedness. Promoting game-based learning and immersive learning environments, he suggests that ‘teachers become mentors,
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students become empowered, and ultimately, students learn. To get it right, students won’t even know they’re learning something.’ 27 • In contrast are the analogies presented by Wilson, who states that: [Teaching] is an interventionist profession. Teachers are brain surgeons. They operate on the young brain to enable the entry of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills. They change things for students, not by standing aside and letting them grow, but by the judicious use of the scalpel. Teaching is like high-rise construction or mountain climbing or political direct action or downhill skiing. It is a big, bold, adventurous, dramatic, exciting profession. It is about knocking things over and putting up new things in their place, spilling blood, taking risks, making students anxious, excited, exposing them to failure and helping them succeed...28
• Whitby speaks of a current model of pedagogy so ingrained in generations of teachers that he refers to it as teachers’ DNA. He argues the need to develop a new pedagogical DNA for schooling, which sees learners as co-constructors of learning and of knowledge, and teaching and learning as words to describe their complex interrelationships.29 What among these statements do you agree with and why? What do you disagree with and why? How does it compare with your manifesto? If you were to write your own view of learning in 25 years, what would it look like?
Celebrate learning Learning is our business and our passion. Student progress motivates teachers. Yet sometimes, amid the day-to-day pressures of teaching, we lose sight of the learning taking place in our students. We tend to see students’ inadequacies more readily than we see their talents; their failures loom larger than their successes; we see the students who are struggling more vividly than those who are succeeding; the concepts we have failed to teach effectively obliterate the ideas we have successfully taught; we allow antisocial behaviours to capture almost all of our attention, even though they may be exhibited by only a small number of students. Students’ learning needs to be recognised and celebrated. We need to recognise not only the learning of the gifted student whose achievements we take for granted but also the student who achieves consistently well and the student who struggles to achieve; not only the wonderful performance of a class at a school event but also the achievement of the
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class in mastering a new concept; not only student success in a school or external test but also the learning which takes place day to day. Equally importantly, since teachers are often blamed for the inadequacies of students, we should also be praised for our students’ successes. When a child achieves a personal best in athletics or swimming, when they kick a goal in soccer, when they are promoted to the next grade in the netball club, when they are selected for the state gymnastics squad, we are excited. We cheer, congratulate them on their achievement and honour them before the school community. By contrast, when a child conquers place value in number, speaks for the first time at an assembly, manages to print the digit 3 the correct way around, writes a well-structured sentence for the first time, presents an accomplished research assignment, solves their first quadratic equation, it often goes almost unnoticed. Academic achievements are often rewarded with more work. I like to make a practice of asking students what they have learnt today or this week. When I first ask that, they tend to answer not with what they’ve learnt, but what they have done. So they will say ‘spelling’ or ‘maths’ or ‘about ancient Egypt’. So I probe, ‘What do you know now that you didn’t know when you arrived at school this morning? What can you do now that you couldn’t do this morning?’ When they tell me, I congratulate them on their learning and suggest they tell their parents they deserve a reward. Although the manner will vary with the student’s age, the principle is the same for older students too. It is important for students to be able to articulate what they have learnt and for teachers to acknowledge and celebrate it.
Expect and recognise learning excellence I think we are sometimes unreasonable to our students. ‘This work is not your best,’ we say. That may often be true, but is it possible for a student to give their best all day? Teachers often write that a student ‘Will do better if he applies more effort and concentration’ or similar sentiment. When this is written semester after semester on a particular student’s reports, the truth or appropriateness of the comment can be questioned. Perhaps teachers are misreading the students’ ability, and they can’t do better. Perhaps the teacher is failing to motivate and engage the student, which is why they won’t do better. Now I’m not suggesting that excellence is not worth valuing—to the contrary—but there are some practical difficulties in identifying excellence. The obvious measure of excellence is achievement. A measurement of a student’s achievements will tell us whether they have achieved excellence.
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So, if a student wins a state award, that is excellence. If a student achieves a perfect test result, that is excellence. The problem here is that our standards are basically set by the norm. So, in any given situation, a small percentage will perform excellently, a small percentage will perform poorly, and most will perform more or less satisfactorily. But are only the top students performing excellently? Can there be no excellence for those less able? Is it possible for an athlete to put in an excellent performance, yet come in last? Is it possible for a student to perform well, yet fall short of the standard set by his or her peers? If so, then the best definition of excellence is a measure of a student’s progress. We ask, has each student progressed at the rate we would have expected? This has some logical merit, but the problem with this approach is in determining each student’s innate ability. It is not considered politically correct these days to give the whole school an IQ test, even if we had confidence in the definition of intelligence and the test used to measure it. One of the concepts educators love is ‘potential.’ We write about it in goal statements and talk about it in staff and parent meetings. But potential can be neither identified nor measured. How can we know of what a student is capable? When can we say a student has achieved his or her potential? Potential is like the end of the rainbow: The closer we approach it, the further it moves away, because as soon as a student achieves a new standard, we must reassess their potential. Clearly there are difficulties with excellence. We must be wary of talking about excellence as a cliché. It is easy to say that we set high standards and expect them to be achieved. But if a parent is checking out your school and wants evidence that you value excellence, what will you tell them? Will it be convincing? There are ways of looking at excellence which may be helpful. The first is to think of excellence as not simply something we observe and measure but as something we create. Research has shown that schools and teachers whose students consistently achieve excellence set high expectations. If you don’t seek it, you won’t get it. From this, it follows that excellence is not an event but a habit. It is not measured by a particular achievement but by an attitude. Certainly, we are delighted when a student gains a perfect test mark, writes a mature story, presents a brilliant speech or makes an outstanding model. But if we look to excellence as being represented by highlight events, we will be disappointed. They are like stars in the universe—beautiful to look at, better still in clusters, but with vast spaces between them. What we can do is to encourage our students to make excellence a habit; to challenge themselves to achieve a level of excellence they didn’t know they could; to always question how they might do better. We can seek ways to achieve
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better results from our students, engage them better, provide them with a safe environment in which they can take risks with their learning, be informed about developments in our knowledge of brain functioning as it relates to learning, and take risks in trying new ways to help students learn.
View learning beyond place and time No teacher teaches a class in isolation. Students have prior learning, and they will continue learning. Children entering preschool or primary school have had previous learning within their families. Students leaving school to go directly to employment have by no means completed their education. Education is no longer the exclusive responsibility of schools—if it ever was. The confines of time and space no longer apply. School provides learning in one time and one place, but learning continues throughout life and is unbounded by place, with the internet and other technologies allowing learning anywhere at any time. The essence of lifelong learning is that it will enable each of us to meet and to influence the challenges of the future, and will be the thread by which we plot our life’s biography. In 1975, Deleon summarised the basis for the lifelong learning movement, highlighting issues which are still true today: There is a wide consensus that schools alone are not in a position to satisfy all the educational needs in any country. They are not satisfactorily achieving the fundamental goals society expects or pretends to expect from them: neither the promotion of social justice, nor the establishment of social equality; neither the development of social mobility, nor the democratisation of opportunities; neither self-fulfilment, nor the liberation from indoctrination; neither the thirst for learning, nor the utilisation of what has been taught; neither self-realisation, nor consciousness of responsibilities for individual and collective development.30
What is the relevance of this to schools? • Schools no longer have a monopoly on education. School is simply a phase of education, which begins with the family. • Students have access to information long before schools teach it to them. They may also know much more about a given topic than the teacher. • The notion of a select few going on to tertiary education no longer applies. Schools are in competition with a range of sources of digital education. If students don’t enjoy school, they can opt out and learn through other channels. They can also re-enter secondary or tertiary education through a variety of pathways, even if their school history
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does not read well. No longer can schools keep students at school with threats that to leave would be to destroy or limit their future options. • The role of schooling is critical in providing children with a love of learning, an awareness of the availability of learning and the tools to continue to learn.
Go deeper However, teachers are under pressure to teach so much. There seems no end to what must be added to the curriculum. There is a temptation—even a perceived expectation—that teachers must teach superficially, ensuring that they ‘cover’ everything in the curriculum and a lot else besides. The danger in a superficial curriculum is that it inhibits engagement, meaningful learning and creativity. It is when we go deeper into a topic that we find issues which puzzle or challenge us, that we begin to ask our own questions about it and to desire answers. Delving deeper into a topic also enables us to connect the material with our own view of the world, to question what we know and believe and feel. Despite the pressures of time, it is important that teachers seek ways to go deeper in the curriculum. Tools for this include differentiated learning, which enables students to avoid spending time on concepts they already understand well; practical tasks, which engage students in identifying the knowledge they need to complete the task; and integrated problemsolving tasks, which require students to acquire and synthesise knowledge from a number of fields and to develop a depth of understanding which enables them to think creatively.
Go wider While there is a challenge to go deeper into subjects, there is also a challenge to go wider. While academic learning—achievement in those core subjects we often call ‘the basics’—does matter, success and satisfaction in life depend also on subjects such as the arts and physical education, and especially on relationship skills, emotional intelligence, resilience, personal qualities and values. Knowledge is useful, even important, but knowledge must bring with it new understandings of ourselves and others, new attitudes, new perspectives, new awareness. Without these, we may achieve instruction in a minor skill, but certainly not education. Education is not what you learn, but what you become. According to Einstein, ‘the wit was not wrong
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who defined education in this way: “Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” ’ 31 There are some schools and systems which have argued for a ‘values neutral’ education. Such a notion is naïve. Our values make us unique individuals, with a context from which to view the world. As teachers, much of what, how and why we teach reflects our values, and much of our behaviour at school models our values to students. In any case, it is critical that we teach values. Education systems often set goals for developing students’ personal qualities and values; for example, that young people should ‘have a sense of optimism about their lives and the future … develop personal values and attributes such as honesty, resilience, empathy and respect for others ... relate well to others and form and maintain healthy relationships … [and] act with moral and ethical integrity’.32 Damon argues that ‘The most valuable legacy that a community of elders can give a younger generation is a steady consensus of shared values that the young can look to with certainty for guidance.’33 Although historically the family was the societal entity entrusted with laying the foundation for moral education and schools the second line of defence, schools now play a major role, for better or worse, in character formation and moral education. Teachers shape students’ understanding of values, ethics, personal morality, responsibility, citizenship, behaviour and meaning. We cannot teach students these things except in the context of a relationship—a relationship which allows them to know us as authentic people, in which trust, respect, sincerity and genuine care are evident.
Go where students take you Our current and future generations of students do not need teachers to provide second-hand knowledge. They are active in seeking this out for themselves, using digital technologies to provide access to any information they need from a variety of sources at any time and from anywhere. The current emphasis of many governments on high-stakes testing and controlled curriculum does not reflect the skills that students will be expected to graduate with in the future. To effectively participate in society and the workforce, students need to be able to: analyse information to assess its accuracy and credibility; integrate knowledge within their own conceptual framework; apply knowledge to familiar and unfamiliar contexts across a range of interrelated fields; and create new knowledge and new applications of knowledge. Creative applications do not come from the teacher; they come from students in an environment which
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encourages creative thinking, and enables creative group investigation and problem-solving. This is not a plea to teachers to discard planning and preparation, but an encouragement to develop the capacity for skilled and sensitive judgements about when to inform and when to listen, when to direct and when to allow others to direct, when to be emphatic and when to be responsive, when to theorise and when to apply, when to answer and when to question. It is an encouragement to follow pathways which engage students and to use these to achieve the learning goals. As I travelled with my son along a country road, he turned the car off the road onto a barely discernible track. When I suggested that he didn’t really like roads, he responded, ‘You don’t see anything staying on the main road.’ It may be a useful metaphor for teaching—and life.
Reflect • How do I demonstrate to students that I value learning—not just student learning but also my own learning? • How do I celebrate learning? Is it just about test results? • How do I demonstrate to students that character matters? Is it just about showing courtesy to me, or is it deeper? • How do I develop character in my students? • Do I seek to ‘cover’ the curriculum or to encourage real learning in students?
What’s your attitude? As I was walking along the beach the other day, I saw a man coming towards me. He was throwing a stick for his dog to chase. As he came nearer, he threw the stick out into the water. The dog immediately leapt over the breaking waves, ran across the top of the water, retrieved the stick and ran back across the top of the waves to place the stick at his master’s feet. I was astounded. I said to the man, ‘That was amazing. Your dog ran across the top of the water to retrieve that stick. I’ve never seen anything like it. What an amazing dog!’ The man replied, ‘He’s no so wonderful. I’ve been trying to teach him to swim for ages.’ I know how he feels. Did you know I taught my dog to whistle?
Our attitude to curriculum: Be committed to learning
What? I’ve seen your dog. He barks, but I’ve never heard him whistle. I didn’t say he’d learnt to whistle. I just said I’d taught him. Now you’re just being silly. Not really. When does your responsibility as a teacher end? When I’ve done a good job of delivering the lesson. But what if some students haven’t understood it or learnt it? Then they need to work on it for homework. So if they didn’t understand while you explained it to them, how are they supposed to understand it on their own at home? That’s not my problem; that’s theirs. Learners have to accept some responsibility for their own learning. And if they still don’t get it? Then they fail the course. It’s a competitive world. Perhaps they were doing the wrong course in the first place. I’m having trouble imagining myself telling my Year 1s to give up on reading and choose a different course. That’s different. Everyone has to learn to read. And if they can’t? Well, I guess teaching’s a flawed process. I guess it is. But although I’m called a teacher, it’s not really about me and my teaching—it’s about the students and their learning. So you’re one of the trendy ‘learning facilitators’? I’m not sure I’m mad about the term, but it does give a different message from ‘teacher’. Teaching’s just a strategy: Learning’s the thing!
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Our attitude to caring: Commit to others
In schools, we work with children. In that context, care has always been a key issue in our work. We think about it when we make decisions about student activities, as we give instructions to children, as we supervise children at work and play. Increasingly, schools have been asked to be aware of wider safety issues in the lives of children—safety while travelling to and from school and safety in relationships, both in the wider community and the home. We take action when we have reason to believe that a child is living in an unsafe environment. But the concept of care goes much further than safety. It refers to a way of relating to€people. In this chapter, we define a context for care in schools. Then we consider how to make care everyone’s responsibility, creating a culture of care and a caring community.
Understand care Care is like parmesan cheese in pasta—its flavour permeates the whole. Care has many components: • Genuine concern. People in community express a genuine concern for others, not a concern based on obligation. When there is a crisis for an individual, others respond not just with kind words but also with practical and supportive actions. • Support and encouragement. Care is expressed in words and actions which support and encourage. We ‘hold a person in our hands’, and provide support through our availability. Even when students need correction, this can be offered in an environment of support and encouragement, which does not dilute the seriousness of the issues, but seeks to help them to learn, change and move on. 50
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• An interest in others for themselves. Care extends beyond the work context. It is expressed as a genuine connection with people—their personal lives, their families, their interests, their issues; a concern to know others as ‘whole people’. • A willingness to communicate deep issues, to allow others into our lives, and to be vulnerable. Peck writes of community as a ‘safe place’ where people let go of the power of their roles and are so truly themselves that they become vulnerable.34 In a school community, this type of care extends to everyone, irrespective of the importance of their role or status in the community. It is modelled by leaders, who must be seen to ‘walk the talk’. It is practical, expressed not just in warm feelings but in actions.
Define a context for care Most schools have a commitment to care expressed through formal documentation, mottos, policies, structures, staff roles and curricula. Issues about care generate keen discussion in staff meetings and staffrooms. These issues include: • Teachers do not teach subjects, we teach people. Teachers do not work only with the intellect. The student sitting before us in class is a person, with all their intellect, physical characteristics, emotions, values, predispositions, and so on. It is naïve to assume that we can get straight through to the student’s intellect without going through the rest of the package. • Some of our students don’t want to be at school. What motivates students to be at school and to learn is the quality of relationships with teachers and other students. • Students learn best when they have some rapport with the teacher, when they feel secure, when they feel valued for what they do and who they are. • Teachers work with children and young people, whose lives are exceptionally formative. Students need support in dealing with issues, understanding values, working through social and emotional conflicts. • Students and staff deserve to live and work in a caring environment, where they are treated with dignity, respect, concern and appreciation. This is not something special, but ought to be a part of normal interactions between people. • People long to know that they are cared for by those with whom their lives are entwined. Students may sometimes not know how to show that they need to be cared for or they may want to appear to peers as
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though they need no-one, but they still desperately seek to know that teachers care. • In our local community are families where the young are neither finding adequate care nor seeing it adequately modelled. If schools do not teach them to care, we will have a society of people who don’t know how to relate to one another with any sense of care, compassion or goodwill. Many schools address the need for care with policies, programs and personnel. In some schools care is embedded in the curriculum and involves teaching students social and personal management skills. Programs to model care are designed to achieve affective outcomes—outcomes that relate to attitudes, feelings, values and beliefs which dictate our responses to social and emotional contexts. These are not skills we can assume all students have, but are certainly skills all students need to learn. These skills are not learnt in isolation. There is a difference between learning about attitudes and learning attitudes; learning about feelings and understanding our own feelings; learning about values and beliefs and developing our own values and beliefs. Outcomes like these are achieved by interactions with real people in real contexts. Contexts for affective learning cannot be organised by school management structures nor pushed into curriculum slots. The learning is woven through all curriculum areas in all years. Teaching these skills is the responsibility of all teachers, in the context of whatever subject they happen to be teaching at the time.
Focus on relationships Most of us know about care already. We care for our partners, children, parents, family, close friends—even the family pets. It is not something we only do during crises, but all the time. Although the relationships and circumstances are different, this concept of care transfers to the school. We care for students all the time, communicating, encouraging and supporting when they need to share a concern, but also when there is nothing particularly wrong. It takes place all over the school all the time. It is obvious in the conversations we hear around the school. It takes place in the hearts and minds of ordinary teachers—and, if we’re successful, students. It shows in the way that students and staff accept one another as people and interact with sensitivity, empathy and compassion. Care is not an additional expectation of our teaching. Rather it permeates all our teaching. We teach through our relationship with our students; and as we relate to them, we teach them to relate to others.
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Create a culture of care One of the problems with care programs in schools is that many are built around counsellors or chaplains, staff who have a designated responsibility to care. When care is placed in the hands of a few, or encased and sealed in the school’s structures, we are in danger of dislocating it. Care is seen in the quality of relationships within the school. It takes place between all members of the school community—staff to staff, student to student, staff to student, student to staff—and involves parents too. Therefore, care needs to be located within the culture. Care is not a way of reacting to crises, but a way of relating to people; not simply a way of behaving, but a way of being; not something we learn about, but something we learn; not something in which we meddle, but something we model; not inspected in curriculum programs, but observed within the school’s culture. The culture of the school is experienced by all who are part of the school community. We need to establish school communities in which we live care, embody it, exude it. Teachers play a key role in creating this culture. We can put a lot of resources into developing care programs, but a care program is simply a set of strategies designed to influence the quality of relationships. It will fail unless those who teach it live it. And when it breaks down, the solution is not to implement another program or policy but to deal directly with the staff member involved. When our colleagues fail to meet expectations of care, they need to be questioned and mentored in the same way as they would if their students’ tertiary entrance results were below expectation. Teachers tend to deal with students who can’t perform academically by providing extra support and focused teaching; but some respond to students who can’t perform socially by coercing them to ‘get their act together’. We assume that students know how to do these things but choose not to. Yet the reality is that there are students who do not know how to relate to people with care—showing respect, empathy, compassion and sensitivity in actions and words. They need to learn to use the language of encouragement, identify amicable ways of meeting their needs, resolve conflict without aggression and manipulation, separate issues from personalities, feel comfortable with giving and receiving praise, allow others to support them without suspecting their motives, find acceptable ways of expressing affection and concern, deal with emotions, serve others, trust, share, let go, forgive, build others up, lead, choose when to own and not own problems, and so on. Some of our colleagues may need to learn this too.
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Expect dilemmas Of course, creating a culture of care is not simple. It contains a number of ‘traps’ or dilemmas. Caring is not the same as rescuing. When a staff member suffers illhealth or personal trauma, the caring school gathers around, offering empathy and practical support. However, it is easy for constructive empathy to become debilitating sympathy. When we take on another’s problems, we can take on their trauma and pain in a way which affects our functioning also. If my friend falls into a hole, I don’t help him by jumping into the hole beside him. I help him by offering my hand to lift him out of the hole. This is the distinction between caring for someone and rescuing them. There are occasions for rescue, when someone’s life is in jeopardy. In these situations, we ‘take charge’, doing to or for the person whatever we consider needs to be done to save them. In contrast, when we care for people we are there for them, encouraging, helping, but leaving them in charge, and not attempting to solve the problem for them. Sometimes advice is sought and is helpful; sometimes practical assistance is needed; sometimes other people need to be alerted or involved. But at the heart of care is a desire to strengthen the person, to help them through a difficult situation. Sometimes we rescue students because we don’t want to see them fail, but failure is an opportunity to learn resilience and to grow. We all have a responsibility to care; we have neither the responsibility nor the right to live a person’s life for them. One of the dangers in creating a caring environment is that by caring too much we may create dependent relationships. A healthy community allows for individual independence in a context of interdependence. We all depend on one another and support one another, while honouring each person’s individuality. A caring community, once experienced, is demanded. When a school becomes a caring community, the expectations of the members of that community change. They expect care to be demonstrated in all aspects of the school’s life. If members of the school community feel that the school has not demonstrated care, they will protest. This can lead to political complexities, especially in cases when the confidentiality of students or staff involved means that few people may really know all the facts. School leaders are often confronted with the dilemma of being criticised for their actions, but being unable to explain the whole story. In addition, the meaning of care is not always clear. There is a perception among many that conflict is a sign of a lack of compassion; that the way to demonstrate care for a colleague is to avoid conflict or, if unavoidable, to yield in conflict situations. This does nothing to resolve situations which may need resolution. Certainly, the process of
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resolution may need to include some compassion or empathy, forgiveness, understanding and reconciliation. Care is not seen in a lack of conflict but in the way conflict is dealt with. People tend to see a situation from only one perspective, overlooking other, sometimes complex, issues. For example, do we show a lack of care if we suspend a student or even expel them? As every parent and teacher knows, care for a child or youth does not mean overlooking their misdemeanours or disrespect. What it means in practice is that the process of discipline is focused on: care and growth for the student—changing their responses so that they learn to relate to others in appropriate ways; care for others—ensuring that those around them are safe and able to learn; and reconciliation—building relationships between people. Similarly, some may see a lack of care if the principal refuses a teacher leave to accompany their partner on a business trip, or expects a teacher to apologise for speaking inappropriately to a parent—but caring for one person does not mean overlooking the needs, rights or expectations of others. Each of us needs to be held accountable for our relationships with other members of the school community. None of us is an island; we do not develop in isolation. We develop through our relationships, especially those with others who are significant for us, who act as a mirror for our developing selves. If our workplace contains people who matter to us, then our workmates will have a strong capacity, either positively or negatively, to affect the kinds of people—and, therefore, the kinds of teachers—that we become. When we enhance the ways people relate to one another within the school, we begin to make a difference to the way people see themselves. And that’s real care.
Reflect • How do I express care to my students—not just during crises, but day by day? How do I express care to my colleagues or to parents? • What real examples can I identify in the past week? Is caring a part of my professional wardrobe, or is it a garment I put on only for special occasions? • Who among my colleagues is a shining example of care? What do they do?
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What’s your attitude? You amaze me. Do I? And why is that? It’s the way you treat people. When you walk around the school, you greet students, most of them by name. You always have a smile for them. The students all reciprocate. Many of the students greet you even before you speak to them. One of them even commented on your tie. She wasn’t very complimentary, as I recall. But it wasn’t disrespect. It was as though she really knew you. She does. The students and I have an ongoing gag about my ties. I invite their assessment of them. Of course, it’s not really about the ties. It’s about us being real people to one another, enjoying a bit of fun, and connecting about things other than schoolwork. How can you be a teacher and still be your real self, if you know what I mean? It’s not a matter of how; it’s a matter of must. Who I am is as important to these students as what I do. They want to know the real me, not just the teacher me. And it’s reciprocal. I want to know them as whole people, not just as a brain on legs. So what’s the secret? No secret, really. It’s just about being authentic or real about who you are, and showing that you care about who they are. In this school that matters. When I first came to this school, I remember seeing a young man approaching one of the teachers. He greeted her with a big hug, and the two talked animatedly for some time, then headed off to the staffroom. I later discovered that he was a school leaver who had returned just to tell this teacher how he was doing. And he must have been confident that she would want to see him. Absolutely. I also remember being in the primary school office when a group of young secondary students came by in their lunch break to visit the primary school head, who chatted with them about how they were doing in secondary school. Fancy returning to primary school! And chatting with the principal! But why not? Don’t you like talking to people who care about you? They knew he cared and would be pleased to see them. Haven’t you had students wanting to connect with you?
Our attitude to caring: Commit to others
Well, I guess so. Ben told me yesterday that his grandad had had a stroke and was in hospital. I didn’t really know why he was telling me or what he wanted me to do, so I just said something like, ‘That’s a shame. Are you worried about him?’ And Ben told me about how the ambulance came, and what his Mum had said, and so on. What should I have said? I think you said it. You can’t solve that problem. What you can do is to let Ben know that you care, that you are interested in what matters to him. Have you spoken to him today? No, but I suppose I should follow it up, and ask how grandad’s doing. That’s right. But don’t do it for appearances. Kids can see straight through insincerity. I’ve noticed that. Just be yourself. I know that you are a warm and caring person. I’ve heard you talk about your family and I’ve heard your response to stories from colleagues. Don’t put on a mask to kids and don’t push them away. Let them see the real you. That doesn’t sound difficult. How can it be difficult to be yourself? There is nothing you are better at than being you!
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Our attitude to community: Help others to belong
Care defines how we relate to one another in a community. However, the notion of community involves much more. In this chapter, we explore the idea of community, how it applies to schools, and some of the consequences of it.
Why a sense of community? Creating a sense of community in schools is important for a number of reasons: • A sense of community contributes to academic learning. In schools in which students experience a strong sense of community, students are more likely to be academically motivated, enjoy school more, have higher educational aspirations and are less prone to disruptive and problem behaviours, allowing more effective learning. This involves creating opportunities for all students to develop a sense of community with adults and peers within the school, and feeling that they have a voice, enabling them to contribute to and influence daily life in the school. • A sense of community is critical to individual and societal health. Connection and belonging are essential to the mental and emotional health of our children and youth. When students feel alienated and are unable to find a sense of community within the school and within their wider community, tragedy can ensue. • Community may be the key purpose of schools in the future, with technology threatening the traditional structure of schools, paralleling a breakdown in traditional community structures. Our youth need to grow and learn within the secure, caring, value-rich context of
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a community, where meaningful relationships provide a vehicle for encouragement, coaching and discipline.
Understand community The notion of community is ill defined. Almost every school claims to be a community and most claim to have a sense of community. But are these claims valid? Often the word community is simply a euphemism for any group of people loosely linked by some defining characteristic, such as location, interest, value or opinion. Typically, however, the word is used to imply much more. When people speak of community, they often imply that the members are somehow more than an aggregation of fellow travellers, enjoying in addition strong bonds of purpose, commitment and relationship, representing a strong sense of community. A school can’t really be described as community if teachers feel the bonds of community but parents or students are excluded. A school can only be described as an authentic community if all stakeholders—or, at least, some large but realistic percentage of them—experience a sense of community within the school. Sergiovanni explains it this way: Authentic community requires us to do more than pepper our language with the word ‘community’, label ourselves as a community in our mission statement, and organise teachers into teams and schools into families. It requires us to think community, believe in community, and practise community—to change the basic metaphor for the school itself to community. We are into authentic community when community itself becomes embodied in the school’s policy structure itself, when community values are at the centre of our thinking.35
In our society, there are many communities of people who share a common interest, opinion or philosophy. Hence we have communities of dog owners, computer game enthusiasts, book lovers, and so on. Nowadays, many of these communities are online communities. By contrast, a school is a functional community: people drawn together to perform the function of education, rather than people choosing to be together because they necessarily share a passion. This doesn’t mean that members of this community can’t share interests!—just that there are more likely to be complications as they are constantly interacting face to face, experiencing real relationships, and having to deal with real issues between them. Realistically, a member of a functional community, such as a school, cannot be expected to feel the same way towards every member of the school community. Their sense of community may be experienced within
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a friendship group, a class group, a faculty group, a parent group, or some other group. People do not experience a sense of community with the community, but within the community. Because communities are usually formed by people with common ideas, it is often assumed that the members think the same way—even are forced to think the same way—in all things. However, communities are inclusive. While the members of a community share some common thinking, they are not a collection of yea-sayers. The members of a community retain their individuality, and the community is neither threatened nor destroyed by that. A community has concern for individual and minority views.
Build a sense of community A common word people use to describe their experience of community is belonging. Those who feel a sense of community within a school (or other group) feel that they belong. Another common word, increasingly in use in online communities, is connection. However, sense of community can be defined in terms of individual dimensions or elements: • Trust, respect, recognition and care, built around mutual obligation and support. These elements comprise all the ways the community members relate to and express their responsibilities to one another. • Communication, participation, teamwork and the acceptance of diversity, which reflect interdependence and inclusion. These elements affect the sense of belonging people experience within the community, the sense that they are part of the fabric of the place. • Shared direction, purpose, vision and values.36 Our attitudes associated with each of these elements affect the sense of community which we and others experience, so some issues related to each are explored below. What are your attitudes to each of these?
Trust The experience of community begins with a sense of trust, the confidence that others can be believed, will behave as they say, and are motivated not solely by their own interests, but also those of others. Trust consists of a number of components: 37 38 • Benevolence or compassion: According to Brewster and Railsbeck, benevolence involves ‘having confidence that another party has your best interests at heart and will protect your interests’. Vulnerability is inherent in interpersonal interaction. If people fear that they will be exploited as a result of the relationship, they will not be likely to invest in it. Compassion in a relationship implies that there is a
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semblance of protection and that one person will not do harm to the other person. • Reliability or consistency: People’s perception of our reliability is based upon our acting predictably and following through on our obligations and promises. This is also the extent to which messages for various audiences (for example, parents, staff members, students, and the community) have the same meaning, leading to a sense of greater safety. • Competence: Everyone in the community needs to believe in each other’s ability to perform the tasks associated with his or her position. If we consistently do not produce results, regardless of good intentions or effort, then others will assume we cannot be trusted to do the job. • Honesty: Integrity, character and authenticity. This is the degree to which people can be counted on to represent situations fairly. • Openness of communication: How freely we share our knowledge, expertise, methods and information with others. This includes soliciting legitimate feedback on performance, timely sharing of both positive and negative information, and maintaining appropriate confidentiality. None of these components alone will create an environment of trust; all are needed. Trust is earned through countless interactions and events. It cannot be coerced. Trust works a little like the share market: Capital is increased through many incremental gains, but a single day’s slide can wipe out several months of earnings. It is important that your words are consistent with your actions. How do your actions promote trust in your relationships with students, or with parents, or with colleagues?
Respect With trust comes respect. Respect for people means valuing them, acknowledging and responding positively to their thoughts, ideas, feelings and wishes. This is not the same as agreeing with their ideas, but accepting that other people have as much right to their ideas, feelings and wishes as I have to mine. Respect is not the same as obedience or fear. Within our culture, especially in movies, television and music, we hear people using violence and aggression to gain ‘respect’. People do not show them respect, but fear. Similarly, apparent courtesy or obedience by a school student, which is based on fear of consequences, is not respect. According to Hein, ‘Fear is toxic. Respect is nurturing. Fear destroys self-confidence. Respect
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builds it. Fear is life threatening. Respect is life enhancing. Fear is coerced or learnt. Respect is earned.’39 While respect must be earned, you can foster a culture where this is more likely to happen by expecting students and staff to treat each other in considerate ways. Schools are generally very good at insisting that students and parents treat staff with outward signs of respect. Schools also need to be particular about ensuring that staff members treat students, parents and one another with respect. While most teachers would say they show respect, it is worth asking yourself: • When a student gives an ignorant answer to a question, scores poorly in an assessment or produces poor work in class, am I sarcastic in my response, do I use a put-down, do I criticise the student for not paying attention or assume that the student has not been working? • When a student behaves inappropriately, shows poor work habits or struggles with their learning, do I assume that the parents’ gene pool or parenting skills are at fault? • When a colleague disagrees with me or teaches in a manner completely different from mine, do I criticise them to peers or mock their views? • When a colleague has an untidy desk or runs an ‘open’ style classroom, do I label them as inefficient or unprofessional? • When a student shows disrespect to a peer, do I ignore it and accept this as the way students speak to one another? It is easy to identify a lack of respect in others. Our own disrespectful actions are less obvious to us. You might find a close colleague who will tell you ways in which you may have failed to convey respect to colleagues, leaders, students or parents.
Recognition In a community, people feel their contributions are recognised and that praise and accountability are allocated fairly. Recognition is needed for all members of the school community, including colleagues, students and parents. Recognition must also be given by all members of the community. Recognition is not simply about ensuring people are recognised for their contribution, but also ensuring that all the members of the community—not just the leaders—do the recognising. Acknowledging or affirming others changes us as well as those we acknowledge. Ask these things about your school: • Do you know whether your colleagues appreciate you? Do they know whether you appreciate them?
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• Are staff members regularly affirmed on graffiti boards, in newsletters, emails, cards, morning tea speeches and other occasions? Do the affirmations come from a range of staff or just the school leaders? Are all staff members included in the affirmations, not just teachers? Are the affirmations vague and tokenistic or specific and sincere? • Are students similarly acknowledged for their efforts, their work and their thoughtfulness? Are all students recognised, or just the high achievers and leaders? • Does the staff acknowledge parents? It is worth making a special comment about parents. Some teachers feel that parents use the school as cheap childcare, criticise us if we try to discipline their unruly children, imply we’re criticising their parenting if we suggest children need outside help, suggest we’re selfish if we don’t give up our free time to take their children on camps, and expect their children to achieve brilliantly in all their school work. There’s little appreciation of our role and how demanding it is. How do we get parents to show appreciation of teachers? The simple answer is to give what we want to receive. Parents also want to feel appreciated and to feel that their children are appreciated. Parents like to hear teachers affirm their children for the quality of their character, not just their academic achievement. If a student receives a special award or opportunity, we should congratulate their parents as well. After all, society (including schools!) will be quick to blame them when their child behaves badly, so they should take the credit when their child performs well. From time to time, why not set aside a staff meeting in which all staff members are invited to comment on someone whose contribution should be recognised. Encourage affirmation of colleagues, students and parents. Encourage affirmations for a range of reasons (as suggested above). You might even conduct the same exercise in classrooms and in parent meetings.
Care The importance of care was explored in an earlier chapter. Communities are characterised by friendship, fellowship, love and mutuality. Gulley explains: Community isn’t so much a locale as it is a state of mind. You find it whenever folks ask how you’re doing because they care, and not because they’re getting paid to inquire.40
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Communication Communication is the lifeblood of a school, connecting and feeding its various parts. Communication could occupy a chapter (or book!) of its own. However, a focus on communication between teachers and parents will illustrate some of the issues in communication. In schools, many of our communications are impersonal, focused on the content of the message and revealing little about the writer. There are certainly contexts in which this type of communication is entirely appropriate. However, in communities, communication needs to be authentic, revealing the character and personality of the people involved, enhancing relationships and connecting people. Within a school community, this means that parents, staff and students are able and comfortable to converse as people, not simply as role players; conversations come from the heart, not just the head; communication is sometimes ‘deep’, rather than superficial. Blanchard and Shula offer a challenge: What would happen if you looked at your job as a manager, teacher or parent as an opportunity to share yourself? Usually we’re so busy with our tasks, we forget that, above all else, what our people get from us is us—our values, our attitudes, our perceptions. In the long run, it’s not our skills or our knowhow or our long experience that makes the biggest impact—we are the main message!41
The quality and nature of communication between members determines the quality of relationships. Even in times of disagreement, communication should build relationships. Peck describes community as a group that can fight gracefully, where the members have learned not to take sides, how to give up cliques and factions, how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other. Community is a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace.42 Increasingly, teachers are confronted by parents with a complaint or concern. When challenged by a parent, how can we respond with wisdom and grace? • Hold the conversation in a private setting, seated, not standing in the corridor. • If appropriate, ask one of the school’s leaders to join in the discussion, to ensure that the conversation is conducted with respect and achieves resolution. • Be prepared to listen to the parent’s point of view. (Avoid going into the interview ‘steamed up’.)
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• Allow the parent to state their issue. Avoid reacting, even if some of what is said is clearly untrue. Wait until they have finished. • Address the inaccurate information. Avoid arguing nuances of meaning, but clarify where the parent has misunderstood or been misinformed. Involve witnesses only if the matter is serious enough to warrant it and if the fault is clearly one-sided. • If you were at fault, even if unintentionally, and the parent has a fair cause for concern, apologise. An apology defuses the conflict and shows a willingness to seek a resolution. • Avoid arguing each point of the issue, especially if the conversation is likely to deteriorate into he said, she said. Rather, ask what the parent wants from the meeting or wants for their child and what needs to be done to achieve that. • Seek reconciliation. While your ego may prefer a different outcome, realise that the relationship between you and the parent (and their child) must continue. For the sake of the student, seek a way that you and the parent can maintain a working relationship. Communication, of course, is a two-way process. Some teachers see communication with parents as unidirectional, with the teacher always telling the parent. Is this evident in your school? For example: • When parent nights are held to tell parents about the curriculum, rules, expectations and processes of the school, are parents asked for feedback or for their expectations? • At parent–teacher interviews, you tell the parents about their children, but do you also invite the parents to tell you about their children? • You may not hesitate to inform parents when their children behave inappropriately, but are you shocked by the audacity of a parent who questions what they perceive to be your inappropriate actions? Communication is receptive as well as expressive. It is also fundamentally inefficient. Our cutting-edge communication technology doesn’t make us better communicators. Teachers sometimes assume that if our communications are not heard accurately then parents must not be reading carefully. Yet: • School notes and newsletters often present schools poorly. Some are written in the style of a university assignment, which does not reflect the audience; some are demanding, in a style more suited to a set of regulations; some are in note form, with incorrect grammar and structure; some are verbose and rambling, making it difficult for parents to skim for relevant items and details. Newsletters should connect with parents through a conversational style, using appropriate
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language, and be structured with coherence, a logical flow of ideas, correct grammar and a lack of ambiguity. • Because teachers tend to write similar letters about similar things year after year, we sometimes assume that parents have read the same thing year after year. For most, this is their first hearing of this event or expectation, so we need to write it that way. • The tone of written and verbal communication is often patronising, conveying hidden messages which tell parents that schooling is teacher business, not parent business; that parents know nothing about education; that parents must be kept ‘in their place’. Of course, no one would say those things outwardly, but it is the message that parents read between the lines. What are the hidden messages you want parents to hear? Here’s a start: • We know (or will know) your child as a person—their qualities, strengths and struggles—and we care about them. • Our purpose here is to assist your child’s learning and development— with all that entails. • You have expert knowledge about your child. We have expert knowledge about learning and human development. Let’s share these insights. • If somehow it all goes awry for your child, we trust each other and can sit down and talk about it.
Participation People feel connected when they participate; they participate when they feel connected. This reciprocal influence is a key to building community. Some staff attend school, do their work and leave. They collaborate with others and participate in events and activities only when it’s unavoidable. Some even avoid interacting over lunch or morning tea, preferring to retreat to their own room or space. Sometimes this is due to their nature, preferring to keep to themselves to minimise the pressure and potential consequences of professional or social interaction. For others, especially new staff, it is a consequence of being—or feeling—excluded. The same is true for some students, who either choose to exclude themselves or who feel they are not accepted. For parents, there are additional factors that may limit participation: • Parents may feel their participation is not welcome by the staff. • Parents may feel ill at ease among teachers. This can be due to their own school experiences or because they are aware of their own lack of education.
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• Parents may find it difficult to connect with teachers, especially if teachers want to maintain a social distance. • Parents may feel that they are powerless and the school does not sincerely seek their participation, or that the nature of their participation is demeaning, tokenistic and a waste of time. • In some schools, parents and teachers see one another as adversaries. Parents may fear that their participation will be seen as agitation or disgruntlement and that this may jeopardise their relationships, and those of their child, with teachers. • Most importantly, the politics of school are such that parent participation is on teachers’ terms. They are only able to participate as they are invited. However, a further problem is that many teachers see themselves as the only companions students need on the journey. This is both naïve and limiting. Parents have a right, a responsibility and a necessity to be involved in their children’s schooling. In placing their children into the care of the school, as required by law, they do not abdicate their commitment to their children’s wellbeing, safety and education. They need to act as advocates for their children, who do not have the political power to negotiate on their own behalf in a school. And schools need parents to be involved, because the family is the primary and most influential education agency in the lives of most children. Children and young people are motivated to learn when they see learning valued by their school, family and community working together in partnership. What are the roles parents play in your school? Are the roles intended to make teachers’ lives easier and to keep parents off your back or to make a difference to student learning? Are parents viewed as an unfortunate encumbrance to the school or as real partners in the education of their children? When people participate in community, they have opportunities to take part in and take responsibility for the affairs of the group. Participation is more than ‘busy work’, much of which may appear inconsequential, but involves contributing meaningfully to the community. Members of the community, including parents and students, have the right to exercise leadership and play meaningful roles.
Teamwork In community, people work as a unit to tackle problems or projects together. A team is a number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common goal for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The members share common supports and concerns, knowledge and ideas, abilities and strengths, roles and leadership,
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successes and failures, history and growth, a purpose and a commitment to the team. There are a number of challenges in this. Teamwork requires: • Purposeful collaboration: It does not allow members to ‘tag along’. • Responsibility to act with others: It does not always allow members to choose when to collaborate nor with whom to collaborate. • The sharing of skills: It does not allow members to hold back insights and skills. • Mutual accountability: It does not allow members to avoid responsibility for the process and the outcomes. In a community people work together not because they must but because working together is a natural expression of the members’ commitment to the community and to other members of the community. This element of community isn’t about delegation or assignment of tasks but about joining with others to achieve a goal.
Acceptance of diversity The boundaries of school communities are permeable, with members leaving, new members arriving and visitors sharing in the community. Because members of a community share much in common, bound together by experiences that newcomers may struggle to understand, and by a collective ‘personality’ that newcomers may find intimidating, the nature of people in community is to be inclusive. Shields and Seltzer write about the challenge to create unity within diversity, rather than unity from diversity.43 The former allows communities to find unity without eliminating their diversity; the latter implies a forced homogeneity. Selznick points out that, ‘What we prize in a community is not unity of any sort at any price but unity that preserves the integrity of the parts.’44 In a similar way, Peck argues that it is not the differences that are a problem in a community, but how people handle them. He argues that people should acknowledge and celebrate their differences, and then transcend them. He explains: ‘Transcend’ does not mean ‘obliterate’ or ‘demolish’. It literally means ‘to climb over.’ The achievement of community can be compared to the reaching of a mountaintop. Perhaps the most necessary key to this transcendence is the appreciation of differences. In community, instead of being ignored, denied, hidden, or changed, human differences are celebrated as gifts.45
In your teaching: • Do you favour or disfavour students according to their gender, abilities, interests, ethnicities or social backgrounds in the attention
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you give them, the way you speak, the tasks you set, your expectations or the way you group them? • Does your language influence attitudes to diversity? We should not ‘ignore’ differences, because they are at the core of our individuality; nor ‘tolerate’ differences, because tolerance implies ‘putting up with’. We should accept differences, acknowledging people for who they are. • Schools are strong on the language of independence—initiative, diligence and responsibility. Do you balance this with the language of interdependence—collaboration, cooperation, sharing and support? • Do you encourage all students to recognise and share their abilities, personal qualities, hopes and dreams? • Do you encourage all students to lead? There are situations when each student’s particular gifts are needed and the circumstances are right for them to lead.
Shared purpose, vision and values Communities travel together, in the same direction, with a shared understanding of the goal and a shared understanding of what is valued. That does not mean there is no dissent or debate, but there is sufficient agreement that the community is able to progress in one direction. Sergiovanni writes: Communities are collections of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and who are together bound to a set of shared ideas and ideals. This bonding and binding is tight enough to transform them from a collection of ‘I’s’ into a collective ‘we.’ 46
In a school community, the common purpose relates to the education, care, growth and nurturing of children and youth. Each school community will define that in their own terms and flavour it with their own priorities and emphases. When there is a shared purpose, individuals have a common understanding of the group’s reason for being, and their efforts are inspired by the significance of that purpose. A shared vision represents a common hope for the future. While the pathway may be uncertain, the members have a shared sense of where they wish to go. Their hopes and dreams for the school and for the students have common elements. In addition, their actions are consistent with this vision, supporting the journey towards the vision. In community, individuals share a common core of values. Whether or not these values are documented, they are known. They are heard in
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their shared memories; the history, a collective story, told often, passed from generation to generation and filled with passion, pain, joy and hope; and the legends of heroes and role models, even the myths. Values are expressed in shared practices—ritual, aesthetic and ethical—which define the patterns of loyalty and obligation that keep the community alive and the commitment of members to one another. These things reinforce the values of the school community—what is to be honoured, respected, aspired to. What are the shared purposes, goals and values of your school? To what degree are they really shared? You might invite students or colleagues to share the stories of the school—the events and people imprinted on the group memory. You might even invite ex-students and staff to join the storytelling.
Reflect • Do you feel a sense of belonging within your school? Do you think that most students, colleagues and parents do? • If so, what is it that contributes? If not, what is it that impedes it? • What particular aspects of a sense of community are strong in your school? Which are not? How might the sense of community be enhanced?
What’s your attitude? I noticed another parent leaving your office and looking like she’d been crying. She was explaining to me that her youngest child is finishing primary school this week, and that will end 21 years of continuous association with this school. She was mourning the loss of connection with this place. That’s a long time—longer than any of the staff members who are here now. I suppose it does mean an adjustment. But it’s a school. I thought people couldn’t wait to put school behind them. That’s a myth. Schools are at the centre of people’s lives for years. People experience schools as students and as parents. It’s where many lifelong friendships are made. The school is often a key point of connection in the local community. Jokes about the horrors of school are a bit like jokes about mothers-in-law: They’re good for a laugh, but without sincerity.
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I’ve noticed that parents often leave your office clutching their tissues. What do you do to them? I listen. I think it’s humbling that parents feel comfortable to tell me quite personal things about their lives. I hear stories about their children and themselves, their history and relationships. It must be your sweet smile. Unlikely! I think it’s because they feel they belong here, we’re like family to them. They are comfortable to have real conversations about real issues, not just make polite chit-chat. How did we grow that? Good question. To start with, I think it’s about accepting people as they are, showing genuine care and respect. It also means showing parents that we are prepared to be our real selves and not just our role selves—if you understand what I mean—and communicating with them as members of a community, not just as clients. It comes from connecting them with people within the school, getting them involved in the life of the school, helping them to understand what we are trying to do and why, and listening to what it is they want from the school, their expectations of us and their hopes for their children. Until I came to this school, I thought leaders simply told people what to do. Sometimes they do! But, at its heart, leadership is a form of service. Leaders serve people, helping them grow and meet their needs, while ensuring that the goals and purposes of the school are achieved. So what happened to ‘Walk softly, and carry a big stick’? It was replaced by ‘Listen well, and carry a big box of tissues’!
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Our attitude to collaboration: Partner with others
Why do teachers feel so isolated? Why is teaching so often seen as a solitary act? The reasons are found in history, architecture, timetables, pedagogy, class structures and teacher overload. In this chapter we explore the need for teaching to be a shared and collaborative venture, not just among teachers, but also with parents and the students themselves.
Break the pattern of isolation Teachers often perceive teaching as an isolated profession. Many plan alone, teach alone, evaluate student work alone and evaluate their own performance alone. Why does this matter? Teaching is a consequence of a relationship between the teacher and student, so is it important if the teacher has little interaction with any other teachers? Surely the teaching that takes place in a one-teacher school is as good as that which takes place in a large school. This attitude is based on some questionable assumptions, and has a number of undesirable consequences.
Check assumptions about students When we talk of collaboration, we invariably refer to collaboration between teachers. This is certainly important, but we will begin from a different perspective. The most critical collaboration occurs between the students and the teacher. While that may sound absurdly self evident, teacher practices do not always support this. In some schools teachers and students work against each other. Put simply, the work of the student is to learn; the purpose of teaching is to help the student to learn. Without the student, 72
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the teacher has no purpose. If the student does not want to learn, the student has no purpose. These are understandings which teachers and students should develop at the start of the year or course and renew as often as necessary. In this context, teacher–student collaboration means developing understandings about learning, teaching, the content of the course and ways people learn; and, specifically, how students might most engagingly and effectively learn this particular content. This is not a totally democratic process. Teachers have expert knowledge about how the content might best be structured or sequenced and how students might most effectively learn. However, neither should this be a totally autocratic process. Teachers do not know best what understandings each student brings to the learning, how each student prefers to learn and how each might best engage and focus. Neither do teachers know best how students are affected by the layout of the classroom, the groupings of students and the programming of the lesson or series of lessons. The teacher knows the content of the lesson best and is an expert in learning; the student knows the learner best and is an expert in student engagement. The purposes of the teacher and learner ought to be complementary. Collaboration is essential to bring these together. Teachers often speak about developing independent learners. Most do not mean that at all—they really mean conforming learners. A conforming learner can be given a task and gets on with it efficiently with minimal input from the teacher and maximum concentration. An independent learner, by contrast, is able to make decisions about their personal learning priorities, their preferred and most effective ways of learning and the ways they can best engage with the material, and is able to negotiate these with the teacher. This may mean working with others, rather than alone, because they find interactive or interdependent learning most effective.
Check assumptions about parents Many teachers also make the assumption that parents have little to contribute to schooling, apart from ensuring that the student cooperates with the teacher. These teachers see the role of the parent as getting the student to school on time, properly attired, with the resources needed for the day, in a cooperative frame of mind and with their homework properly completed. To ignore the value of parent collaboration is to ignore the research which shows consistently that student learning is more effective when parents show that they value schooling, are interested in what the student is learning and doing, are encouraging and supportive of the student,
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respect and speak positively about teachers, attend key school meetings and events, and are involved in the life of the school. It also ignores the expert knowledge the parent brings to the learning process. The parent knows the student far better than the teacher. In most cases they have known this student since birth and have seen this student in their most vulnerable moments and without any pretence. The parent knows the deep motivations of this student’s life and their deepest fears, the current issues in the student’s life, their personal struggles and stresses, and the things that excite and motivate them. The parent knows how the student is responding to school, the mood in which they come home, the school issues which they most often talk about, the teachers they find helpful and those they don’t and why, and why the student is not getting homework completed. Sometimes the student’s learning problems mirror the parent’s learning problems and the parent is able to offer insights into what helped or hindered their own learning. Of course, a teacher with more than 30 students in a room cannot respond as we might idealistically hope to every student’s individual issues. The classroom is not an environment for extensive one-to-one coaching or counselling. However, to ignore all of the parent’s knowledge of the student is to dismiss significant input to the learning process. Collaboration between teacher and parent can make a sizeable impact on teachers’ teaching and the student’s learning. In some cases, parents can assist students after hours by reinforcing the learning. I am not a great fan of homework, except as done voluntarily by students wanting to reach higher standards. It is certainly unhelpful and downright unfair for a student who struggles all day at school to have to go home and repeat the process without the support of the teacher. However, there are some students who struggle with learning, and some who struggle with organisational and learning strategies, who can be helped by parents and teachers working together, each knowing what the other is doing, each playing a complementary role, each supporting the student emotionally, each finding an agreed balance. If the student is informed, understands what is happening and why and is enthusiastic, this is a powerful collaboration. A teacher in an unfamiliar locality may make assumptions about the issues which confront students every day and which impact on their learning. How much better to reference this with parents, who are able to express what is important to the local population, what they value, what causes them concern, and the issues which affect their children. When teachers and parents work together collaboratively, then conversations focus on information sharing and problem-solving and the environment of suspicion and distrust disappears.
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Check assumptions about colleagues If you visit a colleague’s classroom and praise some innovative aspect of their classroom environment, management or teaching style, they may respond with surprise and a comment like, ‘I thought everyone did it this way! How do you do it?’ Apart from viewing a few classrooms during training, teachers lack, or avoid, opportunities to observe one another in action, and this inhibits learning. I once worked in an environment where staff often collaborated in planning or presenting professional learning sessions. It was natural to hear people asking colleagues to join in planning a course or facilitation process; affirming colleagues for the way they handled a person or conducted a facilitation; reflecting on how a session was going and how the day’s plan might be modified; or asking one another for advice. This is a typical model of professional collaboration and growth but most teachers lack opportunities for this type of learning. We may be willing to offer advice, if asked, but we don’t really know one another’s teaching well enough to provide valuable feedback. We don’t even know the strengths or limitations of our own teaching. Research has shown that, by and large, we teach as we were taught. Those of us with the creativity or level of frustration to try something new are often viewed with amusement or suspicion by our colleagues, who probably don’t understand what we are on about, are pretty sure that it is just a passing phase (unless we have a reputation for eccentricity), and hope that it is not contagious. Too often in schools, teachers are left to fend for themselves, working in professional isolation. Not just behaviour management, but curriculum issues are left to each individual to deal with on their own. This is an inefficient use of staff resources. In a profession as complex as teaching, it is a recipe for ineffective work. On the one hand it breeds depression, jealousy, criticism, territorialism, insecurity, low esteem and cliques, and on the other hand it inhibits coaching, growth, support and learning. The focus of this section has been on teachers as colleagues. However, there are increasing numbers of ‘para-teachers’, that is, learning assistants or educational assistants. These people have roles that are increasingly focused on learning rather than administrative support. Colleagues in these roles should also be collaborating with teachers, sharing observations, insights and ideas, and providing feedback to teachers. Similarly, those in leadership positions, including principals, need to take a collaborative approach with teachers, rather than an evaluative one. Most teachers know their responsibilities and are conscientious in carrying them out. Without denying the need for evaluation and even correction on occasions, what most teachers need is collaboration—not
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just encouragement and kind words, but a process in which the insights of the leaders can be shared with teachers in a problem-solving context.
Collaborate purposefully Pioneering research almost 40 years ago found that beyond sharing a few practical hints, resources and gossip about students and parents, teachers rarely discussed their work, almost never observed colleagues teach and did not collectively analyse and reflect on the value, purpose and direction of their work. Teacher interactions did little to promote a culture of inquiry or add to the intellectual capital of the profession. Professional isolation provided ground for conservatism and resistance to innovation. It limited access to new ideas, increased individual stress and permitted incompetent teachers to persist in ways which damaged students, colleagues and schools. The traditional ‘egg-crate structure of schooling’—corridors lined either side with rows of identical classrooms, each ‘egg’ in its own insulated box—promoted isolation as the normal way to teach. School architecture, timetables and discipline procedures all conspired to boost teacher isolation as teachers were forced to use their own resources to resolve instructional, curricular and management problems.47 For many schools and teachers, the situation has changed little. Professional collaboration involves working together in meaningful ways to address important issues. The focus of collaboration is better learning for students. It is not unusual for a teacher to storm into the staffroom and say ‘That little blighter, Jason! I don’t know how to deal with him! He’s driving me nuts. Do you know what he’s done now?’ And the teacher proceeds to tell everyone, whether they want to know or not. But how often does a teacher at your school say, ‘I’m having a problem teaching this maths concept. How do you do it? Can I come and watch you teach it?’ Or ‘I’m a bit uncertain about my science lesson this afternoon. Are you able to come and work with me?’ Teachers in a school are in it together. Each teacher has something to offer their colleagues, be it experiences, strategies, knowledge, creative ideas or classroom management procedures. In a culture of collaboration, teachers offer advice and guidance because they see an opportunity to help; teachers accept advice and guidance because it is offered in a spirit of genuine collegiality. However, collaboration is not just about dealing with difficult issues. Teachers ought to collaborate creatively, to find better ways of working, better ways to help students learn, better ways to conceptualise and implement curriculum and teaching strategies. True collaboration is
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synergistic, bringing together individual knowledge, skills and wisdom in such a way that the outcome is superior to what each individual alone could have achieved. Collaboration in this context is also a process for professional growth, as teachers observe one another, listen to one another, try new approaches together and evaluate these together. However, some cautions are in order: • Collaboration is not simply doing things together or being together. Storytelling, assistance and sharing are relatively weak forms of collegiality; but joint work such as team teaching, planning, observation, action research, sustained peer coaching and mentoring is the strongest form of collaboration. • ‘Contrived collegiality’ forces people together in ways which simply have the appearance of collaboration. Tokenistic collaboration, which is neither genuine nor desired, damages long-term collaboration. • Collaboration is not ‘group speak’, in which individual ideas are quashed. To the contrary, collaboration involves encouraging teachers to express their individual ideas, and using the power of collaboration to develop both the ideas and the collaborators. We should encourage individuality, the individual expression of ideas, individual style of processing and individual ways of teaching; but discourage individualism, the desire to do everything alone, by oneself and for oneself, and to reject other perspectives. • It is pointless to collaborate on every task. Some things are done more efficiently and more effectively alone. Choosing when to collaborate is as important as knowing why to collaborate and exploring how to collaborate.
Collaborate widely It is also important to consider with whom to collaborate. Among colleagues, we tend to find people with whom we collaborate comfortably. Typically, these are people who tend to share our perspectives, and with whom we have much in common. Collaborating widely means seeking people who will challenge our thinking and bring counter points of view. This is especially important if we are seeking to create new ideas or wanting to genuinely critique our own practice. Look beyond immediate colleagues to those in other schools. Most of our younger teachers—and some older ones—have global connections, through various online forums and web pages. Use these too. Nowadays, we are not restricted to collaborating with those with whom we are coâ•‚located, but can seek out people anywhere on the planet with whom we might form a useful collaboration for a particular purpose.
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Build and rebuild connections Many things affect the way a group of people will work together and their ability to collaborate effectively. If we understand these, we can enhance our ability to collaborate.
Understand personality and processing styles People differ in the ways they process information, attend to tasks and make decisions. There are several tests which categorise these differences. The essence of these is that people differ. There are colleagues with whom I can share a creative idea. As I talk about a vague, ill-formed notion, they are able to get some image of the vision in my head and are able to help me build it. There are other colleagues who cannot cope with this. They need to know where each person will be and what they’ll be doing with whom at 11 o’clock on a Friday morning. Neither of these groups is better than the other. Sooner or later my concept must be translated into practical details if it is to work. But if I only give consideration to the practicalities, the dream will be stunted. In the same way, in a discussion, some people process ideas in public. They are comfortable to place an idea ‘on the table’, and invite others to pick at it. They are not offended when the idea is dismissed or taken over by someone else and redesigned. Other people say nothing until they have thoroughly processed and refined their thoughts. While they may say very little, what they say is well considered. They may be viewed as wise, because their contributions are few and deep. Again, neither of these personality types is better than the other. They simply operate differently. Knowing that people process information differently and respond to circumstances differently helps us to understand them and to work with them better. Collaboration is usually more effective when people with differing styles come together. Each brings their own strengths to the groups.
Understand group roles These differences often show when people work together in groups. Again there are ways in which these can be categorised. What does this mean in practice? Picture a staff discussion at your school. Imagine that the question or task is one which people care about. Chances are that as you look around the table, you’ll see a range of roles being carried out: • Chloe is playing an objective role, trying to keep the emotion out of the debate, and trying to keep the discussion on track.
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• James may have little to say about the question itself, but plays a key role in keeping everyone happy, maintaining relationships, inviting non-contributors to speak, and smoothing over conflict. • Samantha appears more concerned with the process than the outcome, suggesting that the group brainstorm or break into sub-groups. She may even leap up and start drawing diagrams or charts on the board. • Andy is citing resources that are available, quoting from regulations or policy statements and suggesting the names of people who could act as consultants. • Zeke has a mind, and probably a body, that won’t sit still. He’s constantly coming up with creative alternatives and new ideas. He’s a one-man brainstorm session. Many of his suggestions contain great promise, others less so. • Sarah considers his contributions distracting. Having seen an acceptable outcome, she wants a firm decision made and implemented. The list could go on. No role in this group is necessarily more important than another. An ideal team has people who can play each of these roles.
Understand team development School staffs are in a constant state of change, with people leaving and others replacing them. When groups come together and work together, they go through a series of stages:48 • Forming: During this phase the team members learn about one another, both personally and professionally. They learn about the experience, skills and knowledge of others, their personalities and the ways they communicate. • Storming: Team members begin to test one another, assert themselves and their views and find a role within the group. This often leads to conflict, but is important in developing acceptance and trust. • Norming: The team begins to clarify its common values, expectations, goals and norms. • Performing: The team is then able to perform effectively. The members have agreed goals and values, trust in one another, respect for the abilities of others, and security in their own position and worth in the team. • Mourning: Some members of the group may leave. There is a sense, then, that the team is not as it was. There may be some mourning at the loss of the companionship, knowledgeable relationships and fruitfulness of the group.
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As new members enter the group to replace those who have left, the cycle begins again, a process we could call ‘re-forming’. While we think of it as a leader’s responsibility to build the team—in a school, the responsibility of the principal—leaders are not simply those in positions of authority. Clearly you are also a leader, or you wouldn’t be reading this book. Building a team is the responsibility of all members of the team.
Collaborate deeply In this chapter, I have used the word collaborate loosely, implying that it is synonymous with sharing ideas. That is not really so. There are various levels of working with others. • Conversation is a process of sharing of ideas and experiences, plans and resources. As we share with others, we may listen with or without real interest. The sharing may have little or no impact on our own thinking. • Cooperation involves offering support to what others are doing. We may or may not agree with their ideas and actions, but we assist them in the implementation of their plans, or at least avoid hindering them. • Collaboration is working together in purposeful ways, generating ideas, opinions, plans and resources jointly with others. People involved in a process of collaboration are changed by the process, because they must negotiate agreements between their ideas and those of others and find ways to act which are acceptable to them and to others. Conversation and cooperation may not change ideas or actions, which are still generated by an individual. Collaboration does, because the ideas and actions are jointly created, negotiated, accepted and owned. The indicators of collaboration are that each person is able to explain the group’s thinking and plans, and the role of each member in carrying out those plans. Through collaboration, teachers find better ways of teaching, better ways of helping students learn. Creativity is enhanced when people share ideas, challenge ideas and build on ideas. The implementation of new ideas is more effective when several people are going through the process together. Professional growth is also enhanced as teachers observe one another, listen to one another, try new approaches together and evaluate these together.
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Reculture the school As suggested in this chapter, there are many things which can be done in a school to enhance collaboration. However, real change in schools, change which affects the teaching and learning, must come from teachers collaborating effectively to question the school’s structures, processes and outcomes, to create and explore possible alternatives, and to support one another through the emotional, relational and practical difficulties which result. In some schools, developing the desire and ability to work in this way requires a change in the culture.
Reflect • When did I last collaborate with a colleague for a meaningful purpose? What did I gain from it? What did my colleague gain? • Do I collaborate only with close colleagues? Who else would I like to collaborate with? • Am I a collaborative person? • Is there a culture of collaboration in this school?
What’s your attitude? I don’t need this collaboration. I have enough to do without wasting time telling everyone else about it. Let me use the time to get on with my work. But we need your insights. No you don’t. If people can’t do the job, what are they doing here? Well, two heads are better than one, as the old saying goes. Not always. My head’s fine on its own. If I need help, I’ll ask. After all, I spend most of my time here locked in a room with a bunch of kids. The only time I see anyone to collaborate with is lunchtime. They do their thing with their classes, I do my thing with mine, then we all go home. But that’s a waste of our combined knowledge and insights. Altogether in this school we have well over 500 years of experience. It’s a shame not to use that to find ways to help students learn better, to develop strategies for dealing with difficult students, to create more interesting learning experiences.
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I thought the students in my classes were my problem. During any particular lesson, they may be your ‘problem’, as you put it, but they’re the school’s responsibility. You are expected to play your role in their education and growth, but we should use all the resources of the school to help you to do that. And the most powerful resource we have in the school is the combined experience, knowledge and insights of the staff. Perhaps you have a point. But when do we do this? It’s like any other aspect of our work. If it matters, we’ll find time for it. Let me show you that it matters. Fair enough. Convince me.
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The business of schools is learning and growth. As teachers, we cannot have a commitment to growth for students and not have the same commitment for ourselves. In this chapter we explore our attitudes towards our own learning.
Question accepted practice Education is not a perfect science. Despite the best efforts of skilled and experienced teachers, there are some students who do not develop fundamental literacy and numeracy skills. We have a range of explanations: physical factors, such as a hearing impairment in the early years; neurological factors, such as processing or attention disorders; family or community factors, such as a lack of interest in schooling and a lack of appropriate support; emotional factors, such as family dysfunction, which distract children from learning; and so on. We have access to a wide range of consultants to help in identifying the problem and suggesting solutions—paediatricians, speech therapists, occupational therapists, educational psychologists, counsellors; the list is extensive. We have an exponentially increasing pool of research into child development and learning. We have the accumulated and shared wisdom of teachers. Yet still we struggle to help some students to learn. Teachers are effective learners. That’s what attracts us to teaching, and what enables us to achieve the required educational success to become a teacher. This is a problem because we are tempted to be critical of those students who struggle to learn. We cannot understand how our articulate and creative teaching has failed with some students! Do you wonder what they’re thinking, and what they’re feeling? Do you know what it feels like to try your best and still have little idea what the teacher is explaining?
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Do you know how it feels to be in a group where you seem to be the only person who doesn’t understand? What’s more, we may well have learned successfully irrespective of the quality of the teaching, so we are more accepting of ineffective teaching. Not all students are so lucky. For them, teachers need to be self-critical and creative in exploring and testing more effective ways to help them learn. As teachers, we need to ensure that we know what works. Certainly there are elements of education which are idiosyncratic, influenced by the particular student or setting. However, there is much we know about effective practice. Credible research is adding to this steadily. We need to be aware of the essentials of sound practice. And we need to be prepared to question our own and others’ practice. Some practices are based on inadequate research, an individual idea which may have worked for one person but is not transferable, or an approach which worked in a different cultural context but does not transfer across time or place. There are teachers who teach the way they were taught, even though the research might indicate that the methods were not particularly effective. Our obligation to our students and our profession is to be aware of new knowledge about the science of learning and the development of children and youth, to explore ways to apply this knowledge in our work, and to continue to enhance our own practice.
Evaluate your current practices What are your professional challenges? Imagine you are giving yourself a performance review: • What are your strengths? How do you know? What do your colleagues, your students and their parents say are your strengths? Have you asked them? • What are the areas where you need to improve? How do you know? Hattie has identified five major dimensions of ‘expert teachers’, elaborated with 16 prototypic attributes.49 The list is a little intimidating, but could be a useful ‘checklist’ as you review your performance. • What do your colleagues, students and their parents say? Have you asked them? When you explain to students that you also want to keep learning and want to be better at your job, they respect that. If you ask them for written feedback and assure them you are seeking honest responses which you intend to consider, most will give you sincere and useful information. You can make the responses anonymous, but you may prefer to ask people to put their name to the response. This indicates that you are seeking sincere
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feedback, not ‘smart’ comments hidden behind anonymity; that you want a learning environment in which feedback is treated with respect and not reprisal; and that you may want to follow up a comment for clarification. In evaluating the feedback, it is the clusters of comments which are most useful. For example, several students may indicate that they have difficulty following your instructions. It may be valuable for your own learning, and to reinforce your sincerity, to discuss these issues with the class as a group, seeking suggestions on how you might address the problem. It is also valuable for students to see that you are endeavouring to respond to their feedback. That way, you indicate your willingness to learn: a trait we expect to see in our students and so should model.
Develop new skills Past generations of teachers needed skills in planning lessons, teaching, evaluating and managing students. Now, classroom skills are not enough. Teachers need skills in relationship building, conflict resolution, making judgements about competing curriculum priorities, evaluating resources, identifying developmental delays in students, communicating professional knowledge and judgements to parents, and more. Teachers also need to take on expanded responsibilities beyond the confines of their own classrooms, requiring skills of working collaboratively, making informed decisions which affect the whole school, evaluating school data and acting on it, and performing a variety of leadership roles and tasks. Improving as a teacher, even seeking to become an expert teacher, is not a matter of personality, intelligence, memory or general ability, but is more a matter of rich experience, working and talking with colleagues, professional learning, trial and error and experimentation, role-modelling, feedback and reflection. For teachers who may have been trained and socialised in a context and culture of isolation, these new skills may seem to be both inappropriate and threatening. Yet new roles and new contexts require new behaviours, which in turn require new skills, attitudes and knowledge.
Take risks with new behaviours, new practices and new ideas Professional learning means more than attending a school in-service, or an occasional conference or workshop. It is about blowing your mind with new possibilities. Ask yourself: • What am I trying to do differently this year? Is this really different or just a variation of the same?
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• Why? (The answer should have something directly or indirectly to do with student learning!) • How will I know whether ‘different’ is ‘better’? • Who have I asked to hold me accountable? There are difficulties in trialling new ideas alone. If they fail, it may be that the idea was not sound or it might be that we implemented it poorly. It is valuable to have an ‘accountability partner’, someone who will hold you accountable for your actions, monitoring how well you are implementing a new approach, evaluating how well it is succeeding and challenging you to think more deeply about what you are doing and why.
Use learning opportunities effectively Teachers often enjoy the process of attending professional learning courses and workshops. They provide a break in the routine of work. Often, however, the learning fails to last beyond the day. There are teachers who turn up at courses but don’t know why they are there. Perhaps their principal sent them; they enrolled in the course ages ago, but they’ve forgotten why; they were looking for a break in the routine and this course sounded interesting; they like the way this facilitator works, so they’re sure this course will be good too. Be clear about why you’re attending. If you have chosen the course, are you simply hoping to gain some awareness of the issues in this topic? Are you looking for classroom management strategies or evaluation techniques in this area? Are you looking for ways to challenge your own practice in an area in which you feel you have stagnated? Are you developing a learning package you intend to present to your colleagues? Unless you are clear about what you hope to get from the course, chances are you won’t get it! If your principal has suggested you attend, check whether it is to extend your own knowledge or perceptions, or to prepare you to act as a catalyst on the staff. You may be expected to report on the course, share written materials from the course or lead a workshop on the topic. I have reservations about the notion of a teacher attending, say, a two-day course then presenting the pick of it to colleagues in a one-hour staff meeting! However, if your principal expects this to happen, focus your attention on particular issues within the course. You might take particular note of the way the course is presented, the instruction or facilitation processes used, the materials distributed or displayed, the key questions asked and the distinction between the essential points made and the illustrative or supportive content. Your own presentation back at school should be developing as the course proceeds. You might simply select a particular piece from the course to present to colleagues.
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The course should challenge what you believe and think. Teachers often attend courses on topics with which they are already familiar, which just reinforce what they already know. If there is to be learning, we must be open to new ideas, willing to allow our understandings to be challenged, willing to question our own beliefs. It doesn’t matter greatly how much you endorse or dismiss the presenter’s views. Rather, if as a result of the presentation you question the presenter’s knowledge, ideas, assumptions, attitudes and opinions, and thereby question your own, there is a good chance you will gain some new insights. That will have made the time spent worthwhile. If time spent at a course is to be worthwhile it has to lead to something— new perceptions, new attitudes or new practices. It is useful during or at the end of the course to write at least one thing you want to hold onto from the course—something the presenter said, something which came up in discussion, an idea which occurred to you. It is also important to write something which you will do or do differently tomorrow. When we are at a course, we are inspired to make all sorts of plans, but when we return to the hustle and pressure of the daily grind, all of those ambitions are easily pushed aside. We may also be a little embarrassed about trying something different under the gaze of our colleagues, who may be critical or dismissive of our new idea, and may even point out that they tried and it didn’t work. Have courage. Make a commitment to apply what you learned while it is still fresh in your mind. Be accountable. If possible, attend the course with a colleague. Together, you can translate the ideas into your school context, can hold one another accountable to act, and can share insights into the effectiveness of what you did and how to improve it. If you attend alone, speak to a colleague after the course and ask them to hold you accountable to implement your new learning, and to act as a sounding board.
Stay fresh Ask yourself these questions: • If I have taught the same class for more than three years, what am I doing to keep my teaching fresh? • What skills do I have that are not being used or shared? Which skills need to be stretched to a higher level? How could this happen? • Assuming I am working in my ideal role in five years time, what am I doing? How did I get there? What did I need to learn or experience to prepare myself? • In what aspects of my work would I like to become more proficient or more confident? How will I achieve this?
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• Do I think of myself as ‘just’ a teacher? (See Chapter 3.) How will I change my perception of teaching? How will I change my perception of myself? There is a lack of career paths for teachers, who spend year after year doing what is basically the same job. As a result, many teachers suffer from career boredom or stagnation. The work may still be challenging and the interactions with students novel, but there is a need for some new stimulation and variety. What can you do to make your days more interesting? • Offer to initiate and organise special projects and events, either a regular event on the school calendar or a new initiative. • Volunteer for subcommittees to plan the next student-free professional learning day, develop a grounds plan, or promote the school to the community. • Offer to be the school coordinator or champion for your favourite subject or cause. • Aim to improve your teaching in a different area each year. Attend courses, gather ideas from colleagues, read and visit other schools and classrooms. • Keep out of the rut. Avoid teaching the same classes or material year after year. Ask to teach a different year level or course. Make it easy for your school leaders by first negotiating a swap with a colleague, so that you have an expedient way to make it happen. • Change your teaching. Try out new content, new teaching strategies, new excursions or events and new learning tasks. • Enrol in a university course. University study has a whole new (and very enjoyable) feel to it when you are studying a higher degree: you are studying because you want to, rather than because your future employment depends on it! Alternatively, enrol in a community course to enhance your teaching and your life. • Conduct some classroom research. You might do this in association with your students, teaching them the process of gathering data and interpreting it. They might even suggest the topic: ways to reduce litter, the incidence of cyberbullying, new ways to structure the school day, and so on. • Write for journals and magazines. Write what you know and what you are passionate about. • Apply for scholarships or grants to travel to observe education elsewhere. Arrange a teaching exchange with another country, another sector or just another school.
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• Move to a different education level or a different sector. • Join an overseas volunteer program. • Host international exchange teachers or students. • Review your career path. What have you done, what are you doing now, what would you like to be doing and how will you get there? Opportunities for learning are not confined to time or place. While there is value and power in learning alongside your colleagues, your learning need not be restricted to this. What do you want to learn—for your work, for your future, for your personal growth? Perhaps this book has stirred some ideas you would like to explore. What’s preventing you? You have access to educators from all over the world, through books and online technologies. You can communicate directly with authors and other experts and with peers anywhere in the world. Your professional education is not complete. You can keep learning from experience throughout life, and continue to follow formal and informal learning pathways of your own choosing.
Lead Leaders are people who lead when a leader is needed. They don’t need a title, and they don’t need authority. They need a purpose and an opportunity. Leadership brings meaning and a sense of purpose to people’s work. In teaching, that purpose is seeing students learn, watching them grow. Leaders help people focus to see what is being achieved, as well as what is not. Leaders excite people with images of the future, with the possibility of a better way. Leaders challenge and nurture people, encouraging them to explore their abilities and possibilities, so that they grow and achieve new things. Anyone can do that. Here are some ways: • Be an example. Model positive attitudes to your work, your students, their parents, your school, even difficult issues and people. Positively influence your colleagues. • Challenge others to deal with issues positively. Allow their occasional whinge, but challenge them to find a positive way to deal with the problem. • Look for ways to do things better through major innovations and small changes day by day. • Share with colleagues any insights gained or attitudinal shifts made as a result of reading this book.
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• Mentor others. Identify colleagues you could support and guide. Seek ways to encourage them, to listen to them, to offer suggestions to them and to collaborate with them. • Be excited about the growth in others, their new insights, new learning, new ideas and new practices.
Reflect • Compare your teaching this year with your teaching three years or so ago. How is it the same? How is it different? • What have you learned about teaching and learning this year? How has that changed your thinking? How has it changed your practice? • In what ways are you frustrated about your impact as a teacher? What would you like to be able to do better? How might you find ways to address those things? • As a role model for learning, how would your students rate you?
What’s your attitude? I can’t wait to get out the golf clubs and fishing rods. What are you planning for your holidays? A bit of time away with the family, on the coast; a few jobs around the house; some cricket watching; and I’m attending a conference. A conference! Don’t you understand the concept of ‘holiday’? You don’t work on a holiday. You holiday on a holiday! I know, and I’m doing that, but I also want to keep growing as a teacher, so I need to stay up to date with what’s going on in the world of education. So read a book. I’ll do that too, but I also want to be challenged to look at my work differently. Listening to various speakers, hearing about research and practical ideas, and networking with other teachers all help me to do that. Are you after a promotion? When the time is right. But this isn’t about promotion. It’s about staying alive as a teacher. Staying alive? That sounds like how I face every day in the classroom.
Our attitude to challenge: Grow with others
I’m not talking about survival. I’m talking about keeping the brain active, questioning my teaching, looking for new things to try and new ways of looking at my work. I think I get that. Sometimes I feel like I’m just going through the motions, doing the same as I’ve done for years. Education shouldn’t be like that. How can we be in the business of learning and not be committed to our own learning? You have a point. I often hear your students talking enthusiastically about your class. I doubt they talk enthusiastically about my classes. Perhaps I’m a boring teacher. So don’t give me a tearful earful and don’t keep giving your students stodgy pedagogy. Come to the conference with me. The fish will miss me, because I usually feed them a lot better than they feed me, but maybe they can wait for a few days. Tell me more about this conference.
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10
Our attitude to coping: Seek balance
In the earlier chapters of this book, the focus was on attitudes that primarily affect how we see our place in the world of education. The later chapters have focused increasingly on how we relate to others, including colleagues, students and parents. In the previous chapter we explored our attitude towards our own growth. The purpose of the book has not been to make demands on teachers to work longer and harder, but to adjust the way we think about our work. In this chapter we explore the importance of finding balance in life—balancing a passion for our work with a commitment to our own emotional, social, spiritual and physical wellbeing.
Be committed to your own survival Teaching can be all consuming. You can work at it 25 hours a day, eight days a week, and still find things to do—more thorough preparation, more consideration of how to assist particular students or how to teach a particular concept, more comprehensive marking, more preparation of resources, and so on. That’s admirable, but unreasonable. Although this book has urged commitment to many aspects of teaching, it is unreasonable for teaching to be all there is in your life. Even if you do not have a partner, children, parents or others who crave your attention; even if you are living in a remote place with limited social life; even if you aspire to great achievements and career progress as an educator; there is more to life, and it is important that you find it. Failure to do so may accelerate your ‘burn out’. It could cause you to be unreasonably critical of others who don’t meet your high standards, lead to unreasonable expectations of students and result in resentment of parents or students who do not show you enough appreciation. Failure to pay enough attention to your life outside of teaching is also likely to 92
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damage your relationships with friends and acquaintances. Ultimately, it will either prevent you achieving the high standards you seek, or impede your enjoyment of your achievements. In his autobiography, teacher Jonathan Smith comments on the irony that teaching is not effective if you stay up until 1.00 am marking work then enter the classroom grumpy, aggressive and self-pitying. Better if you have another life outside the classroom and if you bring that life, or what that life gives you, into the classroom. We inspire students through our instincts and through the attitude with which we face our teaching.50 And according to Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the seventh habit is to ‘sharpen the saw’.51 It is concerned with renewing each aspect of our lives, including: • physical renewal, such as exercise, diet and stress management • spiritual renewal, such as the continual clarification of values and responsibility to others • mental renewal, such as continued education, self-development and personal planning of future life directions, and • social–emotional renewal, such as the development of better relationships and service to others. As you reflect on the challenges in this book, ensure that you also reflect on your life. Consider how to achieve what needs to be done while continuing to honour the people and interests beyond teaching that make you who you are.
Seek meaning People seek employment to earn money to pay the bills and survive. However, beyond this, I believe most people seek three things from their work.
A sense of worth People want to feel that their work matters. No matter how menial our work may be, we want to feel that we somehow make a difference to the world, that if our work ceased to be or we ceased to be, that people would miss us and the work we did. Teaching matters. It is worth doing. In societies where schooling is a rare and costly commodity, it is highly sought after, and those who are able to attend school are envied. It’s an overly simplistic analysis, but adults who did not succeed in schooling are over-represented in prisons and under-represented in employment. There is a world of stories of
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teachers who had a significant impact, even a life-changing or life-saving impact, on at least one of their students. Never doubt the worth of teaching.
A sense of achievement People want to feel that they are ‘winning’, that they are actually succeeding in some way. For teachers, that means feeling that our students are actually learning what we are teaching. The easy measures of that are test or examination data. However, such data are flawed and there are many interacting variables, so look for trends rather than simple raw data, and look at meaningful measures. That is, with the intention of seeking reasons rather than excuses, look at progress students have made. Look, too, at non–academic data. How have students grown in social and emotional ways? If the answers are not impressive, then seek to change your practices. Ensure that you are succeeding as a teacher, for your students and for yourself. Of course, as every teacher knows, our best, sincere and skilled efforts will not necessarily result in satisfying progress for every student. There are some things beyond the teacher’s control. However, review your successes as a teacher, celebrate your achievement, and actively seek ways to achieve better.
A sense of community People want to feel that they connect. Some people may say that they don’t care about their colleagues, that they just go to work to do their job, and that they don’t need to talk to colleagues except as necessary to do their work. However, most people want to feel that they belong, that they share a common purpose in their work and that they are supported by others in their work. As customers, we can sometimes sense workplaces where people appear to enjoy one another’s company and are happy to be there and workplaces where people appear to resent being there. There is a difference in the atmosphere and the quality of service. How is it in your school? Are tears shed as staff or students are farewelled? Do staff and students return to share stories about how their life has evolved, bring in their new babies, meet for coffee with excolleagues or maintain communication with some of the staff? These are signs that people have experienced a sense of community in the school, and that the connection continues even after they have left. Seek community for yourself. Help others to belong.
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A change in attitude The purpose of this book has been to challenge some attitudes prevalent among teachers. By shifting perspective and thinking more positively about some aspects of your work, your attitude to your work may change, and that may affect how you teach. We need teachers who are committed and passionate about what they do, who experience a strong sense of worth, achievement and community, and who can encourage those things in students.
Reflect • Share with colleagues stories which affirm the worth of what you do, stories about students for whom you know you have made a difference. • Reflect on your achievements as a teacher. Review letters, cards and verbal affirmations from students and parents praising your work with students. Reflect on the ways in which you know your students have succeeded. • Listen to the conversations among staff and encourage staff to laugh, share about their lives beyond school and enjoy one another’s company.
What’s your attitude? I think we’ll stop there. I could have gone on for chapters about our attitude to culture, because it’s important we build the school culture as that influences everything; or our attitude to creativity, because we need to be willing to find new ways to do things rather than to continue doing what we’ve always done; or our attitude to courage, because doing what we believe to be right sometimes brings us up against opposition; or our attitude to communication, because that is at the heart of all our relationships; or our attitude to service … That wouldn’t work. It doesn’t start with C! And such clumsiness would clearly change the character and cloud the coherence of this chronicle, and cause a carry-on! Sorry. So how do you feel about all this? Have you changed any of your attitudes? Absolutely. I’m impressed by your positive response. What’s changed? I’m not sure yet. I’ve changed some of my thinking, but I’m not sure yet what that will mean in my practice.
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When we change our thinking, our actions can’t help but follow. When we change our thinking, we become different people, so everything changes. So I wish you well. Tell me how you get on.
Endnotes
1. M Fullan, What’s worth fighting for in the principalship?, 2nd edn, Ontario Public School Teachers’ Federation, Toronto, 1997, p. 6. 2. R Sharma, The leader who had no title, Simon & Schuster, London, 2010, p. 46. 3. ibid., p. 120. 4. C Handy, The age of unreason, Business Books, London, 1989, p. 4. 5. H Beare, Six decades of continuous school restructuring, ACEL Monograph Series No. 46, Australian Council for Educational Leaders, Penrith, 2010. 6. JW Guthrie, & JE Koppich, ‘Ready, AIM, reform: building a model of education reform and “high politics”’, in H Beare & WL Boyd (eds), Restructuring schools: An international perspective on the movement to transform the control and performance of schools, Falmer, London, 1993, p. 26. 7. A Hargeaves & D Shirley, The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change, Corwin, California, 2009, pp. xi, 72. 8. GE Hall, The concerns–based adoption model: A developmental conceptualisation of the adoption process within educational institutions, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, University of Texas, Austin, 1974. 9. P Ridden, Managing change in schools, Ashton Scholastic, Gosford, 1991. 10. ibid. 11. R White, ‘Questionable assumptions underlying secondary school classrooms’, Australian Journal of Education, vol. 32, no. 3, 1988, pp. 311–30.
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98 Endnotes
12. M Fullan & A Hargreaves, What’s worth fighting for? Working together for your school, Australian Council for Educational Administration, Hawthorn, 1991, p. 37. 13. Fullan, What’s worth fighting for in the principalship?, op. cit., p. 26. 14. P Hughes, ‘Restructuring: the Australian context’, in G Harman, H Beare & GF Berkeley (eds), Restructuring school management: Recent administrative reorganisation of public school governance in Australia, Australian College of Education, Canberra, 1993, p. 58. 15. E MacDonald & D Shirley, The mindful teacher, Teachers College Press, New York, 2009, p. 15. 16. S Dinham, How to get your school moving and improving, ACER Press, Camberwell, 2008, p. 91. 17. A Walker, cited in Sharma, op. cit., p. 43. 18. C Shultz, The complete Peanuts: 1961 to 1962, Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA, 2006, http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1961/09/30, accessed 4 May 2011. 19. P McKenzie, J Kos, M Walker & J Hong, Staff in Australia’s Schools 2007, Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, 2008, pp. 96–7. 20. L Connors, ‘Requiem for a teacher’, Education Review, November 2010, pp. 22–3. 21. Dinham, op. cit., p. 83. 22. A Hargreaves & M Fullan, What’s worth fighting for out there? Ontario Public School Teachers’ Federation, Toronto, 1998, p. 58. 23. RL Fried, The passionate teacher, Beacon Press, Boston, 1995, p. 17. 24. ibid., p. 19. 25. EW Eisner, ‘Preparing for today and tomorrow’, Educational Leadership, December 2003/January 2004, pp. 7–10. 26. RK Sawyer, Innovating to learn, learning to innovate, OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 2008, p. 11. 27. A Meyers, A vision for 21st century learning, video of presentation at the TED conference, Palm Springs, February 2009, http://www. youtube.com/user/ameyers3727, accessed 14 April 2011. 28. B Wilson, ‘How to teach better. Pedagogy: What’s wrong’, Paper presented at the Curriculum Corporation Conference, Perth, 17 June 2003. 29. G Whitby, 21st century pedagogy, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=l72UFXqa8ZU, accessed 14 April 2011.
Endnnotes 99
30. A Deleon, ‘Lifelong learning: a philosophy or a strategy?’, Towards the learning society, Australian College of Education, 1975, p. 30. 31. A Einstein, Ideas and opinions, trans. S Bargmann, Crown Publishers, New York, 1960, p. 63. 32. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, MCEETYA, Canberra, December 2008. 33. W Damon, Greater expectations: Overcoming the culture of indulgence in our homes and schools, The Free Press, New York, 1995, p. 151. 34. MS Peck, The different drum, Touchstone, Toronto, 1987. 35. TJ Sergiovanni, Building community in schools, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1994. p. xiii. 36. MA Royal & RJ Rossi, ‘Individual–level correlates of sense of community: Findings from workplace and school’, Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 395–416. 37. C Brewster & J Railsback, ‘Building trusting relationships for school improvement: implications for principals and teachers’, Northwest Regional Educational Service, Portland, 2003. 38. D Vodicka, ‘The four elements of trust’, Principal Leadership, vol. 7, no. 3, 1996, pp. 27–30. 39. S Hein, What respect is, http://eqi.org/respect.htm#, accessed 14€April 2011. 40. P Gulley, Front porch tales, Multnomah Books, Sisters, Oregon, 1997, p. 22. 41. K Blanchard & D Shula, Everyone’s a coach: Five business secrets for high-performance coaching, HarperCollins, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995, p. 59. 42. MS Peck, ‘Servant–leadership training and discipline in authentic community’, in LC Spears (ed.), Reflections on leadership, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995, p. 71. 43. CM Shields & PA Seltzer, ‘Complexities and paradoxes of community: Toward a more useful conceptualisation of community’, Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, 1997, p. 414. 44. P Selznick, ‘Thinking about community: Ten theses’, Society, vol. 32, no. 5, 1995, p. 34. 45. Peck, The different drum, op. cit., p. 62. 46. Sergiovanni, op. cit., p. xvi.
100 Endnotes
47. DC Lortie, Schoolteacher: A sociological study, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975. 48. BW Tuckman, ‘Developmental sequence in Psychological Bulletin, vol. 63, 1965, pp. 384–99.
small
groups’,
49. J Hattie, ‘Teachers make a difference: what is the research evidence?’, Building teacher quality: What does the research tell us?, Australian Council for Educational Research, 2003. 50. J Smith, The learning game: A teacher’s inspirational story, Little, Brown & Co., London, 2000. 51. S Covey, The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic, The Business Library, Melbourne, 2000.
References
Beare H, Six decades of continuous school restructuring, ACEL Monograph Series No. 46, Australian Council for Educational Leaders, Penrith, 2010. Blanchard K & D Shula, Everyone’s a coach: five business secrets for high–performance coaching, HarperCollins, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995, p. 59. Brewster C & J Railsback, ‘Building trusting relationships for school improvement: implications for principals and teachers’, Northwest Regional Educational Service, Portland, 2003. Connors L, ‘Requiem for a teacher’, Education Review, November 2010, pp. 22-23. Covey S, The seven habits of highly effective people: restoring the character ethic, The Business Library, Melbourne, 2000. Damon BW, Greater expectations: overcoming the culture of indulgence in our homes and schools, The Free Press, New York, 1995, p. 151. Deleon A, ‘Lifelong learning: a philosophy or a strategy?’, Towards the learning society, Australian College of Education, 1975, p. 30. Dinham S, How to get your school moving and improving, ACER Press, Camberwell, 2008, p. 91. Einstein A, Ideas and opinions, trans. S Bargmann, Crown Publishers, New York, 1960, p. 63. Eisner EW, ‘Preparing for today and tomorrow’, Educational Leadership, December 2003/January 2004, pp. 7–10. 101
102 References
Fried RL, The passionate teacher, Beacon Press, Boston, 1995, p. 168. Fullan M & A Hargreaves, What’s worth fighting for? Working together for your school, Australian Council for Educational Administration, Hawthorn, 1991, p. 37. Fullan M, What’s worth fighting for in the principalship?, 2nd edn, Ontario Public School Teachers’ Federation, Toronto, 1997, p. 6. Gulley P, Front porch tales, Multnomah Books, Sisters, Oregon, 1997, p. 22. Guthrie JW & JE Koppich, ‘Ready, AIM, reform: building a model of education reform and “high politics”’, in H Beare & WL Boyd (eds), Restructuring schools: An international perspective on the movement to transform the control and performance of schools, Falmer, London, 1993, p. 26. Hall GE, The concerns–based adoption model: A developmental conceptualisation of the adoption process within educational institutions, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, University of Texas, Austin, 1974. Handy C, The age of unreason, Business Books, London, 1989, p. 4. Hargeaves A & D Shirley, The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change, Corwin, California, 2009, pp. xi, 72. Hattie J, ‘Teachers make a difference: what is the research evidence?’, Building teacher quality: What does the research tell us?, Australian Council for Educational Research, 2003. Hein S, What respect is, http://eqi.org/respect.htm#, viewed March 2011. Hughes P, ‘Restructuring: the Australian context’, in G Harman, H Beare & GF Berkeley (eds), Restructuring school management: Recent administrative reorganisation of public school governance in Australia, Australian College of Education, Canberra, 1993, p. 58. Lortie DC, Schoolteacher: A sociological study, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975. MacDonald E & D Shirley, The mindful teacher, Teachers College Press, New York, 2009, p. 15.
References 103
McKenzie P, J Kos, M Walker & J Hong, Staff in Australia’s Schools 2007, Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, 2008, pp. 96–7. Meyers A, A vision for 21st century learning, video of presentation at the TED conference, Palm Springs, February 2009, http://www.youtube. com/user/ameyers3727, accessed 14 April 2011. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, MCEETYA, Canberra, December 2008. Peck MS, ‘Servant–leadership training and discipline in authentic community’, in LC Spears (ed.), Reflections on leadership, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995, p. 71. Peck MS, The different drum, Touchstone, Toronto, 1987. Ridden P, Managing change in schools, Ashton Scholastic, Gosford, 1991. Royal MA & RJ Rossi, ‘Individual–level correlates of sense of community: findings from workplace and school’, Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 395–416. Sawyer RK, Innovating to learn, learning to innovate, OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 2008, p. 11. Selznick P, ‘Thinking about community: ten theses’, Society, vol. 32, no. 5, 1995, p.34. Sergiovanni TJ, Building community in schools, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1994. p. xiii. Sharma R, The leader who had no title, Simon & Schuster, London, 2010, p. 46. Shields CM, & PA Seltzer, ‘Complexities and paradoxes of community: Toward a more useful conceptualisation of community’, Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, 1997, p. 414. Shultz C, The complete Peanuts: 1961 to 1962, Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA, 2006, http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1961/09/30, accessed 4 May 2011. Smith J, The learning game: a teacher’s inspirational story, Little, Brown & Co., London, 2000.
104 References
Tuckman, BW, ‘Developmental sequence in small groups’, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 63, 1965, pp. 384–99. Vodicka D, ‘The four elements of trust’, Principal Leadership, vol. 7, no. 3, 1996, p. 27–30. Walker A, cited in Sharma R, The leader who had no title, Simon & Schuster, London, 2010, p. 43. Whitby G, 21st century pedagogy, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=l72UFXqa8ZU, accessed 14 April 2011. White R, ‘Questionable assumptions underlying secondary school classrooms’, Australian Journal of Education, 32(3), 1988, pp. 311– 30. Wilson B, ‘How to teach better. Pedagogy: What’s wrong’, Paper presented at the Curriculum Corporation Conference, Perth, 17 June 2003.
Phil Ridden Phil Ridden loves education. But he is worried about teachers. So many seem to have lost their sense of purpose. They feel put upon and powerless. They feel alone in a difficult job. There are many things over which teachers have little control and which are difficult to change - but teachers can change how they view the challenges they face, and how they deal with them.
This is a unique book, which ought to be read by every teacher – at every level, in every subject, in every school.
Australian Council for Educational Research
Dr Phil Ridden has been the Head of the Primary School at St Stephen’s School in Western Australia for nearly 20 years. His career in education has spanned many years as a primary and secondary teacher, curriculum writer, professional development consultant, deputy principal and principal, school council member and parent, in government and independent schools.
ISBN 978-1-74286-017-6
9 781742 860176
Phil Ridden
For Those Who Teach draws on the author’s wealth of experience and on his passion for teaching. Much more than mere homilies or sage words of advice, this book seeks to actively engage teachers and help shape their attitudes. In a succinct, direct and positive manner, For Those Who Teach addresses the realities of the profession: from context to curriculum, from collaboration to community, from understanding teaching as a calling to the days when we struggle to cope. Whether a neophyte teacher-trainee or a veteran of many years standing, For Those Who Teach will inspire teachers to regain their balance, their focus, their motivation, and their determination to make a difference in students’ lives.
About the author
For Those Who Teach
For Those Who Teach
For Those Who Teach Phil Ridden
