Schools are hard places to change. I was a principal for twenty years so I know
from first hand experience how hard it is to change things in school. There are many reasons for why it is
hard. Not the least of them is the fact
that the adults who work in schools are usually the people who succeeded in
them, and haven’t experienced education in any other way. It is hard to think out of the box if all you
have ever experienced is the box.
Most of the change initiatives for schools including
bullying prevention assume that change can occur within the existing culture
and structure of school. I compare this
to home repairs-the house is okay it just needs fixing. What if the house is not okay and has
structural problems like a shaky foundation.
Any repair on top of a unsound foundation is likely to ultimately
fail. What if the thing we want to
repair is direct consequence of the faulty foundation.
This is a hard message to get across to people. It is threatening for people to think that
their foundation is not sound. Telling
people that fact is criticizing them and leaving them with no alternatives,
which is an intolerable situation for them.
This is the paradox education finds itself in-it needs to change the
culture of schools yet telling people that the culture needs changing is
message that doesn’t motivate them to change.
We cannot however start our education system from
scratch. We must start where are and try
to improve it. The main question should
be: what strategy/approach has the greatest potential for revealing the real
source of the problem and beginning the change process in the right
direction? Any strategy that fails to do
will just be another case of trying something that sounds good but really is
just more of the same that leaves the foundation untouched.
What will not work is creating a program designed to address a problem
and then make people follow it. This
doesn’t work because the program is usually designed for changing the students
not the people who work in schools. For
change initiative to work effectively, it must not be a blueprint that people
just follow, it must be something that changes how people feel and
think-changes their hearts and minds. It
must help them to begin see and understand things differently. (People sometimes need to act differently
before they see things differently, but ultimately they just can’t blindly follow
or feel that their main role is to follow a program.)
They need to be empowered to be the planners, creators,
implementers and evaluators-they need to move from being passive recipients of
plans from above to engaged and active agents of change. They will ultimately have to understand and
articulate why they are doing what they are doing, not just do it. Michael Fullan says that people need to WALK
the TALK and TALK the WALK. The typical
mindset that too many educators have of “just give me something practical” or
“tell me what to do” only perpetuates the status quo. Teaching and learning are not step-by-step,
color by numbers types of activities.
The agents of change must be thinkers and doers-learners. When teachers assume these roles they are
more likely to view their students as such.
For this meaningful change to happen in schools, the people
in schools especially the leaders in the school, have to know about the change
process-what works and what doesn’t work.
This is why a book like Teaming by
Amy Edmondson is so valuable.
I will give just one example from her book of how change is facilitated
that seems to be ignored by current practice.
The research is clear that people are more likely to change when the
change that is presented to them is “aspirational”
rather than “defensive.” She explains that the “frame” of the change has a very significant influence on whether
of not the change will be successful.
Nowhere is this so clear as in bullying prevention. The frame of bullying prevention as it is
presented to most educators is the following:
Bullying is a problem that needs to be solved so school can
continue to operate the way it normally does, therefore:
- · We haven’t been doing a good enough job in stopping bullying
- · We now have to stop bullying because it is now against the law (we are mandated to do it)
- · We have a program or protocol for meeting the mandate
- · Everyone needs to follow this or we will be out of compliance
This defensive
frame focuses on the negative, criticizes past performance, emphasizes
compliance down the line, and removes those involved from being necessary
agents of change. It is not just
research but common sense that tells us that people don’t respond well to this
“frame” for change. Ironically, then
people’s (teachers and students) resistance to this “frame” is then interpreted
as stubbornness, lack of openness, and self-interest by those in power who want
the change to happen.
Here is an alternative frame:
Bullying prevention is not just stopping something bad or
fixing a problem, it is an opportunity to reconnect to the basic moral purpose
of education, and therefore, we must act on these basic assumptions/beliefs:
- · We are educators because we want to improve the lives of the students we serve
- · We want our students to learn in a safe environment where they are respected and valued
- · We believe our students are capable of great things
- · We believe that students want to learn and want to work as a community
- · This is a challenge for that is essential for everyone and one that requires everyone’s commitment and participation
- · Finding the best way to do this will require everyone to learn more about the problem and the type of changes that will be required
- · We need to learn together and plan and lead together
- · If we do so, change is not just possible it is inevitable
I know that this second “frame” is the one that would
motivate me the most. This is an
approach that is designed to change hearts and minds. When people’s hearts and minds change, then
real change happens-it is the only way that real change has ever happened.
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