"Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast"- Peter Drucker

That quotation from Peter Drucker succinctly explains why so many bullying prevention programs fail to significantly prevent and reduce bullying in schools.  In a healthy school culture bullying should stand out by being an exception to how people are treated.  It should call attention to itself because it is not in line with the cultural norms of a school.  This is not to imply that bullying doesn't occur in  positive and healthy school cultures- it can and it will.  This does mean that it doesn't blend into the culture or become camouflaged.  To put Drucker's statement into blunt terms, if adults in a school yell at students or belittle them as a fairly routine way of interacting or if people don't have a basic genuine respect for each other, a  bullying prevention program will do little good and could do harm because students will view it as being hypocritical.  Instituting a bullying prevention program in such a school will not change the school culture and it is serious mistake to think that it will. 

Changing a school culture is hard because the people in the school have a hard time recognizing/seeing their culture-it is like the air they breathe.  It is just there-it isn't "culture" to them,  it is just the way the school is and probably the way most schools are in their mind.  Even if a school could recognize its culture and see it for what it is, attempts to  change it are often viewed as criticisms of the current culture. It is very difficult to expect people in even the most dysfunctional organizations to admit that things need to change-it is very threatening to them to realize that what they have been doing and saying for years has not been justified and warranted by their circumstances.  This why Drucker also says:  'Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one.  Try instead to work what what you've got."

This is the conundrum.  If it is true, to paraphrase James Carville, that : "It's the culture, stupid." and we follow Drucker's advice to never try to change one, what can we do?  The answer is to avoid a quick fix strategy/program that will  try to change things and instead understand the change process and become "strategic" in working with the people who "live" in that culture. 

As a retired principal who worked in schools for over 35 years, I find it frustrating to see the trend in education to rely less on building the capacity of people and more on finding programs/strategies to get people to follow.  Maybe this is because "the problem" is attributed to the people in school who can't be trusted to solve what they "created".  The logical alternative is to take control away from them and instead try to get them to follow a script or a blueprint spelling out their moves.  I have never seen anything positive emerge from negating people's basic need for autonomy and  minimizing their degree of control on how they do their job.  This approach often at best just gets surface compliance and very often  produces a passive/aggressive response from staff.  The alternative to imposing a program doesn't mean leaving people to their own devices and becoming resigned to the status quo.  It does mean expecting positive change to come out of empowering people and providing the right conditions for them to move in the right direction. 

Businesses know that leadership is the key to change and the best leadership is type that promotes leadership in everyone.  Read about the "best" companies: Southwest Airlines, Toyota, Google, Costco and you will hear stories about people being empowered by leaders who recognize and value what each person has to contribute to the whole enterprise.  These are  companies that are always growing and learning because the people in them are learning and growing together.  Schools  shouldn't be viewed as businesses, but they should be learning communities- not places where people just do what they are told or just follow the program. 

I recently facilitated a workshop about leadership and change and thought of a good analogy: sailing.  I have very limited experience as a sailor but did enough to learn the basics.  There are three main components of a successful sailing journey: knowing the destination, reading the wind, and keeping a steady hand on the tiller. 

Too many change initiatives  are based on the mindset of "we don't like where we are so we need to change" (this is usually decided by others  outside of the school and not the people in the school).  Too little time if any is devoted to having  a clear idea of where we want to go-what type of learning do we really want-what does it look like and sound like.  Rather than just wanting to solve the problem of bullying, school leaders should help people  talk about what type of school  they want to have.  This vision or destination may not be clear in the beginning but it should come into clearer and clearer focus as the school learns  (sails) together. 

The "wind" is the change process-knowing how people change and the conditions needed for change to happen.  This means affirming what people are already doing, inviting their input, involving them in the process, asking for help, and welcoming questions and concerns.  Failure to 'read the wind' usually means either heading in the wrong direction or being "in irons"-stuck going nowhere.

The "steady hand on the tiller" is leadership that is going in the right direction toward the destination and makes adjustments and navigates based on changing conditions. It also means modeling the change you want to see in others.

Bullying prevention is an opportunity presenting itself as a problem.  A good leader recognizes this opportunity as reason to  start a journey initially to solve a problem but ends up transforming the school into a better place for everyone-that is the culture is changed. 

"Trickle Down Theory" in Bullying Prevention

The Race to the Top initiative required states to adopt teacher evaluation systems that would raise the overall level of teaching competence and thereby raise student achievement.  This approach was supposedly an improvement over the NCLB, which relied on standardized testing to ultimately raise student achievement.  Both of these reform “strategies”, use evaluation to drive positive change and to motivate the people in schools to change how they educate.   The bottom line message of both approaches in “get better results or else bad things will happen to you.”  

In an earlier post, I talked about McGregor’s Theory X and Y of management: Theory X assumes that people are basically unmotivated and irresponsible and need to be tightly controlled and Theory Y assumes that people are basically motivated and responsible if they are given the right working conditions.  It is very clear that when it comes to school reform, Theory X "rules" for how teachers and students are viewed and treated.  The most blatant evidence for this was a Newsweek cover story that  read: “The Key to Saving American Education: Fire Bad Teachers”.

What does all of this however have to do will bullying prevention?  I think that it has everything to do with it and the fact that we don’t talk about these larger issues in relation bullying prevention is one of the main reasons that we fail to make progress in schools.  We, as educators, are so overburdened with things to do and are filled with anxiety that it is almost impossible to step back and look at the situation we are in and how so much of what we are told to do actually runs counter to what we know about how people learn and grow.  (I think however that most educators know this but feel fairly helpless about doing anything about it.)

I found an interesting book, Contradictions of Control by Linda McNeil written in 1988 long before NCLB or RTTT was even conceived.   It is a scholarly work that examined the underlying assumptions of the basic structure and organization of our educational system.  She explores the effect of school management on the teaching and learning that happens in the classroom:  “… when the teachers in today’s schools see their autonomy threatened by administrative controls, they are more likely to resist this loss by exerting greater control in the classroom…When students see this disproportionate attention to controlling functions, they too resist in their own ways.”  The only exception I have with her statement is that most students don’t resist they usually except it and have learned to “play the game of school”, which is do what you are told and follow the rules.  I do feel that she is absolutely right when she draws the connection between teacher autonomy and student autonomy.  As teachers have less autonomy and feel controlled especially by fear of “bad consequences” for not performing they will tend to give their students less autonomy and exert more control over them. Theory X begets Theory X.

 

Unfortunately this Theory X approach is so pervasive in our educational system that Theory Y approaches are seldom seen.  As result, any deviation from Theory X approaches is viewed as laissez-faire and inviting chaos.  (Interesting to note that Theory Y approaches are being used in businesses especially ones that rely on creativity and innovation, e.g. Pixar, Google, Apple, Zappos. Daniel Pink devotes a lot of his book, Drive, to explain why Theory Y is more effective in business.)

People who are bullied over time sadly become used to it and cannot even see it as bullying.  It is just the way things are to them.  When people’s actions are primarily governed by constant fear and anxiety and not by their own needs and desires, they can  easily ignore and forget their own needs and desires.  When  using fear to manipulate and control people,  i.e. bullying,  becomes institutionalized, it is no longer seen as bullying or abuse but rather as the rules and regulations that need to be followed “or else”.  Fear makes people think only about their own survival and less about others.  People become motivated more by avoidance of bad things happening to them and less motivated by the desire to learn and grow together.

Bullying can hide easily in organizations that are governed by the use of fear and anxiety.  Although policy makers may be motivated to achieve positive results, the ends do not just the means when it comes to education. When fear and anxiety is used to control educators, it becomes almost impossible for educators to act in accord with their original moral purpose of helping students.  They are put in a position to manipulate students to achieve results in order to keep their jobs and avoid shame and judgment.   Environments like that are breeding grounds for bullying. 

We need to be careful about how we go about getting change at the “top” because “trickle down” unfortunately  does work in education.  You really can’t bully your way to bullying prevention or to real learning.  There is however another way. 

A way that is based on a  simple common sense fact we all know:  when people feel in control of their lives and have meaningful work to do they have less of a need to control others.   When people feel connected as a community, there is no need to separate people into winners or losers.  It seems that  more and more  educational policies are promoting a type of learning environment that makes it more and more difficult for the optimal conditions for learning to emerge.  Effective bullying prevention shouldn't just be about controlling students to stop bullying; it requires us to give more autonomy, meaning and a greater sense of community to students and teachers.  These are the key factors for building  an "immunity" to bullying within a school: make a place where real learning takes place.

Principles and Programs

The Peaceful School Bus program will NOT solve a school's bus problems.  This might sound like a radical comment from  the person who developed the program, but it is something I deeply believe.   Programs are only as good as the people who implement them.  Programs are only tools not solutions or answers in and of themselves.  When someone creates a beautiful painting we don't attribute it to the paint brush.  Someone who writes a book does not attribute the accomplishment to the pen or word processing program.  In education, however, the search always seems to be for the right program or system that will override the effect of the people involved.

In many ways I think that the quest for the right program has been in reaction to the tradition of each teacher being independent of each other.  If a school is full of people who pretty much do their own thing how can there be any consistency in approaching any problem.  The answer to this inconsistency is to get people to follow a program that will tell them what to do and how to do it.  Teachers often balk at programs for this very reason.  They can interpret programs as an implicit criticism of their work, and there is a natural resistance to any attempt to take away their autonomy. Teachers do need to work collaboratively,  but a program is  not the way to do it.

A school leader who stands up in front of a faculty and announces that a new program (especially if the program is perceived to be something that make sure the school is in compliance with an externally imposed law or policy) is being put into place, is sending the wrong message to the people he/she leads.  The hidden message is "you haven't done a good enough job so now you need to do something else on top of all the other things you have to do."  This message does not energize anybody nor does it get buy in and sustained commitment.  Teachers who have been around for a while adopt a "this too shall pass" attitude.  No wonder that when the program doesn't work, the believers in the program blame a lack of program fidelity as being the reason why it failed.  Often the response to get greater fidelity is to use either "carrots or sticks" to get staff to follow it. Asking why staff might not being following a program takes a lot of courage because the answer to goes to the heart of why schools seem stuck when it comes to any change.   We as educators will not get anywhere and will remain stuck unless we understand the process of change and the human element of it: people don't resist change but they do resist being changed.

School leaders must first believe that if staff can see and know how the change will improve the lives and learning of students, they will be open to it.  It is better to act on that assumption and be proved wrong that to act on the assumption that people don't care be proved right.  If school leaders invested time in learning with their staff about problems and enlisted staff in exploring options for meeting needs, then staff will be more open to change and willing to lead the change.  Effective leaders tie the need for change to the basic moral purpose of education, not just as another program to follow or policy to implement.  As staff can come to see and understand a problem and how it affects the basic mission of education, they will be energized and motivated to do something.  This might be viewed as just being idealistic but true change really only emerges when people do aspire to do something special.  The best leaders are idealistic but also provide the practical strategies for channeling the energy and motivation for doing something great.  Focusing on a few commonly held principles and then exploring how to "make" those principles work in the real life of a school, is a way to bring people together without coercing them or making them feel like they are just following orders.

If ultimately we want students to take greater ownership and a more active role in their own learning, staff must first be empowered and enlisted as caring professionals rather than viewed as resistant independent operators.  When  staff work as team to understand a problem and then look for the tools and resources that will help them address that problem, then real progress can be made.  When a program becomes a tool selected by an empowered staff to solve a problem they care about-then and only then will it become an element for effective change.

STEALTH Approach to Bullying Prevention

I am reading a fascinating book entitled, Thinking,  Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahnman.  He reviews and analyses the research on how we perceive the world and how that influences our words and actions.  Here is an experiment he describes: two groups of people are given a set of words to put into sentences; one group is given an unrelated set and the other a set containing words that related to old age (Florida, forgetful, bald, gray, wrinkled); the researchers then measured the time the subjects took to walk the length of the hallway where the experiment took place.  The people that were given the words related to old age took longer to walk this length of the hallway.  This is  hard to believe, but empirically this effect called "priming" has been consistently demonstrated in variations of this type of experiment.  Kahnman states, "Studies of priming effects have yielded discoveries that threaten our self image as conscious and autonomous authors of our judgments and choices."

Kahnman describes how this type of "fast" thinking or system 1 thinking can be offset by "slow" thinking or system 2 thinking where the brain can figure things out.  Obviously conducting research to discover how the brain works is itself an example of "slow" or system 2 thinking.  The more we know about how easily we can be influenced allows us to know ourselves better and account for this in living our lives.

I do think that this research can be helpful in how we educate our students in two important ways: using this research to create environments that influence students towards positive and responsible behavior and teaching students about how their brain works.  I am not suggesting that we trick or hypnotize students into behaving the way we want them to behave.  I am suggesting that we acknowledge the impact of the environment/atmosphere of the school on how students behave.  This is no different than recognizing that  the environment itself sends a louder more influential message to students than our more direct methods of controlling them.  John Dewey knew this way before the priming research proved it: “we never educate directly but indirectly by means of the environment….the required beliefs cannot be hammered in, the needed attitudes cannot be plastered on…the very process of living together educates…education is thus a fostering, nurturing, cultivating process…”.  People used to say to me that they could "feel" something special about our elementary school as soon as they walked through the front door.  Educators need to recognize and accept these "intangibles" and use them in the right way.  


The second way of using this priming research is to share it more directly with the students themselves.  What is more relevant and meaningful than to reflect upon who we are and how we operate in the world.  This is especially true of adolescents who live in a world of new emotions and feelings and are trying to make sense out of who they are.  I experienced this "need" firsthand the other evening when I was asked to make a presentation on bullying to a group of inner city teenage girls.  As part of my presentation, I showed videos from Dateline about bystanders having to deal with bullying.  I also showed a video clip demonstrating how easy it is to conform to others in social situations.  Rather than telling them how bullying is wrong, how it is against the rules and what they should do, I tried to help them gain some insight into why is it so hard to be a helpful bystander.  I can't say for certain how much my presentation will affect their behavior in the future but I do know that they were very attentive and responsive for the entire 2 hours (5-7 p.m.) which was a pretty good for summer evening and a group of 20 teenagers.


This research on how we think and act opens up a world of possibilities for how we educate our students, however, it only reflects and affirms much of our own common sense about teaching and learning.  The greatest obstacle we face in effectively preventing and reducing bullying is not the lack of knowledge and strategies, is it breaking the habits so embedded in our culture and our schools.  Starting to change how we think and feel about how to get the changes we want is the first step in the right direction. Leadership often boils down to just taking the first step in that right direction and getting one or two people to walk with you.

Different Worlds

The school bus and the school building are completely different worlds yet we typically try to solve their problems in the same way.  Solutions that work in the school building not only fail to work on the school bus but may even exacerbate the problems on the bus.  Here is a chart comparing the two environments (taken from my forthcoming book:  No Place for Bullying):

School Building	School Bus
Students are grouped by age.	Students are in one large mixed-age group.
Staff focused on students	Driver has to drive the bus.
External controls under adult supervision can be effective.	External controls from school don’t extend to bus.
Internal control not  always necessary	Internal control only real option
Most bullying is unnoticed by adults.	Even easier to conceal than in building
Purpose and importance of school clear in students’ mind	Bus is a means to an end—something to get you to school.
Many environmental options for behavior change	Contained space with few options
Adults are adjacent to students.	Driver can be far away and occupied driving the bus.
Timely response to behavior possible	Response to behavior can be days away
Traditional approaches to behavioral management can work.	Traditional approaches are not effective.
Bystanders can remove themselves as an audience to the bullying.	Students who bully have a captive audience on the bus.

There are no off the shelf solutions to the problems on the bus.  The only effective solutions will come from transportation staff and school staff working together to analyze the problems and develop creative solutions based investing time and energy to prevent as many problems as possible.  Waiting until something happens and then providing some type of consequence is ultimately just damage control.

From the List to the Core

I was asked by a principal to give a "pep talk" about bullying prevention to his staff at the faculty meeting. I had been helping them  implement a bullying prevention plan.  The staff had already been trained in bullying prevention, so I would just be there to help them refocus their efforts and answer any questions they might have.  I agreed to help out and  was told I would have about an half hour and would be the last item on the agenda.  I arrived early and attended the meeting from the start. 

It so happened that it was the day of state testing, so the teachers walked into the meeting looking pretty tired.  The first item on the agenda obviously dealt with the state testing procedures.  The other items were related to  the new teacher evaluation system mandated by the state, a new requirement for writing learning objectives, and a changes in the procedures for ordering materials for the next school year.  As the principal went through these items, I could see the teachers getting more and more tired and distracted.  I quickly realized that this was probably not the best time to talk to them about bullying prevention, yet I was still on the agenda. 

I  knew that I would need to say or do something to gain some of their attention. They were expecting me to tell them something else they needed to do or point out what they were not doing.  Bullying prevention would just add another item to their to-do list. Standing in front of them, I realized that I had encountered one of the key reasons why bullying prevention fails to "take hold" in a school-it is seen as just another item on a list placed on them from above like so many other things  like tests, mandates and regulations.  I announced to them that they should take bullying prevention off their list of things to do. If it merely stayed there on the list,  they would make little if any progress in addressing the problem.  This announcement did get their attention.

I thought that if I did nothing else at the meeting, I needed at least to "reframe" the problem of bullying prevention for them.  This reframing is essential to any progress we hope to make in this area.  School staff need to see bullying prevention as being at the heart of education: creating a safe and supporting environment, empowering students as leaders and learners, and giving them the knowledge, skills and attitudes for success in the 21st century.  As I stated in my previous posts, this is the positive door to use in approaching bullying prevention.  If bullying prevention is at the heart of education, it cannot be an item on a list.  To move from the list to the core will require strong shared leadership for reframing the issue and using a positive door, but this is the right direction to go even it if takes a while to work. 

If a school fails to use bullying prevention as an added opportunity for overall  improvement, it might find itself complying  with the laws, policies, and regulations but doing little to prevent the bullying that adults in the school can't see or hear.  It will be like the successful operation (because all the procedures were followed) where the patient died.

Prime Time for Bystanders

The other day I was walking down the street and was approached by a panhandler who asked me for some spare change.  Just prior to this I had been thinking about my wife who happens to be the most caring, charitable person I know.  I was caught off guard by this panhandler who directly walked up to me.  I didn't have change and my default response of shaking my head no and continuing to walk was all set to go into effect, but for some reason it didn't.  Instead (to my surprise and his) I reached into my wallet that had several one dollars bills and a few twenty's and gave him a twenty.  I made his day and who really knows or cares what he did with it.  I continued to walk to my destination and tried to figure out why I did what I did-for my behavior was spontaneous and not my default response.  I could only explain my response by attributing it to the thoughts I had about my wife immediately prior to the interaction with the panhandler.  My thoughts of my wife as a "giver" had primed me to give more generously than I typically would have. 

Social psychology research reveals how suggestible people are to invisible influences in the social environment.  I recall a study where people on the way to an interview were given either a hot or cold beverage to hold.  They were asked the same set of questions by the same interviewer yet when their answers were analyzed, those given the hot beverage gave answers that were warmer or more personable than the answers given by the  people who were given the cold beverage.  This results of this study are hard to believe, but other studies has shown similar effects.  This type of influence is called priming.  (Advertisers unlike educators have not overlooked this social psychological research.)  The prior thinking I had been doing about my wife had somehow slipped into the unexpected moment, overrode my typical default response and produced a more charitable act.

Similar to priming as an influence on behavior is the use of "identity" to influence behavior.  People will act according to how they identity themselves and this sense of identity can also be "primed".  People tend to adjust their behavior based on how they think of themselves: I am a caring person so I will help this person out.  Since students are in a formative stage of development, they are very dependent upon how adults think of them.  Educators therefore have a great opportunity to shape the type of identity in students that will lead to positive and more productive behaviors.  We also need to be aware of how we already shape this identity in many of our traditional approaches to student behavior. 

When we use rewards and consequences and become rule focused in our approach, we are inadvertently shaping, or priming students for the very behaviors we don't want to see.  The hidden message behind these traditional approaches shapes students' identity toward being irresponsibile:  they are one step away from being rule breakers unless they are restricted by adult imposed consequences.  It is not surprising then that when they are outside of adult supervision and the restraint of rules and consequences, they follow the identity that adults have inadvertently given them.

An alternative approach would be to send a message that all students are leaders who care and who are responsible.  This  means lessening our direct control and demonstrating a greater degree of trust than we are used to giving. (We are often uncomfortable doing so.)  This means rethinking our default response to student behavior.  We have to avoid the false dichotomy  of equating the  lessening of direct control with a laissez-faire approach.

Here are some ways we can prime students and shape their identity:

• As Michael Fullan says, "Give people respect before they have earned it."  Treat students as being trustworthy, responsible, caring people.  Rules are okay and should  be visible.  Assume that most kids already know the basics of right from wrong.  We don't need to constantly remind them of it.  (Failures to follow rules are usually  not the result of not knowing them or forgetting them).

• Give students the opportunity and support they need to act in caring and responsible ways.  Ironically, we often give the kids who are already perceived to be caring and responsible those opportunities as rewards. All students need these opportunities on a regular basis-this is why service learning is so important. 

• Treat students as the source of the solution to  problems rather than the cause of the problem.  Involve them as active participants in solving individual problems, classroom problems and school wide problems. 

• Talk about problem situations they typically might experience or have experienced. Don't wait to just talk about a problem after it has happened. 

• Give them time to reflect upon how they would like to think of themselves and help them see what behaviors correspond to that identity.  (Most kids do want to think of themselves as caring and responsible but may not know how those attributes manifest themselves.)

• View all kids as leaders and refer to them in that way.  Study leadership and how it differs from "being the boss".  Don't let the cultural images of leaders as bosses be the default response in situations where adults are not around.

The more preparation we give students (the more they are "primed") they more likely they are to respond in a positive way to those spontaneous and often ambiguous situations that can catch them off guard (like many bullying situations).  Most of all we need to believe that the more we act as caring, respectful and responsible people to students and towards everyone, the more we will be priming them to be that way-just as my wife primed me to give more.