Relationships: School Culture and Collaborative Learning

It is clear from our online discussion around vision and direction setting that relational trust is the key factor in establishing a school culture of collaborative learning.  David C. Berliner identifies a common affliction of education, “Ostrichism … a premature commitment to a particular educational movement.  Behavioural symptoms include the practice of sticking one’s head into the sand when problems appear, in the hope that the problems will go away” (Berliner, 1975, p. 6).  Ostrichism is rampant in high schools and a clear symptom of a lack of relational trust.  This is not because high school teachers are any less collaborative, or any less cooperative than their elementary and junior high colleagues, but for a variety of reasons, created, real, and fictional.  Most significant is that many aspects of high schools are conspiring to isolate teachers from being a part of an effective professional community.   Everything in high school is sectionalized.  From the timetable, to the classrooms, to the subjects and curriculum, and even the furniture; the traditional design of high school isolates teachers from teachers, teachers from students, and especially administrators from everyone.  Even when teachers of similar pedagogical outlook or of a reform mindset manage to find each other, they are typically isolated by subject, hallway, staff room or behavioural norms.  If Professional Learning Communities exist, they are usually subject based and thus prone to groupthink and balkanization.  This sectionalisation makes isolation easier and cuts teachers off from feedback and professional development (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). 

Leaders must recognize that “if teachers feel that their identity (their own sense of how good, competent, or talented they are) is under attack, their most frequent reaction is to resist” (Knight, 2009, 508).  There must be recognition and understanding that professional autonomy is valued and respected and if it is ignored, often ensures non-implementation of new practices. (Knight, 2009).  Principals and leaders in high schools need to be constantly vigilant around relational trust.  “While trust alone does not guarantee success, schools with little or no trust have almost no chance of improving” (Brewster & Railsback, 2003, p. 8).  It is noticeable that two categories in Sharon Friesen’s “Teaching Effectiveness Framework”, focus on the building of relationships in the classroom, in schools, between teachers and students, between teachers and parents, with the community and experts in the community.  This speaks to the importance of relationship building in the undertaking of education and central to any relationship is the need for trust (Willms, Friesen, and Milton, 2009).  Trust lowers the sense of vulnerability as teachers advance practice.  Trust facilitates public sharing of work.  Trust underpins the effectiveness of Professional Learning Communities. (Brewster & Railsback, 2003).  Trust facilitates the building of a caring, thoughtful and motivated educational environment for teachers, students and the community.

 Brewster and Railsback identify some key ways to build trust in an educational setting; engaging all faculty in discussions related to the school’s mission, vision, and core values, making new teachers feel welcome, create and support meaningful teacher collaboration, continuously improve communication, make relationship building a priority, and choosing professional development that promotes relationship building (2003).  While engaging in these trust building exercises is not a guarantee for success, the research does indicate that failure to maintain trust and relationships in a high school can be disastrous to advancing teacher practice.  As such, leaders in all schools, but especially large urban high schools where some of these issues become magnified due to their size and complexity, must be constantly vigilant around issues of trust.  Building trusting relationships among staff, between staff and students, and between staff and leadership, requires time and commitment but will be well worth the investment.  Trust is an essential aspect of the social contract that governs society.  There are dozens of learned and natured activities that people undertake daily that require trust.  Whether it’s the rules of driving, a marriage, or cohort of classmates, trust is required among all the participants.  Why would a school or workplace situation be any different? “Without trust, a school cannot improve and grow into the rich and nurturing micro-society needed by children and adults alike” (Blase, 2001, p.23).  If leaders expect research informed teaching practice to continue to develop in high school, there must be an atmosphere of trust that recognizes the professional needs and professional responsibilities of teachers.  Unless trust based relationships are at the center of the leadership agenda, the opportunity to advance teacher practice in high schools is limited.

References

Berliner, D. C. (1975). Impediments to the Study of Teacher Effectiveness.

Blase, J. (2001). Empowering teachers: What successful principals do. Corwin Press.

Brewster, C., & Railsback, J. (2003). Building Trusting Relationships for School Improvement:

            Implications for Principals and Teachers. By Request Series.

Hargreaves, Andy and Fullan, Michael (2012).  Professional Capital: Transforming the teaching

            in every school.  Teachers College Press, New York.

Knight, J. (2009). What can we do about teacher resistance? Phi Delta Kappan, 90(7), 508-513.

Willms, J. D., Friesen, S., & Milton, P. (2009). What Did You Do in School Today?

            Transforming Classrooms through Social, Academic, and Intellectual Engagement. (First

            National Report).

Reflections on the first week of classes.

Working in a very large urban high school provides a teacher with a tremendous amount of material for professional reflection.  This past week was my first with the students at this new school.  After 11 years at my previous school in East Calgary, I have moved to another high school, in west Calgary. This however is not the focus of this blog.  I want to reflect on a couple of professional learning opportunities that occured this week, my return to coaching and the harshness of the tryout cutting process.

While I was already excited to be returning to coaching volleyball after spending the last four seasons focusing on my own young children, the victory by Canada's Men's team over The United States at this summers Rio Olympics had stoked the fire even more.  Coaching the Junior Boys' Team at my new school is an exciting challenge.  In the course of the three days of tryouts this week, 15 grade 10 and 11 boys took a great risk and showed up to tryout for a team.  The impact of having to cut these boys to their face has impacted me in a far greater way than I had expected.

I had cut volleyball players before.  But this is the first time that as a coach I had made the choice to talk to them face to face.  On previous teams, my practice had been to post a list of successful players.  This practice has served coaches well for many years, but in the interest of school-athletics being a curricular enterprise, as teaching practice has changed, coaching practice must also change. During tryouts, practices and games, coaches are particularly adept at providing student athletes with formative feedback.  However, the cutting process, limiting your team to the select number of players has and likely always will be a harsh summative procedure.  Interestingly all this was triggered by a comment from one of the grade 11 student-athletes who informed me that the Senior Boys' coach used this procedure on her newly selected team.  Having just gone through this process this student-athlete must have thought enough of the endeavour to mention it to me.  For these two reasons, I decided to sit down face to face with each of the young men and explain 4 things;

1.  Whether or not they made the team.
2.  My assessment of what they did well and where they need to improve as volleyball players.
3.  Encourage them to show the same attitude and willingness to try new things in the rest of their high school career (and life for that matter).
4.  Finally I thanked them for trying out.

In the end, though emotionally draining for me as an individual I think that each of the student-athletes appreciated both the opportunity to understand how they can improve as volleyball players, and my encouragement.  All this said, cutting teams is by definition an exclusive endeavour.  On some teams, rugby and soe football come to mind, all who tryout at least allowed to continue practicing.  The ultimate summative assessment on these teams is playing time in games, yet another aspect of coaching that requires formative assessment in order to make summative decisions.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming season, and would love to hear your opinions, on any of these topics.

A Transparent Philosophy

For the last year and a half I have spent most of my non-work and non-family time working on my Master's of Education in leadership and learning at the University of Calgary, Werklund School of Education.  Now at the half way point of the program, I've reached a point where my familiarity and comfort with my learning is high.  A key to leadership is visibility and transparency.  So to continue my development as a leader and an educator, making my learning public and open to discussion is essential.  The interconnectedness of the 21st century allows the opportunity for educators and leaders to share ideas across national borders and regional districts.  Professional development has become an all waking hours opportunity for educators.  On twitter (@canadasean21) at any given moment there are literally hundreds if not thousands of teachers engaged in discussion of educational topics.  Most of these educators also have blogs.  There are several blogs that I have followed on a consistent basis.  Specifically, the late Joe Bower is an inspiration in both his consistency, and willingness to discuss his educational philosophy in a public setting. Also, Chris Kennedy, the superintendent of West Vancouver School District ( https://cultureofyes.ca/ ) is a former colleague and his blog is regular reading for me.  What all these connections provide is the opportunity to expand teacher professional development and share our learning.  In the interest of participating in this community, here is the most recent version (fall 2015) of my philosophy of education;

Teaching is a multi-faceted activity that includes aspects of parenting, mentoring, coaching, information sharing, design and social management. The goal of teaching should be to engage minds critically in a field of study that has applications in real life and/or mimics the role of a professional in that field. The fact that each of these descriptors are also essential to effective leadership shows that teacher's model aspects of leadership on a daily basis with their classes. Effective classroom teachers are varied in type and style, just like effective leaders. Effective leaders use a variety of methods and motivations to engage, just like effective teachers. The most highly effective teachers are those that design learning activities that mimic real life, are rigorous, access experts and expertise, facilitate productive positive discussion, and collaborate well with others. As such, a leader should provide supports and professional development that ensures understanding of these outcomes.

Rationale and reasoning are necessary aspects 21st century learning. In high school social studies realpolitik; or the idea that there are often competing and contradictory agenda's in decision making, the ideal, and the real; helps students make sense of a complex world. “(The) term has come to imply a certain amount of amorality or immorality in action, choosing a course that may be the most effective but not one that is overly concerned with what is right or proper.” (Wayman, 1997, p. 1) What adolescents determine as ‘right and proper’ plays a significant role in how they interact with their world. Adolescents have a very keen awareness of social justice and are often eager to make judgements about their understandings. “[Adolescents] negatively evaluate people who engage in harmful or unfair practices that are based on moral beliefs different from their own.” (Chandler, 2000, p. 92) If this sense is not reflected in learning, engagement of learners becomes an issue. The teacher’s role is to facilitate, empower, inform, and focus this already existing engagement. Disequilibrium may occur for those teachers accustomed to the being the most knowledgeable in their given subject areas, but in the context of personalized learning reasoning and rationale become even more important.
Considering the above, there are two essential purposes for public education in 21st century democracies. The first is to educate, socialize, and facilitate thoughtful, critical thinking citizens who are engaged in the greater community. The second is to provide the opportunity for every person to achieve to their highest potential regardless of socio-economic background, gender, race, or other personal understanding. Schools are cauldrons; they magnify, enhance and reflect the nature of the society in which they exist. A necessary aspect of educational leadership must be to not only recognize societal inequity, but also to aid in the process of mitigating this inequity. Perhaps it’s idealistic to suppose schools and learning can succeed where society struggles, but just as schools reflect the ills of our society, they also reflect the social democratic responsibility we expect of our citizens. In many ways our students are far more socially aware and socially responsible than many adults. Accessing this engagement and giving voice and context to it, is another essential role of the educator.
Having spent the last ten years working with high needs students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, I’ve seen the power teachers have in these communities. This is true even though in the vast majority of cases, the teachers do not live in the communities they teach. They are still significant and important members of the local community. To me a teacher’s community role cannot be overlooked. Many families see their teachers as essential; key role models for youth in their communities. As such, the inclusion of family and community voice in the process of education is not only required in a free and democratic society, but can have benefits to students, teachers and beyond. If the goal is an atmosphere of social justice and social responsibility, empowering families and communities takes everyone further in that direction,
To me this is a fundamental responsibility of public education. To propose a philosophy on leading and learning that doesn't include the above is to not recognizing the environment of schooling in the 21st century. Effective learning and effective leading resemble effective education in a variety of ways. Socially just and socially responsible leaders are essential in our world. If leaders do not recognize their own inherent bias, they will prove remarkably ineffective at guiding the practice of professionals. Similarly in our learning, social equity and social responsibility must act as a critical lens to our practice as lifelong learners.

References:
Chandler, Michael J.; Sokol, Bryan W.; and Wainryb, Cecilia. “Beliefs about Truth and Beliefs about               Rightness” in Child Development Vol. 71, No. 1 (Jan-Feb, 2000) pp. 91-97.

Wayman, F. W., & Diehl, P. F. (1994). Reconstructing realpolitik. University of Michigan Press.

I encourage thoughtful discussion of any topic on this blog, but please be respectful and provide sources for any contention you are making.

Sean