southern regional education board creating a high-performance learning culture ©ael 2003...

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SouthernRegionalEducationBoard Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture

©AEL 2003 Distributed by Southern Regional Education Board

Creating a High-Performance Learning

Culture

A Training Workshop for School Leaders

Welcome!

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Purpose of Module

To develop knowledge, skills and commitment among participating school leaders that will enable them to create and sustain high-performance learning cultures in their schools.

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Culture Inventory

For each item, select the answer that best fits your perception of your school’s culture. There are no right or wrong answers.

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The Gray School…The Story of a Colorless School

with a Toxic Culture

Listen to the story of the Gray School.

What makes the culture toxic — that is, destructive to the learning of all students?

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The Gray School…The Story of a Colorless School

With a Toxic Culture

Imagine you are members of the Gray School’s leadership team.

What three or four features of this school would you select as targets for change?

Why are these important?

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Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture:

Begin With the End in Mind

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MissionIt’s Our Job

To set high expectations for all students and to provide the environment, instruction, and support to ensure that all students are learning and achieving as measured by rigorous standards.

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VisionOur shared view of what we are

creating together

All students are engaged in learning, and all are achieving at high levels.

Faculty/staff accept collective responsibility for the achievement of all students in the school.

All adults work together to ensure that each student receives appropriate instruction and support in a learning-enriched environment.

Both students and adults behave as if they believe their individual and collective efforts will improve performance.

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Distributed Accountability

Vehicle to accomplish mission & vision

Accept collective responsibility for the learning and achievement of all students

Have the power to act in ways that will promote the learning and achievement of all students

Collect evidence to determine the effectiveness of their own performance and of student progress toward high standards

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Getting Clear About the Nature of Culture

What is it? What are its component parts? How does it evolve? What difference does it make?

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Metaphorically Speaking. . .

Understanding Culture Via Metaphors

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Checking Your Current Understanding of School

Culture Look at your School Culture

Inventory. Stand up and find the colleague who signed your inventory item #1.

Share and compare your selected metaphors (i.e., web, pattern, glue, garden) and your present understanding of school culture.

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Common Threads Running Through

Metaphors Culture is intangible

Culture is complex

Culture evolves over time

Culture is powerful

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Culture is Intangible

Cannot see, hear, or touch culture; much of it is “under the surface.”

Culture is difficult to “get a handle on.”

Values, beliefs, assumptions, norms are at its core.

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Culture is Complex

Culture is multidimensional. Layers of interacting values,

beliefs, assumptions, and norms constitute culture.

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Culture Evolves Over Time

Culture is dynamic, not static. Culture is historically transmitted. Culture cannot be quickly or easily

changed.

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Culture is Powerful

Culture shapes what people think and how they act.

Culture provides common direction to individuals in schools.

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Top-Notch and

Toxic Culture

What’s the difference?

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Top-Notch ToxicCaring and supportive of others

Apathetic & self-protective

Cohesive Fragmented

Collaborative Independent or competitive

Diverse Homogeneous; conforming

Efficacious; “can-do” Helpless; dependent

Energetic Lethargic

Democratic; egalitarian Elitist

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Top-Notch ToxicFocuses on student & adult learning

Focuses on schooling

Focuses on excellence; high expectations

Focuses on “getting by”

Hopeful; optimistic Hopeless; despairing

Innovative Satisfied with status quo

Interdependent Isolated

Respectful Disrespectful

Trusting Cautious; suspicious

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Top-Notch Talk Directions

1. Find the colleague who signed item #6 on your School Culture Inventory.

2. As a pair, review the charts contrasting top-notch and toxic cultures.

3. Talk together about the following questions: Why is your adjective important? What would your selected trait

look and sound like in a school? How is it connected to the others

in “the web” of culture?

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School Culture and Individual Performance

What is the relationship between a school’s culture

and the performance of students and adults?

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Research finding

Culture has a powerful impact on student and adult performance in schools.

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“School success flourished in cultures

with.... A primary focus on student learning; A commitment to high expectations; Social support for innovation, dialogue,

and the search for new ideas; and An ethos of caring, sharing and mutual

help among staff, between staff and students, based on respect, trust, and shared power relations among staff.”

--Newmann, Authentic Achievement, p. 289

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Culture Performance

“A strong, positive relationship exists between professional culture and school performance, irrespective of the school poverty level.”

--AEL, TransFormation, p. 1

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VisionOur shared view of what we are

creating together


Faculty/staff accept collective responsibility for the achievement of all students in the school.

All adults work together to ensure that each student receives appropriate instruction and support in a learning-enriched environment.


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Building a Case. . .

1. Stand up and find the individual who signed the blank beside item #3.

2. Talk together about how you might use this research to address the concerns of faculty in your school who do not believe that “all children can learn, and it’s my job to see that they do.”

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Unhealthy Schools

“Unhealthy school cultures tend to beget at-risk students — students who leave school before or after graduation with little possibility of continuing learning.”

--Barth, “The Culture Builder,” Educational Leadership 5(8), p. 8.

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Reculturing

How do you go about transforming or changing a

school’s culture —from toxic to top-notch?

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Reculturing: Key to School Improvement

“Transforming the culture — changing the way we do things around here — is the main point. I call this reculturing. Effective leaders know that the hard work of reculturing is the sine qua non of change. . .”

--Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change, p. 44

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School Cultures: Resistant to Change

“This is why school improvement — from within or from without — is usually so futile. Yet unless teachers and administrators act to change the culture of a school, all innovations will have to fit in and around existing elements of culture.”

--Barth, “The Culture Builder,” Educational Leadership 5(8), p. 8.

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Stability

“School cultures remain stable because the existing culture contains norms that define, and then provide meaning for parents, teachers, and others. . . . Before school cultures can change individually and collectively, held meanings experienced by teachers and students must change.”

--Sergiovanni, The Lifeworld of Leadership, p. 47

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Reculturing Involves Uncertainty

“Changing a culture requires that people, both individually

and collectively, move from something familiar and

important into empty space. . . .”

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Some Schools Have Positive, Top-notch

Cultures

Do these schools need to think about reculturing?

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Sustaining

Like gardens, school cultures are very fragile and high-maintenance.

How can we sustain — or even improve — an already positive culture?

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Tests Results Will Follow

“Show me a culture where instructional leaders constantly examine the school’s culture and work to transform it into one hospitable to sustained human learning, and I’ll show you students who do just fine on those standardized tests.”

--Barth, “The Culture Builder”, Educational Leadership 5(8), p. 8.

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A Framework for a High-Performance Learning Culture

Mission Vision Distributed Accountability Core Beliefs Structures Aligned With Beliefs

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Norms Behaviors

Ability & Achievement

Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs

Distributed Accountabili

ty

Relationships

Policies and Procedures

Physical Environment

Strategic Structures

Reflection

Dialogue

Inquiry

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Vehicle to accomplish mission & vision

Accept collective responsibility for the learning and achievement of all students

Have the power to act in ways that will promote the learning and achievement of all students

Collect evidence to determine the effectiveness of their own performance and of student progress toward high standards

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Norms Behaviors


Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs


ty

Relationships




Reflection

Dialogue

Inquiry

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What if all members of faculty and staff do not hold beliefs congruent

with distributed accountability?

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Cultivating Beliefs that Produce High-

Performance Learning How can leaders facilitate learning

in these spheres?

Ability & Achievemen

t

Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

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Norms Behaviors


Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs


ty

Reflection

Dialogue

Relationships




Inquiry

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Belief

A consciously held, cognitive view about truth and reality

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Link Between Beliefs & Behaviors

Beliefs are literally how we comprehend and deal with the world around us.

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Values, Beliefs, Norms

BeliefsCore

understandings about the world

around us, including our view of reality and our conception of truth, beauty and

justice

NormsUnstated group

expectations related to such

areas as behavior, dress and language

ValuesConscious

expressions of what an

organization stands for

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Origins of Beliefs

Evolve from the inferences we make from the information and data we derive from our experiences with other people and with our environment

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The Ladder of Inferences7. I take actions based on my beliefs.

6. I adopt beliefs.

5. I draw conclusions.

4. I make assumptions.

3. I add meanings.

2. I select data/information.

1. I have experiences and make observations that give me data about the world.

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Problems Inherent in Beliefs

Our beliefs are the truth. The truth is obvious. Our beliefs are based on real data. We select the right data.

--Senge, Schools That Learn, p. 68

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What’s worth fighting for?

Do you believe your position is right?

Do you think your position on this issue should be obvious to everyone?

What are your data sources? Are there other valid sources of

information?

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Issues about Teaching and Learning

Ability grouping

Social promotion

Inclusion Homework Suspension/

expulsion

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Encourage Faculty/Staff to Examine Beliefs and

Assumptions

Reflection on individual assumptions

Knowledge of current research

Inquiry and dialogue with colleagues

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Some Obvious Questions

Is this easy work? Does it “just happen?” Do people engage in this type of

thinking naturally? Are schools currently structured to

promote this type of work? Are we likely to change culture

without addressing beliefs?

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Core Beliefs

Underpinning distributed accountability are core beliefs in three vital spheres:Ability and achievementEfficacy and effortPower and control

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Assessing Our Beliefs

Complete this survey, which has items related to each of the three groups of beliefs.

For each item, rate (in the left-hand column) the degree to which you believe it is essential for learner success.

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Ability and Achievement

How do beliefs about ability and achievement affect the behaviors of teachers and other school staff?

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Ability and Achievement:

Some of the Big Issues Can all students learn and succeed in school? Are achievement and success in our schools

related to factors such as socioeconomic, racial, cultural and ethnic background, or gender?

Do most teachers in our school believe that ability is related to background factors such as race, ethnicity, home environment, or other demographic factors?

Is there a disproportionate number of students of poverty or of color assigned to special education?

Do we organize students homogeneously (tracking, ability grouping) for instruction?

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The Final Word

Read the two selections from research and literature.

Select three ideas that are compelling to you.

Be prepared to talk about why you think one of these is important.

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The Final Word

Select a facilitator and timekeeper. One person volunteers to “lead off”—

taking up to three minutes to talk about one idea.

Moving in clockwise fashion, every other group member, in turn, takes up to one minute to respond to speaker.

Finally, the opening speaker has one minute to make final comments.

Repeat the above process for the next person.

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The Final Word

Listen actively. Be open to what

each speaker is saying.

Take notes. Speak only when

it is your turn.

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Ability and Achievement:

Some of the Big Issues Can all students learn and succeed in

school? Are achievement and success in our

schools related to individual factors such as socioeconomic, racial, cultural and ethnic background, or gender?

Do most teachers in our school believe that ability is related to background factors such as race, ethnicity, home environment, etc.?

Is there a disproportionate number of students of poverty and of racial minorities in special education classes in our schools?

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Challenging the Status Quo: Where Do We

Stand?A. Some students cannot learn — no matter

what teachers and other school staff do — because of their home environment and related factors.

B. All students can learn and succeed in school — if their parents and families support education.

C. All students can learn and succeed in school — if they attend school and put forth adequate effort.

D. All students can learn and succeed in school —and it’s my job to make sure that they do.

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Team Estimation

As a school team, estimate the percentage of your faculty that you think probably falls into each of these four categories.

%

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Examining Assumptions

Ask a series of “why” questions to get to the root of the belief. Possible examples include: Why do you feel that way? What experiences have you had

that have reinforced that belief? Is there any research to support

that? Tell me more about why you

believe that. Your goal is to find out why the

person holds that belief and to help them think more deeply about their belief, not to debate it!

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Reflecting with “Critical Friends”

Get together with a team from another school.

Use this process to present your analysis of where teachers in your school stand regarding the issue of, “All children can learn. . .” and your team’s plan for challenging teacher thinking in this area.

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Inquiring and Reflecting Together

Round OneStep 1: Presentation by Team 1 in

the inner circle (8 min.) Step 2: Feedback to Team 1 (5 min.)Step 3: Reflection by Team 1 (5 min.)

Round TwoStep 1: Presentation by Team 2 in

the inner circle (8 min.)Step 2: Feedback to Team 2 (5 min.)Step 3: Reflection by Team 2 (5 min.)Debrief

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Debrief

Was it difficult to follow this protocol – of honoring silence for others?

What was the value in this approach?

What did you learn about your own thinking as you participated?

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Efficacy and Effort

How do beliefs about efficacy and effort affect the behaviors of teachers and other school

staff ?

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Self-Efficacy: A Definition

Our beliefs about our capabilities to perform designated tasks. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how we feel, think, motivate ourselves, and behave. (Bandura)

“Can-do” attitude People with high assurance in their

capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.

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Results of Self-Efficacy

Individuals with a strong sense of self-efficacy are more likely to:Have an intrinsic interest and deep

engrossment in activities they pursue

Set challenging goals and maintain strong commitment to them

Increase and sustain their efforts in the face of failure

Quickly recover their sense of efficacy after failures or setbacks

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Highly efficacious individuals are also likely

to: attribute failure to not trying hard

enough or not yet having the skills and knowledge required

approach threatening situations with assurance that they can exercise control over them

experience personal accomplishments

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Reflective Questioning

A Tool that Facilitates Deep Reflection

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Individual Reflection on Personal Feelings of

Efficacy Call to mind a time when you faced

a difficult challenge – and not only met the challenge successfully but also felt especially competent to do so. This could be a situation you faced as a teacher, administrator, parent, or student.

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Individual Reflection on Efficacy

In the Personal Success column, write about this challenge you faced. Describe the problems you faced, how you overcame them, and the feelings of accomplishment and capability that accompanied this experience.

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Individual Reflection on Efficacy

In the Personal Strengths column, write about the factors that you believe contributed to your feelings of competence – of your feeling capable to meet this challenge successfully.

What, in your personal background and professional experiences, helped prepare you to feel competent and to tackle this challenge successfully?

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Look Back to Your Personal Reflection. . .

Were you intrinsically interested in the task?

Did you commit yourself to a goal(s) related to the challenge?

Did you ever have reason to believe that you might not accomplish the task? How did you overcome these doubts?

What in your past had prepared you for this challenge?

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The Educational Arena

How does efficacy apply to teaching and learning?

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Efficacy & Effort: Big Issues

Do teachers believe that good teaching is the primary determinant of achievement for all students?

Do individual teachers believe that they have the skill and the will to teach every child?

Do all students believe that they can learn and that effort will contribute to learning and success in school?

Does the school communicate to all parents that their children can learn—and that they, as parents, can make a difference in the effort their children expend?

Is there a “no excuses” approach to teaching and learning?

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Research on Self-Efficacy

Number off at your tables: 1-2, 1-2. “1’s” read the article on student

self-efficacy, then talk to other “1’s” about the reading.

“2’s” read the article on teacher self- efficacy, then talk to other “2’s” about the reading.

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Research on Self-Efficacy

As a table group, discuss these questions:

What evidence would you see if you were looking for signs of efficacy in a student population? Among faculty members?

What can someone in a leadership position (at the school or classroom level) do to facilitate the development of efficacy in others?

Why is this important for the overall culture of a school or classroom?

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Efficacious Teacher

Call to mind a highly efficacious teacher you have known…Did this teacher have an intrinsic

interest in — even a passion for — students?

Did he or she have a real passion for the learning? And for the content area that was the focus for learning?

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Link between passion for teaching & learning

and self-efficacy

In The Passionate Teacher and The Passionate Learner, Robert Fried investigates the power of passion in teaching and learning.

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With this same teacher in mind…

Did this teacher set goals and high standards for himself or herself?

How did this teacher demonstrate his or her commitment to students and to the profession?

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Finally…

What impact did this teacher’s beliefs about his or her ability have on students?

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What if. . . .

All the teachers in your school had this same sense of self-efficacy? What would be the results for students?

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Power and Control

How do beliefs about power and control influence the behavior of your school’s faculty, staff, students, and parents?

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School Governance & Decision-Making: Administrators to Faculty & Staff

Classroom: Teacher to Students; Teaching and Learning & Classroom Management

Intra-Classroom: Teachers to Teachers; Teachers to Other Staff

School-Home: School Staff to Family

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Schoolwide

Is leadership shared? Are there mechanisms for

distributing leadership across the faculty and staff?

Are students and parents engaged in planning and decision-making?

Are the mission and vision of the school known by all stakeholder groups?

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Little “l” leadership

Read the short passage.

IQ Pairs (Insights/Questions)

Find a partner. What insights and questions does the passage raise for you?

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Within Classroom

Is there a learning community within the classroom in which students learn with and from one another and their teacher?

Are students involved in setting goals for their learning?

Are students authentically engaged in learning?

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Schoolwide

Is there a professional learning community whereby teachers learn with and from one another?

Do teachers collaborate to plan and improve instruction?

Are all school staff—including noncertificated — working to help students achieve shared (and public) goals for learning?

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School-Home

Does the school involve family in school improvement planning and governance?

Do parents feel they have a say-so in their children’s schooling?

Do teachers welcome parents into their classrooms?

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Force Field Analysis

VisionRelated to power and controlSchoolwide, within classrooms, among

classrooms, and classroom-to-home Why: Rationale for the vision Current state: As it relates to this

vision Driving Forces: People, things,

circumstances, or events that will support a move toward the vision

Resisting Forces: People, things, circumstances, or events that are barriers to a move toward the vision

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Using Strategic Structures

How can leaders design and implement structures that support a high-performance learning culture?

Relationships



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Help align individual behaviors with core beliefs of an organization — the beliefs that underpin the mission and vision

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Structures Culture

Leaders influence culture through the design and operation of structures that are aligned with core beliefs. These structures are:concreteobservable (can be documented

and described)supported by artifacts (tangible

evidence of the operation of structures)

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Norms Behaviors


Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs


ty

Reflection

Dialogue

Relationships




Inquiry

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Reciprocal Relationship Between Beliefs and

Structures Beliefs evolve

from individual and group experiences and through our exposure to knowledge and information.

Structures can scaffold our experiences; that is, they can provide a platform or stage that will help form experiences that we might otherwise not have.

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Example of Strategic Structures That Support

a Core Belief Belief: All children can learn, and

it’s my job to see that they do. What structures can we

strategically create in schools to support this belief?

Flexible schedulingAdvisoriesLooping

Cross-curricular programExtra help sessions

Peer tutoring

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a Core Belief Belief: We have the skills and the

will to make a difference in the learning of each child. Failure is not an option.

What structures can we strategically create in schools to support this belief?

Mastery learningReciprocal teaching

Professional development in content-based instructional strategies to address the teaching and re-teaching Celebrations of successes

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a Core Belief Belief: Each faculty/staff member

is responsible for the learning of each child in our school. We share collective responsibility for their learning.

What structures can we strategically create in schools to support this belief?

Faculty study groups that look at student work

Grade-group meetings Cross-disciplinary action teams

Close collaboration among teachers, administrators,

counselors, etc.

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Remember the Gray School?

Imagine you are a member of a new leadership team established to “turn around” the gray school.

What structures would you suggest to promote higher achievement for all students, higher levels of teacher and student efficacy, and shared leadership and collective responsibility?

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How Do Structures Facilitate Changes in

Beliefs? Changes in beliefs can follow

changes in behavior if the new behavior is perceived to be worthwhile and pleasant, and if it meets individual goals.

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Restructuring for Reculturing

Michael Fullan argues that reculturing—how teachers come to question and change their beliefs and habits—is what is needed for real and lasting change to occur.

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Change

“Change will always fail until we find some way of developing infrastructures and processes that engage teachers in developing new understandings.”

--Fullan, The New Meaning of Educational Change (3rd ed., p. 37)

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Structures, Behaviors, Norms

Structures can help behaviors become common practice —the common practice eventually leads to new norms.

Structure New Behaviors

New Norms

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As People Work Through Established

Structures . . . Their behaviors are guided by

these structures. Over time, the behaviors become patterned and routine. When they become routine or normal, new norms emerge, and changes in beliefs follow.

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Structures in Three Strategic Arenas

Physical Environment Policies and Procedures Relationships

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The most visible and concrete arena of a school. The physical environment forms a backdrop for all school activities.

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Activity: Indicators of Physical Environment

If you had to examine a school’s culture based on the physical environment as one indicator, what would you look for? What are some of the structures in the physical environment that you would pay attention to?

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Major Indicators of Physical Environment

Cleanliness Signage Use of space Aesthetics Safety Posted student work

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Breaking Ranks

NASSP’s study on high schools recommends changes in environment and other physical properties of large schools.

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Policies, Procedures and Practices

The written and understood modus operandi. Policies embody governing principles, plans and courses of action.

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Sample Components: Policy, Procedures, and

Practices Attendance Instructional (e.g., teacher

planning; make-up work; field trips)

Grading and assessment Dress codes Discipline and behavior Extracurricular activities Personnel Parent engagement

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Activity: Indicators of Policy, Procedure,

Practice In your group’s assigned “look for”

area, identify structures that suggest strong beliefs in these areas: ability and achievement efficacy and effort power and control

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Sample Sources of a School’s Policies,

Procedures, Practices District board policy and

administrative procedures Teacher handbook Student handbook School improvement plans Stated mission, vision, beliefs, and

goals Parent handbook Minutes of meetings Classroom rules

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Relationships

The quality of the connections and interactions between and among individuals and groups within the school community.

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Types of Relationships Impacting Health of

Culture Relationships

among individuals within various role groups

Administrators Teachers Academic support

staff Noncertificated

staff Students Parents

Relationships among individuals within social and cultural subgroups

By race and ethnicity

By cultural background

By SES background By age or

generation By gender By different interest

groups (e.g., athletics; arts; academics)

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Activity: Indicators of Relationships

Think about your own school. What structures are in place to facilitate and support the establishment of collaborative relationships?

Jot down the structures that you can identify. For each idea, which of the three arenas of beliefs does it strengthen and support? Be prepared to share with your table group.

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Connecting People Results

in Changed Relationships

Find ways to bring people together, rather than to separate them.

Honor where people are — how they feel about one another and their work together.

Clarify and redefine roles and relationships as necessary.

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Relationships

Fragmented or unified?

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Fragmented

No trust Staff seldom affirm one another Independence is primary value Staff too large for personal

connections History of conflict and staff

turnover

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Unified

Trust, openness, and affirmation characterize schoolwide interactions

Staff mobilize to meet schoolwide challenges

Most faculty feel connected to many others

Continuity of leadership and staff Strong working relationships

between formal and informal leaders

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Reculturing InvolvesDeep or Profound

Change Profound change

combines inner shifts in people’s values, aspirations, and behaviors with outer shifts in processes, strategies, practices, and systems.

--Senge, The Dance of Change

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Research on Change

Change results from either . . .Compliance or coercionCommitment

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Compliance vs. Commitment

Compliance Relates to

observable behavior

Results from outside order, requirement, force

Motivated by fear Behavior change

usually lasts only as long as requirement is in place

Outside-in

Commitment Relates to values

and beliefs Emerges from

internal & personal attachment to an idea or individual

Motivated by ideals Behavior change is

usually a lasting one because it is internal

Inside-out

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The Ladder of Inferences7. I take actions based on my beliefs.

6. I adopt beliefs.

5. I draw conclusions.

4. I make assumptions.

3. I add meanings.

2. I select data/information.

1. I have experiences and make observations that give my data about the world.

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Using the Ladder

Strategic structures provide platforms from which individuals engage in new experiences that generate new data, which can lead to inner shifts, creating commitment to new beliefs.

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Case Study Activity:What Is the Evidence of

Culture?1. Select either the elementary or

high school case study.2. Individually review the case

information, looking for structures that support your assigned belief.

3. As a group, complete the Case Study Recording Form.

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Case Study Activity:What Is the Evidence of

Culture? In your group, discuss:

What evidence do you have that this school has a “top-notch culture” that embraces distributed accountability?

In what areas might this school need to improve — and what is the evidence?

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Concluding Reflections

What would be the potential value in using this type of audit or assessment in your school?

Who would you involve? How would you use the results?

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Roles of School Leaders

Top-notch cultures don’t just happen — they result

from the deliberate actions of school leaders.

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Culture as a Garden

Good gardens don’t just happen. Gardens can be both positively and

adversely affected by both internal and external factors.

They require careful planning and continuous care by committed gardeners.

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A Thriving Garden A thriving garden has skilled and

committed gardeners who. . .Plan the garden based on its setting

and purpose (Mission and Vision) Select and sow the seeds (Core

Beliefs)Nurture the plants to ensure strong

growth (Strategic Structures)Nourish each plant (Distributed

Accountability)

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School Leaders are the Gardeners of School

Culture High-performance cultures result

from the efforts of many little “l” leaders.

The work of creating a top-notch culture is continuous and never-ending.

Even the highest-performing cultures must be nurtured if they are to be sustained.

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Session Objectives

Understand the roles of leaders in fostering and maintaining a high-performance learning culture

Identify tools and strategies that can be used by leaders to assess, create, and nurture school culture

Design an approach to turning around a toxic school culture, focusing on leadership roles and functions

Develop a plan for taking appropriate learnings back to our home schools for interim work and learning

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The Culture Tapestry: Common Threads

Culture is intangible.

Culture is complex.

Culture evolves over time.

Culture is powerful.

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The Elusive Nature of Culture

Reculturing is NOT a top-down management task.

Reculturing requires leaders to “put on new clothes.”

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Eight Leadership Roles

Historians Anthropological Sleuths

Visionaries Symbols

Potters

Poets

Actors

HealersDeal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture

Cultural Leadership

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Norms Behaviors


Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs


ty

Reflection

Dialogue

Relationships




Inquiry

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Leaders as Historians

What are the roots of our school’s current culture? What structures have been

important in shaping the beliefs and behaviors of our school community?

How did key beliefs and norms evolve?

Who has been instrumental in shaping our school’s culture?

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Leaders as Anthropological

Sleuths What is the daily rhythm of our

school? What beliefs and rituals underpin

the routine activities of staff, students and parents?

What structures support these routines?

What are the relationships between core beliefs and strategic structures?

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School Leaders asVisionaries

How would you go about making this vision a reality?

Vision for a High-Performance Learning Culture


Members of the faculty and staff are accepting collective responsibility for the achievement of all students in the school—and all adults are working together to ensure that each student receives appropriate instruction and support in a learning-enriched environment.


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School Leaders as Symbols

In what ways do our actions and behaviors serve as symbols for other members of our school community?

How can we make visible our commitment to the mission, shared vision, and core beliefs of our school?

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School Leaders asPotters

How do we use rituals and celebrations to mold and reinforce beliefs and norms that are aligned with the vision of our school?

What strategic structures can we design to help shape beliefs and norms?

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School Leaders as Poets

How do we use language to communicate our school’s vision, mission, and beliefs to all stakeholder groups?

What words and images do we use?

Do we optimize use of slogans and creeds?

What kinds of metaphors convey our school’s desired image?

What stories do we tell?

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School Leaders as Actors

How do we orchestrate events to strengthen our school’s culture?

In what ways do we create “stages” or use existing forums to call attention to our shared vision and beliefs?

What new “stages,” or strategic structures, can we create to showcase core beliefs?

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School Leaders as Healers

In what ways do we assist our colleagues and clients in dealing with challenging events and difficult transitions?

What kinds of communication structures and other mechanisms do we have in place to keep our fingers on the pulses of individuals and groups within the school?

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Reflections on an Extraordinary Leader. . .

.1. Call to mind a leader you have

known who was exceptional in nurturing a high-performance learning culture.

2. Review the eight leadership roles, identifying those that this leader used most effectively.

3. Jot down your recollections of what this leader did and how these actions contributed to a high-performance learning culture.

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Reflections on an Extraordinary Leader

Stand up. Look around the room. Find someone with whom you have not yet worked.

As a pair, share your recollections about your exemplary leaders. What roles did they play? What are some specific examples of how they influenced the culture in positive ways?

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Assess Your Leadership Strengths

Complete the Personal Inventory of Leadership Roles

Post your ratings for each of the eight roles on the appropriate flipchart paper around the room.

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Assess Your Leadership Strengths

Now select the ONE role in which you excel—that is, your personal strength.

With others who have selected that role, generate a list of behaviors that exemplify that role.

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Roles of School Leaders

In what ways does this leadership role contribute to strengthening and sustaining

a positive culture?

154



Share and Compare Strengths of Team

Members What are your commonalities? What are your differences? Are there any roles with which no

one on your team feels comfortable?

What are the implications of this assessment for your work as a team?

155



Looking Back to Your Team’s Assessment and

Plans On which of the three areas did

your school focus?Ability and achievementEfficacy and effortPower and control

Which of the strategies, tools, and techniques did you decide to use with your faculty?

Which of the eight leader roles would assist you in planning and implementing this initiative?

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What Can Leaders Do To Turn Around a Toxic

Culture?Use all the leader

roles: Historian — to find

out the root of the problem

Anthropological Sleuth — to determine the current status of beliefs and structures

Visionary — to enlist community in new vision

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Culture? Symbols — to help others visualize

and understand what desired beliefs and behaviors “look like”

Potter — to mold new beliefs and behaviors

Poet — to communicate desired vision, mission and core beliefs

158




Culture? Actor — to dramatize the power of

beliefs Healer — to help people through

hard times; to bring people together

159



Antidotes for Negativity

Acknowledge and confront negativity. Identify and nurture positive

elements of culture and individual staff members who exhibit beliefs and behaviors associated with high-performance culture.

Deliberately and directly focus on eliminating the negative and rebuild around positive beliefs and structures.

Celebrate the positive and the possible as soon as possible.

--Deal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture, pp. 127-128.

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Antidotes for Negativity

Develop new stories of success, renewal and accomplishment.

Focus energy on recruitment, selection, and retention of effective, positive faculty and staff.

Help those who might have success and thrive in a new school make that move.

--Deal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture, pp. 127-128.

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Sharing Leadership to Transform a Toxic

Culture1. Read the case study of the middle

school and review the accompanying artifacts.

2. As you read, jot down evidence of structures that are reported in each of the three areas of beliefs. These may be structures that may support or inhibit each belief.

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Sustaining: Strategy 1

Promote a student-centered mission that will capture the minds and the hearts of staff, students and community.

--Deal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture, pp. 115.

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What Does a Student-centered Mission Look

Like?Example: To set high expectations for all

students and to provide the environment, instruction and support to ensure that all students are learning and achieving, as measured by rigorous standards.

--Adapted from Deal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture, p. 115.

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How Can Leaders Most Effectively Promote

Such a Mission? By “walking the walk” and “talking

the talk.” Use the following roles to advance

the mission:VisionarySymbolPoet

165




Strengthen the positive elements of the existing culture — those that support the school’s mission and vision — and enlist staff members who share the vision, mission or core beliefs.


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How Can Leaders Strengthen Positive

Elements in the Culture? By continuously monitoring the

effectiveness of strategic structures By celebrating successes and

otherwise reinforcing core beliefs and behaviors aligned with mission, vision, and beliefs

Use the following leader roles to strengthen positive elements:SymbolPotterActor

167




Build on established traditions and structures, adding new ones as appropriate and needed.


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How Can Leaders Build on Established

Traditions? By inventorying traditions that have

meaning to staff, students and community then fine-tuning, promoting (i.e., advertising) and expanding the ones that most advance the vision, mission and core beliefs.

Use the following leader roles to build on traditions:Anthropological sleuthPotterActor

169




Use the history of the school to strengthen core beliefs and vision — or build the history, if the school is new.


170



How Can Leaders Use School History?

By referring to people and events that helped shape the culture of the school

By connecting former students and staff to current members of the school community

Use the following leader roles to draw upon the history:HistorianPoetActor

171




Sustain core beliefs in everything the school does.


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How Can Leaders Sustain Core Beliefs and

Norms? By continually referring to the

shared vision and core beliefs and reminding members of the school community about them.

By using these “higher goods” to sustain folks through hard times.

Use the following leader roles to sustain core beliefs:VisionarySymbolHealer

173




Recruit, hire, and initiate staff who share the vision and core beliefs and who will add energy, new insights and skills to the school’s culture.


174



How Can Leaders Identify Staff Who Share the

School’s Vision and Core Beliefs?

By clearly articulating the school’s mission, vision and core beliefs to candidates for employment.

By questioning potential employees regarding ways in which their beliefs have affected their past performance and behaviors.

Use the following leader roles to hire staff who are a “match” for the school’s vision and core beliefs:VisionarySymbolPoetPotter

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A Final Thought about Leadership

Leadership is “a process that occurs within the minds of individuals who live in a culture — a process that entails the capacities to create stories, to understand and evaluate stories, and to appreciate the struggle among stories. Ultimately, certain kinds of stories will typically become predominant — in particular, stories that provide an adequate and timely sense of identity for individuals who live within a community or institution.”

--Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, p. 22.

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