Why Don't Some Changes "Take?"

I have been thinking deeply about why some schools are successful in school turnaround and others are not. What are the differences between a school or a district that experiences visible change and sees visible results and a school or district that is on a treadmill of trying things differently but getting the same result. While I believe that there are many things that ultimately impact this change, there is one key ingredient that is critical to every single component of the change. Systems.

Go to your bookshelf and grab your copy of Peter Senge's book, Schools That Learn. If you have never read Senge's work, it is really critical to understanding systemic change in any organization (buy it or download it here). Senge has spent his career studying businesses, the corporate world, schools, and higher education with the quesion of what underscores real and effective change in these large scale organizations. His theories on systems thinking and having a systems approach to imacting meanigful change speak to the underlying reason that some schools successfully turnaround and others do not. Here is Peter Senge in his own words explaining systems thinking in schools.

Systsems thinking requires that leaders (classroom leaders, school building leaders, district leaders, corporate leaders) see change in terms of the entire system - what are the actions that will be required at every level of the system and who is responsible for the successful implementation. This is significantly different from a leader issuing a memo stating what the change will be and then becoming frustrated when that change has not been thoroughly implemented or implemented to the degree in which the leader is satisfied. It's the same idea as we have been pushing in classrooms with the implementation of the Common Core - who is doing the thinking and who is doing the work? In learning organizations who are successful in implementing systemic change, everyone in the system is doing the thinking and the work around the key components of change as outlined by the leadership.

I was first introduced to Peter Senge's work in 2001, when I was invited by my principal to join her in a year long book study with other leaders throughout the county. I was mesmerized by the principles that Senge outlined and it made so much sense in light of the work we were engaged in at the time - continuously striving to get enough momentum to move the needle away from single digit student achievement and significantly disruptive and dangerous student behaviors, struggling to be more proactive and less reactive, and always struggling to get our staff on-board with our vision. In my twenty-four years in education, I have watched district and building leaders have varying degrees of success with the same issues - trying to get buy-in, make changes that stick, and move the needle on student achievement. But changing the system is different from making changes - and systemic change is the only thing that will ultimately result in the organization looking, feeling, and acting differently.

The image of an iceberg is used in many different ways to describe thinking. Senge's image of system thinking uses the iceberg to analyze what we see as opposed to what is the underlying reasoning or purpose. If we are to make real systemic change, we must focus on what is underneath and not simply on the surface of what we see.

The bottom of the image refers to "mental models." That's the thinking that goes in to the decision making of people in your system. No matter how much effort you as a leader put into changing the surface of your system, if you do not disrupt the thinking patterns, or mental models, of the people in the system (in schools that includes teachers, students, parents, and the community) then we will not succeed in implementing systemic change. For leaders (classroom leaders, school building leaders, or district leaders), this is critical. We must look at every aspect of the system and work to built capacity for every person in that system to see how we need them to think, act, and respond differently if we are to make a difference in how the entire system performs. 

Shifting Thinking

So much of our work in school leadership is based on this idea of shifting the thinking of others - trying to get buy-in to the direction of our work or building capacity around the vision for our school. Since there is currently no technology that can allow us to upload our experiences and processes into those who work with us (I can definitely see how a Vulcan Mind-Meld would be a significant benefit here), shifting the thinking of others happens in conversation, reflection, re-direction, and clear visioning over time.

Clear visioning with new members of your team sounds simple, however, it is not about simply stating what the vision is. There are nuances and intracacies of what that vision may mean and it will take repeated reflection and practice in order to feel like it is truly a shared and supported vision. For example, in my school, we have built some common expectations around classrooms having tight routines and procedures in place and well practiced by the third week of school. We shared data to support the need for strong routines and procedures to be in place and built capacity around our shared belief in what routines and procedures need to be modeled, taught, practiced, and reinforced (all of them!), and then we built 8 week plans around how those routines and procedures would be laid out in real time in real classrooms. As school leaders, we have been "inspecting what we expect"(see last week's blog post) and giving feedback on where we are in terms of being tight as a school. This is where the clear visioning can be called to question - what if members of your leadership team have different perceptions of what it means to have "tight routines and procedures?" What if some of your staff has a different tolerance level around student misbehavior? What if your expectations of what it means to be tight in the cafeteria include everyone in their seat using a quiet voice and members of your staff are okay with students out of their seat as long as they are not fighting?

If you find yourself thinking that you would be better off if you had clones of yourself to work with, or musing that it would be so nice if everyone just did their job, then you have an issue with clear visioning.

Shifting thinking is a process. It involves purposeful planning and carefully crafted feedback conversations. If you want members of your team to share your vision for anything from classroom routines and procedures to student behavior to meeting deadlines, it falls to you as the leader to be clear about your expectations, check in on those expectations, and provide immediate feedback or course corrections in order to see progress. Back to the example of the tight routines and procedures, if I am not seeing from classrooms what I expect by week three, it falls to me as the leader to intervene, provide immediate feedback and allow for opportunities to put that feedback into action.

The next step to feedback is checking in. This is the difference between feedback and actionable feedback. If I have a conversations with a staff member about her clear signaling in her classroom and have an expectation that different strategies will be implemented in order to get student attention and allow for a culture of learning to take place in the classroom, then I must also follow up to check the progress. Because shifting thinking is not a one time thing, I should plan on this process happening repeatedly until there is clear progress in the classroom.

I know what you are thinking...who has time for this? If I have to check in with every person on my staff to ensure that their actions are aligned to the vision and give actionable feedback with follow ups, I will never be able to get my work done! I would try to shift your thinking around that (did you see what I did there?) because this is the work. Emails, phone calls, and meetings are not the work. Being in classrooms and making sure that the vision is alive in your classrooms is the work. Shifting the thinking of others so that they see how your vision lives in their students is what will allow you to answer emails and phone calls in a few weeks - once you feel like there is truly a sense of shared ownership and capacity.

So I would ask you to shift your thinking this week - clear your calendar to the extent that you are able and live in classrooms, in the cafeteria, in team meetings, and every place that you want to see your vision in action. Give immediate actionable feedback and follow up to see the progress. You will be glad you did.

Inspect What You Expect

As leaders, we have spent the last weeks carefully outlining the expectations that we have for our school, our teachers, and our classrooms. How do you know that the work that is happening is meeting your expectations and that your students, staff, parents, families, and classrooms all share your vision for the culture of achievement? You must inspect what you expect - not once, not twice, but continuously, in order to ensure that the culture of achievement lives in the day to day work of the school. Likewise, if you are the classroom teacher, you must provide opportunities to model, teach, practice, and assess your expectations in order to ensure that the culture in your classroom will allow for students to reach high levels of achievement. 

Creating a classroom culture 

What are your beliefs for student learning? How are they in evidence in the day to day routines and procedures and what you expect or reinforce in your classroom? For instance, you might say that you believe in a culture of achievement in your classroom or in your school. How would I know what your beliefs were if I were to walk into your classroom? 

So, what is culture? According to NAESP, 

"Whenever a group of people spend a significant amount of time together, they develop a common set of expectations. These expectations evolve into unwritten rules to which group members conform in order to remain in good standing with their colleagues. Groups develop a common culture in order to pass on information to the next generation. That information, however, represents a set of beliefs that have been passed down by imperfect humans with personal preferences." https://www.naesp.org/resources/2/Principal/2008/M-Ap56.pdf

So, the amount of time that you as a leader must invest into ensuring that the culture - or unwritten set of expectations - of your school aligns to your vision cannot be discounted. It must be your top priority as a school leader or as a classroom teacher leader to ensure that your beliefs live in the culture of your building and your classrooms. 

Culture and climate are usually talked about in the same sentence - as if they are the same thing. Leaders often mistake making adjustments to the climate of the the school will impact the culture, but it is really two different things. Culture is the deep-seated beliefs of an organization and you can feel a school's culture in the exchanges between students and staff, staff members with one another, staff with parents and families, and the school and the community. 

Please take 10 minutes out of your busy day today to watch this video of Citizen's Academy in Cleveland, Ohio. The impact of school culture is evident in every purposeful teacher action, every student action, every leader action that has led to this school's academy and social successes. As a classroom teacher leader, think about your actions with students - are they are purposeful and on point as the teachers in the video? As a school leader, think about the expectations that you inspect and continuously reinforce in your school - do they all point in the same direction of high levels of student achievement? If your beliefs do not match your actions, then your school culture will reflect the fact that what you say and what you do are two different things. Kids, teacher, and families will know that and it will become the culture of your school or your classroom. Be purposeful. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Inspect what you expect. 

Starting Strong

You know that saying - "You only get one chance to make a first impression?" The same is true for the start of the school year. You only get one chance to start the school year right - and it doesn't happen by chance.

We have spent the last two weeks in professional development that focused on Restorative Practices, Building Supportive Relationships, Bias and Diversity, Mathematics Instruction, and Writing Instruction. I have been challenged in my thinking and in my practice by an amazing team of teachers and leaders. Seeing them take leadership in group discussion and in exemplar practice, really made me think back to where we started. The growth we have made is truly amazing.

Throughout our discussions, we have continued to return to the need for strong routines and procedures and the importance of building a strong sense of community in your classroom. We have looked at data that supports the "why" of the work we are doing and planned carefully for the "how" so that our routines and procedures are able to be tight and purposeful. Routines are essential to providing students the structure and safety that will allow them to take personal and academic risk and to invest themselves fully into relationship with the classroom learning environment (read more about the importance of routines here and here).

Starting the year strong is essential to implementing the strong routines and procedures that will lay the strong foundation for student achievement. As a school leader, it is critical that you "inspect what you expect" and provide opportunities for teacher and students to mode, teach, practice, and assess the routines and procedures that will set students up for success during the year ahead.

We focus on being #tightbyweek3, which means that all of the school-wide routines and procedures have to be well established in order for us to have a safe and productive culture of learning. My leadership team clears their schedule for the first three weeks - there is nothing more important than being in classrooms, in common areas, and in transitions in order to provide immediate feedback and offer opportunities for immediate course correction. For classroom routines and procedures that become the foundation of academic achievement, we will provide feedback, opportunities for practice, and action planning to ensure that we are poised to achieve the level of academic success that our students deserve.

It is critical that school leaders have a clear vision of how school-wide routines and procedures will be modeled, taught, practiced, and reinforced and that there is a clearly articulated vision about the routines and procedures that are expected in order to ensure academic achievement in classrooms.