TRANSFORMING SCHOOLS???? - Classroom 2.02024-03-28T21:01:16Zhttps://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/transforming-schools?commentId=649749%3AComment%3A347454&feed=yes&xn_auth=noteachers needed to be taken i…tag:www.classroom20.com,2015-12-22:649749:Comment:10919562015-12-22T16:54:16.844Zarchana mathurhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/archanamathur
<p>teachers needed to be taken into transformational policies and action by the management.</p>
<p>teachers needed to be taken into transformational policies and action by the management.</p> <<Show me a school wher…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-05-31:649749:Comment:3474662009-05-31T18:43:20.998ZKevhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/Kev
<<Show me a school 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.>><br />
<br />
Show me a community that challenges their schools to be better than the community is itself and I'll show you the same.<br />
<br />
I am so very, very tired of hearing "We can't ask our students to do that because the community won't support it" from our…
<<Show me a school 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.>><br />
<br />
Show me a community that challenges their schools to be better than the community is itself and I'll show you the same.<br />
<br />
I am so very, very tired of hearing "We can't ask our students to do that because the community won't support it" from our administration. I firmly believe that the success of a school begins with the culture. Too many teachers want no part of what it takes to change one though especially when they are told it won't work anyway. Hi All..... so highlights fro…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-05-31:649749:Comment:3474542009-05-31T17:01:00.375ZMikehttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/Mike32
Hi All..... so highlights from Barth.......<br />
<br />
<br />
Educational Leadership 59 no8 6-11 My 2002<br />
<br />
<b>The Culture Builder<br />
Roland S. Barth</b><br />
<br />
Probably the most important--and the most difficult--job of an instructional leader is to change the prevailing culture of a school. The school's culture dictates, in no uncertain terms, "the way we do things around here." A school's culture has far more influence on life and learning in the schoolhouse than the president of the country, the state department of…
Hi All..... so highlights from Barth.......<br />
<br />
<br />
Educational Leadership 59 no8 6-11 My 2002<br />
<br />
<b>The Culture Builder<br />
Roland S. Barth</b><br />
<br />
Probably the most important--and the most difficult--job of an instructional leader is to change the prevailing culture of a school. The school's culture dictates, in no uncertain terms, "the way we do things around here." A school's culture has far more influence on life and learning in the schoolhouse than the president of the country, the state department of education, the superintendent, the school board, or even the principal, teachers, and parents can ever have.<br />
<br />
One cannot, of course, change a school culture alone. But one can provide forms of leadership that invite others to join as observers of the old and architects of the new. The effect must be to transform what we did last September into what we would like to do next September.<br />
<br />
Every school has a culture. Some are hospitable, others toxic. A school's culture can work for or against improvement and reform. Some schools are populated by teachers and administrators who are reformers, others by educators who are gifted and talented at subverting reform. And many school cultures are indifferent to reform.<br />
<br />
And all school cultures are incredibly resistant to change, which makes school improvement--from within or from without--usually futile. Unless teachers and administrators act to change the culture of a school, all innovations, high standards, and high-stakes tests will have to fit in and around existing elements of the culture. They will remain superficial window dressing, incapable of making much of a difference.<br />
<br />
NONDISCUSSABLES<br />
An important part of awareness is attending to "nondiscussables." Nondiscussables are subjects sufficiently important that they are talked about frequently but are so laden with anxiety and fearfulness that these conversations take place only in the parking lot, the rest rooms, the playground, the car pool, or the dinner table at home. Fear abounds that open discussion of these incendiary issues--at a faculty meeting, for example--will cause a meltdown. The nondiscussable is the elephant in the living room. Everyone knows that this huge pachyderm is there, right between the sofa and the fireplace, but we go on mopping and dusting and vacuuming around it as if it did not exist.<br />
<br />
<br />
The health of a school is inversely proportional to the number of nondiscussables: the fewer nondiscussables, the healthier the school; the more nondiscussables, the more pathology in the school culture. To change the culture of the school, the instructional leader must enable its residents to name, acknowledge, and address the nondiscussables--especially those that impede learning. No mean task, for as one principal put it, "These nondiscussables are the third rail of school leadership."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
When we come to believe that our schools should be providing a culture that creates and sustains a community of student and adult learning--that this is the trellis of our profession--then we will organize our schools, classrooms, and learning experiences differently. Show me a school 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.