Managing Unstoppable Learning. Tom Hierck
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mandate. It lives in the collective hearts and habits of people and their shared perception of “how things are done around here.” Someone with authority can demand compliance, but they can’t dictate optimism, trust, conviction, or creativity.
Collective commitment driven by meaningful dialogue is the precursor to any effective conversation about culture as well as structure. For example, a school may need to contemplate adding some additional behavior intervention time to produce the desired results, as behavior may be the single biggest deterrent to a student learning in the school. Educators gaining clarity on the culture (beliefs) will allow for the structure (schedule) change to succeed. Effective leaders understand this and build the collective commitment with their team, not for their team. Researcher Carol S. Dweck (2006) states these leaders “surround themselves with the most able people they can find, [and] they look squarely at their own mistakes and deficiencies” (p. 110). These types of leaders are not concerned with being the smartest person in the room or with achieving compliant behavior. They are concerned with growing their team’s skills through a collective commitment, which impacts the growth of all students.
Ensuring that all staff members create and own the mission to serve all students is a critical component of the success in managing learning. Schools cannot address the needs of all students if there is misunderstanding, miscommunication, or misappropriation of the mission. It must be collectively established and reviewed annually in order to fully entrench the cultural changes required for successful, schoolwide ownership of managing learning.
Making a Collective Commitment to the Cultural Change
If we are going to change the culture, we have to understand this change doesn’t take place overnight. Real change is a process, not a declaration—and it requires a collective commitment. Educational consultant Kenneth C. Williams and Tom Hierck (2015) suggest:
Collective responsibility means much more than clichés, slogans, and catchphrases. It requires that the moral imperative (the why of your work) be embedded in every aspect of a school’s culture—through every decision, behavior, and action taken as a school. (p. 9)
We can’t think the culture has shifted just because we’ve created a fancy slogan that says we are about learning for all students, and posted it around the school. We need to focus on the space between posters and practice.
Change takes time. Sustainable change takes more time! I often suggest to schools that they should prepare for a three-year journey at a minimum. Year 1 is always about clarifying your purpose, your strengths, your journey, and your capacity. Schools must ask themselves if there is a collective commitment that all staff have created and own, or whether they have merely adopted a previous mission of the school that was handed down to them. It’s important that staff actions and commitments are reflected in the mission they create. All educators need to be a part of this review of the mission and surface all their beliefs during this process. Modeling the expectations is a vital part of the work.
Year 2 is about aligning your behavior with the commitments you’ve made. Staff reflect on whether their policies, procedures, and practices align with the behaviors they are exhibiting. In content- or subject-area collaborative teams, teachers should review all that is occurring in their classrooms to see if it aligns with what is being espoused. Leaders should review with the entire faculty before considering or making changes.
Year 3 is about monitoring and celebrating. Educators need to reflect on what is working and what is not, and themselves—whether they can defend the work they are doing without becoming defensive. There also is a need for celebrations to occur as recognition of growth toward achieving the desired goal of managing learning. Every time there is a move forward, teams should intentionally acknowledge what has occurred. Here, they can begin to see the benefits of their efforts and know that what they are doing is working. For more information on the different roles, responsibilities, and stages involved in this process, with specific actions and steps different stakeholders can take to plan, manage, and nurture the collective work toward cultural change, see Williams and Hierck (2015).
It’s important to acknowledge that lengthy and labor-intensive processes like implementing necessary cultural changes may not appeal to all school community members. Change can be daunting. The alternative—continuing to do the same things and get the same results—must be less desirable than the hard work ahead, or else schools won’t move forward. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith (2001) frames this challenge best when he says, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof” (p. 241). Implicit in Galbraith’s statement is the common argument I often hear from educators facing change initiatives: “We don’t have the time.” Few would disagree with this understandable argument; educators’ time is stretched thin. Yet, if we are to achieve the necessary change, we must have the willingness to find a way. Unfortunately, the school community may always include those who will resist this work. Blank stares, foot dragging, and yeah-buts are the anchors that prevent any change in school. This is the behavior of the group Muhammad (2018) identifies as the Fundamentalists:
Fundamentalists are the vanguards of tradition and protect the status quo. They are relentless in their attempts to discourage change and protect a system that has allowed them to function and thrive, and they organize to protect this traditional way of practice…. They view change itself as an enemy; therefore, anyone who challenges the system is a threat to the system and a threat to the Fundamentalists. They are the most aggressive and vocal combatants in this war of ideology. (p. 77)
Convincing Fundamentalists to change may seem insurmountable, but don’t abandon hope. I do not believe anyone got into the education profession to be marginal or ineffective. If people have landed on those behaviors, it’s often because someone condoned their behavior. Although the change process may be lengthy, time is on our side when we behave as a collaborative team that owns its collective commitment.
It’s important to recognize how professional learning community (PLC) principles such as working in collaborative teams can support systems thinking elements and Unstoppable Learning principles. Collaboration enhances creation and analysis of these lists to ensure teachers share with each other what is working well with their students. As PLC architect Richard DuFour (2011) suggests:
[Team members] share their expertise with one another and make that expertise available to all of the students served by the team. They establish clear benchmarks and agreed-on measures to monitor progress. They gather and jointly examine information regarding student learning to make more informed decisions and to enhance their practice. (p. 59)
Mutual trust borne out of a collective commitment results in open dialogues and a desire to add whatever practices it might take to mange learning. This needs to occur across all departments and grade levels, as DuFour (2011) reminds us when he describes how, in a PLC, “The school creates a systematic process that ensures that students who are struggling receive additional time and support for learning” (p. 61). When educators do this, all students will grow in their behavioral dispositions as well as their academic content.
Not only do educators work collaboratively in a PLC, but one of the big ideas driving the PLC process is that educators must “take collective responsibility for the success of each student” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016, p. 11). As educational consultant Jenni Donohoo (2017) states:
When teachers believe that together they and their colleagues can impact student achievement, they share a sense of collective teacher efficacy…. Collective efficacy is high when teachers believe that the staff is capable of helping students master complex content, fostering students’ creativity, and getting students to believe they can do well in school. (p. 3)
It’s essential that every educator bear the commitment to any change initiative. We can no longer operate (and probably never should have operated) as individuals, each giving our best while trying to move all