Transcript Document

Creating a Culture for
Learning
Laurie Frank
Download: www.goalconsulting.org
Agenda Flow
•
•
•
•
Introduction/s
School Culture
Culture based on fear
The role of Personal & Structural
Bias
• The Container Concept
• Container models
• Ideas and actions
I have come to the frightening conclusion that
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the
climate. It is my daily mood that makes the
weather. As a teacher, I possess a
tremendous power to make a child’s life
miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture
or an instrument of inspiration. I can
humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all
situations it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated and a child humanized or
dehumanized.
Ground Rules
Goal: Creating common ground – Inviting
dialogue
• Summon disagreement
• How we say something is important
• Acknowledge biases and be willing
to explore (even challenge) the
biases we carry
• Assume good intentions
• Ouch/Oops
• Choices and the right to pass
Definitions of School Culture
“…school culture can be defined as the historically
transmitted patterns of meaning that include the
norms, values, beliefs, ceremonies, rituals,
traditions, and myths understood, maybe in varying
degrees, by members of the school community.
This system of meaning often shapes what people
think and how they act.”
How Schools Improve
Steven Stolp
ERIC Digest
Definitions of School Culture
One definition of school culture submitted by Phillips
(1993) states that it is “the beliefs, attitudes, and
behaviors which characterize a school.”
Center for Improving School Culture
www.schoolculture.net
Literature about good schools defines culture as the
context in which everything else takes place: “the
way things are done around here.”
Educational Leadership
Culture Based on Fear
The faces of the students expressed the school's
culture more eloquently than any vision statement
displayed in a lucite frame. A sense of wholesomeness
and kid-centeredness wrapped itself around me as
soon as I entered the building. Too often, the opposite
is true.
In some schools, students walk in straight, silent lines
monitored by stern teachers. The art on the walls is
more likely to come from the photocopier than from
the creative energy of children. The main office is
dominated by warning signs about name badges,
security checks, and sign-in procedures.
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP
School Culture: An Invisible Essential, Joanne Rooney
February 2005 | Volume 62 | Number 5
“Based on my experience in schools throughout the
nation, I would suggest that it is highly likely that the
perpetrators were reacting in an extreme and
pathological manner to a general atmosphere of
exclusion… If this is the case, then instituting a
significant change in the social atmosphere of the
classroom might succeed in making the school a safer
place… This might also succeed in producing the kind
of social environment that will make the school a more
pleasant, more stimulating, more compassionate and
more humane place for all of the students. This is our
ultimate goal.”
Elliot Aronson
Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine
Zero Tolerance
• Beginning in the late 1980s, rigid “zero tolerance” policies
were adopted by many states… By the mid-1990s, zero
tolerance became federal policy partly as a response to
highly publicized school shootings.
• In many schools, these policies have led to harsher
punishments for first offenses and to the use of
suspensions and expulsions for minor school code
infractions, as well as serious ones.
• Although the school shootings that triggered “zero
tolerance” policies involved white students at
predominantly white schools, students of color are
suspended and expelled at rates far higher than white
students.
• There is little scientific evidence showing that suspension
and expulsion are effective in reducing school violence or
increasing school safety.
UCLA IDEA: Institute
for
Democracy,
Education, and Access
http://www.idea.gseis.ucla.edu/
[email protected]
• School officials and the criminal justice system are
criminalizing children and teenagers all over the country,
arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in
years past would never have led to the intervention of law
enforcement.
• Behavior that was once considered a normal part of
growing up is now resulting in arrest and incarceration.
• Kids who find themselves caught in this unnecessary tour
of the criminal justice system very quickly develop
malignant attitudes toward law enforcement. Many drop out
- or are forced out - of school. In the worst cases, the
experience serves as an introductory course in behavior
that is, in fact, criminal.
• As zero-tolerance policies proliferate, children are being
treated like criminals for the most minor offenses.
School to Prison Pipeline
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Saturday 09 June 2007
Personal & Structural Bias
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Bias
Mirriam-Webster Dictionary:
 an inclination of temperament or outlook;
especially a personal and sometimes
unreasoned judgment
 an attitude of mind that predisposes one to
favor something
 implies an unreasoned and unfair distortion
of judgment in favor of or against a person or
thing
Bias
Dr. Sondra Thiederman, president of
Cross-Cultural Communications:
”…bias is simply an inflexible
belief about a particular category of
people — positive or negative.”
Dr. Thiederman explained bias is an
attitude and not a behavior.
Bias
Personal: Generally come from one’s
own experience, frame-of-reference,
culture, etc.
Structural: Where a process, or a
system, is set up to favor or hinder
someone or something.
Quic kTime™ and a
dec ompr es sor
are needed to s ee this pic ture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The Container Concept
Think about young people (between 2 - 20
years of age) with whom you work or come
into contact with on a regular basis.
What skills, qualities, and attributes do
you want them to have 20 years from now
(when they are between 22 - 40 years of
age)?
VISION
•HONEST
• CREATIVE
•EMPATHETIC
• RESPECT
•RESPONSIBLE • MOTIVATED
•SELF RESPECT • RELIABLE
•LITERATE
• EMPLOYED
•CONFIDENT
• HEALTHY
•SELF SUFFICIENT
•SENSE OF HUMOR
•INDEPENDENT
•PERSEVERENCE
•RESOURCEFUL
•PROBLEM SOLVERS
•GOOD COMMUNICATOR
•LOYAL
• RESILIENT
•CARING
• PATIENT
•HAPPY
• AT PEACE
•INTEGRITY
• RESOURCEFUL
•SUCCESSFUL • CONTRIBUTOR
• FORGIVING
•GOOD PARENTS
•POSITIVE ATTITUDE
•WELL-INFORMED
•GET ALONG W/ OTHERS
•GOOD SELF ESTEEM
•CRITICAL THINKER
•COMPASSIONATE
•PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS
Frees the Brain for Learning
Brain-Compatible Elements
for Learning
¥ Absence of threat
¥ Meaningful content
¥ Choices
¥ Adequate time
¥ Enriched environment
¥ Collaboration
¥ Immediate feedback
¥ Mastery (application)
*From ITI: The Model, Integrated Thematic Instruction,
by Susan Kovalik, 1994
Caine and
Caine refer to
“relaxed
alertness” as
when the brain
is at it’s best for
learning.
Supports Academic Learning
 Safe, caring, and orderly environments are
conducive to learning.
 Caring relations between teachers and
students foster a desire to learn and a
connection to school.
 When students can self-manage their stress
and motivations, and set goals and organize
themselves, they do better.
From: Zins, J.E., Weissberg, R.P., Wang, M.C., and Walberg, H.J, eds.
(2004). Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning:
What does the research say? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
CASEL Study*
… four-year study confirming that school-based social and
emotional learning programs that help students build
positive relationships, develop empathy, and resolve
conflicts respect-fully and cooperatively also have a
positive effect on academic performance.
(from article by International Institute for Restorative Practices:
www.safersanerschools.org/library/caselstudy.html)
http://www.casel.org/downloads/metaanalysissum.pdf
* Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning
Helps Youth Gain Assets & Life Skills
 Protection from High-Risk Behaviors
 Promotion of Positive Attitudes and
Behaviors
 The more assets, the better.
From: The Search Institute: www.search-institute.org
Moving from
“what’s
wrong with
them” to
“what’s
happening
with me
and/or us.”
“People and Environments
are never neutral. They are
either summoning or
shunning the development of
human potential.”
Purkey & Novak, Inviting School Success
Container Models
The Invit ing A pproach
Teacher Behaviors
The more inten tion al i ty th e te acher can exhibi t, th e m ore accurate his or h er jud gm ents and the m ore
decisi ve hi s or her b ehaviorÉ. Anoth er aspect of inten tion al i ty is th at i t h elps tea chers g enerate m ul tiple
choices in a gi ven si tu ation . Ivey (19 77) dem onstrated tha t intention al indi vidu als can d evelop plans, act
on m any p ossible op portu ni ties, a nd evalua te th e effect of the se a ction s. (p. 54)
Purkey & Nov ak, Inviting School Succe ss
INVITING
INTENTIONALLY
UNINTENTIONALLY
(Optimistic, res pe ctful, and
trustw orthy; Able to affirm yet guide
students).
(Well-liked and rea sonably effectiv e;
Inconsistent and unc ertain in decisionmaking).
Teac hers and couns ellors w ho
explicitly invite students, tea chers,
administrators, and parents and are
able to adjust and e valuate their
invitations as nec es sary.
Counsellors and tea chers w ho are
ÒnaturalsÓ, but w ho are una ware of the
nature and good effects of their
beha viour. Because they do not s ee the
source s of their succ es sesand failures ,
such indiv iduals are block ed from
profess ional dev elopment, and they
often lac k the consistent pattern of
beha viour many students ne ed in order
to formulate their own identities.
(Deliberately disc ouraging; Busy
with other obligations; Focused on
studentsÕ sh
ortcomings).
(Well-meaning, but condesce nding;
Obses se d w th
i policies and
procedures; Unaw are of studentsÕ
feelings).
DISINVITING
Teac hers and couns ellors w ho
deliberately attempt to make
students feel inc apable, w orthles s,
and irresponsible.
Counsellors and tea chers w ho Òha ve
their hea rts in the right plac eÓ b
ut
w hose methods contradict their good
intentions by inadv ertent disc ouraging
mess ages conv eyed through labelling
or stereotyping, nonv erbal signals, or
other signals.
From: Invitational Education: A M ode l for Teachers and Couns e llor s
Kenneth H. Smith, PhD, MAPS
Australian Catholic Univers ity
Faculty of Education
Tre scow thick School of Education (V ictoria)
How SEL Supports Good
Outcomes for Kids
Safe, Caring,
Challenging,
WellManaged ,
Participatory
Learning
Environments
Teach SEL
Competencies
• Self-awareness
• Social awareness
• Self-management
• Relationship skills
• Responsible
decision making
Greater
Attachment,
Engagement,
& Commitment
to School
Less Risky
Behavior, More
Assets, More
Positive
Development
Better
Academic
Performance
and Success
in School
and Life
http://www.casel.org/downloads/Safe%20and%20Sound/2B_Performance.pdf
Three Inter-Locking Strategies
(Creating a Climate of Respect)
RELATIONSHIPS
ENVIRONMENTS
COMMUNITY
Adult Consistency
Source: Koenig & Frank
Ideas & Actions
All learning begins with the
simple phrase, "I don't
know".
I don't know
For more information, please
contact Laurie Frank at:
[email protected]
608-251-2234
www.goalconsulting.org