Clarify Mental Models
In general, one weakness in education is how imprecise we are when it comes to terminology. A word like curriculum can have a very broad or very narrow mental representation for whoever is hearing the word. Even phrases such as diversity, English learners, special education, individual education plan, and new technology represent common education lingo that may wield widely different mental models depending on who you ask. If you tell digital natives they are getting new technology, their mental model may revolve around images of working at lightning speed with students gleefully breaking down learning boundaries and performing better than ever. Teachers less comfortable with new technology may hear the phrase and conceptualize long moments of frustration, confusion, and feelings of being obsolete. By establishing the practice of consistently clarifying mental models, you can get some of these ideas out in the open. Rather than allowing those mental models to fester, ask staff what they think or what they see when you mention key terms. This will help bring clarity to the process of establishing a school vision.
A principal and other members of the school improvement team could investigate the mental models that permeate the school regarding topics like school improvement planning, new curriculum, professional development, and so on. They may discover that, generally speaking, the mental models in these areas tend to cluster in one direction or another. This information could then inform the team regarding what steps are needed to begin establishing a new vision. For example, if the team found that there was a negative view of professional development and that the mental model was one of boredom and frustration, it might suddenly be clear that establishing new positive experiences around highly relevant and just-in-time professional development would go a long way in changing both that perception and the school’s vision. Knowing this mental model and referring to the history behind it would be extraordinarily beneficial.
Clarify Perceptions of the Current Learning Context
Since the learning context represents a combination of the conditions we see and feel as we interact in a learning environment, it is often difficult to quantify these variables. However, to some degree, you can rely on common sense. For example, in an environment with many community, school, and classroom-based stressors, you may need to become a bit more deliberate and explicit as a leader about addressing how those issues may be affecting how your school sees the world.
For example, I was principal of a high school that consistently suspended one hundred students a month. With five full-time police officers walking the halls and the dean’s office and community police station by the front of the building, I began to recognize that the context we were living in was challenging. To some degree, where we had elected to situate our offices and the steps we took to process our behavioral issues exacerbated an already volatile situation. Looking back, it shouldn’t have been surprising that the first issues staff wanted me to address as principal were discipline, security, and dress code. Certainly each was an important component in creating a school environment good for students and learning. The physical presence and placement of these systems, however, created a vision that overrepresented what we needed to do.
It was clear to me that challenging staff to think about our problems at a deeper level required a shift of context and, in this case, focusing on support and prevention before moving to more drastic measures. The result was dramatically improved student achievement and staff that became remarkably adroit at dealing with very difficult problems. In fact, the staff ended up cutting suspension and expulsion rates in half in a very short period of time. Even though the community hadn’t changed and the problems students were facing hadn’t gone away, our context allowed us to approach those problems differently and ultimately clarify our perceptions.
See Things Better Than They Actually Are
One of the more empowering things you can do as a principal is to not only take these elements of vision building into account but also encourage your staff to consistently envision their future in a way that’s empowering and successful. For fun, let’s refer to this process as establishing Bettervision: a vision of what’s just ahead that’s better than what we have right now.
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working almost daily with Brian Mueller, president and CEO of Grand Canyon University, while I was chairing the school’s very first doctoral program. In every meeting I attended with him, he had the uncanny ability to lead the discussion toward a vision of possibility that was outlandishly successful. He would talk in very concrete terms about doubling or quadrupling the business in a short period of time due to outstanding strategy and the energized efforts of everyone in the room. His construction of a future that was better than today was relentless, and you couldn’t help but be inspired by the exciting potential he portrayed.
I stayed at Grand Canyon long enough to realize that many of the visions he had for the future didn’t exactly come to fruition in as glorious a form as he had projected, but remarkably, they came relatively close in most cases. The message here is that when constructing a vision for what’s possible, we dream too small. If we can consistently get those who work in your school to see a compelling and successful future, even if you fall short of a glorious expectation, you’re likely to still lurch forward and make progress where growth had perhaps eluded your predecessors.
Within this context, you may also want to ask how clear the vision is in the school, what you can do as principal to help make the vision and direction clearer, and what each staff member can do to help clarify your path forward and make sure everyone understands the vision. This can be an inquiry that’s held extemporaneously one on one with a staff member, or it can be part of a small- or large-group processing point to help you move forward. Certainly, this approach can lead you toward the process of clarifying a vision for the future that’s engaging, appealing, and worth striving for.
Critical Conversations: Remember the Prize of Clarity and Vision
The idea of establishing clarity for where you’re going is incredibly important. The clearer the vision, the more likely it is that the members of the institution will be able to work together toward a solution. Imagine if everyone in your school had great clarity about what was expected and how it was growing and evolving. That collective clarity could result in the ability to pull together and find solutions more readily than ever before. Reminding the staff of the importance of vision is important, as is openly asking them what the results would be of getting really good at establishing vision and being clear about what vision means to each person. If you do this right, you’ll establish a culture and a climate in your school that will hopefully outlast your tenure as principal.
Exemplars and Signs of Mastery
Tim is the principal of a small rural high school in Ohio. He shared some interesting thoughts with me on how vision can impact leadership, learning, and innovation.
Casey: So, Tim, how do you establish a vision for where you’re going in your school?
Tim: Well, it’s kind of like you’ve always said, Casey. It’s more about our ability as a staff to come together and reflect on what all of us hope and dream in terms of bringing improvement to the school. We all have to come together and have that conversation to make that vision a reality.
Casey: Did you find that early in your tenure there was an overreliance on the staff’s expectation that you would provide the vision?
Tim: Absolutely. I think it is part of the feeling-out process that many principals have to go through early in their tenure. Staff members are curious as to what you might be up to and the types of changes you might be interested in manifesting. As a result, they ask a lot of questions and consistently expect you to articulate your vision.
Casey: It’s kind of like a tennis match, isn’t it? They want you to serve the ball, but you have to bounce it back to them, don’t you?
Tim: Yes! And, it doesn’t have to be a negative process. I think that you can actually learn