Casey: It’s not just about you, is it?
Tim [laughing]: No, it isn’t.
Casey: How do the school’s history and the mental models associated with that history affect the school’s vision?
Tim: It affects them quite a lot. I think, in many cases, principals neglect to dig in deep in terms of trying to understand the history, background, and mental models, as you call them, in the school. I grew up in the state of Ohio and went to a school very similar to the building where I’m now principal. That said, there are still a number of unique components to this community, to this school district, and specifically to this staff that make our work here very unique. The longer I’m here, the more I continue to reveal certain aspects of that unique history to make my efforts to lead even more effective and efficient.
Casey: So you think your vision for the school gets better the longer you’re here?
Tim: No, I believe our vision together for what’s possible gets better. The longer my staff work in this culture and climate of shared leadership with a vision that we all build together, the more we learn to become effective and efficient as a team and the better job we do in serving our students.
To reiterate, vision is one of the most important aspects of leadership and goal attainment. Simply put, you can’t get anywhere very quickly if you don’t know where you’re going and aren’t clear about your destination. Unfortunately, vision is a terribly overused, imprecise word. The more specificity we can add to the process of clarifying our vision by defining our mental models, history, and current learning context, the more likely leaders will be able to both understand and be understood. Building, implementing, and sustaining a systemic vision is a never-ending job; by using tools and strategies that complement learning, thoughtful school leaders can improve the clarity of the school vision.
The Impact
Hopefully this chapter has helped demystify the vision process a bit. If, as a school leader, you’re able to understand the mechanics of establishing a vision and use those mechanics to the advantage of everyone in the school, your school will have more clarity about what’s possible regarding innovation, learning, and leading. In terms of culture, a unique advantage of clarity is that you’ll notice a greater sense of calm and fulfillment in your building due to the fact that people tend to feel better when they have a clear idea of where they’re going. Everyone can relate to the nervousness of driving down the road unsure if you are heading toward the destination. When you’ve removed that confusion from the system and given the staff at your school the confidence they need to believe they are indeed moving in the right direction, there is a much greater likelihood that the resulting school culture will be calmer, more reflective, and more fulfilled, with more creative outcomes.
CHAPTER 2
Generating Enhanced Reflective Learning
The new economy and the new world of work are all about learning. As you know, you cannot survive in any profession unless you’re able to engage and learn new things. To that end, the success of school is most directly driven by the development of individual and team learning capacities (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008). Furthermore, a school with a lot of learning resources will be even more effective if it is well led. The purpose of this chapter is to present a key concept that revolves around the ability to enhance and improve the learning power in your school: generating enhanced reflective learning power. You’ll also be introduced to several leadership strategies that support the development of this key concept.
Before we get into the definition of this leadership concept, we need to spend a moment talking about learning power. I deliberately use the term power in this context to describe the flexible and, indeed, expandable force that exists within all of us, within every group, and yes, within your school as a whole to learn new things and to apply that learning. If you believe in successful collaboration, you recognize that there is more learning power in a well-connected cohesive group than one that obviously hasn’t invested in appropriate group processes. Certain schools are able to respond to challenges and demonstrate their learning power better than others by being able to problem solve and find resolutions faster. Being a leader who conceptualizes learning as a fluid force in your organization will help remind you to consistently lead in a way that allows you to maximize this power.
Paradigms of Yesterday
Despite the fact that schools are institutions of learning, the design of their functionality and the habits and dispositions of leaders had nothing to do with promoting learning. In fact, some of the most essential elements associated with organizing schools were counterproductive to the learning process. For example, Taylor believed strongly in measuring everything with time (Kanigel, 1997). Clearly schools haven’t totally shed this obsession; being fixated on seat time is an example of adherence to Taylorism.
Moving students away from a teacher after one year, which forces teachers to leave behind knowledge of family, learning styles, and so on, is another example of a systemic bureaucracy built around the assumptions and expectations of a system not focused on learning impact. In addition, there is very little evidence that the early framers of modern schools kept teacher learning in mind, since they established a system designed to isolate teachers and keep them dependent on school leaders for direction and information. That system also provides teachers with very little room to work together.
Because of our bureaucratic history, we often put a greater emphasis on control and hierarchy than we do on maximizing learning. If you were to ask most students in the United States whether there is more pressure to learn or more pressure to conform, what do you think they would say? In business, you are often evaluated by how well you work, learn, and hopefully innovate as a team. How often are students in most U.S. schools required to do the same? Or are they discouraged from working together? Obviously, schools are changing dramatically, and your deliberate efforts in focusing on learning will make a big difference in that continued evolution.
Keep in mind that one of the real advantages to reflecting, learning, and evolving is that the organization begins to grow in directions that may not have been expected. In Taylor’s time, the notion that an organization would evolve in a particular direction that wasn’t prescribed was unthinkable. Again, what you learned was largely determined by those who were stacked above you in the organizational chart. In general, Taylor had no interest in workers exploring new ways of executing their job functions. There was fear that this would create an imbalance that would disrupt the carefully orchestrated system (Kanigel, 1997). Think about the generations of innovation we have likely missed while toiling away in systems where only a handful of people are asked to really think. Schools are complex enough organizations, and no matter how well led they may be, we have to take advantage of every available thinker.
Key Concepts for Today
Mastery of this key concept, generating enhanced reflective learning, is demonstrated by your capacity as a leader to be a wellspring of inspiration and provide a direction for learning in the school. In the LEAF model, you must have a clear and present impact on the quality and quantity of individual and team learning expressed throughout the school. Exude a love of learning, and take action to support learning at every turn. When decisions are made regarding policy or practice, quickly consider the learning implications for students, staff, and yourself. Hold learning sacred, and take all the steps necessary to make learning a way of life for everyone in the school.
Learning is both continuous and unpredictable. Whether we plan for it or not, our brains attempt to make sense of our life experiences through a process called consolidation, wherein our ideas and experiences are reflected on, compared, analyzed, and selectively stored long after the experience or learning moment has passed us by (Reason, 2010). Even the notion that you “need some time to think about it” is a habit of thinking things through—usually on the