by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.
and really they don’t. Just when I think all is in order I get thrown on my ass again.
Last week’s day in a sentence (hosted by Illya‘s EVO Blogfolio) was actually a year in a sentence and it called for reflective sentences on the year that is about to end.
I left the call for sentences post open in my browser for a day or so. I’d stare at it, go away, stare at it again, go away again, until finally I typed:
Learning about what is important to me â lessons that never end!
Beavers don't build a lodge and they are done. It's constant – always building, adding and taking away – and necessary for survival. This picture and the lodge making story was found on Mon@rch's Nature Blog. Click image for source.
It always seems to be this time of year when I lose my focus. It’s run run run all the time with teaching. teaching. teaching. This year in particular – my days are long. very long. I leave my house at around 6am and sometimes don’t return until 13 or so hours later. My dogs are loving this schedule (not) as am I (again, not). At this time of year that means that my down time is all in darkness. Yuck. (And I am getting tired of telling this story over again year after year.)
For the past few weeks I have been an elastic ball of exhaustion, ready to snap apart at any noise, annoyance, divergence from plans. Not a good quality to have when a) I work with teenagers, b) I have 2 dogs and a cat who need more attention than I am giving them, and c) I am experiencing my first winter in my 100 year old home in the country. (stove pipe fell out of the wall last week, filling my home with smoke, on the same evening that my furnace ran out of oil, so I had to sleep with the windows open on a night with no heat in the house. Yesterday my pipes froze – apparently that can happen when you heat primarily with the (now-fixed) wood stove on really cold days. Really, this could be a funny movie if it were being filmed.) Oh, and d) I apparently have some health issues that my doctor wants me to check out in more detail over the holiday break.
I met with my principal just before leaving for the break on Friday and he pointed out that he was worried about me, that I need to know I can speak to him before I completely burn out. That I need to remember to take care of myself. On Sunday morning my boyfriend held me in his arms during a bit of a …moment… after I had put the dogs into the veranda because they were driving me crazy running around the house and soon after noticed they had torn up a garbage bag I had forgotten to bring outside and decorated said veranda with its contents.
So, what the heck have I learned this time that is important to me? Well, for one that it’s a continuous process this focusing on what is important shtick. That’s what they call keeping balance in some parts. One thing I sure learned in the past few days is that keeping people in the picture rather than on the sidelines helps everything else fall into place. When I was in my boyfriend’s arms he didn’t say anything but just let me blubber for a while until I found the words I needed to say. I get so frustrated with myself when I set myself up to fail, when I make choices that make my life harder than it needs to be –> Working and living so far apart. Putting the garbage bag in the veranda instead of directly out to the garbage bin. Not learning about the ins and outs of heating an old house in the winter. Not approaching people for help before I get overwhelmed.
I may be a little bit hard on myself as well. Maybe. A little. The little upsets and failures are being measured by my out-of-whack yard stick for success. I was teased this weekend about being slightly ticked off that I received an overall mark of 97 in the course I took this semester.
Time to reevaluate choices, create some of that hope for the future I’m always talking about. But guess what? I’m thinking of actually letting other people help me out with that. Novel idea, I know.
This morning I yelled. But big. At my dogs, at my cat, at my house, at my students.
I adopted a cat (Betty) a few weeks ago because of the mice. Not into mice. But my big dog (Toby) stalks her and my little dog (Jacob) alternates between ignoring her, stealing her toys, and barking his head off at her. Things have broken (teapots, my pepper plant, wine glasses…) as Toby chases her into the kitchen. This morning I set myself up in a spot in the sunshine to do some coursework and, after a few forgot my coffee, pen, post-its, battery is dead need the charger, trips back into the house I finally settled in to do my readings for this week’s class discussion. Then Toby darts into the house and I hear a crash. I’m guessing that Betty, thinking it was safe (dog-free) ventured out of her hiding spot on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinets and into the house. Toby must have heard this, at which point he chased her back up on top of the fridge, where her food bowl was, which she hit and it crashed onto my ceramic countertop, hitting the coffeemaker, and so I was left with coffee soaked cat food all over the place. Then of course Jacob came in to eat it so I yelled at him, Don’t even think it, but he did, and I threw a towel at him, so he jumped away right into the dog bowl full of water, spilling it everywhere, including on a vacuum cleaner which is impossible to dry with all of its parts and wires.
So that is when I yelled at the dogs, cat, house, my life. One of the things I yelled was, All I do is clean up what is left after you creeps (ok, the actual word was different but I prefer not to repeat it here) destroy my house and I do the same thing at work. Everything’s a mess! Everywhere!
The other day Jacob tore apart a down comforter in my bedroom. Take a moment. Imagine the scene.
Yesterday I only taught 2 periods and managed to get myself all worked up over the blatant disrespect I witnessed in some of my students. Students feeling they could just sit themselves down at any computer and use it – including teacher computers – without permission. Students taking things from my desk or from the top of a pile of my books on a table in the hallway. Not even just to look at or to borrow. Taking. Students leaving newspapers, plastic wrappers, napkins, broken pens, wherever they last were. Students having their own conversations while other students/teachers are addressing the group. Then continuing even after the class is stopped to get silence for the speakers. I have other students also complaining about this, that they can’t focus in class because of a chatty climate of disrespect. I walked into my classroom after lunch and just about lost it when a student was sitting at my desk, checking her email on my computer while behind her I saw written on my white board a student’s name with a few different phone numbers and the caption – Man whore, call after 12.
I am exhausted. I was supposed to go to a New Year’s dinner with my family last night but instead I stayed home. I went to bed at 7:30. I was so tired I could not imagine driving. I didn’t think it was safe.
What is tiring me out is that I am acting reactively. Responding reactively to these annoying day-to-day activities requires way more brain power, brain power that should be conserved for more important activities, than if I approach my life proactively. Instead of yelling at my students, my dogs, my house when something goes wrong, I need to prepare for things to go right. If I tolerate the disrespect, if I tolerate the canine craziness in my house then I certainly can’t change it.
So what can this look like?
At school. I’m starting over on Monday. As if it were day one. Since a third of our students are returning students I assumed that the climate of respect that we worked towards last year would continue. It is mainly those students however that are acting as if my classroom was their private gaming hall. I love that my students are comfortable with me but they are too comfortable. They need reminding and the new students need more structure than I provided them based on my initial assumptions. I need to set them up to succeed, not to get into trouble. At the same time it saves me from turning into a crazy teacher. By exploding once in a while and not changing systems, it shows that I tolerate the behaviour for a while, until I get angry, and then I tolerate it again until the next time. I can’t change my environment if I tolerate what is going on in it.
At home. I need to keep my house tidy. Some things broke because they were on the counter instead of away in a cupboard. But mainly I need to crate Jacob when I am not at home. I don’t like crating dogs, I prefer to teach them where to be and how to be. But that’s not working so much with Jacob. By allowing him to roam the house even after he eats the comforter, poops in the living room, destroys a kleenex box I am tolerating the destruction. And when I don’t want to be interupted I need to tie the dogs up so they can’t dash into the house all goofy-like to chase poor Betty.
In myself. I get frustrated at myself for being so tired and not having the time to do what I want, for having a messy house, for not being able to find that brown blazer I want to wear 5 minutes after I was supposed to leave the house in the morning… I’m hoping that some of the changes I make at home and school will help in this area as well. At least, I’ll start on those two areas and see.
Youâre in control you know. Itâs your life and itâs up to you to make it what you want it to be. Tolerate nothing. You are in control. This is your life, not a dress rehearsal. – Jim Donovan
Phew. Needed to get that out there.
Enjoy your day. And now that I have cleaned up the coffee flavoured Chicken Soup for the Kitten Lovers Soul and broken glass from my kitchen floor, wiped up the water from all over the dining room, and tied the dogs to trees in the yard, I am ready to get my reading done. Just in case you are interested, it’s on the reliability of oral histories for my course called first nations peoples.
****note added just after posting….****
As I returned to my spot in the sun outside I noticed that, though I could hear Jacob yip, I couldn’t see him. He is now stuck under my deck. He managed to get under it and get his leash wound around something under there. I need to take apart part of the deck to rescue him. Looks like I won’t be getting to my reading this morning.
Kindness, Iâve discovered, is everything in life. Isaac Bashevis Singer (via nezua)
Sea Lions live in colonies. These ones are hanging out together in San Francisco. They can also spend weeks at a time hunting in the open sea. Click image for source.
Yesterday I commented on Kelly Hines’ post Core Beliefs about my own core belief that learning happens in community.
Today I found this beautiful sentence in Michael Doyle’s post Puddles:
When one wanders away from one’s usual world, it’s good to have company.
So what does this all have to do with my job as a teacher?
Learning can be about wandering away from one’s usual world, I think that good learning must. When we are learning new ideas we are changing our cognitive framework.
Imagine, we have the innate ability to change our thinking processes, biologically.
While this is happening, especially if it is with a paradigmatic shift in our thinking and beliefs, it is not only good to have company, I think it is necessary.
There are certain states that people need to feel they are in for learning (or change) to be able to happen – a sense of belonging, of safety, of worth. As teachers, we don’t always know if our students experience those states outside of our classroom (though we can sometimes guess based on the behaviours that we see in it!). A big part of my job is to create an environment that encourages these states to be. Not only for students in my classroom but for my colleagues in theirs as well.
Sometimes we need to tell it like it is. Photograph by Joel Sartore, click to view source at National Geographic.
I’m not talking lovey-dovey group hug, you are so special all the time kind of support. I just mean good solid, I know you are here for me and I am here for you and we will be honest kind of support. The kind of support that allows for conflict – the best learning often happens through it.
The support that we as teachers and that our students as co-learners can give each other is vital for learning (change) to happen.
I think of the hard-as-nails student who, in June, wrote a personal reflection on how she had changed over the year. She sobbed openly throughout the hour or so she took to write, shaking her head no when I asked if she wanted to write somewhere else.
Sometimes it can be as basic as just being together that allows us to take the risks we need to take to change how and what we learn.
(brainstorming. getting closer to what I want to examine… see v.1 and v.2 for context)
Bridging theory and practice.
Bridges. Sun rising. Strong metaphors for change in education. Photo taken by dogra, made available on flickr through a cc license. Click image to view source.
There is a lot of theory around education, around the best way(s) to teach children.
Often theory is presented to teachers as an end-product, in the form of curricular reforms or technological reforms that are expected, at times mandated, to be used in the classroom.
Researchers question – why aren’t our findings being transferred into practice?
Teachers question – why are we being asked to do something new, something else again?
Policy makers question – why are teachers being so difficult?
How can we change these questions?
How can we bridge the gaps?
I believe it comes down to
competing value systems between the different stakeholders that create
difficult relationships
fragmented culture
unstable ground
The feedback I received from my doctoral seminar group and from Chris is helping me to bridge the gaps in my ideas. Interestingly, as I do that I’m also discovering that my ideas are about bridging gaps.
With much respect and thanks to Chris Parsons for his valuable feedback :)
Parts are still under construction, but I am beginning to get more focused.
Without further ado, here is version 2.
~~~
Context and Question
although the school improvement programs and projects under scrutiny varied in terms of content, nature, and approach, they reflected a similar philosophy. Central to this philosophy was an adherence to the belief that the school is the center of change and the teacher is the catalyst for classroom change and development. (Bezzina, 2006, p.160)
ââŠclassroom teachers are the only real agents of school reform. It is
teachers who translate policy into action; who integrate the complex
components of standards, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment into
comprehensible and pragmatic instruction; and who balance an
ever-changing array of political, economic, social, and educational
factors while trying to meet the individual needs of children.â~Ending the SilencebyDonna M. Marriott (2003)
Teachers are recognized as key players in the learning process, even as change agents within that process, yet they are often not involved in how education reform is implemented (Weiner, 1999). When they are, it is in a reactive manner, by rebelling against curricular change and policy â either directly (Warr, 2006; Laurendeau, 2008) or indirectly, by simply not changing the way they teach. I believe that if teachers were more central to the processes of reform then true changes in education could be possible. Such a shift is ideological and I agree with Weiner when he wrote, on the eve of Quebec curricular reform in 1999,
Whether the promise of this revolution can be fulfilled hinges upon the ability of teachers and the government to transcend a history of conflict and mistrust and build a very different working relationship over the next several years (p. 12).
Weiner describes a revolution in education reform that would require a paradigm shift in the way teachers are involved in reform processes in schools, a paradigm shift within the relationship between policy makers and the teachers who implement policy with students. Change in education usually falls under curricular and/or technological reform and evidence of this is seen in the variety of school change initiatives across North America (Collinson, 2006). I suggest that for change to occur the focus needs to shift from curricular and technological reform to a reform in the way we support and nurture teachers, a reform of relationship.
Lam (2005) has identified structural conditions that promote teacher learning and, in turn, student learning. I believe that these conditions are possible through a more open and flexible relationship between teachers and policy makers. Weiner wrote about a revolution in this area almost 10 years ago yet the system, despite new policy intended to change it, remains resistant. I believe this is hinged on the fact that the relationship I described above has not changed.
I would like to investigate this more deeply through a review of the literature, but that is not enough. Observation of organizational dynamics within schools and talking with teachers, school administrators, and curricular policy makers about their underlying beliefs around educational reform and change is key to understanding the complexities of the educational system. Observing, understanding, and considering the whole system, its underlying values, and the relationships that are embedded within it are key to effecting authentic, lasting change (Argyris, 1999; Bonner, et al, 2004; Flood, 1990; Jackson, 2001).
A system’s underlying values, those that are explicit in the actions of its members, can shed light on why we do what we do. Argyris (1993, 2002) points towards a need for clarifying our underlying values in order to ensure that our espoused values are congruent with our values-in-use, in other words, in order to ensure that what we do is in line with what we say we want to do. Therefore, as a point of entry, I would like to examine beliefs about the underlying values of the teacherâs role in the learning process, as they permeate the system, in order to see the effect these beliefs have on policy around educational change processes, such as education reform in Quebec.
Such observation would help to begin answering the question: If teachers were more central to the processes of educational reform, then would there be less resistance to change initiatives in schools? Eventually, I could follow this with, âwhat is the effect of recognizing teachers as agents that must be equally involved in the process of educational reform?â, however at the moment there is a need to explore the first question. What could happen if teachers were centrally implicated in the processes of school reform?
Methodological Question
How do I check to see if what I think has relevance? That if we support and nurture teachers as a change process, rather than focusing on curricular or technological change, that we will be able to effect actual change in the system?
(Section unchanged from previous iteration)
Post-modern organizational development
I will be looking at the school organization through this lens, with its emphasis on relationship, contextual, narrative-based generation of ideas, and the dismissal of the notion of objectivity. They are all key elements of post-modern organizational development and discourse (Bush, 2006; Midgley, 2003; Cummings & Thanem, 2003). Another element of post-modern OD for this intervention is the concept of merging theories of change and the understanding that not one theory is relevant for all situations (Marshak, 1993). Theories and change models must be culturally significant for the system in which they are being used in order for them to generate meaningful change. (Rosen, 2006)
Within that context, I will most likely draw upon:
Reflective Action Research Cycle (Rosen, 2005, 2006), the structure, in which the action research cycle is subverted, to place reflection as the entry point. Reflection continues to permeate the whole process, forming the ground, the basis of the action.
Reflective Action Research Process, Rosen 2005
Â
Argyris and Schon Theory of Action, the mechanism through which we can become aware of why we do what we do, the actual values and beliefs behind our actions, and possibly re-align our actions with our values. It helps to connect thought to action.
Conversation is a powerful tool for uncovering values, beliefs, and the assumptions that frame them in order to create change in organizations. Wheatley (2002)describes conversation as the way people think together. Maturana believes that conversation is what frames all of our activities together as humans. He describes the centrality of conversation to human existence (Fell & Russell, 1994) and his biological theory of cognition is, ââŠa reflection on how we exist in language as languaging beings, it is a study on human relations,â (Maturana, n.d., in Ruiz, 2002, ¶ 10). Maturana himself wrote ââŠeverything human takes place in conversationsâŠwe live in conversations,â (Maturana et al, 1996, ¶ 19-21). Achinstein (2002) supports the use of conversation for dealing with conflict when she writes, âconversations about conflicts can create new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things,â (p. 435).
Conversation, when people are really listening to each other, allows for the emergence of the beliefs and values that underlie an issue for participants.
The use of conversation as a theoretical framework for making decisions is found in many helping professions. In bioethics, Hester (2004) discusses the importance of exploring methods for creating healthy dialogue from within situations rather than trying to fix them with external tools. An ethics based on contextual dialogue and relationship is becoming widely discussed within the helping professions. It is recognized that more than one perspective is necessary to come to an ethical decision (Childs, 2001; Huotari, 2001; Irvine, 2004; & Prilleltensky et al, 1996), in particular when a variety of professions with competing professional values, are working together with the same client. The importance of values, the backbone of moral ideals through which ethical decisions are made, has also been recognized as an integral aspect of decision-making in sustainability ethics, an ethic that deals with conservation and environmental issues (Tryzyna, 2001).
Preliminary outline of stepsâŠ
– Extensive review of the literature.
– Review of anecdotal evidence from within a school system.
– Conversation, through interviews and group dialogue will be the main method of gathering data.
– Suggestions for further study, possibly concrete steps for action depending on outcome of above.
Some References
Achinstein, B. (2002). âConflict amid community: the Micropolitics of teacher
collaboration.â Teachers College Record 104 (3), 421-455.
Argyris, C. (1993). âEducation for leading-learningâ Organizational Dynamics, 21(3), 5-17
Bezzina, C. (2006).âThe road less traveled: Professional communities in secondary schoolsâ,Theory Into Practice,45(2),159 â 167
Bush, G.R. & Marshak, R.J. (February 2006). Contrasting classical OD and the
post-modern reconstruction. In G.R. Bush & Associates, Revisioning
organization development: A post modern perspective, (chapter 1).
Unpublished Manuscript. (Used by permission).
Collinson, V., et al. (2006) âOrganizational Learning in Schools and
School Systems: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leadingâ,Theory Into Practice,45:2,107 â 116
Cummings, S. & Thanem, T. (2002). Essai: The Ghost in the organism. Organization Studies 23(5), 817-839.
Fell, L, & Russell, D. (1994), âAn Introduction to âMaturanaâsâ Biology.â In L. Fell,
D. Russell, & A. Stewart (Eds.), Seized by agreement, swamped by
understanding. Sydney: Hawkesbury Printing. Retrieved on March 20,
2005 from http://www.pnc.com.au/~lfell/book.html
Midgley, G. (2003). Five sketches of post-modernism: Implications for systems
thinking and operational research. OTASC 1 (1), 47â62.
Rosen (2005). Conversations for ethical decision making in secondary schools:
A Report on exploratory sessions. Unpublished manuscript, Concordia
University, Montreal.
Trzyna, T. (2001). Raising annoying questions: Why values should be built into
decision-making. California Institute of Public Affairs publication No. 105,
Sacramento, California. Retrieved on May 23, 2005 from http://www.interenvironment.org/cipa/raising.htm
Warr, A. (2004). âLetter from QPAT to minister of education regarding new evaluation policy â QPAT Liason 15(4), 7-8
Weiner, M. (1999). âQuebec teachers, submerged in a sea of reform.â McGill Journal of Education, 34(3), 261-274
Wheatley, M. (2002). Turning to on another: Simple conversations to restore
hope to the future. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Wheatley, M. (2004). Why I wrote the book. Retrieved on August 3, 2005 from
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whyIwrotethebook.html
