Blogg-Ed Indetermination

After reading Robert Evans’ the Human Side of School Change, it is quite possible to conclude that with so many things making school change difficult, one might as well throw in the towel. Evans acknowledges as much in his final chapter, Reach and Realism, Experience and Hope,” when he writes: “…I may have seemed to some too sympathetic to resistance and too pessimistic about the potential for school improvement.” When I read this, I wanted to yell:

Ya think?

Evans goes on to say “Of all the factors vital to improving schools, none is more essential—or vulnerable—than hope.”

Yes. Especially the “vulnerability” part. Like the evil spirit cartoonists depict sitting on our shoulder and whispering FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt)  in our ear, many educators are constantly on the cusp of giving up.

Evans closes his book with sage advice about how to maintain hope among “the key members and red hots who have  been pouring themselves into school reform.”Let me attempt to summarize:

• How far, and how fast? With so many things that one can add to the “change plate,” it is far better to do “fewer innovations better, than more innovations worse.” He cites research that suggests five years is required for a significant organizational change. If you’re not in for the long haul, best not get on the bus.
• Evolution, not revolution. Consensus, not fiat. Accountability, not micromanagement.
• In an eerily familiar sounding section entitled “The Triumph of Hope,” Evans includes a beautiful quote from Vaclav Havel, a portion of which I include below:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not a conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives u the strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem…hopeless.

Robert Evans has given me much to think about, but I do not look to him for hope. For that, I look to my own convictions about the nature of humankind, and to my friends and colleagues. I encourage you to do the same, read Evans wonderful book, think about it, and then talk with others about it. Schools can and will change. I hold no illusions that they will change as much or as rapidly as I may like. that aspect of my youthful optimism has been eroded. But I am also at a more peaceful place. I do not mean to suggest that I am content with what is, or unmindful of how much is left to be done. But a place where I can strive for what I think is right without undue attachment to the outcome.

Continuing with my blog series on change and schools inspired by Robert Evans The Human Side of School Change, I want to dive into two aspects of schools which I think can sometimes make it very difficult for them to change.

The first is that schools are often very full of smart adults. Smart leaders recognize that “tapping into the wisdom of the group” is a wonderful way to generate superior ideas, leverage creative problem solving, uncover hidden barriers and unintended consequences, enlist group buy-in and support… The list of positives goes on and on. As Evans says, “Most educational reformers see traditional school leadership, epitomized by the administrative bureaucracy, as disenfranchising teachers…, forcing them into conformity and isolation, depriving the school of their wisdom and creativity, and denying them the chance for professional growth.”

Analysis-Paralysis

So the definite trend in schools is towards more participator decision-making. But here’s the rub. Sometimes the decisions don’t get made, they just get talked about. It’s the well-known enemy of change: analysis-paralysis, or AP. (I recognize the irony of calling this AP. See a previous post on the other type of APs!)

Faculty put the “independent” in independent schools. They are smart, opinionated, articulate, and ready to argue the merits of a proposal. Sometimes these arguments take place in a meeting, but too often they take place in “other” meetings—hallway conversations, over lunch, or outside of school. Which brings us to a second challenge in schools:

Most teachers don’t know how to constructively confront one another.

Teachers tend to be harmonizers, the like things running smoothly, with public conflict kept to a minimum. Conflict is seen by some as an act of disloyalty to the unstated code of conduct that says that we all need to get along with one another, and that means not disagreeing with one another. At least not in public, or very strongly, or emotionally. Arguing with one another is bad. Raised voices are a source of shame.

In the 1970’s, assertiveness training was all the rage. People learned about passive behavior, aggressive behavior, and assertive behavior. I don’t think the lesson stuck for many of us. I find that many teachers are passive/aggressive: not voicing complaint about changes publicly, but sabotaging efforts to change covertly. Sometime I suspect that certain people will use the tendency to want to over analyze a situation to by time to keep the change from happening, hoping it will simply go away as proponents lose steam or get put on other projects. And you know what? Sometimes it works.

Evans quotes a middle school principal as saying “Our collegiality train has left the station, but it has many cabooses.” I love that phrase, even as I hate that reality.

On those occasions when conflict comes into the open, school leaders tend to look for win-win scenarios. Evans extols the virtues of “principled bargaining” (attributed to Fisher and Ury),  “which separates the people from the problem…, focuses on interests, not positions,… invents options for mutual gain…, and insists on objective criteria.” Very difficult to pull off, in my view, unless a school invests time in what Peter Senge calls “personal mastery” skills, skills which start with people knowing who they are, being comfortable (but not smugly so) in their skin. This requires a level of maturity and self-knowing that many adults struggle to consistently manifest, especially when certain issues touch a “hot button.”

Evans concludes his chapter, “Participation—Without Paralysis” with a powerful section on what I think of as “followership.” We spend a great deal of time talking about leadership theory, but who are leaders without followers? Not lemming-like followers, but engaged colleagues who understand their roles and that of the leader. As Evans says, “…organizations ne3ed and like to be led–not bossed, led.” He continues to describe six ways to build optimal participation:

1. Clarity in decision-making. Is the decision already made? Are we looking for consensus? Input only? Are we taking a vote? Who is doing what?
2. Informal outreach instead of formal structure. Why create a committee when a few conversations will do?
3. Distributing leadership skills throughout the organization. Not simply insurance in case the leader is hit by a bus, but a way to help everyone become better leaders and followers as the need may be.
4. Adaptable improvement plans. Whoever had an ide that was perfect from the get-go?
5. Understanding and accepting that change means conflict. Conflict is normal. Get over it, then get with it.
6. Regularly checking in with stake holders and asking “how are we doing,” thereby building collaboration between the leader and followers.

Next post will likely wrap up my thoughts about Evans and The Human Side of School Change.

There is little doubt that schools are being pressed to change, and to change in very many ways. Administrators, faculty, and staff sometimes feel beset from many constituents asking for or demanding change in practically every aspect of schooling. Many educators are tired, dispirited, and fed-up with it all and just want to close the classroom door and “teach.” They are, like the characters depicted in one of my favorite scenes from Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, “dead, but not dead yet.”

Imagine the following issues being simultaneously confronted in many schools:

• 21st century learning and teaching
• funding
• authentic assessment
• interdisciplinary learning
• co-curricular activities
• professional development
• STEM
• social justice
• environmental sustainability
• learning differences
• technology
• student stress

and the list goes on and on.

Robert Evans (see previous posts), points out that schools “routinely find themselves undertaking more program than they can manage or fund and are unable to eliminate some so as to concentrate on others.” He opines that “In my experience, this tendency used to be more common in wealthier schools that make strong claims to excellence, as if advancing on all fronts at once were a way to confirm superior quality, but it is now ubiquitous.” These multiple demands may lead to greater administrative overhead (program leads, coordinators, and the like) but little lasting change.

As Evans asserts, “teaching is an unusually draining activity, one marked by the sharp disparity between giving and getting.” And while many teachers are used to this, the cumulative effect over many years can be exhausting. On top of this, Evans points out that “Norms for professional growth and innovation in education have never been high.” Constrained by time, money, and energy, professional development activities at most schools pale when compared to those offered, or required, in other professions. Evans says that such experiences have contributed toward “what is sometimes called a ‘union mentality’—that is, a militant antimanagement [sic] posture, a to-the-minute definition of the work day, and a reflexive, legalistic opposition to virtually any innovation that might impinge on contractual agreements.” And while I am personally far from anti-union, I can appreciate his depiction of the worst-side of some organizations.

Finances are often, perhaps even always, a problem in schools who wish to innovate. Evans cites the example of the Alpena, Michigan school system—a school system in which I actually taught for two years—which had to close its doors for months due to a budget shortfall. Living where I do now in California, Evans’ comments about the disastrous effects of Prop 13 on per-pupil spending in our state public schools rings true. But lack of funds alone are not an excuse for failure to innovate.

An organization’s capacity for change is further constrained by the lack of time for professional development activities and deep discussions of pedagogy and curriculum matters. In a previous post I wrote about one approach to year-round- schooling that I think would go far to address time concerns.

Addressing the capacity of a school to change will take an investment of time, money, and energy, as well as a laser-like focus on a one or two major change initiatives per year rather than a laundry list that results in little being done. “Better to go deep, than wide” is my mantra for the classroom—and for changing our schools.

My new best friend, Robert Evans, author of The Human Side of School Change, suggests that given the difficulty in creating change (see previous three posts), it take a lot of pressure to help people take that first mental step. One must reach a point where it is too painful to stay with the present situation than it is to try something new. But people have incredible faith in things that don’t work.

Not So Fond Memories

As some of you know, I grew up in the Midwest: Michigan, North Dakota and Minnesota. I know winter. And I know the faith that drives people to keep trying the same old thing in hopes it will get better. If you’ve ever seen someone stuck in a snowbank, spinning their tires trying to get out, you know what I mean. You watch them as they dig their tires deeper and deeper into the snow, convinced that the squeal of the tires means they will break free, any…. second…. now…..

I now  live in California, and I never go to the mountains to see the snow, so I don’t get to see such a vivid and humorous reminder of the faith in things that don’t work. (I suppose the same thing happens when people drive on the beach or in the mud.)

But I digress. Back to change.

How do we get teachers to change? Why not try a little guilt, with a dash of anxiety to boot? To quote from Evans, “”One must usually raise people’s guilt by noting that their performance violates a shared ideal… or raise their anxiety by noting how their performance violates a shared goal or threatens their well-being.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. A plan that really resonates with my Roman Catholic upbringing.

Teachers, by and large, love children and they love their job. They want what is best for their students, and they want to be able to stay in their profession, their “calling,” if you will. So challenging teachers by demonstrating that a current practice is detrimental to children gets their attention, if not their action. And once you have their attention, you can move to other stages of change. But having fostered some guilt and anxiety, you need to deal with it before you move to other stages in the change process. You have to let teachers know that “I value you as people, and I will help to get where we need to go.”

Evans calls this step “unfreezing,” the first of five “tasks of change” that must be accomplished within the school to move forward.

Reducing the anxiety around trying something new is not easy, particularly in schools with high expectations for its faculty, staff, and students. Saying that you want people to take risks, and celebrating the failures as well as the successes that result from risks taken, is not something most schools do well. How do we change THAT?

Every school has awards days. How about an award for the biggest flop by a teacher? A flop so spectacular that it resulted in real learning for the teacher, her students, and her colleagues?

What if all teachers would take risks like this one:

As any science fiction fan can tell you, the Borg are relentless foes, conquerors of thousands of civilizations, a persistent nemesis that won’t take no for an answer. “Resistance is futile.”

Well, the Borg never met an American teacher.

My review of Robert Evans’ The Human Side of School Change continues with an examination of school culture, a culture that is resistance to change at the most fundamental, sub-conscious level. Evans calls such conservative forces “invisible, and nearly invincible.”

…”one of the chief benefits people seek in the organizational affiliations is protection from change.” In this short phrase, Evans sums up why one must understand the culture of a school before attempting to change its practices. Agents of change must earn their admittance to the school culture, which does not “admit newcomers freely, especially those who challenges its values and practices.” Evans cites a portion of the American Declaration of Independence that I had completely forgotten. (My apologies to Mr. Montgomery, my junior high history teacher).

All experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Cultural changes take time, often a generation or more. Evans ends his chapter on “The Culture of Resistance” with a rhetorical question: “Is there any hope for rapid culture change in school?—the answer is no!”

What a downer!

I never thought I’d want to be a Borg, but those of us who favor change in schools can learn from their persistence, their single minded (or hive-minded) striving toward a goal. If you want to change schools you better commit yourself to the long haul.  But nothing is more important than our children. If that’s not enough of a motive to persevere, I don’t know what is.

As mentioned in my previous post, I am quite taken by Robert Evan’s, The Human Side of School Change. One of the reasons for this is that I consider myself to be both a kind, compassionate person and a change agent and mild-mannered provocateur. In Evan’s chapter on “The Meaning of Change,” he asserts that change “encourages resistance… provokes loss, challenges competence, creates confusion, and causes conflict.”

Me? Afflicting the comfortable instead of comforting the afflicted?

Your's Truly at Our Minnesota Going Away Party

Among my treasured possessions when I moved from Minnesota to California in 1997 was a Dilbert t-shirt given to me by my Minnesota colleagues. On it is a picture of Dilbert, with the caption “Change is good. You go first.” This perfectly encapsulates Evan’s notion that when it comes to change, “we exalt it in principle, [but] we oppose it in practice.” Our daily lives, he asserts, are built around predictability and continuity, and anything that threatens those will be resisted. As Jean Piaget postulated regarding learning, we desire to assimilate new knowledge into existing mental schemas rather than create new schemas, new accommodations. In other words, we want new experience to fit into our view of the world, not to challenge it.

As a technologist, I am given to rational explanation and argument. But I also recognize the power that emotion has over us, and Evans persuasively argues that we need to understand the emotional component of change to be effective leaders. Let me summarize some of his thoughts on the nature of change:

• Change represents loss. We must take into account people’s attachment to the status quo, and give them time to grieve its diminution.
• Because the meaning we have constructed about our current world is cumulative and grows more fixed over time, “change is less welcome to the old than to the young.” (more on this in a future post)
• The logic of the change agent is not enough to win the day. People must “discover their own meaning in… changes before they can accept them.”
• The bad situation, as untenable as it may be, may not be enough to spur people to change. “The pattern we construct builds its meaning by continuity, not happiness.” [emphasis added] Another way of saying this is reflected in the old adage “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t’.”
• “Change challenges competence,” Evans asserts. By proposing change there is an implicit charge that what we are currently doing is no longer adequate, we’re not cutting the mustard. The simple act of endorsing a new approach throws doubt on those using the current method.
• Of course we know that change creates confusion. Evans did not surprise me here. Even those who “pressed for the change—experience the stress of uncertainty.”
• Finally, Evans describes how change causes conflict. I think that change actually reveals conflict that is already present within the organization but underground, hidden within the shadows of hallway conversations, passive resistance, and snarky comments over coffee. From this point of view change can be a healthy way of surfacing the unspoken tensions within an organization, as long as leaders are willing to address those tensions head-on before working on the change itself.

As someone who has worked in both schools and industry, as has Evans, I appreciate his description that within schools “there is a strong tradition of conflict avoidance.” Amen, to that, brother Evans.

As a newly-minted teacher in the 1970’s, I came out of college full of piss and vinegar, ready to change the world. After getting slapped around a bit, I learned a the hard way about the need for patience in the change process. And indeed, when an idea that I am pressing for is put down by others, I have faith that the idea (if it is a good idea) will surface again in organizations comprised of smart, well-meaning people. When it does, the idea may even be claimed by someone else as theirs. So be it. The important thing is that something good may ultimately happen.

With this in mind, I will hopefully become more understanding of the resistance to change I see all around me and, if I look closely, in me as well.

But I must confess that my understanding and patience does wear thin, and having recently entered that decade of life where people like me are supposed to be planning for retirement, I fear that some changes will tarry too long for me to fully enjoy and experience personally. So while Evans has it right that some “older” folks may be less open to change than the young, there is also a cadre of us who are impatient to see a lifetime of work and hope for change further delayed.

It took me a weeks longer than my usual pace of a book per week to read Robert Evan’s The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation (Amazon citation). This was not because the book is hard to read, or uninteresting, or because I think the author’s premises are wrong. Quite the opposite in fact. It took me a long time to read because it caused me to really think and to reflect on my many years of experience in schools, universities, and the education industry.

Evans had me from the Introduction, where he states: “…the futility of school change is legendary. Perhaps no American institution has been reformed more often, with less apparent effect, than the school.” Harsh words perhaps, but resonant in me.

For 14 chapters Evans cites research from education, psychology, and business to describe how difficult it is for people and institutions in general to change, and how many of these difficulties are magnified within the school community. Despite millions of dollars and millions of person hours invested in change, “never have so many teachers and administrators worked so hard or so long and felt less rewarded or alone.”

Evans divides his book into three major sections:

1. The Nature of Change
2. Dimensions of Change
3. Leading Innovation

Each section is replete with examples of how difficult change is to manage. One could easily come away from this book feeling that the situation in schools is, at the end of the day, hopeless. But in his final chapter, entitled “Reach and Realism, Experience and Hope,” Evans brings those of us who are trying to affect change in schools to a better place. In a section that perhaps the Obama campaign subconsciously noted entitled “The Triumph of Hope,” Evans acknowledges that the pace of change in schools  can be discouraging, taking a generation or longer. A generation of hard, often thankless labor and persistence. He upends Samuel Johnson’s jest about remarriage by suggesting that such a triumph of hope over experience is precisely what we do need, and ends with a moving quotation from Vaclav Havel:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how if turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to love and to continually try new thing, even in conditions that seem hopeless.

Evan’s book has given me much to think about, and perhaps much to write about. I am more committed than ever to change and innovation, but more clear-eyed about what can be accomplished under even the best of circumstances. Discouraged, no. Better equipped, absolutely!