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 de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.

Haim Ginott

Ground RulesGoal: 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 ImproveSteven StolpERIC 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 AronsonNobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After

Columbine

• 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.

Zero Tolerance

• 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

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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.

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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 LearningBrain- 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 areconducive to learning.

• Caring relations between teachers andstudents foster a desire to learn and aconnection to school.

• When students can self-manage their stressand motivations, and set goals and organizethemselves, 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*

* Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

http://www.casel.org/downloads/metaanalysissum.pdf

… 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)

Helps Youth Gain Assets & Life Skills

• Protection from High-Risk Behaviors

• Promotion of Positive Attitudes andBehaviors

• 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 Inviting ApproachTeacher Behaviors

The more intentionality the teacher can exhibit, the more accurate his or her judgments and the moredecisive his or her behavior…. Another aspect of intentionality is that it helps teachers generate multiplechoices in a given situation. Ivey (1977) demonstrated that intentional individuals can develop plans, acton many possible opportunities, and evaluate the effect of these actions. (p. 54)

Purkey & Novak, Inviting School Success

INTENTIONALLY UNINTENTIONALLY

INVITING

(Optimistic, respectful, andtrustworthy; Able to affirm yet guide

students).

Teachers and counsellors whoexplicitly invite students, teachers,administrators, and parents and are

able to adjust and evaluate theirinvitations as necessary.

(Well-liked and reasonably effective;Inconsistent and uncertain in decision-

making).

Counsellors and teachers who are“naturals”, but who are unaware of the

nature and good effects of theirbehaviour. Because they do not see thesources of their successes and failures,

such individuals are blocked fromprofessional development, and theyoften lack the consistent pattern of

behaviour many students need in orderto formulate their own identities.

DISINVITING

(Deliberately discouraging; Busywith other obligations; Focused on

students’ shortcomings).

Teachers and counsellors whodeliberately attempt to make

students feel incapable, worthless,and irresponsible.

(Well-meaning, but condescending;Obsessed with policies and

procedures; Unaware of students’feelings).

Counsellors and teachers who “havetheir hearts in the right place” but

whose methods contradict their goodintentions by inadvertent discouragingmessages conveyed through labellingor stereotyping, nonverbal signals, or

other signals.

From: Invitational Education: A Model for Teachers and CounsellorsKenneth H. Smith, PhD, MAPSAustralian Catholic UniversityFaculty of EducationTrescowthick School of Education (Victoria)

Teach SEL Competencies

• Self-awareness• Social awareness• Self-management• Relationship skills• Responsible decision making

GreaterAttachment,

Engagement, & Commitment

to School

Less Risky Behavior, More

Assets, MorePositive

Development

Better Academic

Performanceand Success

in School and Life

Safe, Caring, Challenging,

Well-Managed ,

ParticipatoryLearning

Environments

How SEL Supports Good Outcomes for Kids

http://www.casel.org/downloads/Safe%20and%20Sound/2B_Performance.pdf

RELATIONSHIPS ENVIRONMENTS

COMMUNITY

Adult Consistency

Three Inter-Locking Strategies(Creating a Climate of Respect)

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:

LSFrank@mac.com

608-251-2234

www.goalconsulting.org