by Edna Varner Associate, Leadership Development



Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
--A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

This article, stated simply, is written as encouragement to stop bumping for a moment so we can think about how we lead. This summer we sent to principals copies of Michael Fullan's, Leading in a Culture of Change. Some of us have read it before, but I took another look during the holidays and thought it made some points worth revisiting as we consider school change and the literacy change model.

Fullan suggests the following as five core capacities of leaders:

  1. Moral Purpose: Moral purpose means acting with the intention of making a positive difference in the lives of staff, students and society as a whole. Moral purpose cannot just be stated, it must be accompanied by strategies for realizing it, and those strategies are the leadership actions that energize people to pursue a desired goal. It requires an understanding of change.
  2. Understanding Change: Leaders must understand change if they are to help others understand change. The goal is not to innovate the most; it is not enough to have the best ideas. Those who understand change appreciate early difficulties of trying something new—the implementation dip. They redefine resistance as a potential positive force. They know that changing the school culture is the name of the game.
  3. Developing Relationships: Leaders must be consummate relationship builders with diverse people and groups. Effective leaders constantly foster purposeful interaction and problem solving, and are wary of easy consensus. Turning information into knowledge is a social process, and for that you need good relationships. Seven essentials to developing relationships: (1) setting clear standards, (2) expecting the best, (3) paying attention, (4) personalizing recognition, (5) telling the story, (6) celebrating together, and (7) setting the example.
  4. Knowledge Building: Leaders commit themselves to constantly generating and increasing knowledge inside and outside the organization. Elements of knowledge exchange: (1) complex, turbulent environments constantly generate messiness and reams of ideas; (2) interacting individuals are the key to accessing and sorting out these ideas; (3) individuals will not engage in sharing unless they find it motivating to do so (whether because they feel valued and are valued, because they are getting something in return, or because they want to contribute to a bigger vision).
  5. Coherence Making: This requires prioritizing and focusing, and is greatly facilitated when guided by moral purpose. Unsettling processes provide the best route to greater all-round coherence. Features of Coherence Making: (1) lateral accountability, (2) sorting, embedded in knowledge creation and knowledge sharing (Does it work? Does it feed into our overall purpose?), (3) shared commitment to selected ideas and paths of action

A faculty needs direction to get results. We get direction through conversation around some essential questions. What is it that we believe about teaching and learning? What kind of school do we want to create, and from what sources do we draw knowledge and wisdom to guide our thinking as we envision ourselves being the best we can be? What we believe cannot be assumed. It must be explicit, and we must be deliberate and intentional about making that message clear. A faculty needs to hear its principal talk passionately about his or her moral purpose, and the whole school community needs to see principals and teacher leaders engage others in the actions that achieve results consistent with what they say they believe.

A faculty needs to understand and honor the complexity and discovery in the journey to high achievement for all students. Over the years we have lost our confidence in the power of our own ideas. We have been told that public schools and public school educators are incapable of achieving at incredibly high levels, and many of us believe this. We have become programmed. We buy the glossy package, complete with answers, worksheets, scripts for each lesson, and extensive training for using the scripts. After a few years, when we realize this program doesn't work (or it gives us some high test scores that do not translate into sustained success in the upper grades), we buy a new program with a glossier package, complete with answers, worksheets, scripts for each lesson, and extensive training for using the scripts and worksheets. This newer model also has manipulatives (check off "hands on"), cooperative group activities (check off "we did groups"), and writing prompts (check off "we wrote something").

Programs are "no brainers". There is nothing to think about, nothing to talk about, nothing to create, nothing to struggle with. Remember when we loved the struggle? I am actually encouraged when I hear teachers say about the new program, "This, too, shall pass," because it suggests that people are tired of being programmed. Maybe that response means teachers would welcome a chance to be scholarly professionals, to engage in serious discussion about what we know from research and how we go about the business of putting theory into practice. And for those who feel comfortable and confident with programs, maybe we need to invest our energy to help them feel comfortable and confident with change, complexity, resistance, implementation dips, accountability pressures, issues of race, class, and expectations. The list is endless.

Maybe when the mandates arrive, we can use our coherence-making skills to extract the valuable practices worth implementation and develop compelling arguments that will exempt us from directives that are—it's Ellin's favorite word—indefensible. Perhaps, if principals tap into it, we will find a critical mass of support for a reemergence of teacher thinkers, scholars, researchers, and experts on the subject of adult and student learning.

Perhaps principals can help make that happen by creating conditions that encourage teachers to talk with confidence about their own ideas. Perhaps we can lead them to texts that affirm them or make them think and come to their own conclusions about the changes that should occur in their classrooms. Maybe groups of principals can make the time for similar discussions to rethink changes that should occur school wide. And just maybe, if we continue down this path, we can begin to define ourselves as educators, rather than have others define us.

It's about leadership, and it requires more than bumping along like Edward Bear. Getting through the day, responding to what comes to us, doing what—as far as we know—is the only way to do our work as leaders is unacceptable if we want students to achieve at very high levels. There really are other ways to lead, if we could stop bumping for a moment to think about them.