Patrick F. Bassett, President nais

Effecting Change: Creating 21st C. Schools Patrick F. Bassett, President www.nais.org

Overview • "If you don't take change by the hand, it will take you by the throat.” ~Winston Churchill • How Schools Fail Kids • Why Schools Don’t Change (and How To Change That) • What Schools for the 21st C. Will Be

How Schools Fail Kids Patrick F. Bassett, President www.nais.org

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." --Eric Hoffer • “It’s almost axiomatic to say that personal change must precede or at least accompany management and organizational change….” ~Steven Covey (Principle-Centered Leadership) • Rip Van Winkle Schools: An entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English. Source: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, Claudia Wallis & Sonja Steptoe, Time Online, 12/10/06 How Schools Fail Kids

How Schools Fail Kids • George Bernard Shaw: “The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.” • A child explaining to another the concept of “mixed emotions”: “It’s like watching the school building burn down and realizing your new baseball mitt is in your desk.” • In the Harry Potter Series, who is Hogwarts’ best student = Hermione or Harry? Which one will save the world? • Better models of teaching: Dartmouth’s Tuck School projects: “team” grades & 360 feedback: B-school case studies; med school simulations; church experiential retreats; army electronic brainstorming.

How Schools Fail Kids • We Still Largely Teach for Recall… • Majority of college grads on “During which quarter-century did the Civil War occur?”: Not a clue. • Film of processing Harvard grads (A Private Universe) on “Why is it colder in the winter than in the summer?” No one gets it right. • …Rather than Teaching for Understanding: • Facets of understanding = recall, theory, application/story-telling, perspective, empathy, discrimination. (The American Revolution as seen in Chinese & British texts; 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf) (cf. Grant Wiggins, http://www.authenticeducation.org/).

How Schools Fail Kids • We measure IQ (SATs), but life’s test rewards EQ (“emotional intelligence--Daniel Goleman), MQ (“moral intelligence”--Robert Coles), MI (“multiple intelligences”--Howard Gardner). • Whiz kids (Machlowitz): track with early jobs/responsibilities (3rd grade on) and avid readers, not grades. Valedictorian longitudinal studies—often surprisingly unsuccessful—since what’s measured in school not used in life (Mel Levine) • We forget the nature of the learner: “In elementary school we love the kids, in high school we love the subject, and in college, we love ourselves….”

Why Schools Don’t Change…and How To Change That Patrick F. Bassett, President www.nais.org

The Speed of Change in Society vs. in Schools: • Meteoric vs. Glacial (Note Peter Senge ~The Fifth Discipline~ anecdote regarding asking educators about conditions for significant school change: “As a result of a crisis?” “No.” “Can occur without crisis?” “No.” “When can change occur in schools?” “Can’t occur under any circumstance.”) • It’s easier to change the course of history than it is to change a history course in schools.” Lou Salza, Independent School Head. Change in Society vs. Change in Schools

The Tenor of Discourse in Schools? • Organizational norms and cultures militate against “bad news” and suppress divergent thinking, even at the leader & board levels. • In business, the classic case-study of the Swiss losing virtually all market share to quartz watches. Whom will we lose market to? • In secondary schools, teaching the science sequence as biology, chemistry, then physics because one –hundred years ago authorities decided to do so in alphabetic order. (cf. Leon Lederman & “physics first”) Change in Society vs. Change in Schools

The Tenor of Discourse in Schools? • The absence of “multiple-loop” learning: Example: • banging on the TV when it doesn’t turn on… vs. • checking the batteries in the remote. • In schools… • Loop 1 = Assuming the student is dumb or won’t work if he or she tests poorly on long division. (Mostly) • Loop 2 = testing teacher’s effectiveness of teaching division and correcting course accordingly (Seldom) • Loop 3 = questioning teaching of long division as discrete skill separated from real world. (Never) Change in Society vs. Change in Schools

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence. • The research on change indicates that there are predictable stages individuals experience whenever a major change event appears. What are they? • Exercise: • Identify 2 major change events in your life • Indicate the stages you went through as the change occurred. • As a small group determine what stages you had in common despite differences in the change events you were thinking of. Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence. • Business as Usual: the routine; the frozen state; the status quo • External Threat: potential disaster; propitious change event; an ending; a “death in the family”; an unfreezing via the introduction of a foreign element; disequilibrium; dissatisfaction with the status quo. • Denial: refusal to read the Richter scale; anger and rage; chaos. The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle • Mourning: confusion; depression. • Acceptance: letting go. • Renewal: creativity; the incubation state of new ideas and epiphanies; new beginnings; movement; vision of what “better” might look like; reintegration; first practical steps; practice of new routines. • New Structure: sustainable change; the new status quo; new “frozen” state of restored equilibrium; spiritual integration; internalization and transformation of self.

Conventional Wisdom: Raise the Volume… • Declare war, demonize the enemy, mobilize the public • Problems with Raising the Volume in School Culture… • Skepticism: Teachers are intellectuals--declarations of imminent collapse are met with suspicion. • Inertia: Teachers see meaning in continuity and timelessness of values. (But: “Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years it can boast of a long series of successes.” Ebner-Eschenbach) • Good is the enemy of great: Jim Collins’ Good to Great. Absence of provoking crisis makes avoidance easy. Overcoming Resistance to Change

Problems with Raising the Volume in School Culture… • Success: Track record of independent schools the greatest impediment to change: We can’t declare war when schools are enjoying decades of peace and prosperity. So why advocate change???? • Increasingly the public identifies high quality schools with innovativeness, and least identifies innovativeness with independent schools. • The independent school model may not be financially sustainable in it current incarnation of skyrocketing tuitions. • What’s best for kids needs to be reasserted as institutions almost always over time gravitate towards doing what’s best for adults. Overcoming Resistance to Change

Effecting Change • Developing Buy-in for Change: • Coercive model works (“We’re about to close unless all faculty including department chairs teach five classes instead of four with 20-25 kids in each class”)… …but it works at a high cost to morale. • Appeal to idealism works (“We have an opportunity to create a new model here and become pioneers”)… …but it works only if you have a highly committed “band of brothers” and strong, visionary, and inspirational leadership.

Effecting Change • Developing Buy-in for Change: • Mutual benefit (“What’s in it for me?”) model works (“Beyond supporting this direction because ‘it’s the right thing to do,’ we are designing a new framework that is mutually beneficial to the school and its staff”)… …but it works only if you build in significant incentives.

Alternative to Conventional Wisdom (Raise the Volume)… • Lower the Noise… • By… • Talking about/Personalizing Change: the Seven Stages • Understanding and Using Power • Betting on the Fastest Horses Overcoming Resistance to Change

Acknowledging Denial & Mourning Stages of Change • All change begins not with a beginning but an ending. • Example: Getting married = end of… • being single • unconditional love • having your own bathroom (and towels) • the sports car

Effecting Change Abstracting and Personalizing Change Faculty exercise: What are your own major change events? A move? Marriage? Admin job? Can we predict & prepare for stages?

Understanding & Using Power: James Madison • The Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia • Madison came to the convention with no “positional” power or authority • He brought only “secondary power,” power to influence outcomes, the “social power” that Malcolm Gladwell identifies in The Tipping Point: • Secondary Sources of Power1: • Interpersonal Power: High “EQ,” “right-brained” leadership (emotional intelligence) rooted in communication skills, personal relationships, empathy with others’ positions and experiences, and ability to engage in constructive discussions that, in the title of the Harvard Negotiation Project’s famous tract, facilitates Getting to Yes. Interpersonal skills raised to the second level becomes…

Understanding & Using Power: James Madison • Secondary Sources of Power1 (cont.): • Associative Power: related to developing social networks with key individuals who have influence in the decision-making process, building coalitions, and transforming pockets of resistance into collaborators. At the time, literally everyone at the Constitutional Convention knew and respected and liked Madison, a key factor in his success. • Informational Power: One must have knowledge and information to be perceived as credible (in the corporate universe, seen as business acumen, and in the academic universe, seen as discipline expertise). Informational power raised to the second level becomes… 1. French, J. & Raven, B. (1959) “Basis of Social Power”. Studies on Social Power, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Understanding & Using Power: James Madison • Secondary Sources of Power1 (cont.): • Expertise Power: often contextual in nature, due to the leader’s superior skill and knowledge base at a given moment in time. Madison arrived in Philadelphia dazzling the company he kept at the Constitutional Convention with his assessment of the failures of “articles of confederation” throughout history to that point. Simply put, no one had done his homework better than Madison, winning him critical credibility even from skeptics. 1. French, J. & Raven, B. (1959) “Basis of Social Power”. Studies on Social Power, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Effecting Change • Developing Buy-in for Change: • Consensus-building Model: developing a shared vision. Larger buy-in, but in collegial culture of schools, the consensus-building process overwhelms action. • "Consensus is the process of abandoning all beliefs, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects, the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus“? ~Margaret Thatcher

Betting on the Fastest Horses Effecting Change • Alternative to the Consensus Model? • Coalition-building Model: Betting on the Fastest Horses: targeted buy-in via modeling. Ride the “tipping point” horses (Malcolm Gladwell’s mavens, connectors, and salespeople). Recruit “the coalition of the willing.” • “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

What Schools for the 21st C. Will Be Go ToThe Right-Brained Future PowerPoint Patrick F. Bassett, President www.nais.org

“Change is inevitable; growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud The End!

Appendix Related Slides

History Lessons: How Textbooks From Around the World Portray U.S. History ~Dana Lindamen & Kyle Ward • Saudi Arabian textbook: Suggests all American intervention in the Middle East -- peace plans, oil deals -- have been part of a continuing war on Islam. • Cuban textbook: Accuses the United States of spreading crop diseases though Cuba in the 1980's. Also asserts that the explosion of the USS Maine (that provoked the US into the Spanish-American War) was deliberately set by Americans to win support for the war. • Iranian textbook: Describes the hostage crisis of 1979 as a popular reaction against an American conspiracy to undermine Ayatollah Khomeini and reinstate the shah, who had taken refuge in the United States. • English text book: Claims the American Revolutionary printer Thomas Paine (Common Sense) earned a living making ladies underwear.

The Adoption Curve* Early Adopter Early Majority Late Majority Late Adopters Innovator * Based on work by Everett Rogers, Jon Preddie, and others.

The Adoption Curve* 20% 60% 20% Reject a change, no matter what Accept a change, no matter what Wait and see Early Adopter Early Majority Late Majority Late Adopters Innovator * Based on work by Everett Rogers, Jon Preddie, and others.

NAIS Strategic Planning Table on Innovation and Change Why doesn’t anyone want to sit at the innovation table?

Patrick F. Bassett, President nais