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© 2012 SAIS www.sais.org
the conversation continues inside of
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ANCHORS, DAMS, AND SILOS Grant Lichtman’s Wrap Up By: Holly Chesser, SAIS Published: December 2012 If you read Grant Lichtman’s blog, The Learning Pond, chronicling his educational journey across the nation in pursuit of innovating schools in the hopes that you’ll discover a template for innovation, you’re likely to be disappointed. What he’s learned through his travels is that there is no easy tool-‐kit for schools to use, no simple “Innovation for Dummies” approach to ensure sustainable and systemic change. Instead, as he explained in his Lunch and Learn presentation at SAIS headquarters last month, each school has chosen its unique path to innovation based on the mission of its school. Nevertheless, each school does share a common impetus for action: a recognition that the primary obligation of a school is to teach its students to become self-‐evolving learners. Reducing this understanding to three words, Lichtman asserts, “It’s about Dewey.” For all the hype about 21st century skills, America’s educational thought leaders seems to have forgotten that the wisdom that undergirds this new movement was expressed by Dewey over a century ago: the purpose of school is not and never should have been the acquisition of a pre-‐determined set of skills or content knowledge. Instead, Dewey argues, education offers the student the opportunity to realize his full potential and the ability to use the skills that he develops for the greater good. In The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Dewey urges, “Abandon the notion of subject-‐matter as something fixed and ready-‐made in itself, outside the child’s experience; cease thinking of the child’s experience as also something hard and fast; see it as something fluent, embryonic, vital; and we realize that the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single process.” Some of the educators in the schools Lichtman visited claim a moral responsibility to teach in a very different way, asserting that they must educate students for their future instead of out of the teachers’ past. For others, the advent of the Internet, providing universal access to information, has forced them to relinquish their previous role as purveyor of knowledge in the “sit-‐and-‐get” paradigm of the 19th and 20th centuries. They now, according to Lichtman, recognize the wisdom in Dewey’s model and are incorporating real-‐world experiences and authentic problem-‐solving challenges into the students’ daily lives, living out Dewey’s maxim that “education is a process of living and not preparation for future living.” Of course, each school approaches innovation through the lens of its specific mission statement, but all seem to ask the same essential question, “How will the change we undertake improve student learning?”
Grant Lichtman’s three words:
“It’s about Dewey”
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Traveling from his home base in California and completing his journey four months later in Texas, Lichtman visited over 60 schools, of which roughly a third are SAIS members. He discovered in his conversations that these schools have wrestled to acknowledge and overcome three main obstacles: anchors, dams, and silos. Anchors revolve around issues of ego and ownership related to subject, time, and space. Many teachers struggle to cut these bonds that make them the center and master of their classrooms. Nevertheless, as Grant explained, those that surrender authoritative power discover that “students fill that vacuum just like any other vacuum in nature.” The dam often cited as the strongest challenge
to innovation is The College Board and its role in college admissions. Wanting to approach subject matter as it relates to student experience, many of these schools are in the process of abandoning the mile wide, inch deep nature of curriculum demanded by AP tests. Believing strongly that their alternate models offer richer experiences and ultimately improve retained student learning, these schools have worked hard to educate their communities and the colleges to which their students apply of the value of the changes they’ve undertaken. Lastly, innovating schools have had to take jackhammers to the silos that they’ve imposed on themselves over the years. Divisional silos and discipline silos make collaboration and connectivity impossible. As Dewey himself explains, “In school each of the subjects is classified. Facts are torn away from their original place in experience and rearranged with reference to some general principle.” Yet this practice is antithetical to real-‐world experience, as “things do not come to the individual pigeon-‐holed.” In order to make learning relevant and authentic, students need to see the relationships between subjects and the acculturation that takes place as they move from grade to grade and division to division. In fact, a few of these schools no longer even use the word interdisciplinary, preferring instead to view themselves as tending towards non-‐disciplinary learning. As Lichtman found, pulling up anchors, releasing dams, and busting silos are no easy tasks. In fact, he recalls a principal at one school he visited expressing this frustration by putting her head in her hands and questioning, “Why is this so hard?” Yet Lichtman asserts, there is a difference between what is truly difficult and what is merely uncomfortable. Schools generally pride themselves on their collective congenial nature and their respect for community. However, innovative change requires that schools focus instead on building collegiality in the pursuit of student learning. Schools that want to establish face validity for their strategic plans may ultimately need to ruffle some feathers. But if improvement efforts are aimed at and articulated as clear, concrete goals to promote student achievement and the fulfillment of the school mission, individuals and resources can be aligned to produce dramatic, sustainable change. Although Lichtman emphasizes that each school must approach innovation as it relates to its specific mission and vision statements, there are broad, shared themes that resonate through the innovative efforts of the SAIS member schools which he visited: visionary and sometimes even
Grant Lichtman
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courageous leadership, the refinement and clarification of mission as it relates to the individual student, the pursuit of a dream team, and continual, extensive professional development. As Jamie Baker of The Martin Institute remarked, “Excellence is never accidental. Innovation requires leadership, vision, and courage.” Strong school leadership has always been a hallmark of great schools, but Lichtman in his travels was able to qualify the characteristics that define strength: humility, commitment, insight, and communication. In 2007, Collegiate Head Keith Evans issued his “Head’s Challenge,” encouraging faculty members on a volunteer basis to “learn about what was possible in education.” Three groups grabbed batons, visiting schools of excellence, researching best practices in education, and engaging with the da Vinci Center at VCU to study design thinking. Similarly, Lichtman reports, Baylor Head Scott Wilson travels with faculty members to visit more than 20 schools, both public and private, annually, asserting, “I have never walked into a school and failed to learn something useful and new.” Recognized as a visionary and humble educator by his staff, Lee Burns, Presbyterian Day School Head, recognizes that change cannot happen overnight; instead, it requires the steady hand of leadership to guide the full community toward its inception. As Burns explains, “We are building an ethos and culture of growth, of teachers as life-‐long learners. We pose provocative questions to ourselves as a community on subjects both within and outside of the specific field of education.” Lichtman’s blog is replete with stories of headmasters, other administrators, and classroom teachers assuming the traditional role of leader-‐learner and guiding their colleagues to better understandings of how to enhance student learning. For many of these schools, that process leads to a revision of the school’s mission and an articulation of the characteristics they wish to develop in each graduate. After developing a detailed educational philosophy statement incorporating NAIS’s six C’s of 21st century education, Randolph School (AL) revised its mission statement, which they expect the faculty to embrace as the “DNA of the school.” Revolving their current mission around inquiry, innovation, and impact, Mount Vernon Presbyterian School (GA) is aligning its teaching strategies around six habits of mind, what they call the “Mount Vernon Mind,” emblazoned on posters throughout the campus. As one administrator explains, “Everybody is part of the mission statement; everyone knows what we are doing and can speak to it.” Likewise, Porter Gaud (SC) has established its “Goals of a Graduate” focused around four major categories, which they use both to align curriculum and resources and to develop teaching strategies. The school has begun to see a strong impetus to action, explaining, “You have to create pressure to change or you will never overcome the inertia of our traditions.” Perhaps most remarkably, Charlotte Latin’s (SC) mission statement does not even mention college preparation or academic rigor; instead, they focus on their core values, believing that when you create “a learning environment around inspiration, encouragement, empowerment, growth-‐promotion, and opportunity, high academic achievement is a natural result.”
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However, these schools acknowledge that moving away from the structure that has characterized education for the past century has been difficult for many people. Glyn Cowlishaw, Head of Providence Day School (NC), noted to Lichtman that his school has experienced grief as they let go of the traditional, safe methodology of the past, a phase he cites as a critical part of organizational change. Nevertheless, he argues, “We want to be on the leading, not bleeding, edge.” Determined to refocus its mission from a classic “support the whole child” independent school to an innovative school that prepares students for a “complex and interdependent world,” Doreen Kelly, Head of Ravenscroft School, concedes, “In some ways we have to be less congenial and more collegial, more courageous. A few people that we tolerated in the past have had to move on; for the vast majority this is liberating, allowing people to be up front and open about what frustrates them and doing something about it.” When Head Annette Smith arrived at The Hutchison School (TN) thirteen years ago, the board encouraged her to “plan with courage.” She did, and the school endured four years of 30% teacher attrition as individuals uncomfortable with the changes moved on. Today, the school boasts a committed faculty devoted singularly to “what is best for the girls.” None of these schools takes lightly how difficult these changes have been for many individuals in their communities. Nevertheless, they remain committed to excellence in curriculum and pedagogy, recognizing that the de facto purpose of school – student learning – must remain central to their missions. The key, according to Lichtman, is to assemble good teams and to set up systems to institutionalize worthy ideas. Presbyterian Day School established a Teaching and Learning Committee, “a group of faculty with rotating memberships that acts as incubator, gatekeeper, and facilitator of innovative ideas.” Collegiate School has sent 30 of its employees through a leadership course developed by the University of Richmond Business School that focuses on decision-‐making, strategic thinking, and project management. Teachers at Woodward Academy (GA) created Woodward Academy Innovation in the Classroom, or WA, Inc., a student-‐teacher collaborative effort to examine best practices in pedagogy. Engaging in “judicious experimentation,” a cornerstone of its mission statement, Norfolk Academy (VA) created a summer faculty professional development program, which pays faculty to design and write curriculum. St. George’s School (TN) divested of textbooks years ago, and teachers have designed most of their own curriculum. As one student noted, classes are not “textbook driven. It is only relevant if I can make connections to my own life.” Through a faculty/student collaborative effort, The Lovett School (GA) is investigating new classroom design models that focus on student-‐generated content rather than teacher-‐centered direction. The Randolph School requires every faculty member to be part of a professional learning committee (PLC) and has committed resources and training of its leaders to ensure the success of these committees. Ravenscroft, working with The Center for Creative Leadership, has instituted a professional develop program focused on leadership and citizenship skills. As Assistant Head Colleen Ramsden explains, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast; culture can wait out change, and we could not let that happen. We are creating a common language and mindset of what the pedagogy of leadership is, from adult through student so every teacher feels confident about how to infuse leadership and citizen training in their classroom and content area. The faculty did not want this focus on leadership and
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citizenship to be another flavor of the month; we wanted sustainable training, which we got with serious administration and board support.” Lichtman documents that these schools have faculty members whose titles reflect their focus on innovation: Director of 21st Century Teaching, Assistant to the Head for Strategic Affairs, Lead of the Navigation Team, Design Thinking Coordinator, Director of Coaching and Mentoring for Teachers; one school even facetiously claims to have a “Chief Irritant Officer,” so affectionately named by her leadership team for her willingness to challenge the system in the name of student learning. Interestingly, Lichtman cites no school that focuses on how many degrees its teachers possess or their years of experience; instead, these schools want their teachers to develop growth mind-‐sets and seek adaptability. In short, the key to innovation for these schools is assembling what many of them call a “dream team,” educators committed to fulfilling the missions of their schools, researchers intent on discovering how students learn best, and collaborators focused on learning from each other. As one middle school student at The Hutchison School shared, “I think teachers are changing. Now teachers are more like the lead learner in the class. They are learning with us but they are just the leader.” In one post on his blog, Lichtman strays from his daily showcase of innovative schools and offers “three easy steps to rapidly innovate at your school.” First, “distribute the blog posts from my school visits to individuals or teams of faculty, staff, and trustees. Ask them to think of a bunch of questions that fit the simple form: ‘What if our school did _____________ just like _____________ (fill in the name of the school they are reading about) is already doing.” Second, he advises, “filter the results for innovations that would potentially add to your value proposition.” And lastly, he asserts, “Just do it.” Is your school ready to get in the game? Click here for the list of
schools visited by Grant.