TL Under Construction

One of our prescribed reading texts for ETL504 (Teacher librarians as leaders) is Michael Fullan’s Leading in a Culture of Change — and what a pleasure it is to read this ‘personal action guide and workbook’. He is insightful in every direction. This book is a powerful tool.

The second chapter is about moral purpose, firstly of the individual (in our case, the TL) and secondly of the organization (in our case, the library and the school).

One of the points that stuck with me in this chapter is what Sober and Wilson (as cited in Fullan, 2004, p.13) called ‘motivational pluralism’. This is the notion that ‘all effective people are driven by self-centered as well as unselfish motives’ (p.13). And as Fullan says, “It’s OK.”

Could this be one of the reasons TLs do not speak out for themselves and their profession more often? Are we not OK with the combination of motives? Are we afraid people will judge us as speaking from the self-centred motive instead of the altruistic one? I think there may be something there. I’ve certainly seen that as truth for teachers. It is difficult to ask for release time when people/media and even sometimes administration are so quick to misconstrue it as wanting to be paid for time without the kids.

I was also struck with the idea of leaders helping to support others’ sense of moral purpose.

For me leadership is about creating a sense of purpose and direction. … [There is a] need to enthuse staff and encourage a belief in the difference their organisation is making … We can do a lot by making heroes of the people who deliver. It’s important to make people feel part of a success story. That what they want to be (Sir Michael Bichard as cited in Fullan, 2004, p. 17).

While that quote might come across as a little patronising, it is recognising others efforts to help better things that’s important. We often are so busy trying to change, improve and move forward that we forget we are not alone. Recognition is so simple and yet so powerful.

So now on to some of the reflective questions at the end of the chapter.

Q. What is your moral purpose in your work?

A. Wondering and learning make us better people. Information is a step towards knowledge which is a stepping stone to wisdom. Information is power. It is the power to choose, the power to make better decisions, the power for personal growth. I am passionate about other peoples’ rights to wonder and learn.

Q. How would you explain this to your friends, customers or clients, and community?

A. Funny. It never occurred to me to explain this, was I hoping it would just show by my actions? Well, I guess I would explain it just as I have above and continue to convey it by my actions. Perhaps it needs to be part of my personal mission statement too.

Q. How do you think other perceive you in terms of moral purpose? Does this differ in your private life and your work life? If so, how?

A. Being perceived as having high moral purpose is more important to me than I would have guessed upon examination of this topic. I have very high expectations of myself and see this profession as one of the most important jobs. Dare I say it is almost a calling — but I don’t want people to think I’m a zealot .

I don’t think it differs in my private life. My kids think I’m an annoying librarian when I get home too. =)

Q. How well do you think you measure up as a leader in terms of moral purpose?

A. Getting stronger everyday. Getting better at communicating this.

I am always so glad of books that include these pauses for reflection. And I’m becoming more dependent on my blog as a repository for these. With this course of study, I feel like I read til my head is full and I can then come here, download my thoughts and am ready to fill ‘er up again. =)

flickr photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkpooch/894503710/

Fullan, M., & Ballew, A. (2004). Moral Purpose. In Leading in a culture of change: Personal action guide and workbook (pp. 11-33). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The Information Environment class I am studying (CSU ETL501) asks its students —

What is your opinion of Wikipedia? Should TLs encourage students to use it with care or should they advise students against using Wikipedia? What is your experience of using Wikipedia in terms of its realibility and accuracy?

Oh dear, here is where I have to confess that Wikipedia is one of my best friends. I have my trusty little laptop near the sofa and as we watch TV and wonder about things, we cruise Wikipedia for background information. It could be anything from Doctor Who directors to the name of the capital city of the Yukon territory.

Having said that, researching topics for academics is a different story. I still encourage students to use it (they will anyway so no point in trying to discourage it), it is an excellent starting place.

As a TL in a primary school, I find the information the 2/3/4 classes go to Wikipedia is general knowledge. Most of them will not end up using the information from Wiki at that age independently, the reading level is too high for them (eg. spiders). But from this age I let them try as the searching is good practice and I point out the hyperlinks at the bottom of the articles as possible places to search for more information. At this age books are still the best.

I read an article ’somewhere’ (lost in my saved bookmarks) about print encyclopedias and their role in teaching the organization of information (topics and subheadings etc) and that online resources full of hyperlinks in fact work against that organisational development. It made me look again at the presented projects and sure enough children who had relied exclusively on web sites seemed to have a lot less organization to their finished products (anecdotal evidence only, maybe no correlation at all, but I always take note now). But I stray (like a hyperlink )

With the grade 5/6 students I encourage them to look at the fascinating stuff going on on the discussion page of whatever the topic is that they are researching. It’s a whole other world ‘backstage’ with raging debates, nitpicking and colossal feats of collaboration. Information comes alive then. They see that learning is not some cut and paste activity, the answers they were looking for are not black and white. Many of our best discussions about the reliability of information have come from those pages. Take a peek! Here’s a link to the discussion page of stort story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges which I think was mentioned in our study guide – clickhere

Photo from:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/47/190041904_7ef208610f.jpg?v=0

Quality management is a very large concept to get your head around. While I understand the general idea, it is the principles and the terminology that takes a bit to get the brain around. But I recognize it’s importance. It is what is often missing – the ‘umbrellic’ process that turns visions into reality. It’s the idea of working on the system to improve the service.

The question the ETL504 – “Teacher Librarian as Leader” course asks of us is this:

After reading, explain how the QM model could be used to enhance the management of information services (LRC) provision in a school.

Our first article about TQM (total quality management) was written by Myron Tribus and is the first time I’ve seen someone connected with management speak ‘our language’ — ie. make the distinctions between industry and the education sector. We’ve had presidents/treasurers on school council try to apply some of the TQM principles to our school plans i the past and it just didn’t work. Our school is not a business, it’s not meant to turn a profit (we’re a non-profit organisation), its meant to be viable but more importantly its meant to be successful. The economic success formula just didn’t work. The success of students is even more difficult to measure when you are not interested in test score success, our philosophy is more holistic, dealing with character as well as academic success.

Again this is where the planning process starting with vision is imperative. We need to define what we are aiming for, beyond a mission statement and philosophy. We (our school community) need to look back at the vision we created years ago.

As far as the TL and Information Services in a school are concerned. Our vision for the LRC must marry with the school’s visions and aims. A TL needs to be in touch with the overall principles, aims and objectives and have ones for the Resource Centre.  I guess we’ll be experts and leaders in this because we’ll have to go through the process twice – once for school and again for the LRC. We are like a service within a service.

Photo from flickr courtesy:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikkilynn07/88613509/

When a group of people share the same world view, when their paradigms are consistent with each other or are sufficiently homogenous in their core assumptions, then a common ‘culture’ emerges…. parallel behaviours, common speech patterns, common ways of explaining … In short, the group becomes tribal. Thus the principal, if he or she wishes to develop a strongly cohesive culture for his or her school, must address those elements which handle the school’s environment for learning. … there are always some common ideas which do emerge when you listen carefully … There are, in short, common paradigms which will give clues for action and planning. (Beare, 1989, p. 18)

Here is one excellent piece of advice that needs to be taken as a person learning to lead. Listen. Listen for clues when parents and potential parents speak about the school. Look for clues to their paradigms.

As a person who takes potential families through on Tour Days I will now be listening more closely for this. Do their paradigms sound similar to ours. If not, if they have other maps of what schools should be, but like what they ’see’ (horses, happy children, beautiful bush setting) then sooner or later ‘things’ will not be the way they like. Equally I must check that they clearly hear and understand our school’s paradigms.

Beare, H. (1989). The movement to create excellent schools. In Creating an excellent school: Some new management techniques (pp. 1-22). London: Routledge.

I am no stranger to the concept of school culture. As a past parent and current staff member of an alternative school, our school culture is one obvious difference to the mainstream of schooling … especially to someone from the outside looking in. Visitors to the school often comment of the positive, vibrant ‘feel’ of the school, can’t put their finger on what it is, but isn’t it great.

But it’s not all a bed of roses. There is a re-occurring issue, common to all schools I’m sure, parents who withdraw their children because they don’t like the way we do ‘things’.

Reading the first chapter of Prof. Hedley Beare’s book, “The Movement to Create Excellent Schools” for ETL504 gave me much food for thought on our school’s culture and the importance of paradigms (a word I’ve read many times and thought I understood but now do understand quite clearly).

Beare (1989, p. 17) speaks of the common ways of thinking about organizations (including schools): the industrial model (organisation as machine) and the organic model (organisation as living organism). And then introduces a third idea stemming from more anthropological concepts and the study of micro-culture of organisations. His quote from Jelinek, Smircich and Hirsch’s 1983 research (1989, p. 17) really caught my attention:

Our ways of looking at things become solidified into commonly accepted paradigms limiting what we pay attention to; new ideas in and of themselves can be valuable. Culture as a root metaphor for organisation studies is one such idea.

It wasn’t so much the second part about culture that caught me but the first part about limited ways of looking at things because of our paradigms.

I’ve recently read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits book. His excellent metaphor of paradigms being like our personal map of reality was clarifying for me. This quote clarified paradigms even further and clarified the essence of the above-mentioned issue that I couldn’t work out ’til today.

There seems to be a communication gap at school. People enrol their child at the school, years may pass then an incident arises, a decision is made and they become dissatisfied, saying that’s not what they thought the school was about and withdraw their child. We have a school philosophy document. Parents are given it, encouraged to read it and whole school meetings are organized to come and talk about the school and its practices and events. Yet this is a repeated scenario at the school and I’m guessing at other schools too.

Our recent staff meeting centred around a family leaving the school dissatisfied over a decision made. During the course of our meeting it became clear that even the teachers did not have a consistent view or understanding of the basis of decision. The three of us who have been at the school less than 10 years had a completely different understanding of how the decision fit in with the philosophy than the two senior teachers. I think we were all a bit surprised. How could this be? My thought now is that it is a paradigm problem.

Beare states:

Each paradigm, it is important to realise, is an approximation to reality. None of us comprehends reality in all its fullness, and we all observe selectively. We then proceed to develop meanings by drawing similarities and generalisations.(1989, p.17)

And:

Thus you are certain to have a paradigm which represents to you what a school, schooling and your particular school are. Indeed it is wise to make that paradigm explicit, at least to yourself, for it will provide the key to explaining why you do what you do as an educator. There is some vision about education, a set of core assumptions, which drives your whole professional life forward. (1989, p.17)

So I stop now to unpack.

“what is my paradigm about school and our school. What is my map of this reality? and why I do what I do? ” –Big breath in–

Well I know why I came to alternative education. When I grew up, I had many questions. Many. But I quickly learned that school was not about that. It was about sit down, be quiet and do what the teacher says. Say what the teacher wants. The main purpose of school seemed to be about finding out what the teacher thought and wanted and then saying it back like you thought that too. I was a ‘good girl’ until I reached high school then I stopped caring what adults wanted me to say and do (didn’t we all?)

I went to uni during the peak of the behaviourist theory wave and was very offended by the similarities I saw apparent between ‘token economies’ and other reinforcement techniques and the white rats in the Skinner box experiments. The kids we were going to teach did not appear to be going to get the chance to ask questions and find answers either. We were meant to trick/bribe them into learning. I wrote some scathing paper about my opinion in a curriculum and instruction class that was not ‘correct’ and lowered my mark and I was very disillusioned with the education scene.

So looking back over that landscape, I believe school is meant to be a place where children can explore and ask and find out about everything. They are building their life and most have a pretty big enthusiasm for it when very young. I think a system that is more interested in showing results and maintaining order than authentic learning will squash any enthusiasm that a child has for learning by about the age of eight or nine. I’m not advocating chaos or free schooling. I’m advocating negotiated, individual/collaborative learning with a strong emphasis on inquiry-based programs. I believe teachers should be strong guides; resourceful and motivated to journey into unknown territory, to continue to learn alongside students, but maintain the integrity of the process, making sure there is ‘plan, do, review’. Respect should flow from this expertise and integrity.

Beare’s next challenging question:

Those who are associated with your school also have their own paradigms about the school. Do you know what they are? How do the parents, your teachers, and the students typically depict the school, to themselves and to others?

I believe this is a question we as a staff need to explore and clarify so that we can communicate even more clearly and cohesively to the parent body.

Beare, H. (1989). The movement to create excellent schools. In Creating an excellent school: Some new management techniques (pp. 1-22). London: Routledge.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markvalentine/2253176731/