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Climate and Culture, Thinking Frames
Time to Repair and Rebuild Culture – Where to Start
It is not a secret that organizational cultures took a beating during the pandemic. The result for too many of us has been feelings of isolation, struggle to remain engaged in and committed to our work, and even questioning whether we still belong. Unfortunately, without focused attention and careful effort, some of the damage to the culture of our schools and districts will become permanent.
Simply hoping the situation will improve holds little promise. Declaring that certain elements will be part of our culture does not guarantee their presence. Repairing and rebuilding culture takes time and focus. It also requires an understanding of what the culture can be and why rebuilding is important.
Our repair and rebuilding plans must focus on the areas and aspects of our culture that have sustained the most crucial damage. Our plans also need to include expanding and strengthening areas of the culture that were not as robust as they needed to be prior to the pandemic.
Of course, as leaders we must model the central elements of the desired culture consistently and visibly. If we as leaders do not commit to and behave consistently with the culture we seek, all other efforts will likely fall short.
The beginning of a new year is a great time to revisit, reexamine, and recommit to the culture that will define us and the impact we will have on our students, each other, and the communities we serve. We must be intentional, transparent, and authentic in our work to repair and rebuild. We also need to support the work with dialogue, activities, and reflection to translate concepts and aspirations into experience.
Here are five areas of examination and potential activities that can serve as places to start:
Reaffirming core values and purpose. We may assume that the core values in place before the pandemic remain and that everyone accepts and is committed to a common purpose. We may be correct. However, much has changed over the past few years. Unless we revisit, re-examine, reaffirm our core values, and recommit to our central purpose, we risk having them drift, be ignored, and even be abandoned. Our repair and rebuilding efforts must push beyond broad statements to include clear examples and evidence of living our values and purpose. Activities in which we engage might include generating what would constitute evidence of living our purpose and values. We might provide real or constructed case studies, and in response, people could identify the values involved and describe how our purpose would inform actions to take and messages to communicate.
Seeing through the eyes of learners. We can examine learning experiences from the perspective of students. When we do, we shift the focus away from adult issues and gain insights into how learners experience the culture and what we can do to make the culture more inclusive, supportive, and rich for students. Activities that include student voices can stimulate important conversations and dispel faulty assumptions about how students experience school. Student voices can also provide insights regarding where to expand learning opportunities and experiences, how to increase learning commitment, and how to uncover ways to make learning more relevant and compelling.
Reaffirming the value of community. Shared community is a crucial element of a healthy culture. When members feel as though they belong, are valued, and are respected, almost anything becomes possible. People want to feel confident that they will receive support when needed, that they can collaborate without fear of manipulation, and that they can struggle together without fear of blame and abandonment. Activities must help participants to feel what community can be and how it opens doors to possibility.
Celebrating evidence of living our purpose. A strong culture is more than an aspiration. It is experienced daily, sometimes minute by minute. When teachers and other staff members exhibit courage, flexibility, patience, persistence, and other purpose and value related behaviors, it is important that we recognize and celebrate these behaviors and their impact. What we choose to celebrate conveys a message about what we value. The activities we choose need to signal the importance of reflecting and recommitting to core values and purpose.
Building shared capacity. New challenges, a new context, and new expectations call for increased capacity to respond and serve. Initial capacity building activities can engage teams and staff in learning that has value for all. Activities might explore how to stimulate student creativity, promote engagement, and build learning skills. Capacity building can also extend to defining and responding to challenges and opportunities facing the organization. We can explore how everyone can play a role, contribute their talents, and be a resource in meeting challenges and take advantage of opportunities. Organizational culture often becomes strongest when everyone works together in the face of difficult problems, responds to external threats and achieves common goals.
Sustaining a healthy, vibrant culture is difficult work even in stable and predictable times. The times in which we are living are neither. Consequently, the work of repairing and rebuilding culture now is even more challenging. Yet, it is work that can strengthen and transform our organizations and the experiences of those associated with them. We face what may be a once in a career opportunity to lead work that will create a path to greatness for our organizations and for those who are a part of them. It is time to get to work.
Behavior, Thinking Frames
Begin the School Year with Advantage-Creating Mind Frames
We look for advantages when and where we can find them. Advantages can give us a head start and make success more likely. Advantages give us leverage to avoid wasting time and energy. Advantages are especially welcome when they do not mean that others must experience a disadvantage. So, starting the new year with advantages that help our students and us succeed can be welcome, especially during times like these.
One of the most significant and impactful advantages we can gain as we begin a new year lies in how we think about and approach our work. How we position ourselves in our relationships with students will largely determine how they will respond. And the strategies we employ to help students learn will greatly influence their success.
With this context in mind, let’s explore four mind frames that can give us and our students important advantages in the weeks and months ahead:
Mind frame #1. Don’t focus on removing the challenges that lie ahead; prepare students to meet them.
We might be tempted to lessen the challenges that students will face by giving them easier work or providing excessive support, but we risk devaluing the success they achieve and giving a false sense of accomplishment. Rather than making the road ahead easy, we can focus on developing the skills and confidence students will need to meet and succeed with the challenges they will face. We will not be able to lessen the challenges our students will experience once they leave us. Preparing our students to accomplish demanding tasks and succeed in difficult times is an advantage we can offer that will serve them well regardless of what their futures hold.
Mind frame #2. Don’t protect students from every misstep and setback; help students learn from their mistakes.
Mistakes can be frustrating and even painful. Of course, we do not want our students to suffer. However, in the context of learning, mistakes can offer powerful lessons that lead to growth. In fact, some of the most powerful and memorable learning our students will gain this year will be the result of their mistakes and missteps they experience. While we need to offer instruction and coaching that focuses students on what is important and prepares them to encounter new concepts and skills, we also need to allow them to make mistakes without shame, excessive penalties, and unnecessary risk, so that learning can result.
Mind frame #3. Don’t force students to prove they are trustworthy; assume and treat them as though they are, and they will prove you are correct.
What we assume about the character and intensions of others can have a determinative impact on how they respond. When students feel that we trust them and believe they will be positive, contributing members of the class community, they are far more likely to behave accordingly. Lengthy lists of rules and consequences for misbehavior risk communicating a lack of trust and can tempt some students to test us to confirm their suspicions. On the other hand, when we choose to trust, students are also likely to want to prove us correct. Meanwhile, should the behavior of students occasionally fall short of our expectations, we are more likely to see and treat the behavior as an aberration than confirmation that they are not trustworthy, and we will seek to correct rather than punish.
Mind frame #4. Don’t ask students to convince you of their talents; look for what makes each one special.
As a new group of students enters our class, we might take the position that they must prove themselves to us before we recognize their abilities and talents. Of course, some students who have the confidence of past success will respond. However, this approach risks missing some of the most important, latent talents that students possess and have the potential to develop. Conversely, if we adopt the mind frame that every student possesses talents and gifts and our challenge is to help each student discover and develop what makes them special, we set the stage for far more talent discovery, development, and demonstration. Importantly, even if we are not successful in completely discovering and developing the gifts of some students, we will have communicated to them that they are special, and we are confident they have potential that is yet to be fully recognized.
We cannot control every aspect of our students’ learning, relationships, and growth in the year ahead. However, the mind frames we adopt and the advantages they offer can make important differences in crucial areas over which we have control. The best part is that these mind frames cost nothing but hold the promise of immeasurable value.
In Your Corner, Thinking Frames
In Your Corner, Student Learning
Climate and Culture, In Your Corner
In Your Corner, Student Learning
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Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.
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Artificial intelligence can do many things, but it cannot lead—not in a classroom, not in a school, not in a district. Leadership is a complex, uniquely human behavior, and now is the time to really, truly lead.
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