Key Example of Advanced Invitational Education:
Fearful of losing ground on test scores when considering an instructional change?
Conscientious teachers will understandably resist initiatives
of any sort when they feel they might lose either behavioral control of a group or, if they fear a drop in achievement.
“Cross the river by feeling the stones”
- Deng Xiaoping...Small steps – collaboration – action research
A principal reports that supporting
teachers who have been asked to shift from ‘traditional’ teaching to more ‘invitational’ approaches
becomes especially difficult, and involves changing minds…..
A teacher in a workshop declares
that she would try some small group cooperative learning activities, involving students to collaborate to create a skit and
then present it to other students, with one of her more manageable classes, but not with another, more difficult class.
A
supervisor, responsible to document a shift to the procedures of a new program in a timely way, reports resistance in the
form of questions from teachers about who will be responsible if the current good test scores slip down.
While this is the stuff of advanced
workshops, permitting discussion, for administrative and teacher leaders, there are a couple lessons to turn to for
guidance – lessons we might ‘know’ but need to recall and apply at the moment
The first is that this is a crucial time to affirm and
model core values – especially respect and trust. Showing respect by listening is vital.
There simply is no substitute for being sure that the person knows you want to understand their point of view, with
lots of specifics. Other values that will be tested under the circumstances will be trust and caring……and
a bit of patience. Please explore the Peter Block material on 'managing Trust & Agreement' elsewhere on
the 'Trust' page on this website.
The second lesson comes from the “Good-To-Great” literature and Jim Collins. If a
teacher is getting good test results, or has successfully gained good classroom behavior, especially with a difficult group,
innovation comes especially hard. There is less incentive to change when you are already good.
But, if the need is to continuously improve, or to address new, higher level academic or character standards, moving
past ‘good’ is essential.
The
third comes from good advice, as from Deng Xiaoping “We cross the river by feeling the stones.”
Identifying why this river must be crossed, and what stones have already been found, and perhaps backing up a bit,
might be needed.
Now here is a crucial
idea. Sometimes we need to back-up and go in a slightly different direction to find ‘stones’ useful to the direction
where we eventually need to head. In the US we have illustrated this with what we call the Chinese Finger
Puzzle - which just tightens if we only use force, but permits freedom if we simply back off, temporarily.
The Perceptual Tradition / Mental Models
What Perkey & Siegel refer to as ‘The
Perceptual Tradition’ is often called Mental Models in Systems Thinking terminology……Actually called ’The
Image’ by Kenneth Boulding in his book by the same name.
This was brought home to me as I had for years wondered how Will Rogers could famously
state that he never met a man he didn’t like. Then, taking my parents to the musical Will Rogers
Follies in NYC it was acted out for me, and explained as an Indian tradition to greet a stranger passing the other way, and
then to be sure to turn and face the same way a bit before resuming in our own direction. He felt that
if we saw what the stranger saw, actually faced what he faced, we could empathasize and could not dislike him for his views
or behavior……
So,
taking the perspective of others & listening, might be key to changing minds/mental models. When done within
the context of a clear, shared vision, and 'good' policy changes, these skills can be decisive.
