Will to Lead, the Skill to Teach, The. Anthony Muhammad
in school and their ability to excel. Michael Fullan (2003) identifies student engagement as the first critical step in the educational process. It is not surprising that a student with a negative self-perception about his or her potential to succeed academically would have difficulty engaging in the learning process.
Educators must transform their perceptions before they can help students transform their intrinsic predeterminations. Research on highly effective schools shows us that adults' will for student success has to be stronger than the student's will to fail (Green, 2005). Students must believe in their ability to achieve their goals. This concept, commonly referred to as efficacy, is a prerequisite to effectively changing students' negative self-image. As Gardner (1998) states, “Fostering self-efficacy, helping people to believe in themselves, is one of an educator's highest duties” (p. 1).
Institutional Predeterminations
Finally, a school must be willing to analyze internal barriers to achieving a collective commitment to learning for all. This means confronting institutional predeterminations. No organization can achieve a positive will with policies, practices, structures, or procedures in place that make achieving collective goals more difficult. Educators at every level must sit down and reasonably review standard policies and procedures and align them with organizational goals. For example, institutional policies such as student tracking that limit access to rigorous coursework can be huge obstacles to developing an optimal learning environment, especially if stereotypes and bias about certain subgroups of students keep them locked into lower tracks where they do not have the opportunity for success.
Healthy cultures recognize that there will be obstacles to creating high-will organizations, and that some of those obstacles are products of educators' perceptions, students' perceptions, and long-established organizational barriers. Instead of spending their time complaining about the issues, healthy cultures seek to understand the barriers and address them. In other words, a healthy culture is a community of problem solvers.
Abolishing Conflicting Wills
In this chapter, we have discussed the differences between a healthy school culture and a toxic school culture and discovered that school cultures are influenced by the predeterminations of the professionals and students within them, as well as the larger society of which they are a part. Institutional barriers also play a role in the health of a culture.
A staff's willingness to examine, debate, and synthesize the diverse paradigms in its school is the first step in developing a healthy and collective vision for the school. Educators must be willing to transparently communicate their commitment to students as it relates to their stated mission and challenge one another to live up to that commitment. This may require in-depth analysis of staff and student handbooks, discipline policies, instructional policies, and school norms. If these organizational policies do not support their efforts to educate all students, they must be willing to collaborate to revise them. Staff members must work to achieve a system that respects and nurtures the full potential of each student. There can be no split agendas. The sole focus must be on the well-being of the students they serve.
In the next chapter, we examine staff frustration and its significant impact on school culture. Before you move on to the next chapter, reflect on the questions that follow.
CHAPTER 2
Reflections
1 How have your personal experiences affected your perception of the field of education and the students you serve?
2 Based on the definitions of healthy and toxic school cultures, how would you rate your current reality? Do structural changes seem to flourish or flounder in your environment?
3 HOW have the three forms of predetermination—perceptual, intrinsic, and institutional—manifested themselves in your professional environment? What has your staff done to address these issues?
4 Do you and your colleagues tend to be more descriptive or prescriptive in your approach to solving problems?
Three
Frustration in a Toxic Culture
Highly frustrated staff is a highly ineffective staff. School staffs made up of members with high levels of frustration soon develop into toxic cultures, making the job of serving the needs of all students nearly impossible. School leaders and practitioners concerned with improving schools must understand the effect of frustration on school culture and professional practice.
What is frustration, and why is it so damaging? Frustration is the feeling of anxiety we get as a result of our inability to accomplish a task or fulfill a want or need. There is a gap between our desired outcome and the results we achieve. In schools, our desired outcome is universal student achievement. This is not a wish, but a requirement. In the United States, No Child Left Behind dictates that students must achieve better learning outcomes or schools risk losing self-governance and funding (Kopkowski, 2008). Educators are being asked to do things that they may not be prepared to do (Kennedy, 2005), such as ensuring student mastery of a complex curriculum, classroom management, formative assessment and data analysis, and academic interventions. A 2006 survey of American teachers found that 58 percent felt that these requirements were impossible to meet (Feller, 2006). Mandating outcomes in an environment in which educators may not have the skills to reach those outcomes can lead to several problems, including lowering academic standards and cheating on standardized tests (Dewan, 2010).
We must start to examine and fix the factors that lead to high levels of educator frustration. Pressuring people to do things that they do not know how to do will not improve productivity. This approach has only created a revolving door of educators in the schools that most need consistent, compassionate, and skilled educators (Sparks, 2002).
Insufficient Preparation
It is difficult for teacher preparation programs to simulate all of the conditions that a new teacher will face in the classroom (Moir, 2008). This lack of proper preparation can easily be linked to low job satisfaction and high teacher turnover (Associated Press, 2003).
A future teacher who is well versed in general theory will not necessarily have the specific skills needed for diverse classroom situations. Other fields, like medicine and law, recognize the importance of specialization of knowledge and the practice of specialized skills. A doctor not only has to complete a course of study, but he or she also must engage in daily practice—an internship and a residency— and pass special board examinations to be licensed to practice. An attorney must also spend years completing a similar battery of specialized practice and then must pass a comprehensive examination before being licensed. We are not suggesting that a person needs eight years of practical experience before becoming an educator; rather, we believe future educators must experience more specific development both inside and outside of teacher education programs to reduce potential frustration once they enter the classroom as professional teachers. Teachers who teach underserved students, for example, often enter the field without proper knowledge of how to best engage and reach these students. We will address this issue of responsive instruction in the second half of the book.
In one study of new teacher experiences (Kopkowski, 2008), five primary areas of dissatisfaction that cause high levels of frustration emerged:
1. Lack of support
2. Student discipline issues
3. Low pay
4. Lack of influence regarding school operations
5. Lack of respect from colleagues, administration, and parents
It is easy to understand why any person confronting all of these issues at one time would become frustrated. These unexpected barriers are overwhelming to new teachers as well as experienced educators.
One additional area that is not addressed significantly during teacher preparation