CONNECTIONS: Beliefs, Behaviors, Experiences
This week’s blog post comes via Dr. Dan Butler, longtime Iowa principal and author of our latest book, Permission to be Great: Increasing Engagement in Your School (see details below):
Many years ago, I graduated from college and immediately began working as a long-term substitute teacher in an alternative school setting for eight months. This was a stressful job, working with middle and high school students who had been removed from the public-school setting for fighting, severe truancy, drug use, and/or possession of firearms at school. I was new, innocent, naïve, and focused on fixing the problems of my students. As my colleagues and I struggled through situations in which my students became verbally and physically aggressive, I quickly noticed this was going to be much more challenging than I originally thought. I could feel the tension in the voices of fellow staff members when I engaged with them and could see the exhaustion on their faces and in their body language.
A universal coping mechanism for all staff members at this school was smoking cigarettes. During their time away from students, they would go outside to light up. As I felt the emotional toll of the job in the first month, I followed suit and started smoking. This was something I had never done in the past. In fact, I saw my mother constantly battle with nicotine addiction throughout my childhood and could not understand why people would start doing this, yet here I was, striking up like everyone else at the facility. There was an invisible force at play shaping my behavior: the culture was dictating how I should act. Although I am in charge of my own decisions and no one at this alternative school was outwardly pressuring me to smoke, the culture of the organization was constantly signaling to me, “This is what we do to relieve stress.”
School, district, and organizational culture consistently influences the behavior of individuals across the globe, which can be good, but it also presents challenges. When you enter a school you can sense the culture. Whether it is the initial interaction with a school secretary walking through the office doors, observing décor on the walls, listening to conversations in the hallways among staff members, observing the principal leading professional learning with teachers, or seeing faculty engage with students, all these experiences elicit emotions and provide strong indicators of the school culture. We are well aware of these indicators and emotions, but what exactly is school culture? Common phrases include:
● The way things are done around here.
● The underlying norms that direct plans and decisions.
● The written and unwritten rules.
While I like pieces of these familiar descriptions, I favor the clarity Tim Kight provides regarding culture. The founder and CEO of Focus 3 describes culture as three things:
1. What a group of people believe,
2. How they behave, and
3. The experience they deliver to others and receive in return (Kight, 2020).
Belief, behavior, and experience. When we are able to clarify our individual and collective organizational beliefs, align our behaviors to match these beliefs, and deliver excellent experiences to each other and those we serve, we can create thriving cultures in our schools. Furthermore, we must realize the unmistakable impact that establishing cultures focused on energy, involvement, and efficacy have within our schools.
I am happy to report that I stopped smoking when I no longer worked at this alternative school facility. I am grateful for the experience, though, as it helped me become aware of the strong invisible influence of organizational culture. While the evidence related to the negative consequences of dysfunctional organizational culture is overwhelming and very real, the good news is, it does not have to be this way. With intentional approaches and relatively simple tactics, leaders can dismantle dysfunction and promote an engaging culture in their school settings. In my new book, Permission to be Great, I walk you through how to do this, while sharing success stories, proven leadership practices, engagement enhancers, and self-care strategies that will allow you to lead your school or district toward positive change.
Thanks, Dan, for these words of wisdom and thanks to all educators reading this for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
Jeff and Jimmy
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
(Please let us know about an inspiring educator you think we should highlight in a future newsletter by completing this brief form!)
NEW RELEASE (Available June 1)
Permission to be Great: Increasing Engagement In Your School by Dan Butler (Twitter: @danpbutler)
Educator burnout is threatening the well-being of our society. In addition to negatively impacting the social, emotional, and academic growth of the students we serve and the quality of our educational system overall, it also comes with financial consequences for our nation as a whole. Many 21st century educators are becoming increasingly stressed trying to meet the countless demands upon them, demands that promote burnout and jeopardize workforce retention. Emotional exhaustion, negativity, and teacher attrition have reached alarming levels, threatening quality instruction and, ultimately, student achievement. Many factors contribute to job burnout. The primary causes are mismatches between people and their work environment. These mismatches include:
Work overload
Lack of autonomy
Insufficient encouragement, recognition, or appreciation
Lack of positive relationships
Issues of fairness
Value conflicts between the individual and the organization
The greater the mismatch between each area of the school setting and the educator, the greater the risk of educator burnout. Although the negative consequences of burnout are overwhelming and very real, it does not have to be this way. With intentional approaches and relatively simple tactics, educators can extinguish burnout and increase engagement in their school settings. In Permission to be Great, Dan Butler articulates success stories, proven leadership practices, engagement enhancers, and reflective questions to lead your school or district toward positive change. This book provides practical and specific ideas for combating burnout behaviors and, instead, initiating higher levels of energy, involvement, and efficacy among educators in our schools. Now that we know the truth about burnout, it is time to embark on the path toward authentic engagement; our educators--and our students--deserve it!
FEATURED BOOK!
Educator Reflection Tips Volume II: Refining Our Practice by Jami Fowler-White (Twitter: @JjJj821)
The Educator Reflection Tips book series is designed to deepen the knowledge and increase the skill set of professional educators. Each book in this series includes a multitude of resources, along with probing reflection questions designed to provoke readers to think deeply about their classroom experiences, past and present, and to take specific actions aimed at refining and improving their craft which will enhance teaching and learning in our schools. After reading this book, you will begin to take charge of your own professional growth. No longer will you depend solely on the traditional method of waiting on feedback from administrators and colleagues. You will be equipped with instruments to routinely consider where you are on the self-reflection continuum and use the tools provided to take action steps for improvement. Volume II in the series takes readers on a deep dive to determine habits of effectiveness in these critical areas:
Classroom Competence
Critical Literacy
Cyber Connection
Classroom Culture
The ten reflection tips highlighted in Volume II invite readers to embark upon a journey of contemplation, heightened awareness, and action-oriented transformation. Each Reflection Tip is uniquely crafted to empower educators to think critically about key factors which influence student outcomes.
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAY’S
Thought for the Day: “Classrooms don’t need tech geeks who can teach; we need teaching geeks who can use tech.” David Geurin
Teaching Technique to Try: Fishbowl. In a Fishbowl discussion, students seated inside the “fishbowl” actively participate in a discussion by asking questions and sharing their opinions, while students standing outside listen carefully to the ideas presented. Students take turns in these roles, so that they practice being both contributors and listeners in a group discussion. This strategy is especially useful when you want to make sure all students participate in a discussion, when you want to help students reflect on what a good discussion looks like, and when you need a structure for discussing controversial or difficult topics. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Beliefs/Behaviors. High performing schools with strong cultures are places in which collective beliefs are discussed and agreed upon and followed up with behaviors that align to such beliefs. Ideally, all adults in the school share the same beliefs--not in every area, of course, as we are all unique and individual human beings with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, talents, and desires. However, when it comes to how we treat members of our school community--most significantly, of course, the students we serve--it is important to commit to certain agreements about what we believe, such as treating all students with dignity and respect every day and the belief that all children can learn at high levels. Yet, even in these areas, not all staff members will sincerely believe in the “belief statements” to which we commit. We much prefer establishing cultures in which we focus on beliefs first, then behaviors. But in cases when certain adults in the building seem not to agree with foundational beliefs of the culture based on their behaviors, we must then reverse the order and instead focus on behaviors first. We cannot force anyone to believe a certain thing about the way we do our work (e.g., we cannot force you to believe that all kids can learn at high levels). But it is fair for us to expect all adults to behave in a way that aligns with the belief (e.g., allow opportunities for redos or extended time, or other accommodations designed to ensure student success). Eventually, we hope that by changing the adult behavior, they will come around and adopt the shared belief. But the desired behavior must be a non-negotiable. Shared beliefs are an important component of a school culture, but our behaviors are even more important, acting on what we know is best for those we serve.
Please share your thoughts about culture via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!