schools to change whether you were
thinking about the grouping and
scheduling system that was developed in
the 19th century that we still use or
the curriculum that is largely based on
20th century skills or the fact that our
high-stakes standardized tests are
killing creativity in our students not
to mention new technologies ubiquitous
communication and information systems
these challenges that the world brings
us that our schools need to adapt so why
is it that something that is so high on
the agenda of educators and policy
makers the world over is seems to be so
slow in coming the answer is this all
change in schools starts or stops with
teachers see his teachers we’re in the
change business it’s our job to manage
the physical changes that are taking
place in the brains of our students
every single day and any change that
someone else wants to impose on that if
it does not help that change we just
shut the door we resist now we’re
learning all the time from the moment
we’re born our brain is constantly
taking in new information recycling the
information that we already have and
what this is doing is creating mental
models of the world these make us
comfortable that I know when I wake up
tomorrow morning the world will largely
be the same as I left it the night
before so I have an expectation this is
what allows us to travel without too
much fear we know that certain signs
mean it’s okay to go in here or others
know so when we consider making those
changes in education we have to consider
what’s important to teachers
let’s consider a change that most
teachers have actually had to manage in
the last few years okay something that
is sort of changing the world over a new
technology smartboards now most teachers
have had to adapt to using smart boards
in their classrooms moving away from
chalkboards and whiteboards so we all
have smart boards now and that was not
an individual choice that was not
something that any single teacher said
you know what I want a smart board at my
classroom I’m gonna go down to the mall
and pick one up and put it in no this
was a systems level decision or at least
a school level decision and when they
were planning it this is probably what
it looked like to them this is how
organizations see change it’s a nice
smooth curve okay in the beginning some
people will be in denial yes okay and
then maybe there’ll be a little bit of
resistance but eventually they’ll
explore the technology they’ll integrate
it and everyone will be committed to
using the SMART Board so we’ll focus on
the environment we’ll put the smart
boards in and then we’ll focus on the
people meaning we’ll give you some
training on the technology some features
and benefits and here’s how to use it
okay that’s not what it looks like to
the teacher so let’s look at that side
of it the human side of change oh by the
way I want to thank my daughter for
helping me illustrate this she
gracefully agreed in the beginning yes
there’s a little bit of shock some
surprise wait what are they doing
followed by denial oh they are not
putting that in my classroom frustration
comes next
I cannot believe they’re doing this
everything was fine before I don’t need
this disengagement happens at the bottom
of that curve you know what I don’t care
anyway eventually experimentation okay
you know what it’s already there hey
this does some cool things maybe my
students can teach me a little bit about
how this new technology works
ah alright maybe this does enhance
learning a little bit I think I can
figure out ways to integrate this into
my lesson planning and finally
integration okay now it’s a part of what
I do now it makes sense see our internal
response to an external change is
emotional when someone else wants us to
change we have an emotional response to
it now this change curve this can happen
for some people in a matter of about 10
minutes maybe even 10 seconds you go
through all those thoughts and you’re
heading like oh cool smart board others
it might take 10 months or they might
not get through it at all they might
reach that point where they say you know
what I don’t care at all anyway and I’m
gonna go find a school that doesn’t have
smart boards that’s getting harder and
harder to do obviously and they might
suffer from what’s called Missoni ISM
it’s a fear intolerance
if you’re in a true fear and tolerance
of innovation or change now all of us
have that to some degree you know how
you always seem to choose the same seat
in the classroom or in the conference
room when you go in that just makes us
comfortable if I asked you all to stand
up and move one seat to your left you’d
all get very annoyed at me right now so
I won’t do that so how do we manage this
change how do we a manage this emotional
rollercoaster that we go through when
we’re faced with changes that we didn’t
initiate well in the beginning we need
information we need clear communication
and we need facts in the absence of
communication we create rumors and our
brains are very very good at making
stuff up based on very little evidence
tends to get a lot bigger at the bottom
we need emotional support and here’s the
key thing the difference between the
organizational perspective and the human
perspective that emotional support does
not come from outside that comes from
within our support structure our peers
it only comes
other teachers so that helps us get
through the emotional dip and through
the other side where we need direction
and guidance we need a vision we need a
map to help us get there but without
that support in the middle the change
will take longer and will likely be a
lot more painful
now this conference has been about
change and it seems to be a common
thread running through change we
consider change painful in a lot of ways
that’s shifting your future mental model
to a new reality that you weren’t
prepared for so let me share with you a
different way of looking at this
when consider managing change when you
want change to happen it looks like this
don’t worry if you’re not good at math
it’s not really math this is philosophy
the P stands for pain and not real pain
nobody’s stepping on your toe or
punching you in the stomach
this is perceived pain so if the
perceived pain of the change is greater
than the perceived pain of the present
we don’t change period the converse is
also true if the perceived pain of the
change is less than the perceived pain
of the present change happens so the key
learning from this is that if you want
to see change happen you must reduce the
amount of perceived pain I’ll illustrate
this with an example from my own
experience now about two years ago a
little more than two years ago a
colleague and mentor of mine Steve
Barkley and I went to a one of the top
schools in Istanbul in Turkey actually
it’s a hundred and thirty eight year old
school they have an excellent teaching
staff and when we sat down with the
leadership of that school they shared
with us their vision for the future
to stay on top that vision was
essentially they wanted to see visible
learning taking place throughout the
school not just with the students with
the teachers as well
they wanted the glass-walled classroom
where everyone can see everything and
everyone is engaged in what’s called
professional learning conversations
where we intentionally try to improve
our practice by working directly with
our peers on what matters most learning
now to get there one of the most
effective ways of bringing that about is
to invite teachers to visit each other’s
classrooms peer observation and to give
structured feedback based on what the
teacher needs or wants to improve that’s
peer coaching so we designed a training
program we came in we spent an entire
day with the staff put them through the
training giving them some basic skills
on peer observation and coaching and did
some follow-up workshops voluntary so
they could come and increase their
skills only about a month of maybe six
weeks later and then made ourselves
available to anyone who wanted to
volunteer for one-to-one coaching
throughout the term and by the end of
the year we had sooo merrily failed
absolutely now there were some people
who were interested and also some people
who really who really took part and
gained a lot out of it but on an
institutional level it just didn’t
happen we didn’t affect the kind of
change we wanted so we started – we
actually went back to the beginning to
figure out what went wrong now this is
Steve Barclays model for managing school
change and it’s pretty straightforward
it’s a backwards planning design for
managing change in schools
the end result our goal is student
achievement we want our students to
learn and do well now the only ones that
can do that are our students it’s what
students do that drives their
achievement but what students do is
driven by what teachers do the teaching
behaviors and any change in teaching
behave
years has to be driven by the school
community your peers the support system
your professional learning community and
ultimately at the very back end changing
leadership behavior to allow the time
the resources and the support to
implement any of those changes moving
forward and that’s why we failed because
we started implementing from the back
giving the support for the kind of
change they wanted to see but we didn’t
plan from the from the student
achievement side moving forward with the
teachers to them
there wasn’t a not there the pain of the
change was too great they’re already
doing a great job in their classrooms so
why change so we went back to the
beginning we asked them how do you
define student achievement we were
fortunate because they spent two years
prior developing their own objectives 20
descriptors underneath these five
headings that is the profile of what
they want from each of their graduates
so we took the entire staff and spent a
full day explore actually a day and a
half answering the question if we were
to walk into any single classroom in the
school what should we see students doing
that gives us evidence that they are
making progress towards or have achieved
each of those descriptors each of your
objectives by the end of those two days
we had 84 individual observable student
behaviors which we then grouped under
those themes we took a couple steps
forward by testing those very observable
behaviors the leadership of the school
the heads of department and their
administrative team went out and started
observing classrooms but they weren’t
looking at teachers and this is the key
they were looking at the students they
were looking at what the students were
doing where’s the evidence of their
learning they tested it just amongst
themselves in the first term in the
second term spread it throughout the
rest of the school
started observing the the learning going
on in all of the classrooms
communicating with the teachers the
whole time that this is something that
they defined and because these learning
walks would always be two or three
people for no longer than five to seven
minutes in any classroom and always
focused on what the students are doing
we even created a data collection form
to help us organize but most importantly
to facilitate the conversation afterward
between those two or three people to
talk about what they’d observed coming
to a shared definition of what some of
these behaviors actually look like in
the classroom there were some great
debates around different areas of it for
example paraphrasing how that might look
different in a science class than in an
English class or at different levels
it’s not important to come up with an
answer what was critical is these
teachers were then asking each other
that question now here’s the results by
the end of last year more than 500
classes were visited so far just at the
end of the first term this year more
than 500 classroom visits have happened
and they’re still going to continue on
through the second term only now the
teachers own it at the beginning of the
year we gave it to them we invited them
to take part in the process and take
ownership of the process so they’re
going into each other’s classrooms
observing what’s happening and talking
about it completely voluntary and that’s
the number remember the year prior the
pain of the change was too great so what
did we learn from this experience a few
things now the teachers we asked them
only two weeks ago for feedback on the
whole process what did they learn
number one increased student empathy
they understood better what it was like
to be a student and the demands of a
daily of their daily lives they also got
to see their students responding and
behaving differently in other teachers
classrooms
than they do in theirs second increased
collegiality more empathy for each other
and in fact even though the focus is on
students the reality is it’s the
teaching behaviors that drive the
student behaviors and a lot of teachers
mentioned that they were inspired to try
new things in their classrooms and third
and this is my favorite part a few of
the teachers responded that they think
it would be a great idea to increase the
amount of time spent in the classroom
maybe for a whole period and to be able
to provide feedback based on what was
observed in other words what we had
tried to do two years prior with pure
observation and peer coaching now a
small handful not everyone not everyone
has done it but at least now some
recognize that they want it so what did
we learn from this process number one
change only ever happens one person at a
time it is not an organ is even no
matter how big the change no matter how
big the group of people it is always one
person at a time number two while the
vision is important you have to be able
to see your feet if you shrink the
change excuse me if you reduce the
perceived pain of the change that one
step is very easy and number three be
selfish make choices that are right for
you within any change find the ones find
what’s in it for you and use that to
motivate yourself be naive do not
believe anybody when they tell you you
can’t change the world but start with
yourself and number three be willfully
optimistic choose to believe that
tomorrow will be better than today and
when you fall down get back up and keep going