This is a book about how large, complex organizations (anyone thinking "school district"?) can face "adaptive" challenges, i.e., challenges requiring the organization to change in ways that will allow it to do what it has never done before and threats to the organization's existence-- and the kind of leadership required.

The authors distinguish between "operational" and "adaptive" leadership.  "Operational" leadership is sufficient for simply performing efficiently in a stable environment when the premises of "social engineering" hold:

1. Leaders as Head, Organization as Body -- (only intelligence allowed within system is that emanating from the close and closed circle of upper leadership)
2. The Premise of Predictable Change (assumption of linear system, i.e. that the effects of change programs can be predicted and controlled)
3. An Assumption of Cascading Intention (programs are defined at the top, then communicated and rolled out with the assumption that the intention of the program will be understood and owned by the ranks and the program implemented in accordance with that intention.

How many times has the top hierarchy of a schools system "figured out" what needed to be done, assumed they could design a "program" that would achieve the desired results, and the focused on "communicating" the program in a "roll out"?

In contrast, when faced with an adaptive challenges (e.g., create a school system that "hooks" almost all students into sufficient levels of work to learn to a level previously thought possible for only a few), adaptive leadership is required.  Here are my notes on adaptive leadership:

p. 40 "If adaptive intention is required, the social system must be disturbed in a profound and prolonged fashion.  Magnifying a threat or utilizing organizational devices to propagate "genetic diversity" then becomes important.  Adaptive leaders don't move too quickly or reach for a quick fix.  Rather (taking actions quite the opposite of social engineering), they emphasize mobilizing followers deep within the ranks to help find the way forward.  This is achieved, as Heifetz describes it, by (1) communicating the urgency of the adaptive challenge (i.e., the threat of death), (2) establishing a broad understanding of the circumstance creating the problem, to clarify why traditional solutions won't work (i.e., sustaining disequilibrium), and (3)  holding the stress in play until guerrilla leaders come forward with solutions (i.e., making room for genetic diversity).  This sequence generates anxiety and tension."

 p. 48  Adaptive leaders can be frozen out when followers don't want to face the bad news (e.g., Churchill's warnings to the British Public about Hitler prior to World War II).

 "Followers often turn to authority as a bulwark against the associated uncertainty and risk.  'The essential work of adaptive leadership is to resist these appeals,' state Ronald Heifetz.  'Instead, they must

(1)   hold the collective feet to the fire

(2)   regulate distress such that the system is drawn out of its comfort zone (yet contain stress so it does not become dysfunctional) and

(3)  manage avoidance mechanisms that inevitably surface (such as scapegoating, looking to authority for the answer, and so forth.'

The authors then go on to give examples such as Monsanto, Sears, the US Army, and BP Explorations of how leaders have helped organizations make adaptive changes, and of some of the approaches that have worked.  For those that believe school systems must change and change fairly radically to achieve the goals our political leaders are setting, this is a thought-provoking book.  

Here's a web site for the book:

http://www.surfingchaos.com/chaos/index.shtml 

This book says a lot that makes sense to me.  Schlechty's primary argument, here and in Inventing Better Schools, is that the product of schools is work, the customers are students, and the "sale" is a success if students engage in the work, persist through difficulties, get enough satisfaction or even enjoyment from it to enable a subsequent sale of more work, and gain from the work the knowledge and skills that the community wants students to have!  (That last phrase is crucial for those who think talk of student satisfaction and enjoyment leads to engaging, fun activities with zero academic content.)

Schlechty makes these fundamental points in Inventing Better Schools.  In Shaking Up the Schoolhouse, however, he looks at why it is difficulty for schools, and, indeed, school systems to CHANGE in ways that allow this to happen.  He notes that school systems are not "change adept" and suggests that educational leaders (superintendents and school boards) often mistake "change projects" or "change programs" for "change-adept organizations". (Citing Rosabeth Moss Kanter at p. 41.)  Change projects are short-term, specific, and aimed at a particular problem.  Change programs are interrelated sets of change projects designed to have a major cumulative impact on the organization.  Change adept organizations: 

• are capable of continuous innovation, 
• embrace change as an internally desired opportunity before it becomes an externally driven threat, and
• mobilize many people in the organization to contribute.

What's really interesting to me is to compare Schlechty's "change adept organizations" to the examples in Surfing the Edge of Chaos of organizations successfully "surfing" the demands of adaptive change.

Schlechty proposes that by "Working on the Work", teachers can create and sell work that will help students achieve at the levels new "standards-based" systems are seeking.  And it is ONLY when teachers are "working on the work" that this can happen.  Schelchty notes that this requires a change in teachers' conception of their roles:

"At present, too few teachers view themselves as inventors of work for children, and too many see themselves as implementers of programs. . . .  The understanding that is needed is that in the end it is not what the teacher does that counts.  What matters is what the teacher is able to get the students to do with enthusiasm, commitment and persistence."

p. 91.

Schlechty the outlines a framework for WOW (Working On the Work).  To me, this whole approach fits very well with both the techniques for surfing the edge of chaos outlined above and the concept of Lesson Study.  WOW would provide an approach for teachers struggling to improve lessons in their Lesson Study sessions.  It helps teachers move into the role of instructional leaders.  Schlechty writes:

"The WOW framework clearly requires new thinking.  It requires teachers to think of themselves as leaders and inventors rather than performers and clinicians.  It requires teachers to view students as volunteers and customers... .  It requires teachers to renounce the notion that most of what affects the performance of children is beyond the control of teachers and schools and to embrace the idea that most failures in learning arise because the schools have yet to invent work that will motivate the student to expend the energy to do what needs to be done to learn what needs to be learned.  Indeed the WOW framework requires teachers, parents and others to renounce the idea that individual ability is the chief source of variance in performance and to embrace the notion that effort and persistence are the primary source of variance."

p. 154

Dr. Schlechty is President of the Center for Leadership in School Reform, www.clsr.org. 

Mr. Maister is a leading, world-wide management consultant to professional services firms (lawyers, accountants, etc.).  I have argued that, when we feel the need to analogize schools and teachers to some other field, the comparison should be to consultants, not workers in a plant.  Following that analogy, what lessons can be drawn from Mr. Maister's guidance concerning the management of professionals?  And where can this analogy take us overall?

First, Mr. Maister says that many professional firms have trouble with a disconnect between their "espoused values" (what they say the believe in) and their "values-in-action" (what they actually manage, measure and discuss -- the things that have "nagging rights").  He suggests that profitability and technical competence are the only too things where professionals in firms always grant each other nagging rights and are intolerant of failure.  What are the things that, if a teacher fails to do them, will always result in concern, support, assistance, counseling, and, if these fail, more negative consequences?  Would anyone list instructional quality in this list?

Second, the difference between average and great firms is not, in the author's opinion, creative strategies, intellectual horsepower, or frontier technologies -- all are about equal in these areas.  Rather, "The dominant competitive advantage consists of passion and persistence.  Those who win are not necessarily smarter than their competitors, but they do show more energy, excitement, enthusiasm, drive and commitment."  If this is the case, we should monitor,  preserve and attempt to increase the passion, drive, energy, and caring of teachers for the academic achievement of students through policy and management.  How do we do this?  Through the power of the personal.  This can be one-on-one, especially for neophytes.

  "Most professionals would report that the most important part of their own development was the opportunity to work with a senior professional and carefully observe him or her in action."  p. 110.

Or it can be amplified and institutionalized for mature professionals:

"Once tactic above all others is most powerful in helping professionals to succeed:  effectively functioning, small-scale practice groups. p. 94.

This book also provokes some interesting thought on some current approaches to generating  change in the behavior of teachers:

Standards: The current focus on standards is, to some extent, based on the idea that clearly stating what we want for students will be enough to cause teachers to change instructional approaches to achieve those standards.  Maister writes:

"Believing in a goal, understanding its benefits, and knowing what to do to reach it all are insufficient to get us to change our ways. ...What, then, will get us to change? For most of us, the answer lies in supplementing self-discipline with some form of external conscience... 'nagging rights'." pp. 59-60

Pay for Performance:  This is a hot topic, with some states going so far as to mandate that districts develop some such approach.  Maister indicates that high-performing professional firms tend toward group financial incentives and social controls for individuals.  He suggests that individual pay-for-performance schemes are often a way to avoid the hard work of controls:

"In essence, individual performance-based reward systems represent, in many cases, a perfect excuse to abdicate responsibilitiy for coaching, counseling, and assisting (i.e., an excuse not to manage)." p.86

The Cognitive Economy:  In my summary below of Smart Schools by David Perkins, there is a section entitled "The Cognitive Economy."  Perkins raises the question of why students would want to work hard to learn and teachers work hard to get them to learn.  In addition to Perkins' suggestions, Maister suggests that the accepted and normal productivity level of a firm (school or system) can be changed through its group structure, technology, support systems and marketing.  In other words, systems that go with a particular culture can help create that culture.  "Get started on the systems , and the philosophy will follow." p. 104.

The cover of this book goes on to say, "Here is a proven plan of action to empower teachers, parents, businesses, and private citizens to revitalize American education."  That's stretching it a little, especially since some of the key aspects of this approach (open choice of schools, differential funding based on student needs) are either antithetical to the approach Nashville has taken (open choice) or not yet enacted (differential funding).  Interestingly, I was able to visit Seattle in March and spend a good bit of time with their Superintendent, Joseph Olchefske, and a long-time Board member, Don Nielsen.  I also got to visit with the head of their Alliance for Education, Robin Pasquarella.  There are other components of the Seattle system's effort we should consider emulating, including:

• A regular system of surveying parents about their satisfaction with the system (and a goal for this year of 80% "definitely satisfied")
• A coordinated system for public support through the alliance
• Fundraising training for schools, with central coordination
• A computerized complaint tracking system tied to a Customer Service Department charged with getting complaints quickly (maybe on the first phone call) to the party that can answer them.

Culture is critical in schools.  Here's Gen. Stanford's comment on the culture of the education system:

"The culture as a whole is averse to taking risks.  It's a culture of consensus, of reviewing every theory, idea, and bit of research before a decision is made and then deferring the decision until almost every stakeholder agrees.  It becomes all too easy to analyze the problems and the answers endlessly, rather than take a risk and act.  In the process, we shortchange our children.

 

This is the story of the effort of Kennewick School District in Washington (www.ksd.org) to meet a goal of having 90% of their third graders reading at grade level.  Lynn Fielding, listed as an author, but holder of the copyright, is a tax attorney and had, at the time of the book, 12 years on their board.  Nancy Kerr is president of the Reading Foundation (described in the book), and a former Board member.  Paul Rosier is the Superintendent.

After noting the tremendous difference in exposure to knowledge that accrues for frequent readers vs. infrequent readers, the authors list the fundamentals of their approach:

• A clear measurable goal, set by the Board
• A system for measuring, K-3
• Achievement reported in grade-level euivalents (e.g., "3rd garde, 5th month as opposed to, say "51st percentile)  -- They use the Northwest Education Evaluation Association (www.nwea.org) tests.  These tests have been recommended to me by other sources I trust
• A district-wide position paper  explaining the ground rules, including each school developing its plan for incremental, continous improvement over three to four years.
• Parental (and community) involvement through a thorough and continuing effort to get parents to read to children 20 minutes a day from birth through grade school.

This book , a work of the National Research Council, condenses and organizes a great deal of research from the fields of cognitive psychology, child development, social psychology, and neuroscience into the framework of teaching and learning.  The research is fascinating.  I especially was intrigued by the information on how experts differ from novices in their approaches to problems, and how teaching those approaches, and the "big picture" elements of a field, can radically improve learning.  This book really does show the extent to which the challenge of helping all students learn serious material to a high standard is "rocket science." 

Further, the book backs up the importance of culture in schools:  "The relationship among adults who live in a school has more to do with the character and quality of the school and with the accomplishments of the students than any other factor."  p. 147, citing Barth, 1988.

Key findings presented based on quality research:

1.  Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works.  If their initial understanding understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.

2.  To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must:

• have a deep foundation of factual knowledge
• understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and
• organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

3.  A "metacognitive" (thinking about their own learning) approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning goals and monitor their progress in achieving them.

Suggested implications for teaching include:

1.  Teachers must draw out and work with the pre-existing understandings that their students bring with them.

2.  Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge.

3.  The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas.

This best seller focuses on non-linear social changes -- the times when an "epidemic" breaks out.  Such epidemics can be a fashion fad (the revival of Hush Puppies) or an important cultural change (the sudden reduction in crime in New York in the early 1990's).  Drawing heavily on social and behavioral psychology research, but in a very readable fashion, Mr. Gladwell suggests Three Rules of Epidemics:

1. The Law of the Few:  A very few individuals make a difference in the initiation and spread of a cultural epidemic.  Three categories of such individuals are "Connectors" (the masters of weak personal ties to a great many folks), "Mavens" (knowledge accumulators and analyzers with an almost compulsive need to share), and "Salesmen"  (extraordinarily capable influencers).  

2.  The Stickiness Factor:  some ideas and trends are just "stickier".  This part of the book includes a fascinating discussion of the stickiness of  "Sesame Street" and how "Blue's Clues" has taken that "stickiness" for pre-schoolers to a new level.

3.  The Power of Context:  This includes the "broken window" theory of crime prevention, the Fundamental Attribution Error, and Channel Capacity (7 + or - 2), Sympathy Groups (12) and Group Size (150).  

The Fundamental Attribution error stems from the fact that we "instinctively want to explain the world around us in terms of people's essential attributes."  In other words, athletes who hit their shots are better basketball players than those who don't, even if one group is shooting in a dimly-lighted gym and the other in a well-lighted gym.  And, kids who cheat are cheaters, despite research that demonstrates that whether a child cheats and how much varies consistently with contextual factors.

The Group Size points are very interesting for education.  British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has shown that the size of the neocortex (the part of the brain that deals with complex thought and reasoning) in primates seems to be most closely correlated with one thing:  the average size of the group in which the primates live.  Humans have the largest neocortex and can handle the largest group size:  about 150.  Dunbar found that, for 21 different hunter-gatherer societies for which we have solid historical evidence, the average number of people in their villages was 148.4.  The number pops up in many places, including modern business where, for example, Gore Associates, the company that manufactures Gore-Tex fabric, keeps all its operating units to 150, and has a flatter, more responsive organization than its competitors.

The implications for this in schooling are fascinating.  For example, in complete harmony with the research on small schools, Mr. Gladwell says, "If we want to, say, develop schools in disadvantaged communities that can successfully counteract the poisonous atmosphere of their surrounding neighborhoods, this tells us we're probably better off building lots of little schools than one or two big ones."  P. 182.

What kind of epidemics would we want to start in education?  An epidemic of instructional improvement among teachers?  An epidemic of academic effort among students?  Who would be the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen for such epidemics?  How could a system best organize to provide a supportive context for such epidemics?  What would make those changes "stickier"?  General commentary on this book has pointed out that it doesn't provide many answers for such questions.  But, asking the right questions may be a good start.

I actually heard Dr. Nass present on this book a national meeting of CLE planners.  Fascinating.  The title really says it all.  Drs. Reeves and Nass have done numerous social psychology experiments which were originally done with two persons, and substituted some electronic medium (often a computer), for one of the individuals.  For example, in the "flattery effect", experiments have shown that subjects will rate folks providing assistance higher in knowledge, helpfulness, etc. if the assisters praise the subjects, even if the subjects know the praise isn't based on real knowledge and is just being "practiced."  Replace the assisters with computers running a program and exactly the same phenomenon occurs.  Much of this book tries to point the way to how companies can use this knowledge to better design computer and other technology products.  The implications for Computer Assisted Instruction and Distance Learning applications are obvious.

This book explores the videotape study of 8th-grade mathematics education that was part of the TIMSS.  I won't do a long summary as the elements of Lesson Study, described in the book, are fully dealt with in that portion of this site.  This is the book we bought for all teachers at the beginning of the 2000-2001 school year.  It is clearly written and interesting for anyone with a real interest in improving teaching and learning in our schools. 

All books about education have to address the question of why what we have right now isn't good enough.  Schlechty's answer:   "In a society where the ability to work with information and knowledge is the key to employability in well-paying jobs and essential to effective citizenship, it is no longer enough to have a relative few who are well educated.  Today, most must be well educated." (p.12)

He goes on to write: "The aim of schooling is an educated citizenry, but the core business of schooling is engaging students in work that results in their learning what they need to learn to be viewed as well educated in American society." (p.31)

Schlechty suggests that our schools currently function primarily to select and sort students on the basis of their willingness and ability to do particular forms of schoolwork.  He suggests that we should view the business of schools as "designing activities (knowledge work) that students find engaging and from which they learn things that are of social and cultural value." 

In this view, the "products" of schools are the tasks that are presented to students as worthy of their best efforts.  Schools are responsible not for producing student learning -- that goal requires community support, parental involvement, and student effort.  It is tremendously affected by the pre-school and extra-school nurture and care provided to children by their parents and society.   Schools do not control these things and are not responsible for them.  But, schools do control and are responsible for the quality of the work assigned, offered, or suggested to students.

So, how do we create a system of education where significantly more teachers, in significantly more schools, spend a greater proportion of the time and resources at their disposal in presenting to students engaging work that causes students to master important skills and knowledge?  Vouchers and charter schools are two popular proposals today.  Schlechty argues that, although in the short term, either of these approaches might seem to be working, in the long term they would not cause significant improvement.  Either of these approaches isolates individual schools.   While such isolated schools may be able to tailor themselves to gain the approval and support of a certain set of parents, they are unlikely to be any more successful than we are today at meeting the larger demands of the community.  And, they will be far too small, isolated, and disconnected from one another to effectively battle for the autonomy and resources that schools and teachers need to succeed.

Schlechty believes that school and community leaders, if willing to acknowledge the importance of the work assigned to children and the necessity of involvement in the invention and implementation of that work, can create rules, regulations, policies, union contracts, and changes in state, federal and local laws, that will encourage, protect, sustain, and nurture continuous effort by teachers and principals to improve the quality of the work offered to students.  Further, such leaders can create a system where teachers and principals will be able to acknowledge when their efforts have not created the quality of work desired, and go back to the drawing board without having to defend their efforts by denying any shortcomings. 

For more on Phillip Schlechty and his ideas, visit the Center for Leadership in School Reform

Culture is critical.  Schools cannot be the places we want them to be for our students without positive, healthful, powerful cultures.  And, unless our schools become such places, our students cannot achieve as in the ways we want for them.  Principals must (oh no! not another "must" for principals!) be cultural leaders.  They must be able to help shape and grow, and sometimes reclaim from toxicity, the cultures of their schools.  This book gives some analysis and some stories that can help principals and other leaders get some handle on this issue of culture.

Smart Schools:  Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child by David Perkins (1992)

All books about education have to address the question of why what we have right now isn't good enough.  Perkins' answer:  fragile knowledge and poor thinking. 

Knowledge is "fragile" if it is:

*missing (students don't know enough),

*inert (students don't use what they know),

*naive (simplistically plausible but wrong ideas such as that summer is hotter because the earth is closer to the sun that linger even after studies should have dispelled them -- such as in graduating seniors at Harvard!), or

*ritual (part of the "school game" -- I don't understand this one:  seems like inert to me)

"Poor thinking": this is lack of facility with "thinking" strategies such as applying mathematical concepts to a "story problem" or organizing, drawing inferences, interpreting, and defending their analyses of events, literature, and facts.

Perkins presents lots of evidence to show that students come out of schools (and good colleges!) with too-fragile knowledge and some "poor thinking" habits.  He identifies a view of education as an accumulation of a large repretoire of facts and routines and a view of students he calls "ability-counts-most" (as opposed to "effort-counts-most") as two causes for fragile knowledge and poor thinking.

Perkins goes on to spend much of the book discussing the types of learning experiences which seem to result in more robust knowledge and better thinking.  The examples and studies he quotes are very interesting, but I would summarize it as:   students who are engaged and struggling with well-chosen tasks, problems, and controversies end up with more robust knowledge and better thinking skills.

Two points he makes that really struck me:

"Person-plus" versus "person-solo" intelligence: My ability to understand and contribute is greater if I have access to tools and repositories of information that I have mastered.  For example, this web site is, in some ways, part of the "person-plus" intelligence of Dave Shearon.   My familiarity with various software programs is part of my intelligence if I have access to those tools.  And, when presented with a challenge at work, the staff, vendors, and consultants I work with, and my ability to communicate and interact with those folks can increase my problem-solving capability.

The Cognitive Economy: Why should students work hard and struggle with problems?  It's easier to just remember the stuff until the test, especially if it is low-level "stuff".  What payoff should we expect them to see for working much harder to get a deeper, fuller understanding?  And, why should teachers ask them to do more.  Parents will complain.  Principals won't be supportive. And policy makers won't understand.  So, just "cover" the material, give "tests" aimed at low-level understanding, assign grades and move on.  But, many teachers want to see students learn, and learn well.  I believe this, coupled with the fact that value-added assessment analysis of standardized test data really does reward good teaching and learning, may be enough to motivate moves toward a "hot", more demanding cognitive economy.

Perkins includes a section on what he believes are the necessary components to successful, wide-scale moves toward better learning.  In my words, these are:

• No piling on. (Can't be just added on top of all the other responsiblities of teachers.)

• Let teachers create. (No teacher-proof packages.   Teachers must be engaged in thinking and working together on assessing and improving the learning experiences they offer students.)

• Success for the average teacher and school. (Cannot be dependent on exceptional skills, effort levels, or "hot-house" support environments.)

• Have strong support materials.

• Cost only a little more.

• At least match the results of the current approach on current assessments.

All in all, this is a very solid book.  Although I sometimes think Dr. Perkins turns three points into five by rephrasing things, the book is basically easy to read.  He illustrates points with examples from the literature and includes frequent, graphically identified summaries.

Since junior high school, science fiction has been my "pleasure" reading (actually, I enjoy reading in general).  This book envisions a future with a tribal social structure layered on much anarchy and chaos, but infused with unbelievable wealth created by nanotechnology.  The interesting part, from an education standpoint, however, is its development of the idea of personalized, computer-assisted instruction (aided by the central premise of the book, the power of nanotechnology).  The story ends up supporting the radical power of general education in society, and its power for individual liberty.  Further, even in this nano-enhanced world, the human element of teaching and learning proves extraordinarily powerful.