Thoughts about change...

The following is a reply to an email sent via the CFF list-serve.  It was written by Ralph Maltese, a former CFF coach, in response to a request for professional perspective as related to an all too common situation.

I'm not sure knowing the particulars of the original post are necessary for us to understand.

What struck me is that, often we face the same questions in our practice, whether we instruct students or other teachers.  Ralph was able to encapsulate the reality for most of us with clarity and precision.

Printed with permission...
Totally understand your frustration……been there, hated that. 
Let’s start with an irrefutable fact----I am old. The good thing about being old is that I have more questions (which are interesting), than answers (which are boring---the question “What would have happened if Lincoln had lived is far more interesting than the answer John Wilkes Booth shot him---all lessons should be problem/question based). 

 But what I do know are two fundamental facts of the universe.
1) Everything changes----the seasons come and go, people come and go, and our solar system is not in the same spot it was one second ago.
2) Most people hate change.

I hope some of what follows is useful to you. Then, again, as I said, I am old.

There is always little picture and big picture. My experience is that most humans rarely consider the big picture, but the big picture is extremely important.

In your scenario, the little picture has its challenges for me because I do not know the structure of your online classes. Are they problem based, project based learning, etc.? Blended? If they are information laden, as I suspect they are, then the online classes will not work. Alert: that style does not work in the conventional classroom either.

What I would do would be to give a sample demonstration of what does work and showcase it at a meeting. Either construct the learning unit yourself or, better yet, find a teacher who is engaging students online and use that as an example. Sometimes, people just do not know. When the Soviet Union broke up, the mayor of a small town complained to American economic advisers that “Ivan keeps raising his prices on the shoes so much we can’t afford them.” The advisers suggested that someone in town open up another shoe store as competition for Ivan. The mayor slapped his forehead, “We never would have thought of that.” People tend to teach the way they were taught, which would be fine if the world had not changed (see fundamental fact #1 above.)

I was a big confronter in the classroom. I figured that was my job. I woke students who tried to sleep in my class even though I knew he would give me a raft of you-know-what. But working with teachers is different. More finesse and sensitivity, which is where the big picture comes in.

Now the big picture which is much harder. My experience tells me that people only change out of self-interest. Here is where leadership comes in.

Those who know me know that I love and respect teachers. That is NOT a throwaway statement. As much as I honor the profession, I would not pay, as a taxpayer, a teacher who merely dispenses information, no more than I would buy a set of encyclopedias from a door-to-door salesman when I can access that same information quicker and more up to date than in print.

IT IS IN THE TEACHER’S SELF INTEREST TO CHANGE. If teachers were envisioned as creators (people pay for creation) of engaging lessons that help students develop high level thinking skills, then the whole dynamic would change. Consider other professions: a lawyer has his intern look up information, and a doctor does not keep all that information in her brain. But both the lawyer and the doctor know how to access that info and APPLY it so they can solve a problem. If you can get teachers to consider teaching in this context, it changes the focus of the classroom/school.

Working with teachers, especially those recalcitrant ones, I worked hard to find what was behind the fear/anger of change. Teachers get bashed a great deal. Sometimes they are just tired of being told what to do because what they are doing is wrong. (See my signature at the end of this email). Others, quite honestly, are lazy. The latter are your administrator’s problem, not yours. Most of them have to have their egos bolstered. As one Chinese emperor stated it, “the trick behind leadership is to get them to believe that it is their idea.”

Being a creator is far more exciting for me than an information dispenser. And looking at the classroom as an engaging problem (how does one engage 30 students from diverse backgrounds in high level thinking in a four sided cinder-block pale green painted room is a challenge) is far more interesting for the creator than “Today I have to get out the shovel and start piling it on again.” I respected myself more as a creator than as an assembly line worker.

Another fundamental fact that I still believe in my senility is that “you can only build on strengths; it is difficult to build on weaknesses.” (this is sad, because most of our educational system is predicated on remediation---just to satisfy those damn standardized test scores.) Discover what your best teachers are good at, and build on that. I had teachers that were good organizers, and I tried to lead them from there into the creative field. I took the more creative teachers and tried to show them the organizational advantages of computer systems.  You don’t ask a four hundred pound .350 home run hitter to bunt with the bases loaded. 

Lastly, and if you read this far you have been patient with me, and I appreciate that, you are not alone. Many of us faced and are facing the same challenges. You have a voice here and kindred spirits. Use this listserv. Take care, and I hope this helps somewhat. Ralph

Ralph welcomes you to visit his website - and use what you find of benefit.  His writings and projects can be found at http://ralphmaltese.com/   

Thanks Ralph.