Facilitating curriculum changes in school

1
Facilitating curriculum changes in school

• Whole school development
• the role of school principal

2
Group discussion

• In your school, what are the major difficulties
  you have encountered in curriculum improvement?
• How does the school authority tackle them?
• Time 20 minutes

3
Values and beliefs

• People uphold different values and beliefs
• aims and goals of education
• means of education
• willingness to involve
• etc.
• This variation not only the societal level
• also in school
• (see for example, Finnan Levin, 2000)

4
Reflection

• Many researches indicate the existence of school
  culture (Hargreaves, Sarason etc.)
• At the school level, it is not difficult to
  identify some distinctive cultural traits,
  particularly in well-established schools
• But do teachers all agree with the values and
  beliefs of the dominant school culture?
• What is your observation?

5

• Such differences among sub-groups in school can
  also be found in societal level.
• Chinese culture
• do all the chinese uphold the same values and
  beliefs in all areas?

6

• The concept of culture, whether used to describe
  schools or larger societies is not easy to
  define. It is something that surrounds us, gives
  meaning to our world and is constantly being
  constructed both through our interactions with
  others and through our reflections on life and
  our world. Culture is so implicit in what we do
  that it dulls our knowledge that it is there.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.88)

7

• The seemingly contradictory fact that culture is
  both conservative and ever changing. On the one
  hand, culture is essentially conservative,
  protecting people from that unknown, providing
  answers to what would otherwise be unanswerable.
  On the other hand, culture is also ever changing.
  It adapts to influences from other cultures and
  from changes in the physical, social and
• political environment.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.88)

8

• At the societal, school culture is more
  appropriately termed the culture of schooling. It
  is at this level that culture appears to be most
  conservative and resistant to change, because it
  exists primarily at an abstract, generalized
  level. The culture of schooling creates and
  perpetuates the image members of our society call
  forth when they think of education, schools and
  schooling.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.89)

9

• The shared culture of schooling is responsible
  for the stability is the size and design of
  classrooms, in the persistence of school
  activities and practices that have characterized
  schooling since the beginning of the twentieth
  century and in the egg crate structure vividly
  described by Lortie. The culture of schooling
  perpetuates a view of schooling in which teachers
  are responsible for the transmission of knowledge
  and culture and for shaping the minds of
  children. For this reason, the public is most
  comfortable when the teachinglearning process is
  dominated by a teacher and textbooks. Many people
  assume that learning can occur only when the
  teacher orchestrates it from the front of the
  class.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.89)

10

• We use the term school culture to describe the
  unique culture of each school this is culture at
  the local level. A schools culture accounts for
  why it feels, looks, sounds and smells different
  from any other school.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.89-90)

11

• Unlike the culture of schooling, school culture
  is constantly changing. It accommodates a
  continuous influx of new people (administrators,
  faculty, students, parents), new directives from
  the district and from state and federal agencies,
  and new directions recommended by professional
  organizations, institutions of higher education
  and unions. School cultures may not change in the
  ways external change agents want, but they do
  change.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.90)

12

• Teachers and administrators working in schools
  serving at-risk children often feel inferior to
  their colleagues in more affluent school.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.91)

13

• In many schools, the culture allows for
  considerable variation among teachers on how and
  what to teach. This does not usually arise from a
  respect for diverse teaching strategies but from
  limited discourse among teachers and a lack of
  communication with parents on effective teaching.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.92)

14

• Teachers and administrators often actively and
  passively resist externally imposed change
  because the proposed changes do not fit their
  school culture, are not well designed or are not
  presented in an understandable way. There are
  schools, however, that encourage and foster
  change and continuous improvement, especially if
  the change build on the strengths of the existing
  school culture.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.92)

15

• But individuals who join the school as staff,
  parents and students also have personal histories
  which reinforce school culture through
  self-selection. The involvement of participants
  in a school is hardly a random event. Students
  from fairly homogeneous and neighborhoods attend
  schools that reflect community values,
  aspirations and expectation. Even when choosing
  public schools outside their neighborhoods and
  private schools, families select school
  environments that reinforce their beliefs about
  what schools should do. School staff to choose
  environment and practices that they feel most
  attracted to and comfortable with.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.92)

16

• It is important to acknowledge school culture
  explicitly because it has consequences for both
  stability and change. We have emphasized the
  stability and conserving nature of school
  culture, in that it is like a vast web of
  intricate and interlocking ideas, values, beliefs
  and practices that protect the school from
  change. Both societally and locally it protects
  participants from external pressures for change
  because of its comprehensive and ubiquitous
  nature. Pressures for change tend to be piecemeal
  can only pierce a small part of this protective
  web, while the vast remainder remains intact. In
  this respect school culture serves as a barrier
  to change and effectively fends off attempts to
  transform the school.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.93)

17
Micropolitics in schools

• So far we have only discussed the problem of
  cultural differences.
• In reality, politics in school may further
  aggravate the problem.
• For details, we can look at the work by Ball
  (1987), Henderson Hawthorne (2000) also

18
Conflicts

• originated from
•  ideological differences
• "refer to matters of value and philosophical
  commitment."
•  vested interest
• "refer to the material concerns of teachers as
  related to working conditions rewards from work,
  career and promotion access to and control of
  resources in the school

19
Conflicts

• self interest
• "refer to the sense of self or identity claimed
  or aspired to by the teacher, the sort of teacher
  a person believes themselves to be or want to be
  (e.g. subject specialist, educator, pastoralist,
  administrator."
•  
• (Ball, 1987, p.17)

20
Key concepts of the micro-political perspective

• power 
• goal diversity 
• ideological disputation 
• conflict 
• interests
• political activity 
• control
• (Ball, 1987)

21
Conflict perspective

• Baldridge (1971) main tenets
• 1. conflict theorists emphasizes the
  fragmentation of social systems into interest
  gps. each with its own particular goals
• 2. conflict theorists study the interaction of
  these dif. interest gps. and esp. the conflict
  processes by which one gp. tries to gain adv,
  over another

22
Conflict perspective

• 3. interest gps. cluster around divergent values
  and the study of conflicting interests is a key
  part of the analysis
• 4. the study of change is a central feature of
  the conflict approach, for change is to be
  expected if the social sys. is fragmented by
  divergent values and conflicting interest gps.  
• (Ball, 1987, p.18)

23
School An arena of struggle

• actual or potential conflict between members
• conflicts because of ideological differences,
  vested interests, self-interest
• maintaining control and resolve the conflicts no
  fixed pattern
• partly because school peculiar char. (Collins)
• structure loose, poorly coordinated

24
Action and decision-making in school

• not an abstract rational process
• involve
• compromise
• negotiations
• trade-offs
• threats
• pressure
• underhand dealing
• (Ball, 1987, p.26)

25
How could schools survive?

• If we agree that there are significant
  differences among school members, particularly
  teachers,
• If teachers beliefs contradict, the whole school
  may fall apart.
• However, most schools have not reached that
  level.
• Why?

26
Goals of education abstract, varied and
diversified

• So many educational decisions are value-laden and
  ideological
• Differences between depts and among teachers
  ideological foundation
• "In the normal course of events such differences
  are obscured or submerged in the welter of
  routine activities and interaction.
• also the loose-coupling structure

27
Structure of school

• "Anarchic organization"
• "It is anarchic in the sense that the
  relationship between goals, members and
  technology is not as clearly functional as
  conventional organization theory indicates that
  it will be." (Bell, 1980, p.187)
• (Ball, 1987, p.12)

28

• However, at times of crisis or change, or in
  moments of reflection (occasional days, staff or
  dept. meetings). straightforward points of
  contention over practice can quickly lay bare
  deep divisions in teaching ideology.
• (Ball, 1987, p.14)
• "The ideological diversity of schools is
  frequently contained by a deliberate policy of
  loose-coupling. Depts. or other sub-units... are
  left to their own devices. (p.15)

29
School principal Important role
30
The importance of principal in school success

• Hall et al. (1987) principal crucial to
  success
• Mortimore et al. (1988) longitudinal study of 50
  schools in England
• single out 'purposeful leadership of the staff by
  the headteacher" key in schools found to be
  effective on a variety of academic and
  non-academic criteria.
•  "In short, the school principal more than anyone
  else can bring successful school improvement into
  sharp focus.
• Fullan, 1992, p.96

31
The importance of principal in school success

• "We have begun to make the transition fr. the
  principal's role in influencing the impl. of
  specific innovations to the principal's role in
  leading changes in 'the school as an
  organization'. The implication is that we have to
  look deeper and more holistically at the
  principal and the school as an organization."
• (Fullan ,1992, p.84-5)

32
Role of managers

• Plan deciding what to do how to do it
• Organise arranging resources the best way
• Direct Motivating people to work well
• Control Measuring performance cost
• Which of the above roles are most important?

33
Principals Many roles

• change agent
• pressure regulator
• morale booster
• resource supplier
• climate generator

34
Principal

• manager of operation
• major concern smooth functioning of the building
• spend more time in their office than in corridors
  and classrooms, attend numerous meetings outside
  of the building, remove themselves from the daily
  concerns of movt. of students and life in
  classrooms and establish social distance from the
  faculty
• Lieberman Miller, 1984, p.55

35
Principal

• leader of instruction
• encourage instructional excellence, visit
  classroom, talk with teachers about heir teaching
  concerns, initiate program review and
  revitalization
• active participant in the life of the school
•  

36
Principal's commitment to curr. work

• "... few educational roles are less clearly
  defined than that of the principal. He is
  continually barraged by a series of uncoordinated
  and often contradictory sets of expectations fr.
  dif. groups from within and outside his own
  school community.
• (Ross, 1980, p.219)
• "Research consistently found that a large
  percentage of principals (at least one-half) were
  preoccupied with adm. work and organizational
  maintenance activities.
• (Fullan, 1984, p.100)

37
Management styles

• Four types
•  interpersonal
•  managerial
• adversarial
• authoritarian
• (Ball, 1987, p.87)

38

• Interpersonal head
• "rely primarily on personal relationships and
  face-to- face contact to fulfill their role"
• Managerial head
• "have major recourse to committees, memoranda
  and formal procedures"
• Adversarial head
• "tends to relish argument and confrontation to
  maintain control"

39

• Authoritarian head
• "avoids and stifles argument in favour of dictat"
• (Ball, 1987, p.87)
• "An understanding of the way that schools change
  (or stay the same) and therefore of the practical
  limits and possibilities of educational devt.,
  must take account of intra-organization process."
•  (Ball, 1987, p.3)

40
Interpersonal

• mobile and visible head
• personal interaction, face to face contact
• individual negotiation and compromises
• informality
• communication does not flow through a formal
  hierarchy
• staff members are encouraged to think of
  themselves as autonomous professionals
• set up a sense of mutual obligation, loyalty,
  consideration

41
Interpersonal

• weaknesses
• the decision-making mechanism comes to be seen as
  an elusive and mysterious process as inaccessible
  and behind doors
• absence of structure, procedures and methods
• the divine right of heads
• to make it successful, headteacher needs to have
  excellent social skills
• "charisma" 
• (Ball, 1987)

42
Managerial

• industrial manager
• the head, normally surrounded by a senior
  management team
• formal structure of meetings and committees
• supported and outlined by written communication
• educational concerns also formally defined
  bureaucratic
• information and inf. flow thr. the formal
  channels and structures

43
Adversarial

• rests primarily upon the vehicle of talk
• crucial areas of talk are public rather than
  private
• emphasis on dialogue and not infrequently on
  confrontation
• competing interests and ideologies in the school
  recognized

44
Adversarial

• emphasis is upon persuasion and commitment
• success depends on the ability of the head to
  cope with the uncertainties of the relatively
  unorganized public debate i.e. to deal with
  attacks, to persuade waverers, to provide
  reasoned argument etc.
• allies must be encouraged, at times rewarded
  opponents neutralized or satisfied, as the
  occasion demands

45
Authoritarian

• assert
• statement
• opposition is avoided, disabled or simply ignored
• to reduce talk to a one-way flow

46
Char. of principal's work

• 1. A low no. of self-initiated tasks
• 2. Many activities of short duration
• 3. Discontinuity caused by interruptions
• 4. The superseding of prior plans by the needs of
  others in the organization
• 5. Face-to-face verbal contacts with one other
  person
• 6. Variability of tasks

47
Char. of principal's work

• 7. An extensive network of individuals and groups
• 8. A hectic and unpredictable flow of work
• 9. Numerous unimpt. decisions and trivial agendas
• 10.Few attempts at written communication
• 11.Interactions predominately with subordinates
• 12.A preference for problems an information that
  are specific (rather than general), concrete,
  solvable and currently pressing
• (Pitner, 1982 Mannasse, 1985, 442)

48
Basic dilemma of headteacher

• maintenance of pol. stability within the
  organization
• achieve control (domination) commitment
  (integration)
• The 4 leadership styles are all means to this
  end.
•  The stability may be dynamic and radical
  (adversorial mode) or static and conservative
  (authoritarian mode)
• Stability may be emphasized in terms of
  community and relationship (interpersonal mode)
  or in terms of structures, roles, and procedures
• ( Ball, 1987, p.120)

49
Teacher's autonomy

• a major compromise between freedom and control 
• it may be an illusion of freedom
• as teacher's autonomy is interpreted as limited
  to classroom business
• this limits the range of concerns over which the
  teacher can exercise influence

50
Advice from curriculum change theorists

• Hargreaves, 1995
• Hargreaves, 1998
• Glatthorn, 1997
• Henderson Hawthorne, 2000
• Blasé Blasé, 1998
• Sarason, 1996
• Nias et al. 1992

51

• But one can use school culture as a vehicle for
  effecting and sustaining change, rather than
  trying to undermine it directly or get around it
  surreptitiously. It is unfortunate that school
  culture is viewed only as a conserving force and
  not one that might be used for transformation.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.93)

52

• Establish a shared language, a process for
  ongoing communication, research and professional
  interactions, a highly participatory governance
  structure that incorporates all members and the
  involvement of significant other parts of the
  educational system to support the process of
  change.
• (Finnan Levin, 2000, p.93)

53
Effective middle manager

• need to operate at all modes no single perfect
  style
• whatever style, should be open, clear and
  consistent
• should show to have a major concern for achieving
  tasks and for fulfilling the soc. and prof. needs
  of colleagues
• adaptable to match constantly changing situations
• lead by example
• facilitate others to be leaders
• (Earley Fletcher-Campbell, 1990, p.198)

54
Team building strategies

• willingness to share information, experience and
  expertise
•  well-organized meetings
•  sharing of dept and faculty responsibilities
•  regular social events
•  existence of dept. and faculty offices.
• (Earley Fletcher-Campbell, 1990, p.198 )