ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Consider your own context within your school and with your mentee. How can understanding of controlled disruption and coherence making impact your leadership of peers at this time, and at this level ?For me "controlled disruption" means looking at situations with different perspectives. We need the whole view to understand the situation and make the best possible decision, "coherence." Fullan (2001) states that "the most powerful coherence is a function of having worked through the ambiguities and complexities of hard-to solve problems." To be able to work through these complexities one has to be ready for conflict. Because "conflict is an inevitable part of working together. Conflict can be challenging and destructive, or it can lead to a deeper understanding between people, and perhaps higher quality work from a team" (Aguilar, 2013). Aguilar continues on to talk about 6 different belief systems of educators:
If I were to classify myself I believe I would fall under self-actualization. I like to end units with projects and not tests. I believe students have a different perspective than my own and that they will make sense of information differently than I will. A test does not allow for these differences whereas an open-ended project can. I believe a lot of public officials are Technologist's placing much of decision making on test scores and not considering the rest of the situation. Taking a look at an article title Education at Risk: Fallout from a Flawed Report, Ansaray (2007) points out that the report analyzed the data in only one way. Because of this "educational decisions have been moved as far as possible from the classroom. Federal officials are now in a position to make decisions that would have been unimaginable even two years ago. They've established the criteria for disciplining schools, removing principals and teachers, and even defining appropriate curriculum for American classrooms." Fullan (2001) on the other hand, points out that "People stimulate, inspire, and motivate each other to contribute and implement best ideas, and best ideas mean greater overall coherence." This means that we need to work together. We need teacher voice in these decisions, in my opinion. Also there has been "targeted budget cutting -- on the theory that withholding money from failed programs forces them to shape up." So we are taking away money from schools who don't have resources and giving it to the wealthy schools. In my opinion, we really need to rethink these decisions. I think Fullan (2001) makes a good point that about how we should decide if an idea is good. "The criteria for retaining an idea are (1) Does it work? and (2) Does it feed into our overall purpose? Knowledge sharing, in effect, comprises a continuous, coherence-making sorting device for the organization" (Fullan, 2001). Sources
Aguilar, E. (2013, January 15). Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide. Retrieved April 14, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/educational-beliefs-collide-teachers-elena-aguilar Ansary, T. (2007, March 09). Education at Risk: Fallout from a Flawed Report. Retrieved April 14, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/landmark-education-report-nation-risk Fullan, M. (2001). Chapter Six. Coherence Making. In Leading in a culture of change. (pp. 107-119) Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf
7 Comments
Natalie
4/15/2017 06:38:19 pm
I found the 6 different belief systems of educators very interesting. This is something I will take into account and try to understand the next time conflict arises in the workplace. There are some descriptions that I find myself connecting more so than others. I agree, if we can understand the 6 belief systems we can find out where the other person is coming from and find coherence between different points of view.
Reply
Sara Lucas
4/16/2017 09:59:02 am
I could imagine a teacher for each of the categories except the first one. I can definitely see myself in a few of the categories but self-actualization seemed to stick out the most.
Reply
4/15/2017 07:10:30 pm
I think one of my main disruptions comes from the idea that our current education system is supposedly set up to produce students that are “productive citizens in the 21st century and can compete in a global economy”, or some similar school mission statement. How can we attain these goals when they are so vague, yet sound so inspiring? Our graduation requirements are still the same as 20-30 years ago! (4 years English, 3 years Math, 2 years Science, etc.) I don’t see a change, I see the same foundation with a little more “icing” to make it look better, but at the core, it is the same old methods and practices. I really think in order to make significant changes, we need to overhaul our curriculum and reconsider what is important to learn in this “global economy” we are preparing students for. I probably will get some haters out there, but there is some benefit for creating charter schools around the country these days. Our current system is broke and we need some type of change, quickly. Not in 15 more years because it takes that long for ideas to take hold in traditional education. (Sorry for venting. All this talk about disruptions and change when really none is happening!)
Reply
Sara Lucas
4/16/2017 09:57:12 am
I agree that our system is broke. I think there are schools who have "disrupted" the typical school and some are succeeding. I believe too many teachers fear what will happen if they change things up on their own. We need leaders who aren't afraid to challenge the norms and who believe in the teachers ability to do what is right for the students they are teaching.
Reply
4/16/2017 08:44:37 am
Sarah,
Reply
Sara Lucas
4/16/2017 09:59:57 am
Most definitely. It was an eye-opener for me as well.
Reply
Jim
4/16/2017 05:16:28 pm
I love the fact that you included the "Nation At Risk" report. I had always felt (just gut feeling) it was wrong or at the very least misleading, but never looked into it more. Thank you for juxtaposing with the Sandia report. Unfortunately I think that '83 report started us down a path that terrible unintended consequences. And yes, I do believe that in all the talk about what's "wrong" with our system and the best way to "fix" it, the teacher voice is drowned out.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Educational Technology LeadershipCategories
All
|