Schools and compentences ( Author: Klaas Fokkinga)

Schools and compentences

Society is evolving and every organisation – thus also a school- is invited to respond to its movements.

When the outside world changes, the school should try and re-harmonise with it. Obviously, not every school voluntarily wants to do this or is either convinced or successful.

Also in primary education the risk of failure is present.

Competences of the people involved are required to change and that is not always realised in time.

Other managers and directors will want to be ahead of the developments.

Therefore they will actively try to introduce their school to the changes.

That means it is important to recognise developments, distinguish between what are minor and major changes and translate that to the school.

The need to change is not only coming from the outside world. The active school or school organisation itself will want to mould the outside world and be active when implementing or reacting to change. The school does not undergo change but is co-maker. This way an intriguing combined action of the inside and the outside world is realised.

Alteration through invitation of the outside world

Developments in the environment of the school are an invitation to change.
Questions related to this issue are: Is the school situated in a city area or in the country? Which other schools are situated there (which educational sectors, which religions)? Is the number of pupils growing or is there an ageing population? Are there no, little or many non-native pupils? Is there collaboration between schools?

Especially national developments (in my country….) have been of great influence over recent years. The government realized it should not enforce everything. Authorities are increasingly put in the hands of the school management, because they know the local situation best and are therefore more capable to actually feel for the needs of pupils, parents and co workers. Since the end of the 80´s there has been a thorough change in and recreation of the relation government – education. Not one dimension of the school remained the same whether it concerned contents of education, staff, school scale and legal body, costs, housing, supervision of the position of parents, etcetera.

Schools will favour deregulation and increasing autonomy because it offers opportunities for individuality and setting out a course of their own. What’s more, setting out and following one’s own course, achieving or strengthening an individual (educational) identity and stimulating people can be of crucial importance for a continued and successful existence of our school. This, however, requires competences of the people involved, not in the last place for managers and directors.

But we should also pay attention to the backside of the opportunities offered by autonomy and deregulation.

Schools themselves are increasingly made responsible for their own successes as well as failures due to the transition of power.

Schools clearly have a larger responsibility with respect to successful staff policy, internal quality care and a clear financial management within their organisation.

In times of insecurity it is necessary to make decisions and actions should be based on clear sense and reason rather than becoming trapped in an all paralysing analysis and stand still.

Professionalization is deemed necessary by many schools due to the increasing complexity of educational implementation, surveillance of quality, modern employerism and exploitation-for-own-risk

A professional management is responsible and involved in the education and clearly distinguishes between what should be management tasks and what should be implementation tasks.

A board of managers should make policy and create preconditions (the preparation of policy included), however the execution of policy is in the hands of the daily management. It is not new that the administrative responsibility has decreased.

On the contrary, administrative responsibility is focused on giving direction, creating conditions and supervision. In short, management remains management but it does other things in less time.

This idea can be put in practice without radical judicial adjustments being necessary. It is the division of tasks that should be agreed upon.

Alteration as co- creator of the environment

A ‘more enterprising’ organisation does not await the latest developments. It has its own vision which is connected to what happens in the outside world.

The organisation has succeeded in combining the very early and weak heralds of change with their own views and wishes.

‘ A vision is a consistent view to the future in which facts, expectations and wishes interrelate. The environment is co- created. There have always been schools that have maximally used the available scope for policymaking to meet the needs of pupils, parents and employees. Although inspired by their environment, they are co- creators in their organisation. They react to developments and are a driving force and co -creator in situations where others wait.

Alteration through the circle of life

Plants, animals and people are all part of the circle of life. Organisations also go through different stages connected to their circle of life. The transition from one phase to the other does not always go without growing pains.

size of organization

large

‘red tape' crisis growth through cooperation

control crisis growth by coordination

autonomy crisis growth by delegation

leadership crises growth by leadership

growth by creativity

small

jung age of organization adult

At a new, just established school there is often a pioneering spirit. There are no fixed routines or habits or trodden paths. It is characterised by motion in stead of peacefulness and there is a mild chaos. More peacefulness and probably more operational efficiency will be found at a school that has existed longer with a clear tradition and a more or less permanent team.

However, that type of school is a lot harder to mobilize.

Both are examples of different phases of life. Schools can neither be eternal pioneers nor remain consolidated in their position. Every school will more or less be driven in the direction of a next phase of life.

Managers and directors should question themselves whether they are capable of a successful and inspiring management of the school in the next phase of life.

Many managers and directors are capable of transforming themselves into the type of leader that is needed during every transition to a next phase or they have the courage and/or wisdom to make place for someone else.

Others stick to the same place without noticing themselves.

Depending on the circumstances they still will adopt the change, forced or not.

Recommendations

Schools and school organisations become increasingly aware of their environment. New developments in the environment force change or create possibilities for inspiring cooperation. Schools are very busy finding a proper balance between a changing environment and their organisation. However, there is a twofold danger with respect to this.

Firstly in some cases, changes is ‘only’ an adjustment once defined in desired changes and its fitting competences. Motion ends up in stagnation and no longer change is viewed as a continuous process requiring steering and ongoing development of competence.

Secondly the huge turbulence in the outside world seems to require a lot of attention at the moment. This sacrifices the attention with respect to the circle of life of the own (your)organisation. The transition from the pioneering phase to the consolidation phase demands a lot of people. Timely contemplation with respect to necessary adjustments and development of desired competences can decrease the problems that rise during a phase transition.

Directors – some of you and me- must make clear that they have eye for the significance of the right people in the right place at the right time.

Also personal development is valued. Still, I do not always succeed in time to analyse the existing competences in relation to what the change requires in the environment and my school. In our school we have policy on recruitment and selection of new employees and on development of existing employees is worked on.

However, it is difficult how already existing or new competences should be identified.

This problem cannot easily be solved because especially the top management only exists of one or two persons and there is no backing of a complete staff.

Therefore the daily administration runs the risk of overcharging the management. Another consequence could be that they, together with all people involved, experience the advantages and disadvantages of a very personal but not always functional style of management.

Managers are expected to actively search for a new balance between a changing environment and the organisation. This means balancing between clear choices on management level and room for variation for schools, between professional management and encourage dialogue and participation, between internal and external, between contents and process and between form and standard.

Therefore I think it's important that administration and management should be assisted with additional research and instrumental development. It concerns:

1. Acquiring clarity on present competences on administrative and management level in a simple way. In addition, naming future desired competences so that changes can be started and continued more successfully.

2. Promoting self reflection and self evaluation so that external environment changes are not the sole drivers of temporary adjustment and continued development of the organisation and how the organisation is managed. Additional consideration should be attributed to comparing the existing personal competences to future changes in the organisation

3. Insight in the circle of life of the school organisation is useful to be promoted so the transition to another phase will go more successful and desired competences can be developed or attracted on time.

A successful team of teachers

How does a teacher know if he/she is really successful in his/her work?

A teacher who gets much appreciation of students is given a rather reliable indication.

Good interaction between students and the teacher is also a way of defining the teacher’s success. But someone who has been teaching for a longer period already knows that appreciation of students is not enough. Gradually everyone who is operative in education realises the criterion for professionalism is not only stipulated by the appreciation of the students or their parents. The decisive factor for providing qualitative education is not the method, use of computer or classroom planning but the way the teacher him or herself acts. Effective acting of teachers is of major importance within a professional work community. Also teachers need to be willing to reflect on their own way of acting and think about what effective acting is.

What does a team member want, what brings about enthusiasm for work?

In general, teachers react the same as pupils. They want to be spoken to on their own competence level and not below or far above it. When you ask too much of a pupil, he or she looses interest. When you ask too little, he or she gets bored. The same goes for teachers.

Just like pupils, teachers want to obtain say over their work in cooperation with other obtained results. Enthusiasm for work is of the utmost importance. It increases people’s readiness to learn and reduces complaints.

However, in the past decades many successful attempts have been made to reduce teachers’ enthusiasm …. ! Gradually the understanding rises that lately external authorities sowed many seeds in education, but could rarely harvest. It was like sowing on rocks. We know now that top-down steered plans and tool stream do not really contribute to the development of teams and thus do not contribute to the development of children. A school team cannot be bigger than the people that work in it. It is as simple as that.

Research has shown that seven factors are the reason for enthusiasm for work:

Fellow-feeling and team spirit

Men want to be member of a group which aims for common objectives. Nearly every teacher wants to be part of a team that jointly and brotherly works to reach their objectives.

Unfortunately many school cultures can be characterized as organizations in which teachers work isolated. Of course there is subject – content - cooperation but the mutual cooperation concerning didactical and pedagogical aspects is less clear.

Also many teams let themselves be lead by the objectives from others. The process of "silent regulation" is a known phenomenon in the area of education. This means that schools themselves behave according to the implicit expectations that the society has of them (for instance inspection standards).

Appreciation and trust

Team members want the administration and management of people to originate from a basis of trust. When there is appreciation for everyone’s commitment and people start working from a basis of trust, there is enough room to both get on in a professional way and give professional feedback to each other's actions.

Good performances

Inside of every person a deep inborn inclination exists to do well. In addition, people like these performances to be noticed. Many schools and teams have completely suppressed the incentive to work through negative external stimuli and a negative group dynamic.

Growth

To permanently do well, most people also continuously want to invest in themselves .

A small category of teachers think that this investment is not necessary because they believe they will be able to function well as a teacher in future.

Physical well being

This means that people would like to do their job in good mental and physical health.

At the same time the work environment and the facilities have to be good.

Put one’s heart and soul in the job

This touches the core of the problems in education. People used to make a motivated choice to work with children. Over the past decades many young talented people have chosen not to work in the area of education because of its bad image, bad building maintenance and bad wages .

Higher sense

Someone who works for e.g. Greenpeace of Doctors without Borders puts his/her heart and soul into his/her work and works for a higher cause . I believe it possible that people will also choose to work in education again for this reason.

It goes without saying that the above list of factors of enthusiasm is incomplete.

Continuously it appears that these factors, although never in the same order, play an important role with respect to how to act for most employees.

Good school leaders are not only familiar with these essential factors of enthusiasm, they also tune them to the way they act.

The ultimate challenge for a school leader

Perfect teachers have found a balance between the interest of the school and their own interests. They reflect their actions and are willing to aim at the course of the school within the team. Therefore there is balance between what the organisation desires and what they desire.

Both working with children and additional team activities are ongoing sources of joy.

In theory, the challenge for a school leader is simple: it is always important how to tune the course set out by the school team to the contribution of every member. Therefore school leaders should be familiar with important teachers’ sources of joy and motivation because these can differ for every team member.

The most important challenge is however how a team can be directed to a joint course.

Every team member should agree with the path chosen. A joint course can be achieved by systematically reviewing core competences of the team.

After that, it is looked at what everyone should be able to do to realise this course.

Therefore a language is needed in which relations between teacher and school are described.

A communal language is created by means of discussing the necessary competences.

These competences are measured against the teacher’s professional acting.

Competence management

Two scenarios are possible with respect to competence management.

1. The rational scenario aims at maintaining and control of competences. The core question to every team member is how he/she is contributing to the organisation, i.e. is a blueprint of the organisation
2. Within the other scenario, views of employees on their job are the core of competence development. The central question in this scenario is: how can the organisation contribute to the teacher’s development?

However, it is not just a question of what the organisation desires or how an organisation can contribute to the development of people. It concerns both. Organisations can make demands on their people and also employees can demand the organisation to contribute to their development.

What does the school desire?

In general, a successful school develops its own definitions of success and quality. A teacher in an disadvantaged area needs other competences than a teacher in a good neighbourhood of a small town . The environment of the school influences the competences required for success at a school. The same goes for the educational vision the team wishes to realise. It is important that the team determine the essential competences needed to do a proper job in order to establish whether the teacher is successful. What are the core competences of the school is the preceding question. What are the unique and differentiating characteristics of the school and which skills are required in order to realise these.

When this is clear, it is time to set out a course for team development and personal development. Schools are more and more part of a school group. These groups can determine essential competences for employees apart from the core competences of every individual school and their formulated standards on school success.

An assessment is needed to change a temporary appointment of a teacher to a permanent appointment. Therefore a basic set of competences fixed at top school level is needed.

Also in case of disfunctioning a basic set of competences used to assess someone is needed.

In case of different function levels, these should be translated into a set of competences.

Every organisation can also determine her own priorities with respect to these.

Everyone is a pupil in a learning school

It is less complicated to organise learning for teachers at schools at which teachers are truly choosing a joint course and a joint set of competences. 'Learning is the ability to achieve results which are really aimed at’, Peter Senge said. At schools at which the interest of the organisations coincides with the interest of the individual, a new dynamic is realised and everyone becomes a pupil. Meetings are different. Traditionally static team meetings change into dynamic and lively meetings in which there is room to reflect on personal development and team development.

This way schools become learning communities in which also pupils can help their teachers to improve their results. .

In conclusion

Pre-eminently schools are learning and working communities in which development of pupils and teachers is the joint purpose. Continuing individual development of teachers and team is an essential requirement with respect to this. Individual and team development can only succeed when the team members are allowed to be 'actor' and 'co-maker' . Instrumental fetishism of policy makers for personnel policy and quality care should not be neglected with respect to this. That way, joyless organisations are created in which control, fear, competence and high absenteeism have the upper hand. Influence in how the organisation operates and discussing essential points of development for children, teachers and teams results in true enthusiasm for the job.

When this basic requirement is continually met, a lot can be achieve

posted by admihiotis @ 7:40 am