Introduction
One of the things that can no longer be disputed is how much the world has changed in the last few decades. Peter Drucker (1993) argued:
‘Every few hundred years in western history there occurs a sharp transformation. We cross . . . a divide. Within a few short decades society rearranges itself, its world view; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there appears a new world . . . we are currently living through such a transformation.’
Almost everything about our society is different, the type of work we do, the types of transport we use, the ways in which we communicate with each other and the ways in which we are entertained. The value systems seem to have changed and the way in which we develop and maintain our health, our relationships and our work environment are all different. We could argue that students in the first decade of the 21st century, who have come to see what adults see as changes in their way of life as simply being the reality, might almost be considered a completely different species to their parents. Yet there are many people who suggest that education has not kept pace with the change that has happened in other parts of our lives. We still teach students in an almost identical fashion to how we ourselves were taught.
The move towards accountability
One factor common in most education systems in the past two decades has been the search for a better way of ensuring high levels of achievement for all students. Education systems from the USA to Uganda, from Austria to Australia and from the United Kingdom to Kazakhstan have focused their attention on improving the quality of education in their countries. Much of the work that has happened internationally has focused on increasing the levels of accountability for teachers and school leaders, for schools and for school systems. Many different strategies have been used, most with only marginal success. However, one thing is clear: there is a very strong connection between school success and student success. The more students learn, the more successful the school is seen to be.
In the past few years, we have learned a huge amount about learning and teaching and how to maximise both. In a previous paper (Townsend, 1999) I argued that, within this changing view of education, many schools still have characteristics that reflect ways of thinking from a less hectic time, where technology took decades rather than months to move from one level to the next, where society had the time and resources to provide a range of community services (health, education, welfare) at little or no cost to the recipient and where the same curriculum could go on for years before a change was needed. It is quite clear that the international reform activity over the past few years, together with other social changes involving technology, globalisation, the economy and employment have led to new ways of thinking about education (Townsend, 2007).
It is clear, however, that if schools are to be seen as more effective it will happen because students are performing at higher levels than previously. In this sense, effective schools are those that have many effective classrooms. As Hill argued (1998), one of the more powerful conclusions arising from recent research is that much of the variation between schools is, in fact, due to variation among classes. In their research, Hill and Rowe (1996) have identified some factors that make classrooms more effective:
If we are to support the development of more successful schools, it will be through the promotion of more effective classrooms. By purposefully applying the characteristics listed above, students have a better chance of learning.
What really changes student learning?
However, if young people’s learning is the end goal, we need to reconsider what this means in a rapidly changing, globalised world. Wang, MC, Haertel, GD and Walberg, HJ (1993/1994, Educational Leadership, pp 74-79) analysed 179 chapters, conducted 91 research syntheses, interviewed 61 educational researchers, considered 11,000 findings related to student learning. They identified 28 areas grouped into six categories:
1. Student aptitude
2. Classroom instruction / climate
3. Context
4. Program design
5. School organisation
6. State / district characteristics
The following specific characteristics are listed in order of their importance to student learning:
1. Classroom management
2. Metacognitive processes
3. Cognitive processes
4. Home environment/parental support
5. Student/teacher social interactions
6. Social/behavioural attributes
7. Motivational/affective attributes
8. Peer group
9. Quantity of instruction
10. School culture
11. Classroom climate
12. Classroom instruction
13. Curriculum design
14. Academic interactions
15. Classroom assessment
16. Community influences
17. Psychomotor skills
18. Teacher/administrator
19. Decision-making
20. Parent involvement policy
21. Classroom implementation and support
22. Student demographics
23. Out of class time
24. Program demographics
25. School demographics
26. State level policies
27. School policies
28. District demographics
If we look at the top five elements that contribute to student learning, it becomes obvious that it is what happens in the classroom and the home that is critical to an individual student reaching their potential. The student’s ability to learn, the way in which the classroom is organised and managed and the relationships between student, teacher and parent are the keys to learning.
In contrast things such as student demographics (22) state (26) and school (27) policies have limited impact on learning. This suggests that the ability to learn is universal and is similar in people from various cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. However, what is learned is the distinguishing feature of success in school. Thus, there is a mismatch between what is being taught and what is being learned rather than there being some students who ‘cannot learn’.
If we are concerned about helping students to learn then, there are three major issues for educators. The first is having an appropriate curriculum for a rapidly changing world, the second is to engage every student in this curriculum and the third is to enable the student to build a positive relationship to learning, so that they can become a lifelong learner.
In some respects it is building a positive relationship to learning that is most important, after all, students will spend less than 3% of their lifetime in school. It might also be argued that under the current system of accountability, with structured curriculum based on specific standards and the continuous testing of student knowledge of that curriculum that building a positive relationship to learning is the thing we spend the least time on.
The global curriculum
We wonder why many young people fail to see the relevance of what they are taught, why they become difficult to teach and why they drop out. The truth of the matter is that students are not any more or less involved with the curriculum than their parents were. The curriculum of today is perhaps no more or less relevant than it was when their parents went to school, but in their parents’ time people were able to get jobs that didn’t require high qualifications; jobs in banks, in factories, on the land. Now those jobs are limited or non-existent and the jobs that are available to those who drop out have very limited economic earning potential.
Perhaps it is time for us to refocus our attention as to what the curriculum is intended to do. For someone like me, who has been lucky enough to see education systems in operation all around the world, similar curriculum offerings happen everywhere. Thus the curriculum in the USA is similar to perhaps 90% of subject areas in the curriculum in China, in South Africa, in Australia, the UK and Fiji.
It would seem to me that perhaps we should consider having a curriculum that, for at least fifty per cent of the time, focuses on what makes us human, that is, the human skills that are common to people no matter where they live. Perhaps 20 per cent of the time the curriculum should focus on what makes us American, or Australian or Chinese, and for 30 per cent of the time focuses on the specific content that is important to us at the time. In other words, the first 50 per cent of the curriculum could be considered the global curriculum, because it would be equally relevant to students, no matter where they lived. Twenty per cent of the time would be spent on issues of relevance to us as a nation, our history, our geography, our political systems, which wouldn’t change much over time. Thirty per cent of our time would be spent on the content knowledge that helps us to become employable, that prepares us for university, and so on. This content would change as times change, with the introduction of computer studies being the perfect example.
Thus we might have to review the content curriculum on a regular basis, the national curriculum perhaps once in a while and the global curriculum hardly ever. Currently, and in the past, schools have taught content, and hoped that the human skills have been developed. What I am proposing here is that we focus on the development of human skills and we use the content to frame this discussion.
Student engagement
We now know a great deal about learning and how teachers might need to behave to engage students. Increasing student engagement involves teachers increasing their knowledge about how students learn. We also know that students will learn much better if they have their parents and the community actively supporting them and the schools in which they learn. Increasing student engagement also involves changing our focus from curriculum to people. This refocusing means moving from the current situation where many students are isolated learners, learning the facts until the exam is over and then forgetting them forever, to becoming global self-regulated learners. Through engagement where students are helped to form concepts about the world, and through introspection, where they examine the values implicit in these concepts, they become ‘global-self regulated learners’ (Otero and Sparks, 2000), where instead of needing teachers, the students need someone able to help them construct their learning environment.
Increasing student engagement involves teachers taking the time to communicate with young people. We know that effective communication is never easy in any arena of living. Yet we still act as though we believe that message sent is message received when it comes to classroom instruction. We need to remember that each person’s perception of the world is completely unique. We might all look at the same thing and see something different and we might all listen to the same thing and hear something different. Teachers need to understand that true communication only occurs when there is a close match between what is said and what is heard. Sometimes this takes longer than many teachers realise.
Positive relationships
There are some students who, no matter how hard teachers try, seem to be impossible to reach. Some students are identified as ‘good learners’ and others are considered to be ‘non-learners’. Yet there is no such thing as a non-learner, but there are people who learn things that are different (sometimes in contradiction) to what teachers are teaching.
The work of Randall Clinch with students who are struggling to succeed at school has been given a high level of national publicity in Australia. Put simply, the activity is aimed at developing a skill-driven process that empowers individuals to integrate their thinking, feeling and acting in order to lead productive and rewarding lives.
The underlying assumptions revolve around the use of either habitual or intelligent behavior. Habitual behavior occurs when a person picks up the ‘vibes’ that he senses in the environment, then habitually responds in the same way that he has previously. It is a simple matter of stimulus-response without thought. The stimulus triggers our memories and our imagination, our memories of what happened in the past and our imagination of what might (or is likely to) happen in the future, based on that stimulus. The brain research tells us if we respond to a particular stimulus in a particular way, there is a greater tendency to do the same thing the next time that stimulus appears. We become habitually responsive. The emotional response to the stimulus depends on how we see ourselves and the world outside and this can become predominantly positive (optimist) or predominantly negative (pessimist). An optimistic student can deal with or withstand the infrequent negative things that happen, but a pessimistic student sees things as just one more issue sent to trouble them.
However, with intelligent behaviour there has been a thoughtful response to the environment. In this instance, the student has been taught to reinterpret, or determine, the environment and the subsequent perceptions, emotions and actions, by asking appropriate questions that support and strengthen them, even in situations that might initially be interpreted as threatening. The Clinch process trains teachers and parents to develop intelligent behaviour in their students or children.
Clinch (2001) argues that to make every student a learner we need to develop five concepts, learning, teacher, self, school and future. The concept of learning needs to be ‘the ability to gain knowledge and the ability to do something today I couldn’t do yesterday’. The concept of teacher becomes ‘someone who facilitates or shares the learning’. The concept of ‘self’ we need to develop is ‘I can learn’. The concept of school is that of ‘a place of learning’. The concept of future is ‘something that hasn’t happened yet, but I am looking forward to’.
From competence to capability
If we accept the premise that to improve student achievement, changes must be made in curriculum, engagement and relationships, then perhaps the greatest task in the future is to manage the changes that are necessary in the hearts and minds of teachers, since it is here that true improvement in student learning lies. We must move individual teachers past competence and into a position of capability. Cairns (1998: 1) argued ‘Modern Teachers need to be developed as capable which is seen as moving ‘beyond’ initial competencies. The Capable Teacher is what we should be seeking to develop, encourage and honor as the hallmark of our profession’.
The capable teacher is one that is ‘able to move beyond basic competence (knowledge and skills) towards a flexibility (coping with present twists and turns) and an adaptability (coping with uncertain futures) in a manner that demonstrates potential and professionalism’ (Cairns, 1998). Making teachers more flexible, adaptable and professional becomes a challenge for school leaders. If the model for developing capable teachers is a combination of three intertwined elements:
The challenge becomes clear. To improve teachers’ abilities we need to focus our attention on their professional development, particularly in the areas identified above; to improve teachers’ values we need to focus on developing and passing on a notion of values and teacher professionalism; and to improve teachers’ self-efficacy we need to provide teachers with the ability to believe in themselves.
Just as we need to change the beliefs and understandings of students if we want them to improve their level of learning, school leaders need to change the beliefs and understandings of teachers to manage this process. Essentially for every student to improve their level of achievement, then every teacher must believe that every student has the capability to learn and must have the understanding of how best to promote that.
If school leaders are to support the change of beliefs and understandings in their teachers, they may need to provide what Southworth (2000) calls the nutrients for a productive teacher culture:
In the current climate of accountability and blame we can have a tendency to ask ourselves the question: ‘When was the last time I felt valued (or encouraged, or noticed, and so on)?’ We feel that being valued is a hierarchical activity, where we need to be valued by someone in authority over us, like a principal, a superintendent or a school system. But we might also ask ourselves ‘When was the last time I valued someone else (or encouraged or noticed them)?’ Feeling valued is not a hierarchical exercise as every person in an organisation can value others. If this happens, soon everyone feels more valued.
Interestingly, a productive classroom requires exactly the same nutrients and we can ask ourselves similar questions, such as ‘When was the last time I valued (or encouraged or noticed them) the student who gives me the most difficulty?’ It is this change in the relationships between people and their learning that might lead us in the right direction.
If this is so, the leadership challenge is to build a culture where teachers, parents, students and school leaders regularly encourage each other to believe in themselves. This can be done by school leaders establishing an environment that suggests that the knowledge necessary to develop best practice teaching and learning already exists in this (and every other) school and that the trick is to find the key to unlocking that knowledge. Establishing activities that allow teachers to share what they do with others in a positive, supportive way, to focus their attention on the task at hand, namely, helping young people to learn and where people value and encourage everyone in the school, is the leader’s main responsibility in a rapidly changing, and increasingly complex environment. Establishing ways in which students can do the same thing, is one sure strategy for enhancing learning for all.
Discuss presentationReferences
Cairns, L (1998). ‘The capable teacher: the challenge for the 21st Century’. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference, Australian Teacher Education Association, Melbourne.
Clinch, R (2001). Secret kids’ business. Melbourne, Hawker-Brownlow.
Drucker, Peter F (1993). The ecological vision: reflections on the American condition. New Brunswick, NJ. Transaction Publishers. TX; Toronto: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Hill, PW (1998). 'Shaking the foundations: research driven school reform'. In School Effectiveness and School Improvement 9 (4) pp. 419-436.
Hill, P and Rowe, K (1996). ‘Multilevel modelling in school effectiveness research, school effectiveness and school improvement’. In Multilevel modelling newsletter 7,1. pp. 1-34.
Otero, G, Chambers-Otero, S & Sparks, R (2000). RelationaLearning, Melbourne, Hawker Brownlow.
Southworth, G (2000). ‘Leading and Improved Pedagogy: International Perspectives’. A keynote paper presented at the PDN School Leaders Conference, Surfers Paradise, July. http://www.pdn.asn.au/confs/2000/2000.htm.
Townsend, T (2007). The international handbook of school effectiveness and improvement. Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands and New York.
Townsend, T, Clarke, P & Ainscow, M (1999). ‘Third millennium schools: prospects and problems for school effectiveness and school improvement’. In Townsend, T, Clarke, P. and Ainscow, M. Third millennium schools: a world of difference in effectiveness and improvement. Lisse, the Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Wang, MC, Haertel, GD and Walberg, HJ (1993/1994). ‘What helps students learn?’ In Educational Leadership, Winter 1993/94, pp. 74-79.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Tony Townsend is Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership in the College of Education at Florida Atlantic University, in Florida, USA.