7th Heaven...hopefully

Journal Entry Number 3: 

A reflection on Michael Fullan’s Change Theory: A force for school improvement.

Fullan posits, "seven core premises that underpin our use of change knowledge," (p. 8). Here is a summary of those premises.

1. A focus on motivation
• Everything hinges on motivation.  Something new for me was Fullan’s assertion that motivation is really a function of long-term success not short-term desires.  As success is achieved, capacity is built, and support is present teachers’ motivation will continue to increase.  Success breeds success.  This is reminiscent of Schmoker (2004) when he asserts that, “the key is for professionals to achieve and celebrate a continuous succession of quick victories in vital areas,” (p. 427).  While initially this seems to be the antithesis of Fullan’s argument, Schmoker is advocating the continuous build-up of these short-term successes which will eventually lead to the motivation that Fullan is seeking.
• All of the other six premises are about achieving motivation.
2. Capacity building; with a focus on results
• In order for real change to take place, teachers must build capacity to affect whatever change is needed.  That sounds circular, but the point is, if teachers don’t know what they are trying to do and/or don’t have the means and support to do it, they can’t do it.  In order to do this, they must build the capacity to do so.
• Additionally, there must be accountability on the change being initiated.  But this accountability should be grounded in results - and this should be something the teachers are seeking for themselves and their colleagues, as opposed to the outside judgment of officials.
3. Learning in context
• As teachers are building this capacity, their experiences and learning must be within their own context.  Just as with anything, if the learning is superficial or not applicable to their present situation, it will be short-lived and/or be dead on arrival. Teachers must work together to improve their practice - everyone’s practice and thereby changing the culture of their context, school, and district.  A series of “small victories” throughout a system will result in a changed system.  Fullan quotes Elmore (2004) as saying, “cultures do no change by mandate; they change by the specific displacement of existing norms, structures, and processes by others...” (p. 9).
4. Changing context
• I covered this in my reflection of number 3.  Essentially as groups of teachers work seemingly autonomously with their colleagues to make positive changes within their contexts, changes also happen on the macro-level.  But the changes should be deliberately sought rather than coincidental.
5. A bias for reflective action
• I think this idea is best encapsulated by Fullan’s discussion of Dewey: “it is not that we learn by doing but that we learn by thinking about what we are doing,” (p.10).  Reflection is everything - and this is backed up by research.  Simply doing something is not enough, we have to think about it and reflect on our learning - were we close? Were we way off? How does what we learned fit within our previous schema? What parts of our schema need to grow or change?  All of these processes have to happen for learning to really be deep.  And this is true for teachers and adults as we learn to work in a new and changed paradigm just as much as it is for students learning new content in a school setting.
6. Tri-level engagement
• Change has to take place on all levels and have support at all levels: individual, team, school, district, and state (which is five levels, not three).  If the district and state don’t support change, it doesn’t matter how great it is at a school or team-level, it will be short-lived.
7. Persistence and flexibility in staying the course
• One of the most noted issues with PD and “reform” in that it is going to fly-over and be gone soon.  Often teachers lament this because they know that effective change will be lost.  But just as often teachers use this knowledge to feel comfortable “ducking” the reforms they don’t want to participate in.  For lasting change to happen it has to continue with applied pressure and support from all levels to keep it going.  Flexibility is important because without it, many measure would seem draconian and break under their own brittleness.

As I read through all of this, I was left to wonder whether these seven things could actually result in lasting change.  On paper they all make sense, but have they truly lead to system-wide culture shifts? Fullan argues they have in the examples he cites, but most of these are still in the beginning stages.  Do these seven things actually work, or are they one more utopian vision?

References

Elmore, R. F. (2004). School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice, and performance. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Fullan, M. (2006). Change theory: A force for school improvement. Centre for Strategic Education, Seminar Series Paper No. 157.

Schmoker, M. (2004). Tipping point: From feckless reform to substantive instructional improvement. Phi Delta Kappan. pp. 424-432.