Two Why’s (but not very wise)
Last week our IT Director, Brian Lockwood, communicated his desire to see all of the senior leadership at our school ‘blogging’. My immediate response to this request was, essentially, ‘why?’. After all, with an already busy schedule that never seems to get below 60 hours per week, if something is to added then there needs to be proper justification. But after hearing Brian’s arguments and knowing the passion behind rationale, I thought I would give it go. And here we are.
But perhaps ‘we’ is an overstatement. I would be flattered to think than of more than one person read my blog (I of course include myself in this count). As such, I guess I will follow CS Lewis’s lead who purportedly wrote the Chronicles of Narnia because the stories were ones he wished he could have read as a child. Please don’t expect any profound or wise insights!
Which brings me to topic #1. ‘Why’ is the quality of schooling important? This week I was reading a summary of research into the affects of the quality of schooling and—get this—there is conflicting research in this area. But various researchers have ‘answers’. So how much of an effect does can a ‘high quality’ school have on student achievement? Here are some of the results:
10% (Coleman, 1966)
10% (Jencks, 1972)
23% (Rosenthal, 1991)
I have two concurrent reactions when I read these numbers. The first is to laugh. We really like our numbers don’t we! This reminds me Douglas Adams reporting in a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the meaning of life is “42”. The influence of a school can be, depending upon the research, between 10-23%. I guess it’s your call.
The second thought is one of admiration for the research. While any exact metric—especially when grappling with a concept like quality—must be impossible to ascertain given the complex sociological soup which contextualizes schools, the research question itself and the chosen methodology have great importance to educators. As we move into the 21st, it’s generally accepted that schools will need to seriously evolve to meet the needs of today’s (and tomorrow’s) learners. There is probably no better time to look at the quality of schooling and attempt to inch closer to a fuller understanding of influence that school organizations have children and learning. Learning more about how we can influence student development should then translate into ensuring the focus of the schooling processes maximizes its positive influence.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Congratulation James on your first blog, it’ll be interesting in seeing how the comments come in. I’ve tweeted your blog and I am placing this comment into the the 2008 Comment Challenge! http://commentchallenge.wikispaces.com/
All the best,
April 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Welcome to the blogosphere, James.
I think your decision to blog (Why #1) has an effect on the quality of your school (Why #2). As a school leader, you are sharing your thoughts and ideas in an open forum by blogging, which shows that you are a risk-taker. It also shows that you care enough about the school community to share and communicate with a wider audience to facilitate growth within that community. And really, don’t both those things — sharing and communicating — help school quality? I haven’t read the research but something tells me it does!
April 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I appreciated reading your first post. I liked that you are pondering the rational for blogging. I am part of the Organizational Development Cadre at ASIJ, and last summer our team was challenged on just this point at a summer institute. ‘Adults learn by reflecting’ so the disciple of writing a web blog about learning ultimately benefits the blogger.
Good luck with your reflecting – I will look forward to reading your updates.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Heya James,
Looking good. I’m impressed you got some tagging in too.
I started doing that for the first time with my new blog… And I’ve been blogging for 5 years!
And it’s an interesting thought about the ‘quality’ of education. Statistics are great, but when you can’t literally count the beans, it makes it difficult to get anything of worth out of a bunch of numbers and questions.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:54 am
G’day James,
Great first post. Statistics can tell us anything but personally if feel back in the 60’s and 70’s when 10% was mentioned, parents generally sent their students to the local school and weren’t too worried about the ‘quality’. But in the 90’s and the 21st century, parents now began feeling the greater the quality of the curriculum in the school, the better the education for their kids.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hello James,
Brian is someone who I have “met” online and with whom I am starting to build a professional relationship. I share this tidbit of information with you because as online relationships become more common and at the same time more complex, I think it is important for administrators to play an active role in developing them.
I envision a future when school directors or principals will already know a lot about new incoming staff based on online relationships. Or perhaps the whole art of recruiting will be different, because a director will “know” teachers before they even recruit.
Having said that, I hope that you maintain this blog and branch out a bit. I invite you to start with mine and read a bit about what we, teachers, are doing out here!
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 am
I’m glad you’ve joined the conversation. I began blogging as a university student to get me in touch with emerging technologies in ed-tech. What I’ve discovered, however, is blogging is making me a better teacher.
Looks like you have more than one reader. Keep writing!
May 4th, 2008 at 5:31 am
It’s all relative isn’t it? I think one of the real issues in measuring quality is that it is so subjective to an extent– I fall into the camp that believes teaching is both an art and a science, but more of an art.
Love your Hitchhiker’s Guide analogy.
Welcome to the blogosphere. It’s so important for school leaders to be part of this conversation.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Hey James,
Great to see your site. It looks very good and will absolutely turn into a good resource for you and those of us that work with you.
Thinking back to your comment about the min “60 hour work week” in my view is exactly the reason to use it. As the demands on our time increase we need efficient ways of getting the message out but perhaps even more so, of reminding people that we are still the same even if we haven’t had time to get out for a coffee recently. The value of that connection is one of the topics I have been thinking about a lot this year. Tools like this will help supplement the time you are able to spend with colleagues and sustain the personal approach you bring to your work through the dry spells of all work and little play.
This is one step in the direction of not only improving the quality of education for the learners but for the teachers as well. I look forward to the future connection sustained this way.