Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves have written many books together about leadership and school reform (bios). They keynoted together today at the Learning Forward conference to talk about their idea of “professional capital” in the context of school organizations and leadership.
They wrote about their ideas in the March 2012 book from Teachers College Press, Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School, and in this op-ed article at Education Week in June.
These are my “fast notes” — I apologize for the places where they’re not immediately clear, but if you’ve ever attended this conference, you know that the learning never stops — and you have to keep moving!
I hope you’ll be intrigued enough to follow up with a Google search, a look at the Ed Week article and also this post they recommended about human and social capital development for teachers.
Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan : Professional Capital
Fullan: Misinterpretation of one of the findings — 3 years of very effective teachers (Sanders) — is misinterpreted b/c in other countries, the chance of getting 3 great teachers per year is the norm and the fact that they collaborate regularly skews that
Education at the Crossroads
One path to total despair and utter hopeless OR total destruction (Woody Allen joke)
Hargreaves
capital = own’s self-worth (adds value to net worth)
– to get a return, you need to make an investment
capital is an important metaphor
2 visions driving capital
Business Capital view assumes that good teacher
- is technically simple
- a quick study
- can be mastered readily
- should be driven by hard performance data
- is about enthusiasm, effort, talent and results
- is replaceable by online instruction
Nothing wrong about business — Michael Fullan is a business – but when the whole orientation of education is to yield short-term yields, it skews the entire venture
Therefore dealing with a view of teaching FOCUSED on short-term yield, does not pay long dividends
Opposite is Professional Capital
- is technically sophisticated and difficult
- requires high levels of education and long training
- is perfected through continuous improvement
- involves wise judgment informed by evidence and experience
- is a collective accomplishment and responsibility
- maximizes, mediates, and moderates online instruction
Schools are places where mice should not rule our actions, it should be places that nurture students
Fullan:
Social capital: to what extent do teachers in this school work in a collaborative way to focus on learning and achievement?
- Schools with high social capital did better
- Schools with high social and high human capital did even better
Social capital needs to be FOCUS, with human capital as a support
- Highly effective leader can turnaround a school, but it is hard
Teacher in a high social capital can’t help but improve: Use the group to change the group
PC = f (HC + SC + DC)
Human Capital:
Qualifications
knowledge
preparation
skills
emotional intelligence
Don’t start with teacher education. We start (Ben Levin) — focus on “learning is the work” strategy — building social capital. Main point about attracting people to the profession, must have a good set of effective schools for people to work in.
Pay is not the primary motivator — working conditions are — for attracting quality teachers
Not about just collaboration
systemness — is when individuals work together and they start being committed to an entity larger than themselves (e.g. collective responsibility) within school and within larger community (Fullan)
Hargreaves: Social capital adds value to human capital
human capital doesn’t necessary add value to social capital
New Third Capital: Decisional Capital
Taken from law.
Decisional capital
judgment
case experience
practice challenge and stretching
reflection
e.g. how you develop your skills/knowledge over time
This is key when answer isn’t entirely clear.
Judges have to judge when the facts aren’t completely clear
Judges learn through many cases — in the courtroom and outside; alone and with colleagues. This is what all professions do. This is why Finland does so well b/c of the amount of time teachers spend working together. They spend less time with their students than they are with their students. Need time to think, reflect
Practice — wiring things in the brain so they stick
Taking us into new zones with which we aren’t entirely comfortable — takes us a new step forward, stretching ourselves into new talents and effectivenss
Looked at 3 studies
Capacity: strength of conviction/belief
Commitment:
Capabiilty: effectiveness
Both are important, but are often confused with another
Early in their career, teachers are more committed than ever during the beginning of their career, but they are less competent.
Easy to confuse commitment with capability (we tend to want to work with people who respond with great enthusiasm instead of those with greater talent but who may not be as enthusiastic).
In US, there are more new teachers than ever before
Later career 20+ years into career
- on average, teachers’ commitment fading (lives, bodies, aging parents, difficult teenagers, experience of change, conditions of the job)
- Capability is all over the map depending on a variety of factor
Stereotype that all “old” teachers are resistence
hardening of the categories
4 categories of experienced teachers
The renewed
the disenchanted
the quiet ones
the resisters and reprobate
Disenchanted teachers can be reenchanted
Quiet is about introverts — 30% of people are introverts. Will work with 2-3 people but are uncomfortable with larger groups. Are a significant part of what we do. May not join whole-group change, but will work with 2-3 people to improve practice.
Resisters and the reprobate — There are a few, but don’t confuse them with the disenchanted and the quite ones
The gold of teachers: the fourth year through the 12th year — teachers are the most committed and capable…adds up to about 10,000 hours
Analogy: orchestra level performers, 10,000 hours; bar performers = 4,000 hours…do we want to only focus on the “bar performers?”
Key is focusing more on the people — people that are doing well and can get even better
Isn’t just one way to collaborate — not only about PLCs looking at spreadsheets of data. That is part of what we do.
5 examples from 5 countries:
Finland — local curriculum development (school by school, district by district)
Singapore — Give away best ideas to other people — how can we expect schools to share if they compete with each other
Alberta — collaborative innovation and inquiry — 95% of schools creating innovations and inquiring into those innovations
Ontario — collective responsibility and transparency (behind every number is a child — they are “our children,” not “my children”)
California — Quality in Education Act — turning around lowest performing 500 schools in California with teachers driving change
Fullan: Push, Pull and Nudge
Pushing very confrontation for one teacher, not in a negative way, but the eflt that theyu needed to be able to defend the way that they wanted to mark and grade student work. And she walked away from the table — they change and thank you for it…Can be too pushy
Pull — bring people into the process
nudge — gentle prod
If you are pushy, how do I become more “pully”
If you are too pully, how can you be more assertive?
Ex: introducing feedback to teachers. Lots of reluctance. One year later, almost all teachers were doing it. What happened? Principal said, “it’s voluntary, but it’s inevitable.”
Combination of nonjudgmentalism, combined with movement forward, with feel for change process focused on large-school reform
Important to integrate push, pull, and nudge.
Andy:
Human capital working hard, long-term to hire talented people
Decisional capital how we retain and develop good teachers, not just attract them
Challenge: create an Abraham Lincoln team of rivals: TFA and Unions together. Social capital: key collaboration
Question and Answer Period
Pais-share
what resonated and what big worry or question?
Q: If you are weak in one of the 3 capital areas, can the 10,000 hours help you become better aware of the 3 capital areas and what needs to be done. How does that relate to the role that leaders play
Hargreaves: great question. We suspect there is something behind your question
Q: I agree with the 10,000 hours…as a necessary condition, should the 10,000 hours be a necessary requirement of moving into leadership?
Fullan: It-s not just 10,000 hours. It’s 10,000 hours of purposeful learning and reflection. Also, it’s about all 3 forms of capital — I need to hone all three; Third, if you do those things well, you are becoming a better leader. The higher your professional capital the better leader you will become.
Q: Finland study: What were the teachers doing and how was it facilitated?
A: Hargreaves: Planning done at a municipal level and has its own district. Teachers have their own curriculum with guidelines. At the federal level, there are only 20 employees…all the energy is at the local level. Lots facilitated by district staff who create curriculum teams. Sometimes the locale is very small, sometimes, very large. The focus is on what their community needs and on developing the professional knowledge that they create together.
Q: Leadership responsibility — does leadership also require 10,000 hours?
Fullan: if you take Vivian Robinson’s study: leadership and student achievement (meta-analysis) 5 things about leadership. The first was twice as important: the degree to which the principal participated as a learner in her/his school with teachers. Participate as a learner at day 1. If you act just as a manager, 5 years later, you won’t be any better as an instructional leader, but if you work as an instructional leader, you will.
Q: TFA … lots of good people motivated in a good way going into TFA…some bifurcation between role and the fact that TFA is made up of a lot of smart people. TFA sees itself as a leadership development organization. Want people who will go into the corporate or political world, would have a real-world experience in education
Q: Our challenge in US, our schools are funded and governed locally, and we’re trying to figure out how to produce better social capital. How does one build social capital from the national level in very distributed local systems.
Fullan: TFA’s theory of action…hypothesis: If TFA goes into dreadful situation where culture is toxic and they become leaders later, will they respect or disrespect the system?
Hargreaves: Strategically, if Michael’s objection is correct, then strategically, the second part would be if you want future leaders to be strong advocates for public education, perhaps every TFA teacher should have 2 experiences, one of which should be working with outstanding teachers working under effective leadership in a strong system, where they learn how to work in an effective way with their students and effectively with other adults around them.
Fullan: Challenge — there are a number of school districts and foundation that sponsor them who have a good experience with poverty: CORE group in California
In, we have 17 districts in Ontario, Illinois, the same size, has 700+ districts
Hargreaves: In Center for Educational Change: Study on district-driven reform in high performing districts that shows all the characteristics (beyond islands of excellence)
Q: Chicago — in context of limited resources of time, money, energy, what guidance can you give about focusing on the 3 capitals…
Fullan: Tony Bragg study on organizational improvement in Chicago — On the Move: 125 schools that were moving, social capital at work leveraging more human capital
if there are 450 schools and 350 are doing well, but 100 aren’t, they aren’t working at the system level well
Fullan: from day 1, you have in mind both human and social capital … at the beginning, invest in human capital, especially related to leadership who works on the building the human capital
Hargreaves: If Chicago had a mental condition, it would be manic depressive. Charles Payne — dysfunctional bureaucracies v. Bragg’s book — making progress. Students of closed schools attended other ineffective schools and were at risk for violence from rival gangs.
PLCs: Definition of a PLC and how do we move schools and districts forward in ways that help them not see it as a fad, but as a way of doing business every day:
Hargreaves: True PLC has so much potential and is so much misused. Shirley Hord created PLC and what she meant by it was a place where teachers and sometimes other adults inquire and learn together about how to improve their practice to produce improved benefits.
What has happened is that we have created data warehouses. While the achievement data can help in collective inquiry, the data are another part to work with. But the PLC too often has become where teachers work together using data to make short-term decisions to address data. Therefore PLCs aren’t guided based on data and effective teaching and inquiry, driven by principals wanting to move their numbers
Fullan: Write about PLCs in the book. Good example, of push and pull. Pushy PLCs can be ineffective and so can Pull PLCs. Don’t like PLC in capital letters, because it seems like a program when it is a way of being.
Fullan writing last chapter with Rick DuFour: Making PLCs systemic…better to have lower case plcs and use it to strengthen teaching and learning
–New study: Essential for Some, Good for All (special ed study) Ontario — use of devices. Special ed community totally fragmented between inclusion v. specialization. The idea of inclusion is not structural, but trying to involve special ed students in the classroom as much as it is available and are supported by special services
Q: So many school districts reacting to common core and distractions: advice for implementation
Fullan: CC will collapse under the sheer complexity of the number of elements and assessments. Prefer having proactive leaders on the receiving end to exploit something to be explored rather than as the big juggernaut. Must build professional capital to successfully implement CC
Q: Pay for Performance mandate — advice for designing a pay for performance system aimed at supporting professional capital.
Hargreaves: Have some good models with peer assistant review: Cincinnati (NSDC involved — highly certified staff developers, NB teachers — involved portfolios); Singapore offers differential reward based on performance. No high performing country connects pay as measured by high test scores. The US ranks between 30 and 31 in high performing system and it the only one that uses performance-related pay connected to student test scores.
Q: Closing the gap — how would you measure social capital. How would you know it when you see it and know that it is reliable
Fullan: Several measures to measure social capital. What you wnt to look for: are teachers working together with purposeful focus on student learning and instruction. Can you see the connection between the planning and improved learning? Biggest indicator is whether they can talk the walk: can explain themselves to an external reviewer. Instruments: Tony Bright, Carrie Lianna One caution about instruments: a fool with a tool is still a fool. Don’t want the measure to be the solution. Want teams to figure out what they want to focus on and then use the measurement to gauge effectiveness
Q: How to marry the change theory into building human and social change with lots of resistant teachers
Fullan: Motion Leadership — leaders that cause change in other people and foster that relationship. We now know the conditions under which people change: climate of non-judgementalism; empathy for people who are in your way; building capacity; giving people new experiences — works with 95% of people
What we do by mistake, we sometimes identify people as resisters who really have good ideas — use push/pull measures with them.
Hargreaves: Adults are just like kids. When kids resist, there are many different reasons. Why kids are resisting can’t be solved by a single performance measure. Requires knowledge, understanding and engagement
Q: Current US climate: what suggestions do you have about pushing and pulling from business model to social capital model
Hargreaves: Building social capital is the quality of the working environment and the conditions which enable teachers to effectively work together, not by contract, but by commitment. If you fall back on contract, you will fail. Working conditions trumps performance pay. We need create great schools for great teachers and great kids. If you want the system to improve, you have to be part of the improvement. Use the group to change the group: peer pressure
Fullan: Book has guidelines for teachers for building social capital.
Q: How can local, state and national level better advocate for more reflection and personal learning when the trend seems to moving in the other direction
Hargreaves: Beginning to work with 5 state in the Pacific Northwest: improving the achievement in rural schools. One of the things we know that effects student achievement rather than parachuting teams into school is getting schools to work with schools: strong schools working with weaker schools: works in Canada, Singapore, Finland. Within 3-4 years, will have more examples of positive practice that leads to results.
