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How to Build a Positive School Culture

By Sherry
The Definition of Positive Culture
School culture------known as school climate------ has a great number of
definitions. Bower (1966) refers to it simply as the way we do things around here.
In other words, school culture is a potential power of running the place in informal
ways. The rule of culture is difficult to neither change nor build, because it is
developed in a long period of time. Although the education system is focusing on the
performance of instructors and students, the significant effects of culture cannot be
ignored. Whether it is in a school or a business, organizational culture is like the air
that we breathe: invisible, intangible, and absolutely vital (Haberman, 2013).
Tom Vander Ark(2013) summary the 10 key elements of a high performance culture:
Values: Schools share the basic value with students in lifelong learning.
Leaders need to be aware that teachers really want to get from leaders: time,
connections and trust.
Equity: Schools should engage all students in power learning experiences.
Innovation: Leaders need to establish a school climate in interested learning,
based on new technologies and fresh study strategies.
Good habits: Habits are engaged in the culture and every fundamental study
experience.
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Care: to care all students with love is a tough school cultural foundations.
Big questions: Critical thinking helps schools to improve and help students
learning how to solve the problem.
Support: leaders support their employees will build a harmonious environment
in the community.
Collaboration: In order to enhance capability of learning, studying from each
other is essential for instructors.
Mastery: We have a culture of daily mastery- we believe children should
intellectually struggle with challenging content and the teachers should insist on
mastery.(Moskowitz,2010)
Execution: All teachers will follow the rules and fulfillment of their
responsibilities.
It seems like an ideal school culture, but it can be set as a target in the future.
In the beginning of this article, the author is trying to indicate that the school
administrators should develop a positive school culture which could provide teachers
and students a better study environment. Students performance can hardly be
influenced by principles directly, but a study by Marzano, Waters and McNulty2005
convey that, an educationalleader who fosters shared beliefs and a sense of
community and cooperation among staff can create an optimistic culture of school.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along
with people (Indira Gandhi, n, d). Administrator used to be a person who controls the
power; but being an administrator nowadays means building a community instead of a
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bureaucracy.
Nobody likes being told what should be done or not done. For Teachers, a nice
school culture can help to create a better institution. For instance, trust with each other,
appropriate expectation in the outcome of students, and principal support teachers to
improve teaching strategies. For students, a wonderful school climate could provide a
motivating learning environment, and a shared value of study. Most importantly, they
can have a positive attitude to learning.
On the other hand, unfruitful management creates bureaucracies which lack of
discipline and capability. The teachers do not engage in activities of the organizations
and students will run out concentration in learning. When I was a music teacher in
high school, class I taught was controlled by a mid-age man who worked for the high
school for almost 15 years. He kept making indiscreet remarks or criticisms to
everybody. Moreover, he bureaucratically reschedules the curriculums. For instance,
he always occupies my music courses for math courses, because he simply believed
music is worthless. At the beginning of the music course, students are hardly engaged
in the class, most students doing other homework in music class because there is so
much homework they were hardly finished. Besides that, I posted an elementary
question which they must know. They were still not going to answer it as they are
afraid of making mistakes. I realize that pupils are boring and lack of interesting
learning, and if I were a student, the relaxing learning experience is what I needed.
Then, I decided to create a relaxing learning atmosphere in class. Students were given
an opportunity to show themselves in front of the class; they got the voice to
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arrangement the content of class. Students participated more actively and
enthusiastically. Nevertheless, pupil was over reactive sometimes. Teacher stated that
students must be quiet in class and this is the culture in public school. As a teacher, I
really want to make the positive climate for students, and I did it. But I cannot be
against the culture in school.
The further part of the article concentrates on practice and theories. There are
three stories which contain three kinds of different leaders and the problems they are
required to solve. The author did not give the answers to those case studies.
Theory vs Practice
To my perspective, if someone wants to be a good administrator, a great amount
of theories is not good enough to support him/her. There is a gap appear between the
theory and the practice obviously. The case study is the best way to figure out which
part of the theory can be utilized into practice properly. In addition, the concept of
positive culture is really abstract, which is hard to use into real life as well. The author
tried to mention that the superior culture is vital for school. The lacking of attention
culture can breed lots of problems to leaders, especially the fresh leaders. However,
there is no standard answer in those cases. That might be the weakness of the paper.
We can realize that author trying to pay more attention to one specific aspect of
practice, and many theories are cited to support his point. The case studies focused on
a contemporary issue in educational administration.
I suppose that the theories are extremely important to be used in practices. But
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we cant ignore that theories came from practices. Good administrator should reply to
any situation without hesitation, and he/she should be able to use the appropriate
theories in real life. Great leaders should respect the rule but not just follow the rule
directly. In some cases, rules can be changed. Human-based management is what
positive culture looking for.
Three Case Studies
Since those case studies are not involved solutions, I will give my own
perspective on it.
The first case study is about a teacher with almost a decades instructing
experience and promoted to the department chair. She said it is hard to bring the
department together. In addition, the failure rate of four core subjects for students in
her department was the highest in the school. The initial opening meeting made her
crazy since no one supported her new policy of management.
Apparently, she was a great teacher with a mass of teaching experience, but
lacking management experience. In my opinion, good school leaders should hold her
back, passing on teaching experiences. That is the part of a positive school culture.
She should start with developing a reliable relationship between subordinates and
leaders. For example, setting up exercise activities; carpool with colleagues;
promoting opportunity to communicate with them; helping them to set an appropriate
goal to students; most importantly, sharing a future vision with them with fun.
The second case story is talking about a summer workshop which involved two
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teachers who were lack of confidence to work together with students who have
discipline problems. Effective school leaders should support their subordinate and
helping them get through tough a period of time. Leaders should hold teachers back,
and support them to be done the right thing. Even give them some power to take a
decision by themselves. Good school culture is based on actions from leaders.
The third case study is focusing on a great leader from a small school who
applied for the Central School District leader of curriculum. The district controls four
schools. Nonetheless, the problem is that there is only one school had a bad standard
test score because the principal added authentic language art in the curriculum. The
principal refuse to reform the curriculum as he mentioned that develop a whole child
is better than a high score. In my perspective, students fully engage in the study are
the good sign for a positive school culture, but we cannot lose the basic score to
accomplish it. We could keep the authentic course but short the time of it. For instance,
this course used to two periods per week, we could reform it at one period per week,
so we can keep the interest of learning in students. Meanwhile, we can send a
professional counselor to help the school set a befitting expectation.
Conclusion
While it might seem that a complicated work, the tremendous benefits of a
positive school culture far out-weigh the time and effort required, while I would
consider that a positive school climate can bring fun and happiness back into teaching
and learning. Who wouldnt want to become a part of a school like that?
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References
A. Bryk & B. Schneider, Trust in Schools: A core resource for improvement.
(New York: Russell Sage, 2002).
Ark. T, V. From Getting Smart
(http://gettingsmart.com/2013/09/10-characteristics-of-high-performance-cultu
re/)
Habrtman, M. The Blog: Why school culture matters, and how to improve it.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Michael-Haberman/why-school-culture-matte
r_b_3047318.html)
Imants, J. G. M., & DeBrabander, C. J. (1996). Teachers' and principals' sense of
efficacy in elementary schools: Teaching and teacher education, 12(2),
179-195.
Julie A. Gorlewski David A Gorlewski; Thomas M Ramming: Theory into practice
case stories for school leaders. Boston: Sense Publishers 2012
Owens, R. G. & Valesky, T. C. (2011). Organizational behavior in education:
Leadership and school reform. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
T. Lickona & M. Davidson, Smart & Good High Schools
(www.cortland.edu/character; www.instituteforexcellenceandethics.com).