Learning-Centered Schools Grow from Strong Cultures

By Rick DuFour
Journal of Staff Development, Winter 1998 (Vol. 19, No. 1)

School reform initiatives have tended to focus on structural issues–policies, procedures, rules, and relationships. Reform efforts have generally overlooked the culture of a school–the assumptions, beliefs, values, and habits that constitute the norm for that school and that shape how its people think, feel, and act.

The preoccupation with structure rather than culture is understandable. Changes in structure are tangible and can be announced with a flourish: "In our never-ending quest to improve our school, we are moving to block scheduling next year." Structural changes offer the appearance of substantive change.

Cultural changes are less visible, more amorphous, and much more difficult to effect. While schools can pronounce a change in policy or procedures, they cannot proclaim a change in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Yet, unless change initiatives address a school’s culture, they are unlikely to significantly impact improved student achievement.

As psychologist Seymour Sarason writes, "To put it as succinctly as possible, if you want to change and improve the climate and outcomes of schooling both for students and teachers, there are features of the school culture that have to be changed, and if they are not changed, your well-intentioned efforts will be defeated" (Revisiting the Culture of the School and the Problem of Change, 1996, p. 340).

Structural changes are never enough. If the structure changes but the culture remains untouched, nothing fundamental changes.

Culture has been described as, "The way we do things around here," and "The stories we tell ourselves." The unexamined assumptions and prevailing stories that constitute a school’s culture can clarify what a faculty values, explain their view of the world, reinforce their interpretation of events, instruct members in appropriate conduct, and identify heroes and villains.

My work in schools around the country has enabled me to witness first-hand some of the stories that prevail in different schools. Here are some examples:

1. The We’re-OK-But-They’re-Not-OK story. "We have a wonderful faculty, but we can’t be expected to get results because the people in this community don’t value education."

2. The We-Care-Too-Much-To-Worry-About-Learning story. "The kids here are so needy that we must focus on their emotional needs. For our kids, academic concerns are a secondary consideration."

3. The If-It-Ain’t-Broke-Don’t-Fix-It story. "Our test results are good and the community seems satisfied. We’re doing a good job, so it would be foolish to rock the boat. We just need to maintain."

4. The John-Donne-Was-Wrong,-I-Can-Be-An-Island story. "There’s no need to concern ourselves with issues outside our classroom. When the bell rings, each of us can close our classroom doors and rule our respective kingdoms."

5. The Solution-Is-Out-There story. "School improvement depends on increased state or federal support for education (or decreased state and federal involvement in education). We must wait for others to take the action that will improve our school."

6. The Social Darwinism story. "Kids are limited by their innate ability and the

environment from which they come. These are factors that determine student achievement, and these are factors beyond our control."

7. The They-Don’t-Make-Them-Like-They-Used-To story. "Kids today just aren’t as disciplined or as willing to work as the kids of the past. How do they expect us to keep the attention of the Nintendo generation?"

8. The Been-There-Done-That story. "These school reform efforts run in a predictable cycle and merely represent the fad du jour. There is nothing new under the sun. This too shall pass."

9. The Solidarity story. "We must wage a perpetual battle with our adversaries–the

mindless bureaucrats and bumbling administrators who are trying to foist more responsibility on us while they cut costs. The only improvement initiative worthy of our efforts is the struggle for higher wages and better working conditions."

10. The Nobody-Knows-The-Troubles-I’ve-Seen story. "No one outside education can appreciate just how impossible it is to teach today. How can we be expected to teach in light of the deterioration of traditional values and the overwhelming problems of our society?"

But stories also represent a powerful instrument for shaping a new culture. In fact, Peter Senge argues that the effort to create any learning organization requires a never-ending process of articulating common stories around purpose and values. Schools are more likely to function as

professional learning communities if educators engage in a deliberate and sustained attempt to communicate stories that express, amplify, and validate the principles of a learning community.

What are the prevailing stories in your school? Do you devote a portion of every faculty meeting to sharing accounts of individual and team efforts that illustrate the collective inquiry, collaboration, experimentation, results orientation, and commitment to continuous improvement that characterize a learning community? Do all faculty members share responsibility for advising colleagues of exemplars of these characteristics in their school? Does the principal view his

or her position as a "bully pulpit" for relating accounts of the learning community at work?

Students are an excellent source for stories. Is it the practice in your school to ask each student in a graduating class to write an essay describing the teacher or teachers who had the biggest impact on his or her life? Are excerpts from these essays regularly distributed to staff members to remind them of the potential they have for affecting the lives of the students entrusted to them? Are parents encouraged to advise the school whenever a teacher has gone above and beyond the call of duty, and are these testimonials shared with the entire faculty?

The work of changing schools is the work of changing culture, and one of the most effective strategies for developing the culture of a professional learning community is inundating staff with stories that illustrate that culture is at work.

Rick DuFour is superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High School District 125, Two Stevenson Dr., Lincolnshire, IL 60069, (847) 634-4000 ext. 268, fax (847) 634-0239, (e-mail: rdufour@district125.k12.il.us).

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