Listen carefully

Good communication skills build relationships that foster school improvement

By Joan Richardson

Tools for Schools, October/November 2002

As an elementary school principal leads a staff meeting, he says that he believes all students in this school are capable of learning at high levels. Then he invites comments from the staff.

A 2nd-grade teacher raises her hand and says, "I've been teaching for a dozen years and I know that some children will never be able to learn what others are able to learn. Some children just don't have the home lives, the innate intellectual ability, or even the desire to learn as much as other children."

The principal, visibly red in the face, says, "That is a really unprofessional attitude. That is not the attitude a teacher should have in this school."

The principal says, "I want to learn more about your views. You've had a lot of experience as a teacher in this building and in this district. Tell us more about why you believe as you do."

Which response from the principal is most likely to keep this conversation going? Which response is most likely to encourage other teachers to speak up and share their points of view? Which response is most likely to shut down honest exchanges between teachers and principal?

This sort of exchange between a principal and a teacher--particularly when it occurs in full view of an entire school staff--is at the heart of the relationships that these individuals will have with each other.

The quality of these relationships is key to a staff's ability to work with each other and achieve the kind of sustained collaboration necessary to do the hard work of school improvement.

"We talk a lot about the importance of a productive school culture. But it's the social relationships between people in schools that form that culture. A high-performing culture is ultimately about the quality of those relationships," says Dennis Sparks, executive director of the National Staff Development Council.

Sparks is not the only educator concerned about relationships in schools. In his newest book, Leading in a Culture of Change (Jossey-Bass, 2001), Michael Fullan calls relationships "Job Two." Relationships have even become the focus of serious research: University of Chicago researchers Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider have examined the role of social relationships in Chicago public schools and concluded that schools with a high degree of "relational trust" are far more likely to make the kinds of changes that help raise student achievement than those where such relations are low, according to a recent article in the Harvard Education Letter (July/August 2002). In an unrelated story out of Chicago, the magazine Catalyst reported that a highly touted professional development effort at the city's Manley High School failed largely because of lack of trust and poor relationships among key players in the effort.

Although he's been working in this area for many years, Robert Garmston will quickly admit that it's difficult to sell school staff members on the value of paying more attention to their relationships with each other. "Our experience is that people are so busy and their plates are so full that asking them to pay attention to the ways they communicate is just a crazy maker," Garmston says.

He recommends that principals begin such work by laying out the rationale for such an emphasis. Introduce staffs, he says, to the professional learning communities work of Karen Seashore Louis and to the more recent research from Chicago.

Focusing on the conversations teachers and principals have with each other is the starting point for this work, say both Garmston and Sparks. But improving the quality of conversations among staff members cannot be done in isolation, they say. Although some time must be spent learning new skills, those new skills can quickly be put to use in the context of a school's regular work, such as staff meetings, team meetings, and curriculum committees.

"You work on the culture and the relationships simultaneously with the other work that you're doing," Sparks says.

One place a school staff might begin is by taking the inventory offered on Pages 4 and 5 (offered in the PDF version through the Comprehensive Members area of NSDC's site). Garmston uses this tool as a way for staff members to kick off a discussion about the way they communicate with each other and to identify the skills they want to focus on. Garmston's book, The Adaptive School (Christopher-Gordon, 1999), provides substantial background for further work in this area.

Once a staff identifies skills it wants to improve, Garmston recommends a regular reminder at the start of each meeting and a check-in at the end of each meeting to gauge the group's progress.

Learn new skills

Listen fully

Because communication is a two-way street, it doesn't happen unless the intended message is received. While great amounts of time are devoted to being an excellent speaker or writer, relatively little time is devoted to learning how to be a good receiver.

Sparks says effective listeners just focus on listening carefully without devoting part of their attention to what they will say next. See the tool on Page 3 (offered in the PDF version through the Comprehensive Members area of NSDC's site) for an activity that will help your group practice this strategy.

Paraphrase

Garmston draws a clear distinction between the practice of paraphrasing and the "effective listening" of several decades ago.

The effective listening strategy ("I hear what you're saying") took the emphasis off the speaker and placed it on the listener, he says. In the paraphrasing that he recommends, the emphasis remains with the speaker.

In the example at the beginning of this article, the principal paraphrased the statement of the teacher by capturing the essence of her message and then asking for more information.

Garmston and his colleague Bruce Wellman describe three types of paraphrasing in their book, The Adaptive School. Review those types on Page 6 of this issue (offered in the PDF version through the Comprehensive Members area of NSDC's site).

Avoid obligatory language

Spark recommends paying close attention to obligatory words that you use in both verbal and written conversations. For example, how many times today will you say or write a sentence that includes these words?:

You must …
You ought to …
You should …
You have to …
You need …

"If someone is 'shoulding' us, we may feel coerced and patronized. Shoulds ask us to live out the values and intentions of others as if there is only one right way to do something. In the process, we lose our voice and vitality, which is ultimately destructive to the relationships we're trying to build," Sparks says.