5 min read

ACPPA Retreat

Tim has more than 20 years experience working in education. He has extensive experience coaching health and fitness, adventure and leadership camps, facilitating professional developments for schools, businesses and community groups. Tim is an innovative leader in physical and spiritual wellbeing and ACPPA has been pleased to be working with him. Take a moment to read a little about our shared journey so far!

In May last year, I was honoured to guide the Australian Catholic Primary Principals Association (ACPPA) through the early stages of a genuine journey into the heart of their identity. 

The timing was perfect. 

If you are a person of faith, then you are likely to consider all things connected. 

And it just so happens the Catholic Church and education itself, find themselves in the same place. 

Both have arrived at a place where change is both necessary and inevitable but the what and how exactly remain unclear.

It’s one thing to desire something, another to do what it takes, having found a way, to achieve it.

At the moment there seems to be more questions than answers and more ‘hopes’ than clarity on the pathways that might bring these hopes to fruition.

There is definitely a whole lot of excessive noise as individuals take to social media - or whatever platform they can get on - to shout their individual perspective as loudly and proudly as possible – at times with disdain for the opposing view. 

It’s easy to shout what you want and to point out what, in your view, is wrong. It’s also easy to do this without giving any consideration to the ‘big picture’.

At the end of this month ACPPA and I will continue our exploration into their identity. 

We won’t quite be picking up where we left off, because they have had the courage to address the issues that were identified during last year’s retreat. 

I say courage because my invitation to join them last year came with the freedom to prod, test and challenge them on every aspect of their identity. 

 'In essence, they were demonstrating the desire to see beyond what they hoped those outside of their organisation thought of them and into what was – or wasn’t - really happening.’

Such a fitting response for matters pertaining to faith, spirituality and education. 

Even more importantly, ACPPA have given themselves time. 

In today’s world - well at least in high income countries - we are obsessed with speed. 

If we don’t like ourselves, or any situation in our lives we want it changed immediately. 

Many of us tweet and post without much thought, jump from diet to diet and take any opportunity for a quick fix or a quick buck. 

Genuine and meaningful change takes time. 

In fact, it is an ongoing process. 

And far more than change being something we witness purely in our physical world, it will be the how the stakeholders feel that will be the true test of change.

ACPPA seeks to be relevant, contemporary and vocal – a voice for Catholic Education and their leaders.

And they are also committed to being all of these things in a respectful and inclusive manner. 

This is a dance we must all enter into as ACPPA, the Catholic Church, education, the planet and humanity itself all find themselves in a similar situation. 

The approach ACPPA is taking to guide their own evolution is an approach I believe would serve many principals - and the staffs they serve - very well.

I think we all need to slow down. 

I believe reflection, investigation and then measured and considered action will be the most effective way we - and whatever groups we belong to - can move forward. 

This is what ACPPA has done for the past 12 months.

In a fortnight’s time we will add new layers and perhaps new directions to their journey.

What is unveiled will provide the catalyst for focused and ongoing action, sourced in a clear understanding of what their role of service is and how best they can execute that role. 

But that’s ACPPA.

In terms of the Catholic Church and its own direction it is not a time to do anything blindly. 

Or with such speed or lack of care that what takes place creates division rather than unity. 

It is neither a time to reject, disrespect or be dismissive of tradition nor to leap blindly into a new world that takes us further away from God’s true desires for humanity and the earth. 

It is a time to honour our journey to where we are now in all its beauty and ugliness and to take from it the lessons that will serve us in the future. 

There is much to consider. 

And we are a people of many generations, varied backgrounds and with different lifestyle choices. 

But the idea, well at least I hope it’s the idea, is that we come together as one - no matter where any life has found itself. 

As the church itself responds and adapts to the contemporary needs of humanity and the planet it must ensure that doors are left open and the invitation to enter is extended to everyone. 

Any exploration into a collective identity will bring with it, strong views. 

No view should be unwelcome or disrespected. 

The delivery of our own thoughts and ideas should be done with both softness and strength. 

What we write or speak should be expressed in a manner that encourages others to listen. 

That’s the reason you say anything, right?  To be heard...and understood. 

And when we’ve had our turn, we offer our hearts and minds to receiving the thoughts and ideas of others with respect and an open mind. 

Drawing each other in, not pushing each other away, should be the goal of all members of the Church. 

How can we create a church that leaves its doors open to Catholics and non-Catholics alike?

To everyone. 

How can we create a church that is always welcoming and accepting, should someone find themselves with nowhere else to go to for support - no matter who they are or what they’ve done?

We would also do well to remember here that the church is each and every one of us.

If we turn our backs on another, so too has the church.

This is not going to be easy. 

But we can learn a lot from the approach to change I am sharing with ACPPA. 

It is a time for reflection, careful consideration and then measured action. 

That way each step the church takes will be one towards what the world needs from the church today. 

Not what it was or what any one individual wants it to be. 

Our challenge is to look beyond ourselves and into our collective heart - the same heart that fuels both humanity and the planet - and ask it the one question that should guide everything we do in the future. 

‘What do you need from us?’ 

If our hearts and minds are in the right place, then we are free to trust that any action of service we undertake - be it individual or collective - will be worthwhile and will also play its role in making our planet a more peaceful and liberating experience for all human beings and the earth.

If there is one responsibility placed on each and every one of us, it is to do our best to contribute to the creation of such a world. 

And ACPPA is determined to honour this responsibility for the leaders they serve, and in this way, the staff and students and wider communities of their schools.

long read

Mojdeh Henderson, the principal at Berewick Elementary School in Charlotte, N.C., sticks to a time-management plan that ensures she spends about 80 percent of her time in classrooms.

Just a few months into her first year as principal of Oak Knoll Elementary School in Menlo Park, Calif., Kristen Gracia was on a fast track to burnout.

She'd been assistant principal for four years and felt in command of that job.

But as principal, there was so much more to do, and things were falling by the wayside. She wasn't making enough classroom observations, getting enough sleep, working out, or eating well. When she finally got home, it was a mad dash to feed, bathe, and tuck her children in before powering up her computer to return to work.

"There was no way a healthy human could sustain this job," she recalled.

Five years later, Gracia is much more satisfied with her job. She regularly spends two full days a week observing teachers and interacting with students and staff. She's consistently working out. And when she works from home, it feels like a choice.

"It really came down to: I want both a job and a life," she said. What changed?

It started with her superintendent's insistence that Gracia get support after she confided the job felt overwhelming. He directed her to The Breakthrough Coach, a seminar that helps principals see their roles as executives and prioritize their time so they spend up to two days a week out of the office and in classrooms.

A key tenet Gracia absorbed is to trust the experts to handle many of the jobs she'd been trying to do herself.

The program taught her to forge a strong relationship with her secretary, the keeper of the schedule who directs Gracia's day. The two meet every day to review the daily schedule and put upcoming items on the calendar.

The secretary ensures Gracia signs important documents in morning meetings, eliminating interruptions during the day. She also schedules time for the principal to read, prepare presentations, and meet with parents, teachers, and students.

Meetings are set for the three days when Gracia is not in classrooms.

Gracia was motivated to make the job work for her. But she also wanted to prove that the principalship isn't an impossible job, populated by people who are perpetually overworked.

In a national survey, more than half of principals reported spending 60 hours or more a week on school-related activities, a workload that contributes to nearly 50 percent of them leaving their schools in their third year. In a recent survey of first- and second-year principals done by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, 44 percent cited managing time as their top challenge.

What Principals Shouldn't Do

There are many culprits for the long, stressful days. Policymakers have added many labor-intensive responsibilities to the principal's job. One of those is more in-depth teacher evaluations, according to Jason Grissom, an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.

"One of the things you hear from principals a lot is that 'we have all of these expectations … but nothing got taken off our plates,' " said Grissom.

Interruptions—from staff and parents—add extra minutes that can stretch into hours. But principals are also to blame, in large part by doing other people's jobs instead of empowering employees to do them.

"A principal's job is not to go into the classroom and complete a discipline process with a student," said Erik Burmeister, the Menlo Park superintendent. "A principal's job is not to take a call from a parent who is upset about the cheerleading coach's decision to not put their child on the cheerleading squad."

Principals need to change their mindsets, too.

Quit thinking that working longer hours will make you better, said Mark Shellinger, a former principal who created the National SAM Innovation Project, which helps principals shift their focus from the management aspects of the job to instructional leadership.

"So much of being a principal requires you to be in the moment, centered, and focused on the other person you are working with," Shellinger said. "If you are tired and out of gas, that just doesn't [cut] it."

The good news is that time management is a learnable skill, and principals don't have to spend a lot of money to learn how to wring the most out of their days.

In her first year, Mojdeh Henderson, principal of Berewick Elementary School in Charlotte, N.C., worked more than 60 hours a week and wondered if she'd survive.

Now, she averages 50-hour work weeks, feels less stressed, and spends more time with her family. She credits the SAM process and personal growth for giving her balance and the tools to last seven years on the job.

SAM designates a team or person in a school to work with principals to increase the time they spend on instruction. A team of first responders takes a crack at a problem before it goes to the principal. A tracking mechanism logs and charts how principals spend their time and with whom.

The tracker is on Henderson's Apple Watch, so if she runs into an employee who wants to meet, she can add them to the calendar on the spot. The charts help her see whether she is spending her time on the right things. When she first joined the SAM program, an analysis showed that Henderson was spending between 50 to 60 percent of her week on instruction. Now, her average goal is 78 percent and she often hits 85 percent, she said.

She cut out things others could handle, including building minutiae and student discipline. She spends the "extra time" planning meetings, observing classes, and giving feedback to teachers one-on-one.

"I am analyzing what's happening in my building and making instructional decisions that support the forward progression," she said.

Billy Lewis, principal at Belvidere High School, in Belvidere, Ill., said The Breakthrough Coach process drastically reduced his stress and made him more efficient.

By mid-September, he'd been to all of his 82 teachers' classrooms. And with the school rolling out four big initiatives, the process helps him focus on the right tasks.

He can quickly spot areas in need of improvement and recognize teachers who deserve praise and others who will be great resources for their peers, he said.

"I am able to see kids more," he said. "I am able to see teachers more, and identify trends, and have a picture of how teaching and learning [are occurring] at Belvidere High School—and then a lot of things can happen from that."

Gracia, the Menlo Park principal, has learned she must actively choose the activities that would move her school forward. She had to prepare her staff for the changes to come, including that they would no longer be able to stroll into her office and that they would be receiving fewer emails. The school, she told them, would emphasize face-to-face communication.

"The way we have redefined how we are operating really is a team effort," she said. "You have to get people on board. I don't believe it would work if it was just me trying to do this on my own."

Gracia spends a lot of time talking to teachers, providing them access to professional development, and sometimes just getting out of their way, she said. And in the process, she has created a team of problem-solvers, who don't need her to fix everything, she said.

Related Video

"My job is to be a leader," she said. "People want a leader, they don't all need a boss to be bossed around. That's not effective or efficient."

Vol. 38, Issue 09, Pages 8-10

Published in Print: October 17, 2018, as 'I Want a Job and a Life:' How to Find Balance in All-Consuming Work

In this blog I’d like to bring together three different lines of educational analysis to show how our contemporary discussions of policy are really not going to lead to any significant change or educationally defensible reforms.  I realise that is a very big call, but I’m pretty confident in saying it, and I hope to show why.

Essentially I think we really need to change the way educational reform debates are framed, because they are based on questions that will not lead us to systemic improvement that I think most ‘stake-holders’ really seek in common.  Before I launch into this discussion, though, I also need to point out that there are a host of related issues which really can’t be sufficiently addressed here, and which I won’t explain at all – but which I will name toward the end of this post.

For now, consider three main points

1) there is growing recognition that a fundamental linch-pin in quality schooling is always going to be our reliance on the professional judgement of teachers,

 2) there is also growing recognition that our current system architecture works against that in several ways, and

3) this is the clincher, the systems that we have implemented are producing exactly that for which they were designed (where teacher professional judgement plays little or no part).

The practical conclusion of bringing these observations together is obvious to me. We are never going to get that “systemic improvement” that we all seem to think will be good for Australia, because we don’t have the right system architecture to achieve it. I believe we need to start thinking more carefully and creatively about how our educational systems are designed.

The hard part begins after sufficient numbers of stakeholders come to this realisation and want to shift the debates.  We aren’t there yet, so for now I just want to open up this line of thought.

The first starting point won’t be a surprise for readers of this blog, and followers of public educational policy pitches.  On the one hand, anyone with Findlandia envy and followers of the recent statements from Pasi Sahlberg, now at UNSW’s Gonski Institute, will know that much of the strength of the ‘Finnish Education Mystery’ (as it has been named by Hannu Simola) has been built on a strong commitment to the professional autonomy and expertise of Finnish teachers.  This isn’t simply accidental, but a consequence of a long understandable history that included (but isn’t only due to) careful and intelligent design by the Finnish Government.

On the other hand, here in Australia, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, Nicole Mockler, and her colleagues have aptly shown that teachers are more than interested in using evidence-based approaches to help guide their local decision, but their judgements are not really being supported by evidence they see as relevant and useful.

My own analysis of this situation has led me to raise significant questions about the way in which advance technical issues of measurement and its statistical applications have been reduced to incorrect and really misleading uses, and the way in which the institutions which are supposed to promote teachers and teaching has reduced that exercise to classic institutional credentialism based on tick box exercises that really don’t reflect that which it claims. 

No matter how much politicians and other stakeholders might wish to create systems that guarantee this or that universal practice, student learning is always individual and in schools always dependent on whomever is guiding that learning (the same would apply to entirely automated systems, by the way).  So the goal of designing systems based on the presumption that we can somehow specify practice to a point where there is no uncertainty in delivery, is folly.

And yet, point two, these are precisely the sorts of education systems Australia has been building since at least the late 1980s. In broad terms this corresponds to the significant changes in educational governance known as ‘the ministerialisation of education’ documented by educational researchers Dr Janice Dudley and Professor Lesley Vidovich, long ago.  It was in this time period where the penultimate attempt to nationalise curriculum developed, with the corresponding creation of national goals (the Hobart, Adelaide, Melbourne declarations), former civil servants were replaced by contracted ‘Senior Executives’ across federal and state bureaucracies, and teacher education was handed to the federally funded Universities alone (plus a range of massive shifts in TAFE). 

Since then it has been a long slow process of standardisation within and across state systems, the formation of ‘professional institutes,’ and the expansion of public funding to private schooling. 

The roll out of ‘standardisation’

The case for why these systems inhibit or actively work against the exercise of teachers’ professional judgement should be pretty obvious with the term ‘standardisation’.  These days, national curriculum is designed with the intent of making sure children of the military can move around that nation and ‘get the same stuff,’ accountability is centrally developed and deployed via the least expensive forms, like NAPLAN (and an expanding host of supposedly valid measures), teaching has become regulated through standardising the people (at least on paper, via the ‘professional standards’), and securing employment and advancement has been directly tied to these mechanisms. 

Even measurement instruments originally designed only for research and later to help provide evidence for teachers’ use have become tick box instruments of surveillance.  As a researcher I am not opposed to good measurement, and in fact I’ve created some of those being used in this larger schema, but how systems deploy them make huge differences. 

From the reports of the implementation of NAPLAN it is very clear (as was predicted by then opponents) that many of these have become much more high stakes than advocates predicted or intended (opponents were right about this one).  Whether it be novice teachers beholden to developing paper work ‘evidence’ of standards for their job security through to executives whose jobs depend on meeting Key Performance Indicators (which are themselves abstracted from actual effect), we have developed systems of compliance within institutes in which real humans play roles that are pre-defined and largely circumscribed.  And those who readily fit them without too much critique fill these roles. 

After years of this, is it any wonder that teacher education programs by and large no longer teach the history and practice of curriculum design, nor the history and philosophy of education (which is now largely relegated ‘ethics’ in service of codes of conduct) and what once were lively fields of educational psychology and sociology of education have become handmaidens of ‘evidence-based’ teaching techniques and bureaucratic definitions of ‘equity’? (In the University sector these ‘foundational’ disciplines literally do not belong in education anymore for research accountability purposes.)

One bit of historical memory: in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this process of moving the intellectual (‘mental’) work of teachers into standardised categories defined by management was shown to have a long term effect known as ‘de-skilling.’  From our work in the New Basics Trial in Queensland (which was actually much more successful than most realise) it has been very clear that what once were wide spread teacher capacities in local curriculum design and development have been forfeited to (extremely well paid) bureaucrats.  When I met the teachers who took part in the early 1990s National Schools Project (in 1993 and 1994), state differences on this were really obvious and relevant. 

When teachers were invited to restructure any aspect of their work to improve student learning, through an overt agreement between the Unions and employers, teachers from states where there were strong traditions of local curriculum development and pedagogical reflection (most obviously Victoria and South Australia) were squarely focused on trying to find ways of providing rich educational experiences for their students (curriculum, pedagogy were their mainstay).  Teachers from the state that has provided the basic structure of our current systems (NSW) were largely concerned about timetables and budgets.  Of course this is a very big generalisation, but it is also obvious when you work with teachers in schools developing new curriculum projects.

What is the effect of all this?  Precisely as intended, the systems are standardised, stratified, countable and a ready source of ‘evidence’ used to meet the needs of the politicians and ‘independent’ stakeholders, and advancing employees who probably actually believe in the reforms and initiatives they advocate. 

But let’s be honest, these actors are not around after they have used the political capital gained from initiating their pet projects.

Let’s go further

Here is where there are hosts of other developments that buttress this larger system which need further analysis and elaboration than I can provide here.  From the expansion of testing measures based on statistical assumptions few teachers and principals and fewer parents really know well (they aren’t taught them), to professional development schemes based on market determined popularity, to pre-packaged curriculum and apps literally sold as the next silver-bullet, contemporary ‘texts’ of education carry far more implications than the ones named by those selling them.

There are the huge range of ideas and presumptions that lie behind those sales pitches. Of course some teachers sometimes blindly seek these out in the hope of finding new ideas and effective practices.  Teachers’ dispositions and capacities have not come from nowhere, they are the historical product of this system. But who is going to blame them (or the bureaucrats, for that matter) when they rightfully focus on making sure they have a job in that system so they can support their own children and parents?

Yes, we have systems we created. On the one hand, that’s not encouraging.  On the other hand, that does mean that we can re-create them into something quite different.

Change the questions

One of the first steps to collectively trying to find new ways of constructing our school systems, I think, really is about changing the questions we think we are answering.  Instead of using the type of questions needed to drive research, e.g. anything of the form ‘what works?’, we need to start asking, ‘how do we build systems that increase the likelihood that teachers will make intelligent and wise decision in their work?’ 

Research and the categories of analysis CAN provide clear ideas about what has occurred in the past (with all the necessary qualifications about when, where, measured how) but those answers should never be the basis for systems to prescribe what teachers are supposed to do in any given individual event or context.  For example, diagnostic testing can be incredible useful for teachers, but they can’t tell teachers what to do, with whom, when. 

Do we have systems that support teachers in taking the next step in their decisions about which students need what support at what time, while knowing what those tests actually measure, with what margin of error, in what contexts for whom?  The question for systems designs isn’t what’s ‘best practice’, it’s what system increases the probability of teachers making wise and compassionate decisions for their students in their context at the appropriate time.  That includes making judgements relative to what’s happening in our nation, economy and in the larger global transformations. 

Our systems, in the pursuit of minimising risk, are very good as proscribing what teachers’ shouldn’t do; but, they are not designed to support teachers to wisely exercise the autonomy they need to do their jobs in a manner that demonstrates the true potential of our nation.

We can see that potential in the all too rare events in which our students and teachers are given that sort of support – often on the backs of incredibly dedicated and professional teachers and school leaders. From local innovative uses of technology, to large scale performances in the arts, the potential of Australian educators isn’t really hard to find.  But we need new systems to support them in doing more of that type of work, with more students, more of the time.

So when it comes to advocating this or that system reform, please, change the focus.  We don’t need more ‘best practice’ policies from vested interests, to discipline our teachers, we need systems designed to promote true, authentic excellence in education.

James Ladwig is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle and co-editor of the American Educational Research Journal.  He is internationally recognised for his expertise in educational research and school reform.  Find James’ latest work in Limits to Evidence-Based Learning of Educational Science, in Hall, Quinn and Gollnick (Eds) The Wiley Handbook of Teaching and Learning published by Wiley-Blackwell, New York (in press). James is on Twitter @jgladwig

This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.