In previous articles we spoke of the need to foster a culture of respect. We identified the importance behind a leadership based on a strong set of core values that determine our actions. This brief article builds on this and explores the critical role that college principals have for developing a high-performance culture in their colleges.
High quality professional learning by all teachers is critically important if high quality teaching is to occur in every classroom. Such learning is ultimately based in and stimulated by a high-performance culture, the creation of which is a major and often neglected role.
The view held by many educators and a preferred form of practice is that the most important form of professional learning occurs in daily interactions among teachers in which they assist one another in improving their planning and lesson plans; in deepening their understanding of the content they teach; in analyzing student work; in examining various types of data on student performance, and addressing problems and managing dilemmas they face on a daily basis.
If we acknowledge this perspective we acknowledge the potential benefits that can be accrued from such initiatives. From this perspective, sustained teacher-to-teacher communication about teaching and learning is one of the most powerful and underused sources of professional learning.
It is one of the main responsibilities of the college principals to develop a high-performance culture in which productive relationships can thrive.
Because culture is the sum total of interactions among community members and the beliefs that they bring to those interactions, the creation of such a culture means establishing norms and practices that lead to trust and mutual respect, continuous improvement, team-focused collaboration, clarity of thought, the candid expressions of views, and interpersonal accountability for the fulfilment of commitments.
We do believe that College Principals and the Heads leading our schools are doing their utmost to create such an environment.
We also strongly believe that we need to do more to support practicing school leaders and that preparation programmes expose existing and potential leaders to these skills. We need to provide one-to-one support as they are implemented in the complex interpersonal environment of the school/college.
A sceptic may read the previous paragraph and wonder what long-term culture-building skills have to do with the pressing issues that face schools on a daily basis.
Then, my argument would be is that we need to revisit what our expectations are of our school leaders. Both the Strategic Plan (2001) and the more recently amended Education Act want leaders who can take their colleges and schools forward whilst the reality may still be bogged down by administrative demands.
We need to move away from the shackles of bureaucracy and allow for the flexibility, creativity and spontaneity needed at not only school level but also within our directorates.
We do not want schools merely to do what is expected of them, to produce the 'desired results'. This may prove affective in the short run.
And, for many school leaders what is familiar is command and control procedures - define the problem, prescribe solutions, issue directives, monitor compliance, and motivate performance (if at all possible!), methods which are hardly the substance of a high-performance culture. However, it may satisfy externally or internally imposed demands.
This attitude, this approach must change.
This is the challenge that our college principals face. They are trying to think outside the box and encouraging others to do the same.
This will produce quality teaching in every classroom, in our schools and the community in which teachers and students alike experience success, joy, and satisfaction each day.
Such schools are grounded in relationships and intellectual tasks that honour and challenge every member of the community to more fully develop his or her talents to serve both individual and collective purposes. Those are the schools to which we would all happily send our own children.
Dr Bezzina is director, Quality Assurance Department in the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education, Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.