Where the magic is

A theme of this blog is that we keep having conversations about education that are either peripheral to student achievement or don't mention it at all.

Another theme of this blog is that if a conversation about education isn't, in the end, focused on student achievement, then it's wasting the time of all involved.

So let's talk about the stuff that matters. Stuff that affects kids, stuff that changes lives, stuff that makes our schools work for everyone.

As the start of the school year nears, I've been thinking about the factors of a building a successful school, things that can (and should!) be done by any school, anywhere.

William Raspberry highlighted the importance of the first factor several years ago::

One way I know I've heard a keen insight into a difficult problem is when I find myself thinking: I knew that all along.

The phrase almost always pops into my head whenever I talk to James P. Comer, the Yale professor of psychiatry and the mind behind the Comer School Development Program, a highly successful model for transforming urban schools.

Comer's insight this time: Curriculum reform, new governance models, stiffer tests for students and teachers may be fine, but there's no magic in them. The magic is in a culture that supports child and adolescent development, and that can happen only through relationships.

 -- William Raspberry, "A Culture for Teaching" July 18, 2005

Peter Drucker was more succinct: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

I don't meet a lot of parents who grill me about value-added test scores or Common Core standards. I do meet a lot who want to know their children are in a school that is pleasant and safe, where the high expectations parents have for their children at home transfer into the school.

In other words, I meet a lot of parents who care about the culture of their child's school. They are exactly right to do so because of two reasons:

1) A fun, learning-focused culture is one of the biggest factors in creating a successful school.
2) Culture is the factor most under the control of the adults in the building.

Notice I didn't say culture is entirely under the control of the adults. It's not. Sometimes kids bring stuff in from outside the building that can create a drag on the culture. After all, we're dealing with kids here -- they sometimes act immature, make poor decisions, or just have a bad day.

Consider, though, the inputs of a school's culture:

1) How the adults interact with each other
2) How the adults interact with the students
3) How the students interact with each other

Adults control two out of three factors, and it's not a leap to say that the students take their cues on how to treat each other based on what they see modeled by the adults. Obviously, in the short-term, kids can be disruptive, rude, frustrating and just about every other adjective in the English language. In the long-term, though, they follow the leadership -- or lack thereof -- of adults.

Admitting this is hard for an educator because of the unpredictability of children. I have recurring nightmares about visitors walking in my classroom as I'm at wit's end with a student who's having a bad day. However, a veteran principal once told me: One student out of control is the responsibility of that student. A classroom out of control is the responsibility of the teacher. A school out of control is the responsibility of every of adult in the building.

A school will have a culture one way or another. In the long-run, it will determined the adults in the building. The question is whether those adults are willing to build the relationships -- with each other and with the students -- necessary to have a culture that supports learning and makes school a place everyone looks forward to coming to each day.

The next step is how to do it. John C. Maxwell said it well: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." 

The teachers I've known who were master culture-builders weren't the most inspirational people. No one would ever confuse them with Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. But of course, in that movie, Robin Williams' character makes it pretty much all about him.

The great teachers I know built culture in the exact opposite way: they made it about the students, their colleagues -- anyone other than themselves. Instead of the thinking of the perfect thing to say, they perfected their listening skills. They were meticulous about the little things that matter to all of us: a smile, a friendly greeting, asking about their weekend, remembering a birthday.

These were the people that, on an everyday level, inspired me to continue teaching.

People want to be teachers because when there's a great culture in the building, there's no job that's more fun. This sort of culture also attracts students like bees to honey. Especially for students from a rough home life or who are easily frustrated by academics, a positive culture is what keeps them invested.

For everybody, going to school every day becomes, in a word, magic.