Processes on Achieving Sustainability

Riding on the comment made in the last reflection on sustaining teachers in school, this week I will reflect on the processes I believe may aid in achieving sustainability in the school.

Sustainability

There are competing interpretations of the word “sustainability”. I believe that sustainability is not about the environmental sustainability, not about better classrooms, not about faster wireless connections. Neither is it about prolonging specific teachers’ interventions or innovations, not about standardized teaching strategies or methods, not about specific departmental programs or packages. And neither is it about the durability of an organization to withstand external pressures, not about long serving leaders or teachers, not about age old norms of the school. Sustainability in education, I think is about establishing the conditions for high student performance over time. And what do I mean by performance? In order to move towards sustainability, I think that there must be a widely shared “moral” purpose, a point mentioned to me earlier which prompted me to this idea. So, in my opinion the performance in the case of education will be concerned with students’ learning. Below are two considerations which I think will enable sustainability in the school.

This year in particular, there are already fundamental changes to the schools’ internal processes (strong focus of AfL, embedding ICT to support learning, meeting of deadlines, better monitoring processes, new heads) and organizational culture (such as collaborations, openness towards feedbacks, accountability). These changes are unlikely to be linear. I already observed ebbs and flows, setbacks and successes. This is the natural flow. Although I know that progression may not be certain, some backing and forwarding is more likely. But with strong leadership, the school will be brought through this difficult period to the point of sustainability. Indeed, persistence and resilience (core values we hold) tend to be the hallmarks of teachers and schools that demonstrate high performance over time.

I foresee many processes and programs changing in the school, however there are two approaches I think will always continue to be focused on. They are the focus on “academic value” and “organizational capabilities and culture”.

The first focus on “academic value” is a no-nonsense measure for the students’ learning. It should reflect a zero-tolerance approach to the teaching and learning of students, which combines intense pressure with intervention to tackle “students-at-risk”. These include greater accountability of leaders and teachers, continuous school improvements, implementation of evidence based teaching, and development of capable teachers. However, I feel that if this measure is to be used on teachers continuously, success will often be short-lived. In addition, the imposition of a timescale on improvements by others may not be achievable all the time.

So the second focus on building deeply rooted “organizational and culture change” is more effective in implementing sustainability in the school. The focus here is on both the individual and collective capacity development. The only sure way that we are certain to sustain improvement is to build capacity in the school “to provide smart, strong leadership, staff who are intensely focused on students’ learning, highly competent committed teachers, clear lines of responsibilities(I am highlighting), and an environment that emphasize on collaboration, trust, and continuous learning and improvements.

I believe that in order to sustain improvements, leaders must purposefully create such organizational and cultural environment. Securing long term changes I know remains a challenge, considering that every change of principals, the school and the culture will change. Nevertheless, I believe that such dynamic change in organization and culture will be more successful compared to remaining at status quo.