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Leadership > The Change Process
The Limits of Caring, the Rigors of Change
Table of Contents:
Introduction
This introduction begins with an explanation of what the paper is not. It is not a formal evaluation of Lincoln High School, with long lists of commendations and recommendations. Neither are the researchers neutral outsiders; we endorse Coalition principles. We began this three-year project as partners in the Coalition of Essential Schools, which Lincoln joined in 1988.
Nor is this a history of Lincoln's considerable progress. The images in these pages focus on the fall of 1991 instead of exploring all the accomplishments before then. A full history of the school's impressive evolution would highlight a point too easily missed: restructuring is neither easy nor quick. It may look simple but it rarely is. As Lincoln has moved ahead, confusion, fear, and anger have periodically flared.
Located in a south-central state, Lincoln High School is a suburban high school with approximately eleven hundred students and about seventy-five faculty members. Seventy five percent of Lincoln's students are white and 25 percent are black; about 40 percent come from low-income families. Lincoln attracted us because we knew from Coalition friends that the school had made greater progress toward whole-school change than had most Coalition schools.
We made our first visit to Lincoln High School as part of the School Change Study in the last week of October 1991. During our visit we spoke with many people in the school community and observed in classrooms to gain understanding of what it is like to learn and to teach at Lincoln at this point in its effort to become an Essential school. From our conversations, observations, and reflections we produced the following snapshot.1
We did not come simply to celebrate the gains already secured. Our work is designed to support, advance, and deepen the good work under way. Through this snapshot of Lincoln High School, we hope to raise questions and frame issues to help the faculty and administrators reflect on where they are, without telling them what to do next, which would be presumptuous.
[Return to Table of Contents] Focusing the Snapshot
In this first snapshot, we focus on the theme of caring. Caring
is a word with many meanings; at Lincoln, caring means more than a loose and pleasant atmosphere. It entails respectfulness, responsiveness, patience, consensus decision making, and other traits that take people beyond laissez-faire niceness. Caring can erode whenever students come to school indifferent or hostile, or when teachers suspect or oppose restructuring. The stamina and savvy of the principal, along with many dedicated faculty, help sustain caring.
But caring also has the potential to be limiting. Caring can enhance or diminish serious academic work, and considerable variation in academic seriousness mark Lincoln's classrooms. In some cases, could more be expected, aside from the abundant extra-credit opportunities? How might pro-Coalition teachers convince skeptical students that new practices, especially teaming, may be better than the traditional structures most kids accept? In a final section, we discuss several other challenges that face the school: time, staffing, mainstreaming, and the state's education reform act.
Within the framework of caring, not every major issue facing Lincoln High School can be examined. Future snapshots will attend to other themes and also trace the school's development in 1992, 1993, and 1994.
[Return to Table of Contents]
Does Caring Influence Teaching and Learning?
Morale improves. Teachers feel closer to each other. The old us/them tensions between faculty and administration fade. Transfer requests stop. The tone of the place manifests the textbook traits of an effective school: orderliness, respect for diversity, energetic leadership, and other familiar characteristics take hold. The way people get along reflects the "tone of decency" recognized in the Coalition's Principles.2
(See Appendix B for a listing of the nine Common Principles.) Relationships seem much better than they once were, and the youngsters as well as the adults behave differently from before. Classrooms are noisy but rarely chaotic, filled with the hum of work, not the shouting of rowdiness. Discipline problems look manageable. Attendance is up, suspensions are down.
Lincoln's comfortable climate is not reserved for a chosen few. Although Lincoln has some aspects of the shopping mall high school, it avoids the most regrettable upshot of life in the mall: the pervasive "unspecialness" of so many shoppers. Lincoln does have the choice featured in the educational malls, with arena scheduling recently introduced for picking senior-year courses, and incoming ninth-graders enjoying more choice of both school and program than ever before. Where Lincoln differs most dramatically from the shopping mall is its unwillingness to let "specialty shops" flourish. A "gifted and talented boutique" has never been large or strong, since several other magnet schools in the city attract some of the brightest students. Sports are certainly popular, but they are less prominent than they were in the early and mid-1980s. Special education is taken seriously, but extensive mainstreaming keeps it from being an enclave off to itself.
Instead of catering to the specialty shops, Lincoln has tried to shrink the size of the general track population, which is where "unspecial" students usually land. More and more, students are directed to focused vocational or academic curricula. Unspecialness is also curbed by the Teacher Guided Assistance period, a half-hour between second and third periods. In addition, the teams pride themselves on knowing their students as unique individuals, with personal attention that minimizes the anonymity which in shopping mall high schools contributes to unspecialness.
How does school climate bear on restructuring? When people genuinely care about each other, what other changes follow? Of particular interest is whether teaching and learning change significantly as interpersonal ties change. We know of schools where camaraderie mistakenly convinces people that they have revamped instruction, when in fact most classrooms plod along in the old ways. Feeling good and doing better may not be synonymous. When getting along pleasantly is the priority, conflict avoidance can rule out even friendly questioning of traditional instruction. What flourishes instead are the nonjudgmental live-and-let-live truces described in the second book from A Study of High Schools (the forerunner of the Coalition), The Shopping Mall High School.3
We also know of schools where a humane atmosphere was not purchased for such a high price. Collegiality encompasses disagreements, including debate on what aspects of curriculum and instruction need to change. Caring encourages, not discourages, innovation, risk, and uncertainty. Congeniality by itself is not mistaken for classrooms alive with the activity of students absorbed in meaningful projects.
As the three of us reviewed our seventy interviews and observations made at Lincoln High School in late October 1991, we kept coming back to these issues. We knew we had been to a fine school, a friendly place where the webs of human relationships are admirable. On balance, these were good people--energetic, frank, funny, alert--whom anyone would welcome as colleagues. And we had met students whose civility and respectfulness reminded us that facile stereotypes about mischief in blue-collar communities, integration, and busing usually mislead. Walk the halls before first period, listen to the buzz of the lunchroom, eavesdrop by the buses, and the quiet conversations might not signal that poverty, pregnancy, split families and other serious complications mark many students' lives.
How much of the tolerance in this generous place is translated into teaching and learning where the student is truly the worker, confronting essential questions and exhibiting a well-defined level of mastery? Why did many teachers rate Lincoln a "three" on a five-point scale, with one end indicating no change and the other marking full implementation of the nine Common Principles? Why is effort, a good try, often accepted as the standard of excellence? What challenges now face the school which will test its stamina and ingenuity?
[Return to Table of Contents]
Caring in a Changing School
Although people we met agreed that Lincoln is a caring place, we were interested to know what they meant by caring, and we also wanted to find out how Lincoln's caring culture both influenced and responded to change.
[Return to Table of Contents] The Community's Views of a Caring School
This school is something else! The teachers: they're friendlier, they're easier to work with. If you need help they'll bend over backwards to help you; if it's after school, before school, anything--they'll do it.
I know just about every teacher here. I'm a really friendly person. And they're wonderful. I wouldn't trade them for nothing. I loved eighth grade but that does not compare to Lincoln. I mean you would not believe it.
This school is so dedicated. That's the word, dedicated, that's what this school is to their students. They would stop what they're doing to help you. This school cares about their students.
Last year we had a derby festival. It was called the Zephyr Team Derby Festival. We had our own races; we cooked out, too. You never know what to expect. You don't know if you're going to the library or outside. It isn't like a teacher, a chalkboard, turn to page blah, blah, blah, and do your work. We do more group work. We are really into social skills.
Everybody is just so friendly here. If I had a problem, I could tell anybody and I would have no problems talking to them whatsoever. Mr. Stewart is like a dad to me; if I need something he's there. I don't call him "Mr. Stewart"; I call him "Stu."
Although they used slightly less exuberant language than this student, Jill, does, nearly everyone described Lincoln High as caring. "What's best for students" motivates the faculty, one group of teachers all agreed. What that phrase means in practice is a comfortable and friendly high school where, as one parent said, "the kids feel like they fit in." The ninth-grade teams, particularly the oldest one, the Zephyr team, consciously try to ease middle-schoolers into Lincoln by activities that minimize fear and anxiety about the school. In all grades, students spoke of trust, openness, and responsiveness as aspects of a place that seems as warm as a family or second home to many. Nancy Nunn, a records clerk, described the faculty as concerned and helpful. "It's a close-knit school. Everyone tries to help somebody else find their niche, feel important, feel welcome."
How Students View Caring
In the students' descriptions of their favorite teachers, caring implies
niceness. A preferred teacher is helpful, patient, has a sense of humor, listens well, and takes the time to explain fully what's expected. She is accessible and available when you need to see her: "If you come in and something is bothering you, they'll ask you what the problem is." They have fun when they teach instead of "taking everything too seriously." "They're not too pushy," one student said, and Jill exclaimed, "Even the janitors here are nice!"
Students also feel cared for by virtue of the neighborhood's devotion to the high school. The strong athletic teams traditionally spark the local community's allegiance. After several years of estrangement in the wake of busing in the mid-1970s, the loyalty of the locals revived. Although PTA membership is small, it is increasing, and parents respect the school for academic as well as athletic programs. Few understand the Coalition and what it seeks, but they don't fret that their youngsters are guinea pigs in an experiment. Parents and students alike marvel at the extensive, multimillion-dollar renovations that in 1987 transformed the dreary, old, gray concrete hulk. The face-lift is a sign of respectability, an indication that they are worth being cared for. They, in turn, have taken good care of the facility; it is clean, bright, and free of graffiti.
How the Staff View Caring
Unlike some high schools, Lincoln rarely envisions caring as if it were professional therapy. References to psychological theory are infrequent, even from special education staff or counselors. The Teacher Guided Assistance period was not designed as group counseling, and it does not seem to be used that way. Social services are available and have increased recently by state law, but the teacher-talk is free of clinical jargon, free of offhand theories about the stress and strain of being adolescent today. When teachers spoke of their own fatigue, they said they were "tired"; not that they suffered from "burnout," or "midlife crisis." Several administrators referred to students as the school's "customers."
Instead of using Psychology Today-style banter, several staff described caring with reference to safety. The school is relatively free of major fights, drug use or sale, and overt racial tension. Most students shun rather than respect those few students who do drugs, drink heavily, fight, or act prejudiced. Corporal punishment stopped several years ago, even before a district ban on it. Several teachers were fired (not transferred), and after those dismissals the principal felt that no one remained on the staff who would hurt a Lincoln student. So caring is partly the absence of non-caring, and it offers protection from mischief or danger.
The Principal: A Model of Caring
The principal, Valerie Taylor, is seen by the teachers in much the same light as the students view their favorite teachers. Singling out her ability to listen--she was once a counselor--faculty said, "You can be heard here." Valerie is also admired as an excellent speaker. As with many leaders, she combines characteristics that in less skillful hands could seem contradictory. Teachers praise her patience, her willingness to wait, to "look inscrutable" in a meeting rather than reveal her opinion. She knows that change takes time.
The way we treat people is the key. Everything we do teaches more powerfully than we recognize. You don't achieve an attitude of respect in a building unless everybody is practicing it. If teachers are not treated with respect, then they aren't going to treat their kids that way. Faculty share decision making with me, and the teachers share decisions with the kids. There was a time when they didn't. There was a time when every kid went to a classroom where there was a list of rules to follow. I think we have accomplished much. The kids believe they are important. We won't tolerate outrageous behavior and we won't let anyone behave outrageously toward them. It is a long process and people do violate. That is why you have to renew the commitment constantly.
You don't get much done if you think you are going to do it yourself. It has to be through other people. You give up what some people perceive as the status. I'll never forget coming to this building and finding a parking place for the principal. Ridiculous! I deliberately had to park elsewhere for a long time before anyone would use that space.
She models a type of caring that entails tremendous energy and hard work. Faculty are amazed (and concerned)
by the long days she devotes to the job, often staying at school late in the evenings. Stamina, perseverance, and commitment matter greatly to her. As she said in regard to increasing parental involvement with the school, we "do everything and then anything" to draw them in. Trying is valued.
The most frequently noted aspect of her nurturing of faculty was a sincere encouragement to do something new. The staff said they "never got knocked down" by her. It is safe to innovate, and teachers feel they can fail without penalties. She may prod some faculty to use new methods or take advantage of professional development opportunities, but she tries to "let people come to their own understanding of things." Teachers get "latitude" from a "receptive" and "nonthreatening" principal. Those words convey the point that no one is forced or compelled, even if everyone knows that Valerie wants to see the nine Common Principles permeate the school. She is less neutral about the value of notions like "student-as-worker" than she is about the various ways her teachers try get them to become workers.
[Return to Table of Contents] An Atmosphere of Change
The upshot of the principal's caring--her encouragement and support for new efforts by the faculty--is a school with more and more adventure in the air as projects multiply. There are different things people can "hook into and play with and begin to feel involved." Examples include the formation of additional teams, the TGA period, collaborations with the local university, school-based decision making, staff and course development supported by a grant from the Southern Regional Education Board, activities in and through the Lindeman Academy (the district-sponsored professional development academy), and Valerie's travel as a Thompson Fellow with the Coalition. In a variety of ways the school has sought opportunities to change.
The momentum began before membership in the Coalition in 1988, but much of what has happened would have occurred without the formal tie with the Coalition. Instead of being just another initiative, the Coalition for Valerie offers "an overarching umbrella" to span the particular innovations.
Teacher Sam Morrison used another metaphor to express that idea: "Now we have a credo, and it feels like we're singing from the same hymnal." Faculty at Lincoln sense a greater emphasis in the last two years on Coalition ideas as the standard by which all proposals are judged. That focus seems to have emerged with Valerie's deft combination of subtlety and persistence. Lincoln may be shifting from "It's here if you want to try it" to "Why aren't you willing to try this?" That shift sends the message to Lincoln faculty that the changes undertaken are not a whim or fad. "This too shall pass," the standard reaction to razzle-dazzle pilot projects, seems more and more inappropriate at Lincoln.
The Faculty's Difficulties with Change
The new atmosphere of change has elicited various responses from faculty.
The more traditional teachers wonder if the caring includes them. The staff most uncomfortable with change are called "resisters," although their opposition seems quiet rather than active. Their numbers are small, and some are close to retirement. Often they feel that the kids are so distracted, indifferent, or ornery that teachers today face the thankless, even hopeless, task of working with unmotivated students who do not value education. The resisters have not been excluded or ignored. Valerie emphatically declared,
You cannot ignore the resisters. You have to constantly go after them. Give them a thousand chances to say no and then a thousand more. I don't think resistance is forever. We've seen that. People change.
Even so, change can be painful, and decent people occasionally feel anguish. One of the teachers spoke compassionately about the distress he'd witnessed recently:
This is the third day in a row I've seen [her] crying at the end of the day. She says that kids are changing, that they won't do homework at all, that they don't care about learning, that she's under pressure to change her very traditional style of teaching, that administrators have hinted that her subject is an anachronism here. She's one of our resisters, but it would be unfair to belittle the pain she's experiencing. Maybe that pain is the first sign, a necessary first stage in the process of change. Perhaps now is the moment when someone needs to approach her and offer support and a better way of motivating kids. Who?
Students' Views of School Change
When we spoke with students, we were interested to learn how they viewed the changes under way at Lincoln.
When students discussed courses they enjoy, they often, but not always, singled out teachers active in Lincoln's initiatives. Not every favorite teacher is a "restructurer." They might like a traditional teacher who is funny, or they might criticize a "student-as-worker" advocate if they think he or she overuses group work. If a teacher is clear, not too demanding, and pleasant, students do not resent the heavy use of recall items on tests.
Most students could not describe the Coalition or restructuring. Even questions about the major changes the school has accomplished in the past five years usually prompted remarks on the building renovations, the sports teams, or the good reputation in the community. When someone asked them about specific changes, such as working in groups, they usually qualified their praise, and noted how it can be abused by students who "goof off" or pressure other students to cover up for them.
It is unlikely that the current level of student understanding of and support for the Coalition Principles will nudge teachers to endorse and use those ideas. Unless teachers and administrators take more time to explain and justify what the Coalition stands for and why that is preferable to the notion that teaching is telling, learning is listening, and knowledge is objective facts, one possible source of support for change--informed students--will remain weak. For many students, a relaxed classroom and a caring teacher are not inextricably bound up with the nine Common Principles. Traditional teaching can win student loyalty even though we saw more allegiance to the teachers who consider themselves restructurers.
In a recent book, The Unschooled Mind, psychologist Howard Gardner analyzed the misconceptions and intuitive hunches children bring with them to school, including deeply rooted notions of what schooling must be.4 Many students envision learning as sitting, listening, remembering, and regurgitating facts on machine-scored tests. That is a pervasive view of education which they and millions of other middle-schoolers carry to high school, even if they have previously done some group work, tried cooperative learning, or finished a few projects.
As one thoughtful Lincoln English teacher said, "Students don't think they're learning unless they feel pressured and harangued. If the teacher isn't 'teaching,' then it follows they must not be learning." She give an example from one of her classes:
For the Canterbury Tales
we're acting and drawing and assembling. My initial impression is that the less I ask them to do academically, the more they seek to find the lowest level of acceptable effort. It feels like a game wherein I have to ferret out and block their continuing drive toward mediocrity.
They are having a lot of fun with this project. They are also experiencing a lot of anxiety because the assignment is so formless. I told them each to choose one pilgrim, and make that pilgrim memorable. They want me to tell them how.
[Return to Table of Contents] Caring and Rigor: Lincoln's Classrooms
Throughout Lincoln the culture of caring is played out in classrooms. As we observed classes and spoke with people in the school, we kept in mind the question of how this caring culture affected rigor--the expectations and standards--of students' work.
There is considerable freedom for individual teachers to do as they see fit in their classes. Although some departments have reputations as traditional or innovative, departments rarely shape instructional approaches. Instructional approaches reflect voluntary choices within a group of like-minded teachers, rather than orders from the chair, a position without much power. Ninth- and tenth-grade students are assigned to teams of approximately one hundred students and four to five teachers. The teams differ one to the next, and within the teams there seems to be mutual accommodation of teaching styles rather than a wedging of everyone into the same mold.
Many Lincoln classrooms manifest caring through a relaxed give-and-take between students and teachers. Banter often marks the start of the period and reappears during the hour. Students frequently ask questions without raising their hands or asking permission to speak. Note writing, hair combing, gum chewing, shoulder rubs, and quiet side conversations are tolerated in almost all classrooms. Dozing off is acceptable; if lengthy, it is interrupted by some teachers, overlooked by others.
The classroom environments at Lincoln reflect the faculty's view that unless students feel comfortable with each other and with the teachers, not much will be learned. As one teacher said, "They have to know you care before they care about what you know." Rich Horn argued that "willingness to participate" precedes the "joy of learning." In the opinion of Diane Franklin, "The students seem to be happy. If they are happy, they're going to have an open mind to learning." Not everyone arrives at school pleasant and cheerful. Instead of happiness, several teachers detect anxiety and hostility. One teacher said,
[Many students are] unhappy with family members, lack aspirations for bettering themselves, and worry more about paying the car insurance than their grades. Their low self-esteem concerns me. In class I often see anger, which is directed at their parents first and carries over to us.
Just creating classrooms where the students are calm and courteous is not a trivial accomplishment.
[Return to Table of Contents] A Glimpse into Ms. Sherman's Class
Our visit to Jane's class provides an example of how caring manifests itself in her classroom and in her instruction.
Jane Sherman has been out for three days on a trip to Florida, and the students are glad to see her back. As they come in, they ask her questions about her time away. "It was nice, real nice," she says. "Nice weather. I ate too much. I had a good time." One student asks, "Did you get the tests graded?" Jane replies, "I graded some on the beach but I'm not done yet. I'll give them back later--tomorrow." Another student pipes up, "Can you grade in a car?" Ms. Sherman answers, "Yes, teachers learn how to do that." Ms. Sherman is sitting on the edge of a table, and the mention of the tests prompts her to say that the essay questions had been difficult for the class. "Why do I give those?" Various students answer without raising their hands: "To check our writing?" "To see how simpleminded we are?" Ms. Sherman continues, "Are there right and wrong answers?" She urges them, "Avoid rambling. Some of you were avoiding the topic. I wanted you to respond. Maybe that wasn't clear. What does it mean?" Ms. Sherman answers her own question. "Your work should be thoughtful." She asks them to get out a piece of paper, think about Jews and the Jewish religion, and jot down what came to mind. "No blank sheets of paper now!" She gives them several minutes for this exercise. She walks over to talk to her student teacher and, on the way, asks one student if she got a hair cut. There is some chitchat and side conversations as Jane speaks with the student teacher, but by and large the class is quiet.
After a few minutes, she asks students to say what they have put on their paper. Without raising hands, students offer all sorts of remarks: no meat on Friday, rabbis, they wear little hats, they eat turkey, they cook on Saturday and eat on Sunday, they don't cut their hair, they have long beards. "What else?" Ms. Sherman asks. A student offers, "They were persecuted in World War II." Jane beams, "I knew you knew that." She then adds, "It is a simpler religion than the Egyptian. Why is that?" Several students respond. By this point, there are a few side conversations and students offer silly answers such as, "A goat was the father of Christ." Still, the class is orderly and she tolerates constant chatter, as long as it isn't chaotic.
Maintaining Rigor in a Caring Culture
Once students feel at ease, as they do in Ms. Sherman's class, what do they learn? Are academic standards and intellectual challenge modified for the sake of a comfortable atmosphere?
The answer to that question is not a simple yes or no response. Different students interpret the same experiences in quite different ways. For instance, they voiced a range of opinions about the Zephyr team. Some said the field trips taught them quite a bit; others saw them as a break from school. One boy wondered if he suffered as a sophomore because he did not learn enough mathematics in Zephyr. A star football player, who called Zephyr "lots of fun," said, "Everything we had in science I already knew," but he acknowledged that many students came to school who otherwise might have cut.
The question of standards is further complicated by Lincoln's history of very modest academic demands through the mid-1980s. Compared to five years ago, both the atmosphere and the academics seem better. If we could juxtapose course work in 1986 and 1991, we bet it is more demanding now. The traditional statistics do not report dramatic increases in standardized test scores, although course enrollment data gathered for the Southern Regional Education Board project indicated an impressive percentage of seniors completing chemistry (42 percent), Algebra 2 (50 percent), and pre-calculus
(27 percent). Several teachers noted higher grades earned by their students--and other teachers scoffed at the reliability of grades as a measure of intellectual rigor.
Individual students occasionally reported reborn enthusiasm for education. For instance, sixteen-year-old Cal Kolbe wants to finish high school, go to college, and become a nurse. Mother of a two-year-old son, she had considered dropping out after eighth grade, but she credits Lincoln for her strong desire to stay in school. She clearly likes her teachers and takes her classes seriously. She praises both the affective and the academic aspects of Lincoln.
The question with Cal and others is whether she could be asked to do more. She does about two hours of homework in a typical week. She tells of her class where, "instead of having to read novel after novel, we can watch a movie and explain what we learned. Then we can read out loud instead of by ourselves. It's much easier." She has a science course where the teacher's sense of humor "keeps us off of school." She often studies for tests during lunch. To Cal, her most exciting class is home economics, where they just made angel food cake.
There may be missed opportunities, chances for more to happen, in some Lincoln classes. Certainly there are fine teachers, likable and
demanding, who do not settle for low-key relaxation at the expense of serious standards. But how many Lincoln students consistently, hour after hour, feel engaged in curriculum they value as useful? Even if every single hour didn't crackle with the intensity of the instruction advocated in Ted Sizer's Horace's Compromise,5 there are moments when more could be expected of the students.
[Return to Table of Contents] A Glimpse into Mr. Cannon's History Class
We turn to a visit to Earl Cannon's class that we believe raises some of these questions.
The period begins with announcements on the public address system: yearbook tickets, sophomores running for office, photographs to be taken, and the like. Then Mr. Cannon states: "We are ready to start." Student conversations continue, although they quiet down to see how he has set up the exam review--a ticktacktoe-style quiz, with one student at the side board marking X's and
O's. The desks are divided, facing each other, with three rows of six desks on each side.
"Who was captain last time?" Mr. Cannon asks. When he seeks volunteers, one student exclaims, "I don't want to be captain because it involves work." Several students finally volunteer to be team captains, and Mr. Cannon then says softly, "I'll make the rules. That way there will be no confusion. Raise your hands. Don't yell out the answers. If team
A cannot answer, the question goes to team B to see if they know the answer." Mr. Cannon has a stack of cards with a recall question on each one.
Then the game begins. "Jackson was president for how many years?" One student says to a friend, "That is easy, too easy," but neither side knows how long he served. "Who was Charles Finney?" "When was the Erie Canal built?" "How do you spell
abolitionism?" When one student answers, a brief discussion follows about whether or not he has cheated.
About half of the students are playing the game, either giving answers or telling teammates what the answer might be. There are a few personal conversations, especially in the back row of both sides. Some students are slumped down in their seats, and one is chewing a lollipop. The student at the board who is posting the X's and O's begins to draw little faces inside the O's and talk to some friends standing near him.
Then they have to define nativism, which a student does very briefly. Mr. Cannon adds, "On the test, I'll look for your definition to say that it required dislike of Catholics." There is some good-natured grumbling; for example, when he asks one team to define the word overseer, one student groans, "Oh, God, how easy can you get?" At such exclamations, Mr. Cannon chides them in a soothing, low voice as calm as music in a doctor's office.
Later the students seem restless and fidgety. Few take the game seriously; even the team captains by the end seem distracted. To Mr. Cannon, the review makes sense. At one point, he stops and says, "You'd be surprised at how many people miss these simple questions." As he speaks, one student starts combing another student's hair. Several students pass notes to each other. One boy constantly shifts his legs and thighs back and forth, making his chair tilt and squeak. A memorable sight is the young man who has on a Sony Walkman, with one earphone in and the other removed so he will be able, if he wants, to follow the game or listen to the music, or do both, or neither.
Fidgeting notwithstanding, many of Earl Cannon's students enjoy his class. The assignments are straightforward, with little of the ambiguity and risk that mark many projects and Exhibitions.6 Earl is pleased with the changes he feels he has made in recent years. He says that he lectures less often and he sees a great improvement in his students' grades. Although, he says, "it gets on my nerves a lot," he now lets his students sit wherever they wish.
What Should Expectations Be?
A dilemma for Earl, and others like him, is that many students do indeed "miss these simple questions," and there is no consensus within Lincoln as to what a sensible "maximum minimum" standard might be for the average-ability youngsters (which is the bulk of Lincoln's population). "All children can learn." Yes, of course, but learn what? at what speed? in what depth? A student in the Zephyr team knows so little punctuation that he put only one period in a paper. Another student can describe the fine points of pre-calculus. For the large majority of Lincoln students who fall somewhere between those extremes, what is a reasonable standard of achievement?
Right now, pushing for more is often optional. In many classes, the availability of extra credit is the major option. The points are there for the taking
if a student is willing to do the work. Cal beamed about her math teacher. "She gives real good extra-credit points. We get like fifty points for a two-page paper rewrite, and twenty for one page. Out of three hundred points, I have a 495 so far! That's how good the extra credit is." One boy she knows skips much of his in-class work, but he makes it up through the extra credit. In another of her classes, the teacher walks around the room when the students are in groups, and she awards extra credit when she sees someone helping someone else. Cal is pleased that in her English class,
If you miss an assignment, you can make it up in extra credit real easy, real easy. Like if you miss a one hundred-point exam, you can make it up by writing about someone in your family, or things you hope to be later, or someone you base your life on.
In her courses and elsewhere, extra credit not only reaps points from work over and beyond what's expected, it can also compensate for absence, failure, or mediocrity on the first try. Either way, it underscores the importance of effort in doing well at Lincoln.
Many students believe that trying
is the key to good grades. Asked what's necessary to get an A, one senior said, "Show up, do your work, listen to the teacher, and follow directions." Another senior felt that "if you go in there and try, everyone can get an A." To Cal, teachers "have to know you've been working on it the best you can." On the other hand, failure results from no effort. One young teacher said that "the only way they fail is not to turn in anything." Failure reflected conduct--absence, cutting, sleeping in class.
In some respects, grading standards for the ECE (special education)
students, which explicitly stress effort, also apply to other Lincoln students. If a youngster worked hard and did what he could, a low grade is unlikely. As a member of the Zephyr team explained, "Those of us who've taught a while will accept things that show a great deal of effort and concentrated work, even though the outcomes may not look as good as we'd like. Effort is real important." She looks for signs of improvement. "At the beginning of the year, their Exhibitions are real crummy. I expect them to be better at the end of the year." We don't know enough about the specifics of the extra-credit work to evaluate its substance, or say whether it undermines students' attentiveness to the regular assigned work. What does seem clear is that students appreciate this option and see it as part of what makes Lincoln a caring and friendly place. They have second and third chances; if they mess up, it's their fault, not the school's. That attribution seems particularly accurate in the teams, where teachers seem to reach out to students to urge them to do make-up and extra-credit work, but that same encouragement also marks some classrooms of teachers who are not in teams.
[Return to Table of Contents] Supporting the Challenges of Change
Burgeoning change has brought its own challenges for the faculty at Lincoln. Although in some respects Lincoln staff have found ways to cope with these challenges, they will need to find new measures and continuing support to deal with several change-related issues.
[Return to Table of Contents] Concerns about Time
After explaining why Lincoln's atmosphere was its greatest strength, a teacher said the lack of time to take advantage of that climate was frustrating. She wanted more chances to share ideas, exchange materials, visit other teachers' rooms, and swap lesson plans with the department chair. She craved a few hours to chat with several new teachers about Lincoln's steering committee, the Coalition's Fall Forum, and some exciting workshops at the Lindeman Academy. A minute or two to sit with friends and catch up on their lives would also be welcome.
She admitted it was a great credit to the school that the faculty lounge is almost deserted, a pleasing contrast to the constant complaining she used to hear there. That sort of sharing she did not want to see. Yet within the current allocation of people and periods, she wondered how it would be possible to free any meaningful blocks of time.
Other concerns about time at Lincoln focus on work equity. Muncy and McQuillen's study of several pioneer Coalition schools reported hostile "You've got it easy!" "No, I'm working harder!" exchanges between teachers outside and inside the teams.7 At Lincoln, it is clear that some teachers work much longer and harder than others. These teachers bristled at suggestions that teammates, block schedules, favorable public relations, and field trips more than compensate. They noted the sacrifice of personal and family time--many restructurers are energetic women with home lives that allow, or at least tolerate, sixty-hour work weeks. Sometimes exhaustion hits. "But we've never all felt bushed at the same time; somebody is always revved up," one teacher observed.
[Return to Table of Contents] A Role for Humor
We met teachers who believe fervently in the importance of their work. Along with that zeal is a good sense of humor. We suspect that the combination of conviction and playfulness sustains many of the restructurers. For instance, an after-school meeting of the curriculum task force scrutinized a half-dozen ways to create a block schedule. Teachers summarized the options and then thoughtfully discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each. During the two hours, refreshments with unusual names were ordered. Three people ordered Sex on the Beach. When the check came, one woman rose to pay and leave and hollered, "I had Sex on the Beach and it cost me $3.50!" The comments and quips flew. One teacher stood and asked, "Are you bragging or complaining?" Laughter and guffaws continued for a minute.
The hooting didn't trivialize the meeting or slip into prolonged silliness, digressions, or crudeness. Nor did the strong advocacy of various scheduling options cross the line into intemperate and shrill harangues. The tone of the meeting paralleled how good teachers are often relaxed without becoming too casual and simultaneously intense without being manic.
Still, it was a vast topic for this committee to tackle. Devising block schedules that facilitate interdisciplinary teaching is a major challenge. Even a two-hour meeting seemed too brief to explore carefully such a complicated and important matter. But where would more hours be found?
[Return to Table of Contents] Building Support for Change
Although more time might sustain the front-runners and also lure some of the fence-sitters, other measures will probably be necessary to boost the number of Lincoln faculty who wholeheartedly endorse and adopt Coalition Principles. There is agreement that "reviewers" outnumber either the "restructurers" or the "resisters" (to use the categories nearly everyone at Lincoln uses). Out-and-out resistance is rare, with some of the opposed close to retirement and thus reluctant to fight. Estimates of the number of restructurers ranged from 20 percent to 35 percent. Those folks were pioneers on the teams, leaders of different committees in the school, and volunteers for workshops and summer projects. Reviewers, in contrast, are a more amorphous group, who share a "yes, but" cautious attitude toward change. The lines between the groups are not rigid, and many reviewers support the nine Common Principles or claim they already do much of it. The reviewers span a broad range of teaching practices and philosophies; and a major challenge in the future will be recruiting and retaining some of them without driving others toward the resisters.
Strategies used so far for supporting the faculty and gaining their support for change could continue, or be revitalized if they have lapsed. As a school moves deeper into this effort, the need for staff development rises, not falls. Some schools assume that all the workshops, travel, in-service discussion, and informal conversation lay a foundation that, once set, is over and done with. But veteran as well as rookie teachers stumble on unanticipated problems and questions as they take on difficult challenges, such as achieving "less is more," implementing Exhibitions, and maintaining universal goals--that is, goals that apply to all students.
Early successes can hurt schools like Lincoln, because funders sometimes conclude that they have already reached the Promised Land, so other sites receive the dollars. Within the school, it will be important to celebrate past successes in ways that avoid complacency and too much self-congratulation. As district administrator Todd Patrick said, "I would hope that when we up the ante, we affirm the important, commendable, and significant progress so far. Provoking the next level of serious and hard work shouldn't be seen as scolding." [Return to Table of Contents] The Demands of Mainstreaming
To be more specific, the mainstreaming of the ECE students marks a major change for many teachers. There are a wide range of opinions on this shift. Valerie justifies the decision as "morally right," and many teachers feel the same way. A few teachers believe that many ECE kids drag down the rest of the class, and that what they gain is much less than what others lose. Many who have already taught scores of special education students feel comfortable and competent amid that range of abilities. Others think it's the right step, but wonder if their own teaching methods can work well with the mixture. For instance, a teacher who relies on humor to keep the kids' attention isn't sure that the ECE students understand or appreciate his quips, even if most of the group does. Could staff development explore the research on learning styles to probe how different students learn in different ways, and to find out what their learning style differences imply about instructional methods? In addition, the practical issues of meshing special education staff with classroom teachers may deserve attention. How are responsibilities parceled out? How are decisions made and conflicts resolved?
A caring school climate certainly fosters effective mainstreaming. But is that sensitivity enough to sustain this change? What if the demands of mainstreaming erode rather than reinforce caring? Might some teachers see the Coalition's universal goals as quixotic, utopian, and unworkable? If so, the ranks of the reviewers and resisters could enlarge, with the restructurers dismissed as watering down the curriculum so all students could get by. One way to avoid that danger is meaningful staff development activities on mainstreaming.
[Return to Table of Contents] Coping with Transitions
With a commitment to change comes the challenge of hiring people who will continue to support the work when staff leave. Hiring restructurers whenever faculty resign or retire may be the best way to increase the number of Coalition advocates. Recently, that has happened by virtue of the close connections with teacher education programs at the university, or by savvy interviewing on the part of particular teams. Attracting candidates whose beliefs and practices match Coalition philosophy could be coupled with an induction and mentoring that sustains and deepens the enthusiasm of the rookies. Mentoring need not be formal or fancy, as long as it offers serious coaching of the novices, who now rely on ad hoc conversations or chance discussions for their initial understanding of Coalition ideology.
A crucial appointment will be Valerie Taylor's successor if she leaves in the near future. Faculty expressed uncertainty about whether the changes instituted so far would survive her departure, although on balance they feel guardedly confident they would endure, especially if a successor who shared Valerie's views convinced key teachers and administrators not to leave simply because Valerie was gone. "Initially it all hinged on Valerie. It is to her credit that that is no longer the case," one observer said. Yet for some loyalists the attachment is so strong that they declare, "If she goes, I go." [Return to Table of Contents] Coping with the SSIA
Whoever is there in the mid-1990s will be coping with the State School Improvement Act (SSIA), the recent package of far-reaching reforms enacted by the state legislature. Some SSIA provisions simply affirm changes already under way at Lincoln, such as site-based decision making. Others will provide resources, such as the new youth service centers to coordinate and extend programs. Less familiar will be the new statewide system of assessment and accountability. By 1995, a new battery of tests, including performance-based measures, will gauge the progress of each school in the state; poor performance will reclassify a site as a "school in crisis," and exceptionally good achievement will yield extra dollars.
How creatively will Lincoln use the SSIA? There are at least two risks to be avoided. Lincoln could settle back and say, "But we already do all that," even though some of the SSIA provisions are novel. It could hunker down and resent the changes as impositions foisted on it by unfriendly outsiders: we'll go through the motions; we have to; we are victims-that attitude would be regrettable, when so much of the SSIA embodies the spirit of the Coalition.
The greatest challenge will probably involve assessment. Some teachers are rethinking the tests they make and give, and the SSIA will prompt new ideas about classroom assessment. The performance-based thrust of the new system should encourage Lincoln's own beginnings in regard to Exhibitions. Another large benefit could be the nudge to traditional teachers to change their courses in order to prepare students to do well on the performance-based sections. Films and lectures cannot equip a biology student to demonstrate lab skills. And if the SSIA tests are wisely designed, they could prompt more discussion within Lincoln about a Coalition Principle sometimes overlooked: "less is more." What is essential knowledge? Why is it vital to know that? The interdisciplinary aspects of Lincoln's teaming have occasionally raised those questions in fresh and interesting ways, but there is still much work to be done. If that happens, there may be less attention to pedagogical technique
(cooperative learning, for instance)
and more attention to curriculum
(hammering out a rigorous interdisciplinary unit on late-nineteenth-century industrialization, for example).
Even with creative adaptations to SSIA, there are still issues of self-assessment. In a school where people like and respect each other, does that caring rule out in-house evaluations of the programs? Is evaluation seen as a breakdown of caring, as an effort to "get" certain teams? Many teachers seem to rely on their intuitive sense of how happy the students are--they see results in their youngsters' behavior and attitude. Others cite rising grades as evidence of effectiveness. One frustrated teacher asked, "We've said, 'This program is really great and that program is really great'--but how do we actually know that?" Several teachers brought a proposal to the school's steering committee. They asked for evaluations that would determine whether the program was making a difference in students' learning. After a long and heated discussion, it was adopted, but as an option, not an obligation.
Good evaluations are neither quick nor simple, and it is possible for well-intentioned people to do more harm than good if the study is misused or flawed. Evaluation has never been a high priority in American high schools, and when it is done, it is often to satisfy someone else, with the results soon filed away. But there are many possible uses of sensible evaluations, including raising questions, framing a discussion, and generating helpful information. They need not be feared or brushed off as irrelevant. Within the school, one could draw on university friends to do focused studies of particular topics. For instance, one math teacher now uses a traditional text with two classes and a new text (with cooperative learning activities built in) with a third. Assessing which text is better would be a reasonable topic for someone to examine.
[Return to Table of Contents] Concluding Thoughts
If the school looks to our writing as a type of evaluation, we hope everyone bears in mind that there are other ways to tell the story of this remarkable place. Instead of the theme of caring, this paper could have emphasized how Lincoln's changes weave together some middle school practices (teaming, above all) with aspects of university culture (teachers who consult, for example). That marriage of the best of middle school pedagogy with the best of the university's treatment of faculty as professionals offers another viewpoint for seeing life at Lincoln.
Yet another viewpoint is now available, in Sizer's new book, Horace's School.8 Lincoln might note with pride how their committees proceed more smoothly than the ones in which Horace's acrimonious peers interact. The pages on Exhibitions will be particularly apt for Lincoln as it comes to grips with assessment in the wake of SSIA. The descriptions of interdisciplinary units should spark interest. And so might a line on the very first page of the book: "Franklin is a caring place, but the kids worry Horace." [Return to Table of Contents] NOTES
- Pseudonyms were used for every
student, teacher, and administrator
mentioned in this paper. Some
details of the long quotes
and classroom vignettes were
changed to protect student
and teacher anonymity. The
interviews and observations
took place from October 28
to November 1, 1991. Our on-site
liaison adroitly set up our
schedules for that busy week.
Robert Hampel, Laraine Hong,
and Neill Wenger wrote field
notes to transcribe and summarize
what they saw and heard, and
Hampel then wrote the first
draft of this paper, which
Laraine Hong, Neill Wenger,
Dick Clark, and Pat Wasley
reviewed in early January.
Ten Lincoln staff read the
second draft and sent detailed
comments. Professor Ann Lieberman
(Teachers College, Columbia
University) visited the school
for two days in February 1992,
gathering reactions to the
second draft, which she shared
with Hampel.
- The Coalition of Essential
Schools is a partnership between
Brown University and schools
across the country. The purpose
of the partnership is to encourage
educators to make student learning
the central focus of schooling.
The work of the Coalition emerges
from "A Study of High Schools," reported in Horace's Compromise
by Theodore R. Sizer (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1985). The
nine Common Principles, presented
in an appendix to the book,
provide the focal point for
the re-examination of secondary
schooling.
- See Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor
Farrar, and David K. Cohen,
The Shopping Mall High School:
Winners and Losers in the Educational
Marketplace (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1985).
- Howard Gardner, The Unschooled
Mind (New York: Basic Books,
1991).
- Theodore Sizer, Horace's
Compromise: The Dilemma of
the American High School (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
- The term Exhibitions,
mentioned in the sixth Common
Principle, refers to culminating,
interdisciplinary work that
is a public demonstration of
what a high school student
knows and can do.
- D. Muncey and P. McQuillan,
"Preliminary Findings from
a Five-Year Study of the Coalition
of Essential Schools," Phi
Delta Kappan, February
1993.
- Theodore Sizer, Horace's
School: Redesigning the American
High School (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1992).
[Return to Table
of Contents]
The Lincoln research team was headed by Robert L. Hampel, professor at the University of Delaware and author of The Last Little Citadel
(1986). The other members of the Lincoln team were Laraine Hong, a former elementary and college teacher, now working for the Bellevue, Washington, school district and author of a forthcoming Teachers College Press book recounting a stormy year in her elementary school; and Neill Wenger, a cognitive psychologist who has taught in elementary school, consulted for the Pew Foundation, and is currently co-authoring a multimedia textbook.
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This resource last updated: June 10, 2002
Database Information:
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Publication Year: 1992
Publisher: CES National
School Level: High
Focus Area: Leadership
STRAND: Leadership: the change process
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