It’s my last classroom visit in California, the third day on campus at the UC Berkeley. I’ve been a tourist here just long enough that I’m wearing the t-shirt. And I’ve got a new baseball cap. I always feel so centered, so right, on a university campus.
Four tables of teachers, program coordinators, and middle managers, here on a Saturday. Working toward their Masters degree. This is their second 3-hour class of the day. My colleague and friend, their professor Özge, shares the afternoon’s agenda. Six hours of class on a Saturday! I guess if you are coming to the university on a weekend, you might as well make the trip worthwhile.
Özge is going to start with something called Acting Out. I have no idea what that this will be, I’m hoping it’s gamified, maybe a bit of a simulation? We’ll see. But first she explains the orange balls that a student assistant has distributed in the class. Orange balls, just a little smaller than a regulation softball, very spongy. They are supposed to remind you to be aware of your wellbeing, I learn. You put them behind your back as you are sitting, or under your hips. (I’m having a hard time imagining that.) Some students are familiar with them, I am not. It all feels very California to me, postmodern hippy. Orange wellness balls. Whadya know?
And then we’re off, preliminaries over. The students are going to have time to prepare, in groups, to act out what they have understood from the readings. Michael Fullan, super well known, and book titles like Leading in a Culture of Change, Change Leader, The Six Secrets of Change. Justin Cohen writes about change, too, I look him up. Change Agents: Transforming Schools from the Ground Up.
One could get the idea that schools need to change! At least Fullan and Cohen think so. Özge and her colleagues in the program feel it’s important enough to teach. It makes me think that, to be fair, I should google around a bit and see who is writing that the school system is just fine as it is. To understand the other half of the argument. So I do. Most of the hits, no matter my prompt, return links to opinion pieces and research articles in support of reform. Of claims that schools could use an overhaul.
Assuming there is widespread agreement that schools need an overhaul, where is it? Can we point to school systems that have been successfully overhauled? I can’t think of a major change in the status quo since I was in elementary school in the 1970s. One teacher, 25-30 students, a limited number of predictable subjects, mostly individual evaluations, sorting students, rewards for good grades, punishments for bad ones. It would seem that’s the best we can collectively imagine. Or, if we are imagining better, there must be some pretty pernicious factors that block any significant change.
I think of a work session I had with one of the program officers for the Gates Foundation. What an opportunity. Someone with influence over how funds earmarked for education are directed. I didn’t get the sense from him that terribly much of interest has changed, that even a significant financial investment has helped. Maybe it wasn’t all that great an opportunity. Maybe schools are really stuck.
The students are done preparing, the group next to me volunteers to go first. They are going to act out the learning from the reading. Here we go.
They are meeting at a local brewery, that is their setting they tell us, and they are thinking of taking it over. Apparently it’s their favorite watering hole, or it was anyway. It is badly in need of reform. Luckily they are all reformers, they have taken on the personas of Fullan, Cohen, and others. They are some of the best change theorists around, they are ready to make this brewery the best watering hole ever.
“There are some things we can do to make this work.”
“Like have a drink!” [laughter] Two of the students clink water bottles. “Cheers! Lechi’im!” they say. The role play ice has been broken, no more nerves, having fun now.
“Yes … and how about …” and here the student dips into the literature, looking in the text. “We need ‘coherent instructional guidance, professional capacity. strong parent and community ties, student centeredness, and strong leadership.’”
They go on to draw parallels between educational change and the new and improved brewery they are imagining.
“It’s going to be tough,” says the student role playing Cohen. I almost wish there was a checklist about being a change agent. Oh wait! There is one, see page 33 everyone.”
This gets another round of laughter from others. There’s nothing like creativity.
“And let’s rename this brewery. I believe we should call it ‘Chutzpah.’” This from the same student who toasted with lechi’im earlier.
“Not too fast,” replies another role player. “We want to be sure to get buy-in by including everyone in the decision making.”
And so it goes. A nice way to review ideas. Thinking like the authors they have read. Applying knowledge about changemaking to a new situation. Lateral thinking. “We have to stay humble, we have to make sure everyone stays on the same page.” For sure. “We’ve got to talk to people, include them. We’ve got to narrow our focus, be specific.”
Because what sort of brewery do we really want? What’s going to be most refreshing? What will make students, er I mean customers, want to be there, want to learn, want to drink from the hoppy fountain of knowledge?!