And then the basals arrived: school leadership, learning communities and professionalism

Abstract

This article, based on six years of participant observation, provides a close-up view of two learning communities in an urban elementary school. It provides a case study of both learning communities, laying out how teachers participating in them learned to respond differently to difficult problems and dilemmas, to change their language and approach in addressing students’ learning needs, to raise teaching problems and issues with increasing candor, and to become not only less resistant to change but also more innovative. In fact, the article draws close-up portraits of how these two learning communities in a school serving the district’s lowest socioeconomic student population became crucibles for transforming professional identities so that teachers began privileging professional judgment over technical skill, praxis (reflection in practice) over specific technical practices, continuous learning over expertise, inquiry over solutions, and innovation over implementation. Along the way, it provides a back-story of an administrator who set high expectations and conveyed political realities without provoking either passive compliance or outright resistance. In the background looms the power of the district’s shifting leadership and policies to sustain or destroy these promising communities.

Notes

1. This study involved six years of interviewing teachers, principals and district administrators; holding focus groups with various PLCs in the district; observing multiple PLC meetings; keeping in email contact with PLC facilitators; interviewing NSRF trainers; attending training sessions; and comparing notes with documents in other districts and states. Moreover, a district-wide survey was administered to participating teachers, principals and district administrators to probe their experiences with the PLC initiative. More about the study can be found in Whitford and Wood (2010), Teachers Learning in Community: Realities and Possibilities, published by SUNY Press.

2. See http://www.nsrfharmony.org/faq.html for a description of Critical Friends Groups, which were the National School Reform Faculty’s conception of teachers’ groups engaged in ongoing professional learning.

3. Even the popular press has recently carried various stories about the importance of friendships and communities in making constructive choices regarding health and well-being; obesity and smoking cessation have been particular foci, but this relationship has also been borne out regarding students’ school success and their choice of peer groups.

4. See http://www.nsrfharmony.org/ for examples of protocols.

5. The National School Reform Faculty has developed protocols that structure the content and timing of professional conversations to make them as focused and productive as possible.

6. Basals refer to books distributed by publishers as part of an overall ‘research-based’ reading programme, privileging phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension. Basals tend to be expensive and are accompanied by prescriptive guides for teacher reading instruction. The literature that basals contain is frequently highly edited to be appropriate for prescribed reading levels. Basal programmes are frequently contrasted to whole language approaches that recommend authentic literature as appropriate texts for student reading development.