Keeping It Alive: Elements of School Culture That Sustain ...

1 GRANT W. SIMPSON. Keeping It Alive: Elements of School Culture that Sustain innovation Through sharing and collegiality, teacher empowerment, and effective leadership, the principal and staff at DeKeyser Elementary in Sterling Heights, Michigan, have created a Culture for change. I. n the past decade, a gaggle of tion teachers, 1 preschool teacher, and mitment to integrated, thematic teach commissions and blue-ribbon 1 director for the extended day-care ing The idea for the project originated panels have told us that our program. With the comfortable enroll when Cheryl invited interested others schools are in trouble, noted educa ment, the staff has maintained the to meet voluntarily during Tuesday tional leaders have voiced that peda open space as conducive to their inte lunches to explore the concept of stu gogy and curriculums must change, grated, thematic instruction dent writing The time was for sharing, and we are bludgeoned in the media Over the past eight years, Principal thinking, and planning, not for an with the statistics of accountability Cheryl Snell has guided a small focus nouncements, administrative matters, More fragmented and isolated than group on student writing outcomes as or paperwork Service center consult ever before.

2 We desperately need con it has developed into total staff corn- ants from Macomb Intermediate nections And yet there are pockets of School District and college profes excellence throughout this land, sors from Oakland University pre where individual teachers and local sented ideas and even arranged a visit campuses make magic for their stu to The College School in St. Louis, dents in spite of every conceivable Missouri This field trip became bind constraint. I found such a place. You ing glue for the focus group and was should know about it. 1 years after the springboard for the first efforts their inception, the with students. Setting and History With each new venture came DeKeyser Elementary is 1 of 22 cam Tuesday lunches greater excitement for the project Par puses in the Utica Community Schools have become a ticipation in the Tuesday lunches of suburban Detroit Predominantly Anglo, DeKeyser's population is protected ritual, grew Professors and graduate interns at Oakland University provided exper largely blue collar in the lower range supporting teachers' tise, training, and support Macomb of middle-income brackets, with many parents employed by the automobile efforts to reflect on ISD found and maintained funding to support the teachers' growth and col industry.

3 At the time of my research their instruction. laboration, largely by providing substi (May 1988), DeKeyser an open-con tute monies to create internal plan cept building with a capacity for 580 ning time By 1984 staff commitment housed 320 students, preschool to to the project was total By 1986 they grade 6, and a professional staff that had secured state funds, not only to included the principal, 11 classroom continue their efforts but to spread teachers, a librarian, 2 special educa them to other campuses 34 . LEADERSHIP. DeKeyser's Culture could contain students from K-6 Ac Over the years, the DeKeyser project tivities that provide writing stems are has developed immutable Elements encouraged. Following the half-day that characterize what is valued about event, the different groups report their the profession and its products Here At DeKeyser accomplishments and show their arc a few of them Elementary School , products at an assembly Tuesday meetings Nine years after their inception, the Tuesday lunches the documentation Schematic displays At DeKeyser.

4 The documentation of student work is continue They have become a pro of student work serious, professional, and much more tected ritual, supporting teachers' ef forts to reflect on their instruction. is serious, than conventional bulletin boards and hall decorations. Schematic displays . This is hallowed ground What tran professional, and composed of photographs, slides, stu spires there echoes the weekly faculty meetings at the Dcwey Schcxjl in 1900, much more than dent products, and profiles of teacher planning analyze the architecture of where teachers planned the next week conventional a theme by reconstructing the teach based on the results of the current week (Sarason 1971) Contemporarily, bulletin boards and ing/learning activities as they were de veloped over time. The exhibits from these gatherings also reflect the proc hall decorations. one site are then displayed at other essing of "fast failures," deemed vital to schools.

5 Teachers have found that successful organizations (Peters 1987). these display's boost students' self- Planning sessions. Without sub esteem and provide a powerful record stantive efforts to include time for of accomplishment an evaluation of planning and professional growth, the activities in and of themselves hue and cry for collaboration, shared Early themes included transportation, Student assemblies. First thing leadership, and participative manage the Olympics, bridges, and mysteries. each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, ment arc blasts of hot air Recognizing Teachers examined their individual, students are called to "Homegrown this, DeKeyser and its collaborators grade level, and total School plans for Assemblies" by various musical sought mechanisms and funds that opportunities to explore, teach, and means This is a time for greeting and would create, support, and Sustain the write within the themes.

6 Even though sharing by students, classes, and staff. internal time needed for planning, the themes are schoolwide, teachers' Poems are read, songs are sung, suc growth, and renewal Their actions participation in them is individualized cesses are celebrated. Individual stu won them a professional development and voluntary My interviews with all dents share their writing efforts, and grant from the Michigan Department the teachers have confirmed that they classes report on theme events While of Education The state funds support are very comfortable with this arrange the scheduling of presenters is re released time in the spring and fall for ment Thus, one teacher may weave sponsive to the tides of events and may School staff to plan the next semester's Elements of the theme throughout her be spur of the moment, the time f or theme and to bring the project "to traditional use of adopted basal and the assemblies is sacrosanct.

7 The gath other schools Participating schools re textbook instruction; another may erings are pan of the routine, a ritual. ceive funds for substitute teachers so shelve the texts while he combines They reinforce the writing focus and that staff members may attend plin- multiple objectives into an integrated, reflect the Culture of DeKeyser. Cheryl ning sessions and inservices or visit thematic unit and her staff see them as an outgrowth other campuses Cross-age teaching Ir addition to of their commitment to fewer dittos It was my pleasure to attend both schoolwide activities planned through and more hands-on activities Coupled DeKeyser's daylong planning session out the year, teachers collaborate, for with the impressive prolific displays of for the fall theme and an inservice day mally and informally, on cross-age student work, they are irrefutable evi for 14 collaborating campuses Both projects for the mutual benefits of dence of Cheryl's assertion that "we meetings were characterized by vi their students For example, whereas do lots of writing around here ".

8 Brant participation, bright ideas, and arranging for older students to read to enthusiastic support for the project. and assist younger ones may be a Participants shared freely about their yearlong commitment, doubling up students growth and their own profes classes for certain aspects of theme Culture and Change sional enhancement Those looking instruction may be spontaneous Deal (1987) asserts that Culture and for history and data on peer assistance "Trading Terrific Teachers" is offered change are antithetical, that change programs have fertile ground here! twice yearly. "Terrific Teachers" offer threatens the stability, predictability, Schoolwide themes An outgrowth special an, music, and writing activi and comfort of the Culture When I. of planning together was the develop ties to children who select from an asked Cheryl to consider this notion, ment of schoolwide themes to focus advertised menu and enroll in ad her response was at once thoughtful writing opportunities for students.

9 Vance. This means that the groups and incisive: MAY 1990 35. "Homegrown Assemblies". reinforce the writing I know it's puzzling but some of our focus and reflect the Smylie 1988, Wilson and Corbett 1983, rituals and ceremonies can be vehicles for change It's in those settings where we School 's Culture . Dwyer et al 1983). decide that we can't keep things that make Because it takes longer to weld peo us stagnant or say, "This is the way it's ple into a team, it takes patience And always going to be This keeps us flexible, Cheryl Snell has patience; she will do keeps the Culture moving. anything to nurture and provide for the that says it, but let's be specific about vision at DeKeyser Her leadership is the Elements of the Culture at DeKey- shared expectations, teaching at De multidimeasional She articulates, pro ser that Sustain its innovation : Keyser, approaches to teacher evalua motes, and defends the shared values of 1.

10 Sharing and collegiality The tion, and Elements that form the her staff; and she believes wholeheart Tuesday meetings and the planning School 's ecology. Together, the Tuesday edly in their ability to accomplish the sessions are structures within the cul lunches, planning sessions, and con dream cerns-based staff meetings defy the ture that provide stability, as well as A Success Story In the opportunity for continuous im loathsome stereotypes that faculty meet provement in the process This feed ings have earned and provide a rich Collaboration milieu for meaningful involvement The so-called second wave of reform, back loop provides "circularity," which seems to hinge on more deci which controls and refines the innova The DeKeyser staff feel strongly that they are empowered As one teacher sion-making power for teachers (Lie- tion (Zaltman et al. 1973) Circularity berman 1988, Boyer 1988, Ambrosie attests: can prevent the stability of the Culture and Haley 1988), crested much earlier at from inhibiting change In addition, Our program brought stature and respect DeKeyser; and its creative staff and en the Elements of sharing and collegial to teachers.