Profound Improvement

Building Capacity for a Learning Community

Coral Mitchell, Larry Sackney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136791215
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The book discusses the idea of the learning community as a vehicle for professional learning and school development.

As the authors show, the learning community develops in response to building capacity in three domains: personal, interpersonal and organizational. In the personal domain, educators deconstruct and reconstruct their professional narratives to enhance student learning and professional practice. In the interpersonal domain, educators generate norms and values that foster experimentation and critical analysis of educational practice and that promote collective and individual learning. In the organizational domain, visible and invisible structures are constructed that enable community members to enact educational practices in support of profound improvement in teaching and learning. This revised and updated edition of Profound Improvement not only brings this important work up-to-date but also shows how the authors thinking has changed and developed since the book was originally written.

The book focuses on the life of educators as it relates to professional learning and growth. It is concerned with human growth and development, human cognition and affect and human interactions and actions in the context of a school community.

For the new edition the authors also:

• elaborate more fully the notion of learning communities based on living systems and ecological perspectives
• develop their capacity building model

They show that building a learning community is a dynamic process that engages the individual, the group and the organization in embedded interdependencies and mutual influences. As the authors clearly demonstrate: education is a living system as opposed to a managed system.

1

A learning community

Some frames of reference

One of the perplexities of education is whether schools as they are currently structured enhance learning or limit it. Schools were originally established to organize and facilitate the learning of children, but almost since their inception, their ability to do so has been called into question. This questioning has, from the early days of the twentieth century, subjected schools and teachers to numerous calls for improvements in their performance. An even more curious aspect of this phenomenon is that the teachers, who stand to have a great impact on the learning of children, have been positioned in the debate as objects to be manipulated and controlled rather than as professional creators of a learning culture. This perplexity is central to the notion of the learning community.

The construct of the learning community assumes, first, that schools are expected to facilitate the learning of all individuals, and, second, that educators are ideally positioned to address fundamental issues and concerns in relation to learning. Recent research attention has turned from defining a learning community to describing what one looks like in practice and how educators go about turning their school into a high-capacity learning community. We have pondered these questions in our teaching and research for over two decades, and our understandings about a learning community have undergone considerable evolution. We assume that what we present in this book is a limited perspective on the learning community and that our understandings will continue to evolve.

We open this chapter with some thoughts on the changing conditions within which schools are embedded – conditions that imply a need for a different approach to the perplexities and problems associated with teaching and learning. In the second section we turn to some theoretical foundations that underpin the notion of the learning community and to some definitions and operational elements of the concept. The third section presents the model that frames our understandings about a learning community. This model consists of three pivotal capacities that we believe need to be built if a school is to function as a learning community: personal capacity, interpersonal capacity, and organizational capacity. We close the chapter with a brief description of how we position the learning community in this book.

An emerging worldview

Manchester (1992) tells the story of Ferdinand Magellan who, in 1519, sailed west from Spain to find his way around the world. When his ship returned three years later, having circumnavigated the globe, the sailors were amazed to find that they had lost twenty-four hours during the voyage. Scholars scurried to address this dilemma. Their conclusion: the sun did not revolve around the earth. Rather, the earth and all the planets revolved around the sun. The premise upon which the medieval social order had been based was found to be false. Confusion reigned. Then, slowly, a new social order emerged, one in harmony with the belief that nature was like a gigantic clockwork with discrete sub-units functioning smoothly to create the larger whole. Thus was born the rational, analytical view of the world with which we still live today.

That worldview no longer reflects contemporary images of our planet. In the 1960s, the Apollo astronauts boarded their spaceships to find their way to the moon. When they returned several days later, they brought with them pictures of the earth from space. The earth was seen not as borders, boundaries, and pieces but as a perfect and complete blue and white jewel shining radiantly against the black backdrop of space. That image brings forth a powerful response from most viewers. As in the sixteenth century, contemporary scholars scurry to understand this response. Their conclusion: the earth is not divided into discrete sub-units separated by boundaries. Rather, it is a fragile ecosystem of dynamic relationships and interconnected patterns. A new social order, one in harmony with this ecological view of nature, is slowly beginning to emerge.

Capra (1996, p. 3) contends that the ecological social order grew out of an awareness that contemporary problems ‘cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.’ He uses the term ‘deep ecology’ to highlight the inescapable connections and mutual influences among the human, natural, physical, and constructed environments implicit in this view of reality:

Deep ecology does not separate humans – or anything else – from the natural environment. It sees the world not as a collection of isolated objects, but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and inter-dependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life.

(Capra, 1996, p. 7)

Capra explains that an ecological view assumes the ability to think systemically, to understand that the essential properties of a system ‘arise from the interactions and relationships among the parts’ (p. 29) and that the parts can be understood only in relation to one another and in relation to the whole system. This view, with its emphasis on connectedness, relationships, and context, signals that no one aspect of a system can be thought of as separate and apart from any other aspect. New tasks, for example, are not merely additive; they are ecological in that they affect everything else that is going on at the time. Furthermore, people might think they act independently, but their actions are directly and deeply influenced by the presence, actions, and attitudes of other people around them – and their actions directly and deeply influence all others who share their space. In institutions, the ecological perspective takes into consideration the dynamic and reciprocal relationships among people, values, principles, assumptions, goals, expectations, resources, structures, functions, processes, practices, artefacts, and a host of other elements that shape and are shaped by human activity.

Thinking about social institutions from an ecological standpoint implies a perceptual shift from the principles of managed systems to those of living systems. The shift, however, means more than simply embracing a new metaphor. Because organizations are populated and operated by people, Capra (2002, p. 102) wants ‘to go beyond the metaphorical level and see to what extent human organizations can literally be understood as living systems’. To understand organizations as living systems implies that they have been built to reflect and accommodate the structural, environmental, and relational conditions that support and sustain life. At the outset, Capra argues, ‘a human organization will be a living system only if it is organized as a network or contains smaller networks within its boundaries’ (p. 106). Members are bound together by ‘a common context of meaning, shared knowledge, rules of conduct, a boundary, and a collective identity’ (p. 108). Within the boundary of meaning and purpose, stability and change are in dynamic flux as members confront compelling disturbances and respond creatively in order to capitalize on the growth potential of the disturbance but also to maintain the integrity of the system. Noticing and responding to compelling disturbances is, Capra observes, a process of learning, ‘a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living’ (p. 36).

Mitchell and Sackney (2009b, p. 5) summarize the shift from managed systems to living systems in this way:

The root metaphors emerging from new scientific premises change the language patterns and operating principles that guide human activity. Replacing the old language of command and control is a language of meaning, patterns, purposes, influences, connections, and relationships. As these terms become the primary reference points in human conversations and the compelling questions and major concerns in social institutions, they call forth a new set of images about what is possible to be seen and what is seen to be possible.

Today we are in the state of confusion that typifies the transition period between different social orders. In general terms, the educational order in most school systems more closely reflects the managed system and clockwork model than it does the living system and ecological model. Starratt (1996), for example, contends that current educational practices have fragmented and trivialized learning and have separated school activities from the life worlds of students. Rather than school learning being a natural outgrowth of students’ confrontation with the perplexities of their own lives, it has been managed, manipulated, controlled, organized, and constrained by adults who are, at best, out of touch with the realities with which students live. This condition, Starratt says, has created ‘a massive alienation of young people from schooling’ (p. 74). Furthermore, Beck and Foster (1999) point out that the bureaucratic structures and standardized practices that typify contemporary schools do not adequately serve students who fall outside the ‘normal curve’ of learning style, academic achievement, or socio-economic status. Instead, schools ‘have actually decreased the quality of opportunities available to disadvantaged youngsters’ (p. 346). These claims are supported by the sense of cynicism, frustration, and alienation that Nichols and Berliner (2008) have observed among American high-school students in response to the standardized approach to teaching and learning. As things stand, then, school structures and practices that reflect a clockwork view of the world are not natural, are not grounded in the realities of individual lives, and can lead to alienated and disadvantaged students. This is a devastating indictment of schools and schooling.

Alienation is evident not just among young people, however. It is also found among teachers and in public perceptions of schools. And it extends beyond the school walls, with a deep anomie and disillusionment typifying much of contemporary life. Late in the twentieth century, Anderson and Klinge (1995) argued that the fragmented and hierarchical social order typical of many contemporary communities and businesses had led to deeply entrenched social and economic problems, and they warned, ‘if we continue on the path we are on, our businesses will continue to lose their competitiveness, our people will continue to lose their spirit and will, and our society will continue to degenerate’ (p. 359). This was a compelling and unsettling prediction that Wheatley (2007) found to be realized in the twenty-first century: ‘I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent twenty-first-century companion, leadership strategies have taken a great leap backward to the familiar territory of command and control’ (p. 4), with the consequence that ‘people are losing faith in themselves and each other’ (p. 5).

From an ecological perspective, then, the tensions and confusions that have grown up around a clockwork worldview are not sustainable. Things must change. One solution that has been advanced in recent years is the notion of community, but it is community with a difference: community that is grounded in the principles of living systems rather than the structures of managed systems. Anderson and Klinge (1995, p. 355), for example, point out that the times demand a complete shift in approach and attitude: ‘It is not about improving the current path but rather about providing the basis for a totally new path – a path grounded in the understanding of what it takes to create a healthy community.’ Gozdz (1995, p. 63) also calls for a fundamental shift in perception: ‘Businesses cannot sustain themselves as communities or as learning organizations unless they become capable of embracing a paradigm of wholeness, a paradigm compatible with a living systems perspective.’ Capra (1996, p. 34) connects the constructs of living systems and community by explaining that living systems are complex communities linked in network fashion to other complex communities to form a ‘web of life’. Wheatley (2007, p. 33) extends the connection into the organizational world: ‘All living systems have the capacity to self-organize, to sustain themselves and move toward greater complexity and order as needed … Self-organizing systems have what all leaders crave: the capacity to respond continuously to change.’ With their emphasis on healthy communities that operate according to the principles of living systems, these authors move the discourse away from a managed, rational, analytical view toward an ecological view of the natural, social, and organizational orders.

Zemke (1996) argues that the search for community is endemic in contemporary society. It derives from a deep need to be part of something larger than oneself, part of ‘something familiar, special and unique’ (p. 25). This trend has inserted itself into every aspect of the human enterprise in a host of ways – some prescriptive and traditional, others vague and diffuse, yet others evolutionary and organic. Regardless of the plethora of configurations and definitions, Zemke sees some commonalties: permanence, belonging, meaning, and fulfillment – a sense that one is entitled to be there, to contribute, to share in the joys, sorrows, successes, and failures of the community. As Wheatley (2007, p. 48) puts it, ‘Human communities are no different from the rest of life. We form our communities from these same two needs – the need for self-determination and the need for one another.’ From this perspective, people are engaged in a search for place, a search for companionship, and a search for identity and belonging. They seek places in which and people with whom they can find relief from the alienating conditions of the world.

The notion of community has also inserted itself into the educational discourse. Use of the term in educational circles goes back to the early days of the twentieth century and the work of John Dewey, but only in recent years has it become the idea of choice. Beck (1999, p. 17), for example, found that ‘the mid- to late 1980s and 1990s have borne witness to a growing body of theoretical and empirical work concerned with understanding schools that function as communities’. Although the educational discourse has defined and positioned community in many different ways, an underlying assumption is that, when schools function as communities, individual learning (that of teachers as well as that of students) is enriched and extended by the interactions and discourse that take place among the people in the building, and collective learning is instrumental in improving teacher practice and student outcomes (Stoll et al., 2006). From a community perspective, teachers and students are connected rather than isolated. They work with rather than against one another. They connect teaching and learning to the realities and mysteries of life. These conditions are more natural and more conducive to learning and growth than are conditions that organize and separate people into different physical and psychological spaces.

The notion of community also impinges on the isolation that has been such a part of traditional teaching and learning. For the most part, the loneliness of teaching locates not in relationships with students but in interactions with colleagues. As Lieberman and Miller (1990, p. 160) point out, ‘With so many people engaged in so common a mission in so compact a space and time, it is perhaps the greatest irony – and the greatest tragedy of teaching – that so much is carried on in self-imposed and professionally sanctioned isolation.’ The development of a professional community is one way to reduce the embedded isolation and loneliness. But careful attention needs to be paid to just what kind of community is being built. Hargreaves (1993), for example, argues that attempts to create professional learning communities among teachers may actually serve to mask differences or to drive diversity underground. His argument is that when any one ‘correct’ way is being advocated, the doors to true learning slam shut and individual teachers are likely to retreat to their classrooms, instead of being forced into educational practices that do not make sense for their students or for themselves.

Louis et al. (1995, p. 15) argue that the failure to value diversity is at least partly due to the emphasis of contemporary liberal philosophy on the rights of the individual. In this philosophy, individuals are expected to advocate for their own wants and needs rather than to worry about their responsibilities toward others or to consider the worth of other individuals. In a world that is increasingly connected, diverse, and complex, this philosophy seems somewhat misguided. This is not to say that individual rights are unimportant but that they must be situated within a particular social and, for our purposes, educational context. As Lee (2008) has found, contemporary students are more culturally diverse and educationally complex than were students in the past, and schools are now part of a larger set of services for children and families. This means that the teachers’ world of work is far more complex than it used to be, and they cannot adequately deal with the tough problems and the deep mysteries of teaching and learning if they base their practice on individual interests and prerogatives. The world within which teachers and students live and move does matter. Other people and other agencies do matter. The metaphor of the learning community opens spaces for complexity and diversity to be acknowledged and honored, and for connections to be forged among the people who make up a particular educational community.

At the same time that the notion of community has emerged in relation to organizational and cultural structures, changes have emerged in understandings about the nature of learning. One of the changes relevant to the learning community is the recognition that learning is, at heart, a social as well as an individual phenomenon (Stamps, 1998). This has always been true, but it has not always been evident in the clockwork structures and functions of schooling. Instead, students have been silenced and separated, and their only conversations have been with the content or the teacher. In recent years, however, the people who have been ‘in control of things’ have looked more realistically at human learning and have begun to recognize that those in formal positions of power must relinquish control over the individual's and the group's learning. To honor the social constructivist view of learning means to create conditions that will support and promote collective as well as individual learning, and will support individual learning that grows out of conversations with other learners.

In a learning community, it is not only the learning of the children that is at stake. The learning of the teachers is also a primary concern. But the paradoxical and complex nature of education endows professional learning with both promise and peril. As Bredeson (1999) points out, professional learning is embedded in a host of paradoxes that add layers of complexity and render the benefits of professional development somewhat problematic, and little agreement is evident in the literature on how to go about structuring professional learning or how to connect it with improved professional practice. In the words of Louis et al. (1999, p. 256), it represents a ‘wicked problem’ that is ‘inherently chaotic and unpredictable’.

An instructive way of addressing this wicked problem is found in Gherardi's (1999) distinction between learning in pursuit of problem solving and learning in the face of mystery. She contends that, although both views of professional learning are concerned with practice-based learning, the first is more instrumental and cognitive, whereas the second is more natural and holistic. In her words, ‘Problem-driven learning was propelled by the aesthetic of the rational, while mystery-driven learning is sustained by the aesthetic of the relational’ (p. 117). She claims that when professional learning is linked exclusively to problem solving and is pushed by institutional expectations, it loses its connection with the practices and relationships of the pr...

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface to the second edition
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 A learning community: some frames of reference
• 2 Personal capacity: the search for knowledge
• 3 Personal capacity: the construction of knowledge
• 4 Interpersonal capacity: building the learning community climate
• 5 Interpersonal capacity: building the team
• 6 Organizational capacity: opening doors and breaking down walls
• 7 Organizational capacity: leadership for learning
• 8 Organizational capacity: making it so
• 9 The learning community: retrospect and prospect
• Reference
• Index