DESCRIPTORS:
School management techniques; team approach; simulation gaming; brain storming techniques; participatory management.

SYNOPSIS:
Today’s principal faces huge problems in a variety of areas while attempting to wisely manage a school. He/she needs help. Where can it be found? Perhaps one of the best solutions to the principal’s problem can be found very close to hand? How about a team approach using the resources of experienced and enthusiastic teachers, parents, and even students? With a little training, the team can provide the principal with information, insights, options, and creative ideas. Then with courage, confidence, and the support that a good working team can provide, the principal and his/her “colleagues” can embark on their journey of school improvement.

---

Faced with a lack of time, resources and information, every school principal needs to learn how to make important decisions quickly and successfully. This is an important skill even in those rare occasions when there is plenty of time, sufficient resources, and abundant information. One of the best methods for generating a variety of possible solutions for a given problem is through a “team approach.” This approach calls for the creation of a school management team of either volunteers or appointees and can include high school students, parents, and teachers who have specific skills or interests and who agree to serve on the team. Ideally, the team might include present and future school leaders or members who are interested in educational research, as well as, school department heads and other teachers.

An important rule for the team should be that regardless of one’s position in the school, every team member is equally important. A most critical component is that everyone should try to come up with interesting and innovative ideas. Every critique should be welcome but foremost it should be productive. The team should not exceed seven or eight members.

The team approach is a great way to nurture a principal’s support group which can become a potential management reserve that shares common views and common attitudes towards solving the school’s problems. It is quite possible that the school principal, while working on such a team, will be faced with a number of unpleasant observations. He or she should be ready for this.

When assembled, the school management team can discuss either actual school problems presented by members of the team or hypothetical conflict situations. During its consideration, analysis, or solution generation activities focused on real or hypothetical situations, the team should keep in mind a number of, what I call, “dependencies.”

Immediate problems and issues take up to 80% of a principal’s time. Solving these only allows his or her school to stay afloat. I believe that the primary goal of every school principal should be to envision the future, predict changes, and consider a variety of possible solutions before any potential crisis arises.

A quality management >

School plans and programs must not only satisfy real school needs but also be supported by a number of resources. If such resources do not exist, then fulfilling the plan will satisfy only local authorities but not the school’s students. Every school plan should be systematic, interesting, and complete. It should never be open to whims or casual events that might promote an activity but never solve the problem.

Every plan item should be analyzed from the point of view of its pedagogical necessity. To me, the following activities are anti-educational. As an example, I cite disco clubs that meet every day but satisfy the needs of only a certain group of teenagers, many of whom are half-drunk and listen to loud, foreign music hour after hour as if it were part of their culture and their teachers who have to observe and somehow manage all this while staying at school until late at night while cursing their own damned destiny.

The socialization of students by schools remains, by and large, just a verbalized necessity which is hardly ever fulfilled. Unfortunately, classes, textbooks, subject content, or methods of communication with teachers cannot provide students with the ability to acquire the best norms of human behavior and the best values.

As people say, national tests come and go, but the ability of school graduates to bring beauty to the world and follow the standards of beauty in their lives has never been developed.

It is rare when a teacher will, all of a sudden, discard his plans and pick up his violin to play something beautiful for his students or recite some forgotten or little known verses of a great poet so that his students become overwhelmed with emotions and can only whisper, “Whose poem is that?”

Perhaps our students might then hear a senior folk chorus sing something so touching, so close to their souls, that their cigarettes, burning their fingers, would be forgotten; their rude words left unspoken; and even their favorite television programs be ignored. Then our students might turn their hearts to great, Russian and world literature and such characters as “Poor Lisa”[2] and Jane Eyre; Otto Koster, Robert Lohkamp, and Gottfried Lenz;[3] and such real people as Mareseyev.[4] All these might changes their lives and make them think and feel differently.

There is one more very large component: Difficulties in school do not come all at once. They accumulate. They build up, but before doing so, they send signals to the educators. I call them “weak signals.” They are situations which seem to be trivial; which do not produce the impression of being alarming; and which, all of a sudden, turn out to be serious obstacles towards potential school progress.

The educator who is able to notice these weak signals, these tiny changes in the educational process, is a true professional. Working with such signals presupposes multi-sided knowledge, a full understanding, and a rich, emotional world. It also demands being cautious in everything and being able to analyze the many factors of the situation and then suggest necessary but important conclusions and solutions which may appear, at times, to be questionable or paradoxical.

Below are several such “weak signals” which might easily be ignored but would benefit from analysis and perhaps prove useful in the future:

Signal 1. Children participate with pleasure in everything that their teacher suggests, but they never suggest any activities themselves.

Signal 2. Only twelve parents, usually the same group of people, attend parent-teacher meetings. (Why do they always come? Why don’t others ever show up?)

Signal 3. Every school term, the same students have absolutely the same grades from the same teacher regardless of the student’s efforts. (Perhaps this teacher is not interested in his students, or this class is not interesting for the students.)

Signal 4. During the last seven years of schooling, 80% of all students in the school have never been active in extra-curricular activities; have never been champions in anything; have never presented any interesting report to their classmates; have never participated in group projects; but- their teacher’s reports show that everything is fine.

Signal 5. The classroom is full of plants and flowers but no one, when asked, is able to say who is taking care of them. (We don’t often see when and how others are working.)

Signal 6. From year to year, the same seven students take the last desks in the classroom. (Is it a demonstration, a protest, or a desire not to study?)

Signal 7. Two students in the class haven’t been talking to one another over the last three months. (The teacher could be indifferent to this or could foresee a serious problem coming soon.)

Signal 8. Paul is often falling asleep in class. (It could be a manifestation of his attitude towards the teacher or the subject, or a sign of a more serious problem.)

Signal 9. All the classroom teachers’ plans have been fulfilled, but school tension is growing. There have been a number of administrative breakdowns, students are missing classes, and disciplinary problems are increasing.

Signal 10. The teacher is explaining new material, but no one has any questions. The following day, when he asks questions, the student answers are based on the textbook and not at all connected to his earlier explanations.

Signal 11. Every classroom in the school is computerized, but this fact has very little influence on the character and quality of the teaching process.

Signal 12. Parents are telling the teacher that their children usually leave home in the evening and spend a lot of time with their friends discussing something but the parents don’t know what it is, and they don’t know what is happening with their children.

Let us now analyze some general and some specific management problem-solving situations that a team might face:

Situation number one. Let the team hypothesize that a school administrator does not provide quality management in the sphere of his or her responsibilities. This poor management affects the entire teaching process. Below are some questions for the team to consider and discuss:

Is the school administrator respected by co-workers? By those being supervised?
When we talk about respect, we mean both professional and personal character traits. It is also important to learn about the amount of influence this administrator has over all the teachers in the school. How valuable are his/her suggestions, ideas, enthusiasm, commitment, and efficiency?

Is he/she able to formulate concrete tasks and clarify them to all school employees? Is he or she able to instruct people in the process of fulfilling their assigned tasks.

Is he/she able to provide the necessary motivation? In this situation, have the participants of the process been notified of any potential stimulus for quality and timely fulfillment of their tasks?

Is he/she controlling the process in a way that allows for teaching, supporting, and developing all school members?

Has this administrator allocated sufficient funds for the fulfillment of the designated tasks?

Situation number two. Whenever the hypothetical school is involved in the preparation of big extracurricular event, certain teachers become active and committed while others are either malevolently critical or remain passively indifferent. Here are some questions for the team to consider and discuss:

Did the principal manage to identify those teachers who were passive and ascertain their reasons for their inaction?

Did he/she discuss annual class results with each teacher at the end of the school year?

Does he/she know the professional and personal interests of each teacher in the school?

Did the principal consider in his/her annual school plan all the suggestions from teachers and parents as well as pedagogical and public organizations involved with the school’s activities?

How are “all-school” activities connected to the plans and programs adopted by the teachers’ council?

What can the principal do to stimulate apathetic teachers?

What ideas can the team generate for developing teacher creativity?

Is there any connection between the school’s extra-curricular activities and the various subject areas of the curriculum?

Are special courses or individual programs available to the teachers for their professional and creative development?

Situation number three. The team faces the following hypothetical case. An internal review of the school’s progress indicates that student formation is improving year by year. All the goals of the school plan are being reached. A school-wide system for the development of each student is in place. However, once they pass through the school’s doors, the behavior of the students is not exemplary. True socialization is nowhere in evidence. Here are some questions for the members of the team to consider and discuss:

Does a system of genuine, student self-government exist in the school? Is it based on their independent initiatives or does the school atmosphere promote plans and systems that do not consider student interest or involvement?

Are the school’s rules for conduct and educational requirements posted publicly?

Do the educational requirements support the interests of the students and the community?

Does the school regularly canvass the students regarding their needs, values, and interests? If so, what practical steps have been taken as a result of the analysis of these surveys?

Is there sufficient communication between the school and students, parents and other pertinent, public institutions?

Is there an educational support system available in the school for “children at risk” or “slow learners?”

What kinds of clubs and teams are available in the school for the diverse interests of the students? Are their parents offered an opportunity for involvement?

Is there a coherent plan for providing parenting training as well as opportunities for involvement in their child’s education from first grade on?

Do the parent organization and various student organizations work effectively? (The team should consider the variety of organizations found in some schools that sponsor a trustee’s board, an alumni council, a fathers’ council, a parents’ problem-solving group, etc.)

It should be clear that the type of work described in this article supports the training of school-management resource teams. It nurtures the growth and improvement of the educational management culture and helps to establish a common understanding of the processes operating in our schools.

---

COMMENTARY:

During my training years in the Queens College, CUNY, educational administration diploma program, I learned about team approaches like that described by Professor Lizinsky in his article. As a school principal, I initiated and worked with several varieties of the team approach making changes to the school culture which existed prior to my arrival. They definitely contributed to the enjoyment and satisfaction that I took from my work. Teaming helped with consensus building, creating a cooperative atmosphere, and both short and long-term problem solving.

Many principals share the experience of attempts by some community members and even local “politicians” to divide and conquer the school community. These critics, with private goals in mind, aim to separate “the administration” from the teachers; the non-teaching staff from the professional staff; the parents from school personnel. It has been my happy experience to witness public attempts at division fail in the face of a school community united by its commitment to the goals of “their team.” I have had team members, parents and teachers, jump to defend my positions because they were the common positions of the team. I contentedly watched the faces of attackers change from smugness to confusion.

Within the school, I have seen obstacles fall away once the team comes to consensus in pursuing a policy or a problem solution. Even the perpetual “nay-sayers” on the staff don’t want to tangle with the force represented by a strong team. Parents convince other parents; teachers other teachers; students other students. It takes years to develop such a team but even overnight some things improve immediately. Members of the school community quickly begin to feel the positivity of the movement and want to be part of it.

The ideas set forth in Professor Lizinsky’s article can work for every principal. He lays out a skeleton framework for initiating the team approach in a school. I would like to learn more about his ideas and would definitely enjoy specific examples of how he and his teams solved problems. I think that RUSSIAN-AMERICAN EDUCATION FORUM readers might like to see a future article by Professor Lizinsky in which he describes a specific , real-life, school problem with concentration on the steps and techniques utilized to develop alternative solutions; how the team chose the option they eventually settled on; and the results of their choice. Russian readers and their American colleagues might find the article a handy model to follow in the implementation of the “team approach.” Americans particularly are interested in the problems faced by their peers in contemporary Russian schools. Many of these problems, I believe, are shared problems and teachers and principals are always on the lookout for innovative, alternative, and especially, successful solutions.

I compliment Professor Lizinsky on his article. He describes a very valuable tool for every school community and provides helpful suggestions for initiating the team approach. I look forward to reading more from this learned educator.

Jack Mc Gurgan, retired teacher and principal;
President, THE AMERUS EXCHANGE, LTD.