UW researcher says school culture can be toxin – or tonic

The culture of a school – a web of values, traditions and symbols – can be toxin or tonic for education reform.

Ignoring this powerful variable, however, can be a fatal mistake in reform attempts, contend researchers Kent Peterson of UW–Madison and Terrence Deal of Vanderbilt University.

In their new book, “Shaping School Culture: The Heart of Leadership,” Peterson and Deal say far too much emphasis has been given to reforming schools from the outside through policies and mandates. And too little attention has been paid to how schools can be shaped from within.

The key for the authors is culture, first developed by anthropologists to explain patterns of behavior, or “how we do things around here.”

“Cultural patterns shape the way people think, act and feel,” says Peterson, a professor of educational administration with an appointment in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. “In schools they can affect everything from what teachers talk about in the lunch room to the type of instruction that is valued. And culture can certainly foster successful change – or not.”

Positive change has come to the elementary school in Ganado, Ariz., a school Peterson visited on a Navajo reservation. The original Ganado Primary was identified as one of the worst school buildings in Arizona, but the new facility has become the pride and joy of the community. The school helps create and reinforce that pride in part through symbols, a critical component of culture:

• The building is configured in four units, each representing one of the tribe’s four sacred directions.
• A room used for meetings is shaped like a hogan, the ancient Navajo home.
• Hallways are adorned with Navajo rugs woven by local weavers.
• Inside the school is a replica of Spider Rock, a spiritually significant sandstone pinnacle in nearby Canyon de Chelly.

“You don’t need a new building and an ethnic connection to create meaningful symbols,” says Peterson. “A school can display any symbols that reflect its values and heritage.”

Values express what an organization stands for; they focus attention and define success. Even with positive values, however, a school may have negative norms, or unstated group expectations, that undercut those values as well as attempts at reform.

An example: A school may have a norm of laughing at and criticizing those who are innovative, or it may have a norm of encouraging those who suggest new ideas.

Rituals too are important for a successful school, as for any culture. “When connected to a school’s values and mission,” says Peterson, “they reinforce cultural ties.”

At one Louisiana school, teachers share food in their workroom in the morning and talk about the day. Contrast that to a school where teachers head straight for their classrooms upon arrival, which creates what Peterson calls “a centrifugal culture of independent artisans,” not true colleagues. As a ritual, breaking bread together has helped the school in Louisiana pull teachers together for a common purpose.

Creating a positive culture in a school is complex, but one person in particular can nudge it along in many ways: the principal.

“Everyone watches the principal in a school,” says Peterson. “His or her interests and actions send powerful messages.” For instance, a principal’s morning “building tour” to check for maintenance needs can be seen as a ritual demonstrating concern about the learning environment.

A principal should have an almost anthropological knowledge of the school’s culture, an ability to read and understand what is going on beneath the surface of daily activity. “Teaching is hard work,” says Peterson, “so the principal needs to reinforce the spirit and soul of what they’re doing in the school.”

Among other things, a principal can do that by:

• Using public rituals to honor student achievement in the classroom (not just in sports) as well as teacher achievement.
• Repeating stories from the school’s history to reinforce positive values.
• Most important, helping the school identify its core values and act upon them.

Some school cultures are truly toxic, seething in negativity. Among the antidotes are supporting and celebrating positive features of the culture, building new traditions and symbols and focusing on recruitment of effective, positive staff.

Unfortunately, says Peterson, “school boards started hiring principals in the ’70s to keep the lid on the kids, in reaction to the tumultuous ’60s. What they got were good managers but poor leaders. But now, more boards are looking for what I call bifocal principals, who can both manage and inspire.”

Schools will be facing a spate of principal retirements nationwide in the next 10 years. “But superintendents say they don’t have a very large pool of qualified candidates,” says Peterson. “One reason is because the job is very demanding, yet the salary difference between principals and teachers has shrunk.”

Peterson has one hope for this national cadre of principals to be hired in the next decade: “I would love it if they became anthropologists of their schools.”