Consultant Q&A
Lew Rhodes Responds:
Buried in the problem statement are assumptions that
blind the eye and mind to solutions that would otherwise
seem obvious. Without those blinders, not only would the
answers to this specific request be clearer, but so would
the reasons why quality management principles and
employee participation processes have not taken root in
most schools.
To most, teachers “cause”
learning. A teacher and the teaching process are the
same. Principals “cause” teaching. A school
leader and the leading process are the same. Teachers and
principals are each critically necessary, but not the
sole contributors to the final result. In each case, the
other influences must come from the environment—the
immediate system of sustainable processes that support
the teacher and the developing learner.
Unfortunately, because the “common
sense of common practice” is supported by seldom
questioned assumptions, we have trouble seeing the actual
scope and nature of the immediate interactive environment
that the “system” must provide. We
can’t recognize the interdependence of roles and we
confuse individuals with the interdependent acts of
individuals (processes that empower individuals).
What might we see with the blinders of our
assumptions removed? One clue might be found in the ways
we think of effective organizations in other realms of
society.
Effective organizations are structured and
managed around the same simple, common sense, continual
information process regardless of whether they provide
services or products. This consists of two
elements:
1. A core work process that is responsive to
the needs and requirements of the client, customer or
product. In that process, informed interaction between
the worker and the object of the work engages the human
mind’s natural trial-and-error way of solving
problems and achieving purposes. At the end of that
process, the quality of results—the match between
intentions and outcomes, between needs and
results—is directly dependent upon the frequency
and appropriateness of that informed interaction.
2. An organization in which every function
is aligned to, and supports, the response-ability of the
core interaction. The organization’s information
flow informs that interaction, and time and tools are
provided to support the process’
interactivity.
It’s easy to see why industry calls
those critical interactions the
“moment-of-truth”—the choices made by
the “last person in the line” fulfill or
diminish all those decisions that went before. In
education, it’s always been known as the essence of
“good teaching.” But in education it has also
always been assumed that each teacher had to do the whole
job alone. As a result of this common sense of the work
of teaching, schools—as opposed to other human
response services—are not organized to support
those “moments-of-truth” as if they were in
fact a critical, core requirement of the process.
Today, however, with what neurobiology and
cognitive science have added to our knowledge of the
workings of a child’s mind, schools no longer have
that choice. We now have a common picture of the ways
children’s minds learn. With this as the center of
a new level of consciousness—or paradigm—for
framing our understanding of what we observe in schools,
classrooms and districts, we have a new opportunity to
see how schools can be run so that each teacher’s
moments-of-truth are fully informed by their creativity,
expertise and the support of their system’s
knowledge.
LEW RHODES is principal of SABU,
Inc. His professional experience includes association
executive, consultant to federal and state government,
director of national projects for foundations and
government, private sector consultant adn university
faculty member. He has written extensively with articles
appearing in Educational Leadership, Education Week, The
School Administrator and more. He can be reached at
lewrhodes@aol.com.
Maryann Brennan
Responds
Question for
Consultants
August 2001 News for a
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