“Humans are hardwired to remember and act on the basis of a story.”
-Deal & Peterson, Shaping School Culture (2009)
Our culture is based on the art of storytelling. It permeates everything that we do from, arts and entertainment, to stories of past successes, family memories, and speaking engagements. These are just a few of the ways that stories impact all of our lives on a daily basis.
In their seminal work on the impact of building positive culture in schools (Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises, 2009), Terrence E. Deal and Kent D. Peterson, guide the reader through research and examples on the importance of culture and climate in education. In this book, they speak about the impact storytelling can have on the understanding of the history and future endeavors of a school. Deal and Peterson state that through telling and retelling, these “little stories” carry values, convey morals, describe solutions to dilemmas, and shape the patchwork of a culture. In reading this statement, it made me reflect on the story of my school and what we have done, and what we can do, to keep stories “positive and long-lasting.”
If stories are indeed the patchwork of a culture than I must do everything we can to leave positive memories. The building-block of leaving and creating positive stories is to ensure that I have a full understanding of my values and mission in both life and education. Through the work in my educational leadership courses, I created a document called a “Focus Circle.” This circle contains the values that anchor my thoughts and actions. At the epicenter of my circle is the word students. This word helps to remind me that everything I do can have a positive or negative impact on the life of a child. Creating the focus circle brought my values to fruition and helped to deter and negative elements that might extirpate my “Focus Circle.” If stories are the foundation for building culture and climate, than values and mission statements are the anchor for stories. Creating a “Focus Circle,” is a great way for colleagues to build self-awareness that ultimately creates positive stories.
With a better understanding of myself, I will have an easier time building positive relationships and trust with my colleagues. But, I cannot look forward to the future without remembering my teaching history. As a teacher out of college, I felt overwhelmed and under prepared. I began my teaching career at a time when education was starting to realize a paradigm shift in the way we instruct, assess, and collaborate. I was lucky, in that I had great leadership that challenged and questioned my actions and abilities to become the teacher I wanted to become. Through these years I began to read professional works, join committees, and serve in more leadership roles. Anthony Muhammad (2009), refers to people like me, starting educational careers as, “tweeners.” I had the chance to either go a more negative route towards those that held those roles, or join the “priests and priestesses.” (Deal and Peterson, 2009). The priests and priestesses are those people in the school doing everything they can do promote a positive culture and mission of the school. In reflecting upon my story, I believe I chose the positive path. While there were times that I would become negative, I think that overall, I was able to bring myself back to a positive role. For example, there were times when curriculum change was implemented that did not necessarily agree with. Over time, and with help from “priests and priestesses,” I embraced the change and grew professionally from the experience.
Culture is the most important element when improving in our professional careers. This element permeates the entirety of an organization and the possibilities for success. At my current school we have developed shared expectations for students and staff, we have instructional elements that hold us accountable to improving student learning, and professional learning communities that focus on student achievement. We have new leadership that has embraced these areas of culture and has already worked to enhance these areas of our climate and culture. My role will be to commit to creating positive stories with teachers to help develop and maintain a lasting culture. Since I will be working directly with teachers, and not students, I have the unique opportunity to enhance this element of successful schools.
To conclude, culture is the anchor for everything in our lives. Especially in the realm of education, culture and climate permeates every element of what Robert Marzano (2014) calls a “High Reliability School.” In order to build culture staff must first know themselves. They can do this by creating a “Focus Circle” of values, developing, a mission statement, and understanding how their personality can affect others. Once self-awareness has been fulfilled, we can understand our role in building a positive culture. At that point, staff can develop “stories” that will add to the patchwork of culture, and leave a positive and lasting history with the school. If humans are hardwired to remember and act on the basis of a story, it is our charge to create as many positive stories as we can to improve the lives of our students.
Deal, T. & Peterson, K. (2009). Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Marzano, R. & Warrick, P. & Simms, J. (2014). A Handbook for High Reliability Schools: The
Next Step in School Reform. Bloomington: Solution Tree.
Muhammad, A. (2009). Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division
Bloomington: Solution Tree.
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