Theory to Practice : Rhetoric to Action
Education is fundamentally an imaginative act of hope
(Purkey et al, 1996)
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The call for better education in our schools
now seems almost universal . . . The
central element of quality education is of
course, the teacher. Knowledgeable
teachers are the core of an effective school
program. (Stevenson, 1987, p. v)
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educational institutions need to reach
the broadest numbers of students and that
they must therefore be responsive to
different forms of learning, performance,
and understanding. (Gardner, 1991, p. 18)
...
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. . . too many educational systems develop
mission statements of eloquent rhetoric
without following through with the
necessary supports to enable each and
every school to “live” that rhetoric. Or
worse still, they adopt practices that run
counter to their recommended goals. (Maaka,
1999, p. 8)
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INVITATIONAL EDUCATION
http://www.invitationaleducation.net
 A theory of practice that addresses the total
educational environment – Social , Physical,
Cognitive, Spiritual, Emotional
 A process for communicating caring and
appropriate messages intended to summon
forth the realisation of human potential as
well as for identifying and changing those
forces that defeat and destroy potential
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Invitational education is a democraticallybased self-concept theory for working with
people and constructing positive school
cultures.
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DOMAINS AND CONTEXT OF
THE DEVELOPING PERSON
SELF
SOCIAL PHYSICAL
COGNITIVE
EMOTION
SPIRITUAL
Family
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Social Health, Mental Health
and the 6 R’s
 Reality
 Responsibility
 Right/Wrong
 Relationships
 Resilience
 Respect
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Foundations of Invitational Theory
A humanistic, person-centred
approach to motivation of human
behaviour
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The Perceptual Tradition
(Combs, 1962)
People are not influenced by events so much as
their perceptions of events
 Human behaviour is the product of the unique
ways that individuals view the world
 Behaviour is based on perceptions
 Perceptions are learned
 Perception can be reflected upon
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Self-Concept Theory
(Journard, 1968; Rogers, 1968; Purkey, 1970)
If there is one thing in the world that concerns
every one of us, it is the self-concept
 Learned beliefs that each person holds to be true
about his or her personal existence
 Who am I?
 How do I fit in the world?
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Cognitive-Behavioural Approach
(Ellis,1962, 1970; Meichenbaum, 1974, 1977)
People are disturbed not by things, but by the views
which they take of them
 Our thoughts shape our emotions and our actions
 Our beliefs and assumptions shape how we perceive and
interpret events
 Behaviour is mediated by the way an individual views oneself
and these views serve as an antecedent and consequence of
human activity
 Our distorted thoughts can lead to a variety of dysfunctioning
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Underpinnings of Invitational Education
 Collection of assumptions that seek to
explain human phenomena
 Provides a means of intentionally
summoning people to realise their potential
in all human endeavours
 Provides a framework for PEOPLE in a
variety of PROGRAMS, POLICIES, PLACES,
AND PROCESSES
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Invitational Education Assumptions
 Four assumptions offer a consistent
“stance” through which humans can create
and maintain an optimally inviting
environment:
– Respect
– Trust
– Optimism
– Intentionality
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Respect
 People are able, valuable, and
responsible and should be treated
accordingly
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Trust
 Education should be a cooperative,
collaborative activity where process is
as important as product
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Optimism
 People possess untapped potential in
all worthwhile human endeavour
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Intentionality
 Human potential can best be realised
by creating and maintaining Places,
Policies, Processes, and
Programs,specifically designed to
invite development, and by People who
are intentionally inviting with
themselves and others, personally and
professionally
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“Five P’s”
 Invitational Education focuses on five
areas that exist in every environment and
that contributes to the success or failure
of each individual:
– People
– Places
– Policies
– Programs
– Processes
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People
 Teachers, Administrators, Counsellor,
Support Staff
 People create a respectful, optimistic,
trusting, and intentional (positively
enhancing) society
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Places
 Classrooms, Offices, Hallways, Common
Rooms, Libraries, Playing fields
 The physical environment offers a starting
point from moving from invitational theory
to practice
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Policies
 Rules, Codes, Procedures - Written or
Unwritten
 Used to regulate the ongoing functions of
individuals or organisations
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Programs
 Curricular and Co-Curricular
 Focuses on the wider scope of human needs
by ensuring program achieve goals for
which they were designed.
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Processes
 The spirit or atmosphere of the way things
are done
 Addresses such issues as cooperative spirit,
democratic activities, collaborative efforts,
ethical guidelines, and humane activities
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Levels of Functioning
 Invitational Education identifies four level of
functioning in personal and professional
living:
– Intentionally Disinviting
– Unintentionally Disinviting
– Unintentionally Inviting
– Intentionally Inviting
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Intentionally Disinviting
 Deliberately discouraging
 Busy with other obligations
 Focused on students’ shortcomings
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Unintentionally Disinviting
 Well-meaning, but condescending
 Obsessed with policies and procedures
 Unaware of students’ feelings
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Unintentionally Inviting
 Well-liked and reasonably effective
 Inconsistent and uncertain in decisionmaking
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Intentionally Inviting
 Optimistic, respectful, and trustworthy
 Able to affirm, yet guide students
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Four Dimensions
 The goal of Invitational education is to
encourage individuals to enrich their lives
in each of the four basic dimensions:
– Being personally inviting with oneself
– Being personally inviting with others
– Being professionally inviting with oneself
– Being professionally inviting with others
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Inviting Oneself





Practice being inviting on your own behalf
Make a habit of having some “alone time”
Take good care of your health
Celebrate yourself
Establish/continue a relationship with a
colleague in order to share experiences
 Join a professional group
 Submit an idea to a professional journal for
publication
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Principles Of An Inviting School
 People are able, valuable, and responsible and should be
treated accordingly.
 Educating should be a collaborative, cooperative activity
 The process is the product in the making.
 Focus on effort rather than ability: To become absorbed with
learning than being preoccupied with their performance.
 People possess untapped potential in all areas of worthwhile
human endeavour.
 This potential can be realised by PLACES, POLICIES,
PROGRAMS, AND PROCESSES specifically designed to invite
development and by PEOPLE who are intentionally inviting with
themselves and others personally and professionally.
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Inviting School Success
 Democratically oriented, perceptually
anchored, self-concept approach to the
educative process
 The enhancement of
– Self-Concept
– Self-Esteem
– Self Efficacy
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KNOWLEDGE OF SELF
IS AS IMPORTANT AS
KNOWLEDGE OF CURRICULUM
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Quality teaching, "inviting" students to succeed in
intellectual, social, and personal pursuits, will not
be enhanced by a teacher, irrespective of his or
her overall academic ability, if he or she has a
low academic self-concept in the specific teaching
domains. When teachers think well of
themselves, they think well of their students, and
thus potentially enabling their students to achieve
to their full potential. (Smith, 1999, pp. 74-75)
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Children of high self-esteem who are in
regular contact with teachers of low selfesteem will gradually themselves develop
low self-esteem, with associated low
attainment levels. (Lawrence, 1996, p. 13)
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“Inviting” Perception of Students






Able
Responsible
Valuable
Positive Expectations
Classroom Warmth
Invitational Discipline/Management
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Keys to Being Invitational:
Environment, Comments, Behaviors
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Keys to Being Invitational:
Environment
 Freshly painted walls
in a room
 A warm fireplace
 Flowers on a desk
 A well tended yard
space
 Throw pillows on floor
 Unclean, unkempt
walls
 A chilly room
 A patchy, grassless
yard space
 Hard backed chairs
 Stilted, superficial
conversations
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Keys to Being Invitational:
Comments
 Congratulations!
 Sure, I can help with
that.
 That’s a good point.
 Let’s get together next
Monday.
 Have a good time at
the party!
 You sure were lucky.
 I may have time later.
 What’s the matter with
you?
 We’ll try to get
together sometime
soon.
 Behave and mind your
manners.
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Keys to Being Invitational:
Behaviors
 Taking turns with others
 Inviting a friend to
lunch
 Noticing/complementing
another’s new clothes,
shoes, etc.
 Responding to another
 Cutting in a line
 Waiting for a friend to
ask you to lunch
 Making a
“cute”/sarcastic
remark about the new
attire
 Being grumpy
 Showing indifference,
half-listening
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Expectations
 One of the differences between good teachers and
poor teachers is that good teachers make their
students feel that they have more ability than they
think they have so that they consistently do better
work than they thought they could!
 Treat people as if they were what they ought to be
and you help them to become what they are
capable of being! (Goethe)
 One’s expectancy of another person’s behaviour
somehow comes to be realised - NOT ALWAYS!
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A high self-concept is a necessary
BUT NOT
a sufficient condition for achievement
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Inviting Motivation
 Motivation is NOT a problem in school
 I have never met or seen an unmotivated student. I
have met many students who did not do what I
would wish them to do, but this is not to say they
are unmotivated.
 As teachers we are given the responsibility to
determine the direction this INTERNAL, ALWAYSACTIVE, MOTIVATION will take
 Rather than wasting time trying to motivate
students, it makes far better sense to work on how
this given motivation will be directed (the mob
leader is the same as the missionary; the thug and
the theologian, the challenging student and the
most talented)
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Facilitating the Three C’s of Motivation
 Collaboration
– Assisting students to feel connected to their peers
and ensuring the classroom is conducive to a
positive learning environment.
 Choice
– Students are brought into the process of making
decisions about WHAT, HOW, and WHY they are
learning and other issues in the classroom.
 Content
– Making school work and learning meaningful,
engaging, and relevant.
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F. O. C. I
 Feedback, give more positive
 Output, give more opportunities for
student
 Climate, create a warm, inviting
environment
 Input, give students more to
challenge them
Fair Firm Friendly
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Doing-With Students
not
Doing-At Students
The best teacher is one who, through
establishing a personal relation, frees the
student to learn. Learning can only take
place in the student, and the teacher can only
create the conditions for learning. The
atmosphere created by a good interpersonal
relationship is the major condition for
learning. (Patterson, 1973, page number unknown) 49
SUMMARY
If you’re not feeling good about you,
what you’re wearing outside doesn’t
mean a thing. (Leontyne Price, opera singer)
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Everything the teacher does as well as the
manner in which s/he does it incites the
student to respond in some way or another
and each response tends to set the
student's attitude in some way or another.
(John Dewey, 1933)
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Until such proposals [Teacher Education
Revision Proposals] take into account the
need for teacher-training methods and
interventions designed to enhance the
academic self-concept of not only pre-service
teachers but in addition, in-service teachers,
the goal of improving quality of teaching and
quality of learning will not be forthcoming.
(Smith, 2000, p. 209)
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Ashton et al. (1986) succinctly stated:
If we are to make progress toward that
goal [quality of teaching and quality of
learning], the promotion of a high
sense of self-efficacy in teachers and
students must become an educational
aim as important as academic
achievement. (p. 176)
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Bibliography
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efficacy and student achievement. New York: Longman.
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Curriculum Development.
Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle
Stuart.
Ellis, A. (1970). The essence of rational psychotherapy. New York:
Institute for Rational Living.
Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how
schools should teach. New York: Basic Books.
Journard, S. (1968). Disclosing man to himself. Princeton, NJ: Van
Nostrand.
Lawrence, D. (1996). Enhancing self-esteem in the classroom (2nd ed.).
London: Paul Chapman.
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Maaka, M. (1999). Assessment for school success: A student-centred
approach. Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, 6, 6-27.
Meichenbaum, D. (1974). Cognitive behaviour modification. Morristown,
NJ: Plenum.
Meichenbaum, D. (1977). Cognitive behaviour modification: An integrated
approach. New York: Plenum.
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N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
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NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Greensboro, NC: University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Purkey, W., & Novak, J. (1988). Education: By invitation only.
Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa.
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approach to teaching and learning (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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Purkey, W. & Schmidt, J. (1987). The inviting relationship: An expanded
perspective for professional counseling. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:PrenticeHall.
Purkey, W. & Schmidt, J. (1990). Invitational learning and counseling and
development. Ann Arbor, MI: ERIC/CAPS.
Purkey, W. & Stanley, P. (1991). Invitational teaching, learning and
living. Washington, DC: National Educational Association Professional
Library, National Education Association.
Rogers, C. (1969). Freedom to learn. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
Smith, K. (1999). Quality teaching and academic self-concept. Interlogue,
10, 73-81.
Smith, K. (2000). The self-concept and verbal academic achievement of
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teaching: The preparation of students teaching. Reston, VA:
Association of Teacher Educators.
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For Further Information
Ken Smith, PhD, MAPS
Head of School
Trescowthick School of Education (Victoria)
Faculty of Education
Australian Catholic University
Fitzroy, Australia, 3065
61-3-9953-3257 (Tel)
61-3-9953-3495 (Fax)
k.smith@patrick.acu.edu.au (Email)
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