Community Schools in the Netherlands, working on new
opportunities
Dr. J.M. Doornenbal, Hanze University for applied Sciences,
A.M. van den Berg, Hanze Universtiy for applied Sciences, National
Office for Community Schools
1/ Let me first introduce myself to you. Since 2006 I work as a professor
at a University of Applied Sciences, Hanzehogeschool Groningen, in
particular at the faculty for education and social work. Our research
domain are community schools and our main question is: What are the
what- work-principles in CS, what makes a difference for children and
parents?
2/ Today I want to talk with you about the role of practice based research:
can it contribute to sustainable CS development? As Job already said and
as you know by experience CS development leads to new questions and
problems: how can we work together as professionals from different
backgrounds like teachers , social workers. How can we cooperate with
parents who have different moral values about upbringing? How can we
build future perspectives for poor and disadvantaged children? How can
we build a safe but at the same time daring environment for children so
they can grow?
Our point of view is that practice based research is needed, (in contrast
with theory based reserach), to find usable answers for these practical
questions.
Practice based research is a big word consisting of at least two forms. I
distinguish between evidence and design based research. Today I’ll go
into both of them, but I will speak about design based research more in
detail, because we think that although EBR is necessary and useful,
design based research provides probably better opportunities to solve the
practical problems professionals are confronted with.
3/ We have a problem to solve: the gap between theory and practice.
There is a lot of good science and hard working professionals in CS but
there are complaints at both sides. I see it as an image of people shouting
at each other of the top of the roof: you do not use our new knowledge
and that is not wise. And at the other side: I do not use it because it is not
relevant for the my practice. You do not listen to what I need.. How can
we bridge this gap. The aim of Practice based research is to bridge this
gap. Do not shout at each other from the top of the roof. You will not
connect. But walk on the solid ground together.
4/ The aim of evidence based research is to answer the question: do we
know for sure that what we do does work as meant? (no intuition but
evidence). EBR is booming in the Netherlands. The expectation is that the
quality of education, youth care and youth aid will improve when
professionals work with evidence based programs and methods. On their
behalf, the national government wants to know if community schools
make a difference for children. They commissioned a national research at
the results of community schools in comparison with ‘traditional’
schools, because they want to know if their financial investments in CS
are worthwhile. The main question of this research project which is just
started, is: What are the results of CS for the academic performances and
the social emotional skills of children and can these results be attributed
to the community school movement? On a smaller scale some process
evaluations have been done, but insight in the results/effects of
community schools still cannot be proven.
This is the same for most programs and methods in community schools:
we cannot say that they work and most community schools do not work
data driven or follow the PDCA-cycle. To use data for community school
development is scarcely been out of the egg.
Of course EBR is important for the community school development in
the Netherlands, but is does not solve the questions of professionals in a
daily context. Questions with also moral, ethical, historical and political
aspects: what do I have to do when parents do not cooperate? Do I have
to intervene? Is it good for children to be in school all day long? Do I
have to prepare breakfast for the children in the morning or are the
parents responsible for feeding their kids? DBR is involved in these kind
of meaningful questions about right or wrong: about parental versus
public responsibility, about different opinions about pedagogical interests
of children.
5/ The aim of design based research is to develop valuable and usable
solutions for those meaningful problems in the working field. So DBR is
rather solution than problem orientated. Design based research
contributes at theory building, as well as at innovation and improvement
of the practice in community schools. The idea is that for the
development of these kind of solutions practice and theory must work
together.
6/ The supposition is that you need a learning community of
professionals, researchers and managers to develop together, in
interaction, this practical knowledge. These three groups of actors
participate in this learning community from his or her own perspective.
They each bring in their own expertise. But difference does not mean
hierarchy. In a learning community everybody is equal. That is crucial,
because to develop workable and valuable solutions you have to create an
environment in which a ongoing dialogue between these actors is
possible: thinking together, critical feedback, questioning. Collegial
(fraternal?) collaboration is a condition for DBR. During the whole
process they stay together. Also professionals can do research, reflect on
questions and the pros and cons of possible solutions; they do not only
apply new knowledge which is developed by researchers, they are coconstructors. Professionals are not only instrumentally acting persons but
their acting in practice has by definition also a moral, historical and
political character.
So, in PBR there is two-sided knowledge circulation: between the
codified knowledge of researchers and the tacit knowledge based on
experience of professionals.
7/ DBR follows steps of the regulative cycle (in comparison with the
empirical cycle: questions, hypotheses, testing, theory refinement,
application by practioners). It follows the steps of posing the problem,
analyzing the problem, defining the problem, designing solutions, trying
out solutions, evaluate the results: the usability of the solutions and
implementation. Professionals, researchers and managers/leaders are
involved in all the phases but some phases are more theoretically driven
than others. And so the involvement of the three groups can change per
phase.
In design based research the phases of problem defining and analyzing
are pivotal. Because what is at stake is not only the technique but
primarily the improvement of the practice. And the practice is not neutral
but formed by politically, historically and morally involved acting
professionals. So a dialogue about these political and moral judgments
and appreciations is necessarily. A good start is half of the work, says on
old Dutch proverb.
I am glad to introduce to you now Tonny van den Berg who will illustrate
my rather abstract introduction with an example of DBR we conducted in
a poor neighborhood. I can tell you that is an adventure.
Pedagogical Power in the Community, changes the ‘Open
Window School’ Groningen.
Introduction
Thank you all for your interest in our work with community schools in
The Netherlands. First let me introduce myself. My name is Tonny van
den Berg. For two days in a week, I am a project leader at the Hanze
University for the project ‘Pedagogical Power in the Community’.
Jeannette is my colleague (and boss). For the remain days of the week I
work as consultant for the National Office for Community Schools in the
Netherlands. There Job and Dieuwke are my colleagues.
Jeannette told you about the various ways of research. I’ll go deeper into
research were practice and theory meet each other: the community of
learners
impleme
ntation
field
Problem
analysis
evaluation
execution
diagnosis
design
‘Pedagogical Power in the Community”, runs as an community of learner.
The goal of this project is to improve the collaboration between
professionals in order to create a better educational environment for the
children.
First I’ll present a briefly the background situation of the community.
After that I give you some theoretical notions about behavioral change of
professionals. Next I’ll explain how we analyzed the child-related
problems in the community and how we worked with the professionals to
improve their work. I’ll illustrate this with one example of change: Parent
involvement. In the last part of my presentation, there are some matters I
want to discuss with you.
Power Neighborhood / Field problemfield
The community: De Hoogte / Indische Buurt is a so called ‘Power
Neighborhood’, a euphemism for a multi problem area. It is one of the 40
most disadvantaged communities in the Netherlands. For the last 10 years
there is an Open Window School, the Groninger name for a Community
School. Actually it is not a real Community School. It is a partnership of
two schools, childcare, playgroups, daycare centers, afterschool program,
youth work, social work, health, and many other institutions. This Open
Window School was a top-town set up. The municipality and the
managers were involved in the creation of it, not the professionals of the
institutes. The goals of the Open Window School were: create better
educational opportunities for children, create a better environment for
education and civil engagement.
8 Years later, the professionals in this Open Window School partnerships
were very disappointed about the collaboration and were ready to stop
their partnership. Many children did not well in school, there was a lot of
criminality and drug addiction among teenagers, school dropout, there
was a very low rate of parent involvement and as you say in the USA: it
was time for a change. A group of professionals from the Open Window
School came to us with the question: can you help us. We can improve,
these children deserve the best but it’s so hard to give them the best. How
can we cooperate better for the sake of the children.
Change / Analysis
Cooperation in the community school partnerschip. Let’s take a step
back: When there was no Open Window School, there was no
cooperation at all. Once that there is an Open Window School, we expect
that professionals work together. But it takes so much more for
professionals to really change the way they work: they need to align their
agendas, to discuss the way they work, to learn from each other, to give
and to take. They need to see the child and their own responsibility for the
child in a broader perspective: not only your own responsibility for your
part of the day, but a shared responsibility for a window of time for the
children. How do you do that, what do you need for that? When the Open
Window School partnership was introduced, they did not spend time and
effort on this (I told already, it was a top-down decision where
professionals were not involved). In the beginning of the project
Pedagogical Power, we took some time to reflect on behavioral change.
Important factors for change are:
- How do players experience the innovation, how the innovation is used
in daily work and activities and how innovation contributes to
improvement of work process and content (Fullen 2006).
- A different style of leadership is needed: focus less on control but
more on problem solving. The manager should initiate and support
interactive and experimental behavior.
There should be a natural bridging between theoretical knowledge and
practical knowledge. (Seashore Louis, 2009). Practical knowledge is
the knowledge that school leaders and teachers gained through their
own practical experience. Theoretical knowhow is evidence based
knowhow from (experimental) science. Often practitioners use their
N=1 experience as a guideline for future action. They find evidence
based knowhow not practical counter intuitive and hard to understand.
- There should be a natural bridging between theoretical knowledge and
practical knowledge, as Jeannette explained already. (Seashore Louis,
2009).
Orientation on the problems / Analysis
Orientation: we started with an extensive period of orientation. We
investigated the academic performance of the children, background
information about the community, and all kind of other statistics like
crime rates. In addition to that, we put out a questionnaire to diagnose the
inter professional cooperation. I had individual discussions with all the
managers of the key institutes: the schools, the daycare center, afterschool
program, playgroup and health and youth work.
All this data we put together and we presented our findings to a meeting,
were every professional in the community was invited.
Conclusion / Diagnosis
Roughly we found:
1. In 2007 many children under 12 do well in school: The general results
on language was better than the national average. A small group of
children were far behind. This was a small group in one particular
location.
2. Compared to other parts of the city, more teenagers have serious
problems: school dropout, drugs and criminality.
3. All professionals were disappointed in the cooperation under the flag
of the Open Window School, but they all agreed on the goals of the
original set up. They want to improve but under better conditions:
more hours, less projects, more continuity and better involvement;
4. In the eyes of the professionals, parent involvement in care and
education was very low and disappointing;
5. Professionals favored cooperation on a more practical, day to day
basis. (Early Childhood Education, Parent involvement; bridging the
gap between primary and secondary education and the connection
between ‘in school’ and ‘afterschool’ learning.)
And this is interesting: The majority of young children do quite well in
school, the problems start when teenagers go to secondary school. One of
the problems in this community is that there is no junior high or high
school in the close by. And because of that, parent involvement is even
more important! In an early stage, professionals should be able to help
parents to improve their ‘parent involvement’. So these items must be
central in our working plan.
It’s a complex situation, the problems are interrelated and therefore
should be tackled simultaneously. joined up problems need joined up
solutions.
Working plan / Design
Based on the identified problems, the suggestions of the professionals and
the notions of change, we have prepared an implementation plan:
- We identified the most important topics:
o Parent Involvement
o The discontinuity between 10-14 / bridging the gap between
primary and secondary education
o Early Childhood Education
o In-school and after-school learning
- We formed working groups around the identified topics. Professionals
from the key institutes who had a natural affinity with the specific
topic, were invited to participate in this working group. They were
encouraged to analyze and solve problems together;
- In every working group we put a researcher from the Hanze
University, to do designed based research, based on the questions the
professionals raised. In this way, one forces the professionals to have a
more research based attitude to their own work. (And of course, the
researchers must be able to bridge the gap between research based
knowledge and craftsmanship).
- We did make plan with objectives, but always in collaboration with
the working groups.
- We created good working conditions: all the professionals who
participated in the working groups got extra time for this work.
- We organized the middle management in a Steering Committee. (see
diagram);
- We organized a workgroup exchange happening: all the working
groups had to present their work to the others. There was feedback and
time for reflection. Managers were welcome and were informed about
the progress of the work;
Experiments
Let me explain the experiments with an example: Parent involvement. It
was not easy to get a professional from every key institute participating in
this working group, because many professionals were very disappointed
in the parents. In the end we succeeded. In a year time, we undertook
several actions:
- We did research on the policy on parent involvement from the
participating institutes (desk research). There was not much written in
reports;
- We did research in the teams (target group interviews): what is your
‘mental’ policy, what are your goals, what is your expectation, what
do you think parents expect from you. This was very interesting. In the
beginning of this conversation, the teams were hesitating, but most of
the time a lively debate started and in the end, the professionals were
satisfied with the discussions, and so were the managers;
- We had an interesting evening with parents. We listened to parents.
Parents told on this evening what they expected from the institutes.
Two main points: they found primary school the most important, and
they were on the whole satisfied with the professionals who were
working with their children and with them;
- We organized a training ‘communication with parents’ for all the
professionals in the community. This was not easy to plan and there
was a lot of resistance from the professionals. But after the team
discussions, professionals did want to join this training;
- We now have identified the overall expectations and goals on parent
involvement,
The result of all these discussions is that professionals are more aware of
their own expectations and the expectations of their colleagues and
parents. They accepted the fact that there was a lack of communication
skills and they were willing to work on that.
Evaluation
Coming summer, we are two years on our way and we’ll repeat our
measurements. We’ll have the final results within a couple of months.
But the most important results of all are already clear to us now:
Enthusiasm and motivation among professionals and managers. People
show more confidence in themselves, their colleagues and hopefully as a
result: in the children. It looks as if professionals look closer into their
role in the educational process and they enjoy that.
Sustainability / Implementation
We realize that this is only the beginning of a process. We hope we get
three more years to get more work done and to make the results
sustainable. There are two main ways to work things out:
Continue with the community of learners. Cooperation in working
groups, where researchers are added and professionals are leading, is a
concept what seems to work. We would like to continue this for a couple
of years, probably with new subjects.
And we have to think about the Implementation of the successful
outcomes. Via a digital handbook, wiki or interactive website or
environment. But also with training and guidance. We hope to see good
examples from you in this conference, so we can bring them home and let
our mill turn!
Thank you for your attention
Literature:
Building Strong School Cultures, Seashore Louis, 2009
Turn around Leadership, Michael Fullan, 2006