Ultimately, there are two kinds of schools: learning-enriched schools and
learning-impoverished schools. I’ve yet to see a school where the learning
curves of the youngsters are off the chart upward while the learning curves of the
adults are off the chart downward, or a school where the learning curves of the
adults were steep upward and those of the students were not. Teachers and
students go hand in hand as learners – or they don’t go at all.
(Barth, R., 2001)
The working relationships that teachers have with other adults are closely
connected to and deeply consequential for the teaching and learning
relationships they in turn have with their students.
(Hargreaves, A.)
Schools with a high degree of ‘relational trust’ are more likely to make the kind of
changes that help raise student achievement. Improvements in such areas as
classroom instruction, curriculum, teacher preparation and professional
development have little chance of succeeding without improvements in a school’s
social climate.
(Bryk, A. and Schneider, B., 2002)
Ultimately the quality of teaching depends not only on the qualities of those who
enter and stay, but also on workplace factors. Teachers who feel enabled to
succeed with students are more committed and effective than those who feel
unsupported in their learning and in hteir practice (Haggstrom et al. 1988,
McLaughlin and Talbert, 1993, Rosenholtz 1989). Those who have access to
teacher networks, enriched professional roles, and collegial work feel more
efficacious in gaining the knowledge they need to meet the needs of their
students and more positive about staying in the profession.
(Darling-Hammond, L., 1996)
Learning, in my view, is more than acquiring information. It’s a social activity
that leads to more complex ways of thinking, which is as much a function of the
space between us as it is a product of what happens in our own heads. When
the space between people contains trust, engagement and positive regard, the
capacity for cognitive, emotional, and physiological changes is greater.
Professional development leaders can increase learning by actively cultivating
richer, more positive connections among people. That would have a higher yield
of professional learning than the importation of experts who dispense lots of
information.
(Jane E. Dutton in “Look for Ways to Ignite the Energy Within,” Journal of Staff
Development, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2004)
I believe the quality of our teaching is the most important thing in determing the
quality of learning students experience in this school. I believe that the quality of
relationships that we as adults have with one another has a profound effect on
the quality of relationships students experience here, both with us and with other
students. I want every student to experience quality teaching in every classroom
and be surrounded and supported by quality relationships with adults and peers.
(Dennis Sparks, Journal of Staff Development, Vol. 26, No. 2, Spring 2005)
Schools with strong professional learning communities were four times more
likely to be improving academically than schools with weaker professional
communities. We can no longer afford to be innocent of the fact that
collaboration improves performance.
(Ann C. Lewis cited by Schmoker, Mike in “Tipping Point: From Reckless Reform
to Substantive Instructional Improvement,” Phi Delta Kappan, February 2004.)
Interactions constitute an organization’s social fabric, the lived values and norms
of how things are done within the organization. That social fabric in turn either
increases or decreases the capacity of individuals to collaborate, to create new
things, to facilitate information sharing, and to adapt. There’s a deep connection
between these small everyday interactions and an organization’s overall
performance.
(Jane E. Dutton in “Look for Ways to Ignite the Energy Within,” Journal of Staff
Development, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2004)
Learning requires vulnerability. It involves self-disclosure and risk taking. Highquality connections also enable individuals and the collective to grow in
unanticipated directions. For example, research on effective teams has found
that when positive talk exceeds negative talk, there’s a quality of connection
among team members that leads to the accomplishment of collective work that
none of the individual team members thought was possible.
(Jane E. Dutton in “Look for Ways to Ignite the Energy Within,” Journal of Staff
Development, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2004)
Judith Warren Little (1990) found that effective collaboration between teachers
was linked to gains in student achievement, higher quality solutions to problems,
increased self-efficacy among all staff, more systematic assistance to beginning
teachers and an expanded pool of ideas, methods and materials that benefited
all teachers.
(Little, J.S., 1990, “The Persistence of Privacy: Autonomy and Initiative in
Teachers’ Professional Relations,” Teachers College Record, 91(4), 509-536.)
Businesses operate from a number of paradigms. Those that are hard-nosed
and finance-driven are counterproductive in a world of rapid change and deep
interdependence because they chip away at the most important asset of the
organization – the human community.
(Jane E. Dutton in “Look for Ways to Ignite the Energy Within,” Journal of Staff
Development, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2004)