Re: Follow up

Brian Drayton (Brian_Drayton@TERC.EDU <Brian_Drayton@TERC.EDU>)
29 Sep 1995 13:51:17 -0400 

This message came to me anonymously, so I can't reply quite as I'd like. 
Anyway, my response is: We, too, on the TEPE project have put teachers in
local cohorts, and place a lot of reliance on this peer support (aided by a
clement administration) to enable the teachers to carry on. 

   What is  "the appropriate unit of change"?  The "school" is an abstract
entity, like a corporation.  It is a collective term for a lot of specific
persons.  We have most of us taken the approach of lumping people by function
and then aiming our innovations at one or another of these functional classes
(teachers, students, principals, etc.) Still, the weakness of much policy and
most TE work is intensified when it goes with the collective rather than the
individuals that make up the collective.  This comes from wanting faster
results, or results on a large scale.  It seems quite clear from history that
except in very rare cases this is not possible except over a long period of
time, as a consensu builds.  Such a consensus is nurtured by an accumulation
of experience and expertise, so that people in the field have a reasoned and
nuanced understanding of the innovation, and it is part of the mental
furniture. 
    Projects that aim to create deep change (as opposed to moving a product)
lose their potential value if they try to overreach.  That's why movements
make more sense than projects for that kind of thing.  If a project can
create a buzz, spread an idea, and leave its adherents in a position to
communicate, it maybe can create a movement; this is how a school can be
overtaken by a change. 
    Taking a collective approach from the beginning will cause backlash,
since it will feel like some kind of mandate and adds to the sense that
faddism is the prime characteristic of reform movements and TE ideas.  This
is of course the same problem with "market" models, because of the way
markets work in these days and this culture.
--Brian Drayton (brian_drayton@terc.edu <brian_drayton@terc.edu>) 

--------------------------------------
Date: 9/29/95 1:24 PM
To: Brian Drayton
From: TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu <TEECH-Workshop@hub.terc.edu>
Judy Roitman's comments exposed the problem of numbers:  we write grants
with a few faculty/staff working with relatively large numbers of teachers.
Then, after the workshop, those teachers go back to their own situations
and life continues for them pretty much unchanged.  One way we have tried
to get around this is by requiring teachers to participate as part of a
local cohort group.  Thus, to participate in a project, three or more
teachers from the same school or district (if the district is very small)
must sign up and come together.  If we can coerce an administrator to also
participate (even to a small degree) that also helps.  Then followup
becomes connecting with relatively few sites, rather than many individual
teachers.  In many ways, the teachers are not the appropriate unit of
change - the school is.



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From: 114E.Henzlik.Hall.UNL.0355@unlinfo.unl.edu <114E.Henzlik.Hall.UNL.0355@unlinfo.unl.edu> (Betsy Kean)
Subject: Follow up
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