Bill's new book, Angel Teachers: Educators Who Care About Troubled Teens,just out. August 2012. Published by Rowman & Littlelfield, www.rowmaneducation.com. Click on Fibkins for description. Also on carousel as you enter site featuring new publications and on my webpage,
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Friday, August 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Too Much Dazzle, Hype, and Self Promotion can Derail the Real Mission of a Caring School: educating and guiding kids
Times are tough. With budget cuts looming every year school administrators and union leaders find themselves in a never-ending game of promoting how good their school is and why budgets cuts will derail their ongoing success. And the vehicle they chose for this ongoing self-promotion is what I call the " dazzle" approach which focuses only on " good news." Good news that can easily be translated into an ongoing selling campaign aimed at convincing school board members, parents, citizens, and even their own staff that their school is performing at its highedst level. Message? Don't mess with success. Meaning if you make drastic budget cuts all hell is going to break out. Teachers and support staff will be fired, new inexperienced teachers will take their place, chaos will become commonplace with students violence, bullying, failure, absenteeism and dropouts on the rise.
And where do education leaders find good news? You know the drill. In data about college acceptances, athletic and academic scholarships, winning sports teams, reduced behavior problems , increased attendance, fewer dropouts, high quality music and arts presentations, and community service projects such as inviting senior citizens to lunch. All fodder for the school's ongoing public relations efforts to say " we are doing good folks." Not unlike a candidate running for reelection, stressing all the reasons to keep he or she in office. Yet, this good news process comes with a high cost that is often overlooked and can serve to derail the main mission of a caring school; educating and guiding teens to be all they can be.
I have observed the dark side of this only " good news" process cause once-caring schools and their staff to abandon their major focus on helping kids and turn their energy and mission into becoming a sales machine for survival. Selling their school as a " product" becomes the number one priority. Overtime school administrators and staff come to believe what their public relations guru's are promoting. They become smitten with these positive reviews rather than staying currrent in their classrooms. Often these schools take on an aura that they are number " 1" and that will never change. But as the actor Woody Allen suggests there is real " danger in reading your positve reviews." One gets to believe naively that only good things will continue to happen in their work. Same for educators.
As a result administrators and staff get to believe the constant hype, dazzle, self-promotion and deny the dark-side reality of their marginal students. In this process they gradually lose focus and interest in whats are not "good news "kids and their stories. Their lives are not newsworthy. They are the " bad news" kids. Kids who live at the margins of the school and community life; who act out, fail courses, cause mischief and trouble, have alcohol, tobacco,, and drugs addictions, poor health, eating disorders, obsesity, on and on . They are the disenfranchised kids who have no real constituency in the school. They are labeled as " those kids" who don't participate in " good news" programs such as sports, the arts, communiy service, and peer mediation. They don't make the honor roll or receive any public accolades. Their names and the names of their parents never appear in the " good news " reports.That's only for the " other" kids.
So hubris does it's work and gradually sets the tone for the school and staff. There is so much effort and push by the staff to save themselves and their school that the process often has a negative impact on their classroom teaching. Unexpected consequences arrive. Often it takes the form of settling, laziness, drifting and abandoning the marginal kids who need their help, care, and energy the most. Sure the school's public relations ongoing " good news"reporting promotes a school that allows "no"child to fall through the cracks but marginal kids and a few caring administrators and teachers know differently. They know their school operates in two different worlds; one for the " good news" kids and one for the " no good news" kids.
The result? The process often alters the helping behaviors of once-caring teachers. They pretend they haven't changed and love, care for "all" their kids but the school they once knew now exists in name only. The " good news" process has become an unwanted visitor.It's now all about fame for the best and brightest and they are sucked up in the process, ready or not. Consciously or unconsciously using the god news stories of the best and brightest students as the ticket to the survival of their school and themselves.
Lessons to be learned? Be careful what you ask for. Self-promotion should be managed carefully.No, not easy as schools and their staff do feel the real pressure to promote how they are doing. However often in this process they oversell themselves. Result? In the process of " selling" their worth as a product they, as they saying goes in sports, "give up or ignore what brought them to the dance. " What made them a good school serving ,"every" students , has now become a school focused solely on the " good news" students who deliver the positive spin that says "all is well here."
And where do education leaders find good news? You know the drill. In data about college acceptances, athletic and academic scholarships, winning sports teams, reduced behavior problems , increased attendance, fewer dropouts, high quality music and arts presentations, and community service projects such as inviting senior citizens to lunch. All fodder for the school's ongoing public relations efforts to say " we are doing good folks." Not unlike a candidate running for reelection, stressing all the reasons to keep he or she in office. Yet, this good news process comes with a high cost that is often overlooked and can serve to derail the main mission of a caring school; educating and guiding teens to be all they can be.
I have observed the dark side of this only " good news" process cause once-caring schools and their staff to abandon their major focus on helping kids and turn their energy and mission into becoming a sales machine for survival. Selling their school as a " product" becomes the number one priority. Overtime school administrators and staff come to believe what their public relations guru's are promoting. They become smitten with these positive reviews rather than staying currrent in their classrooms. Often these schools take on an aura that they are number " 1" and that will never change. But as the actor Woody Allen suggests there is real " danger in reading your positve reviews." One gets to believe naively that only good things will continue to happen in their work. Same for educators.
As a result administrators and staff get to believe the constant hype, dazzle, self-promotion and deny the dark-side reality of their marginal students. In this process they gradually lose focus and interest in whats are not "good news "kids and their stories. Their lives are not newsworthy. They are the " bad news" kids. Kids who live at the margins of the school and community life; who act out, fail courses, cause mischief and trouble, have alcohol, tobacco,, and drugs addictions, poor health, eating disorders, obsesity, on and on . They are the disenfranchised kids who have no real constituency in the school. They are labeled as " those kids" who don't participate in " good news" programs such as sports, the arts, communiy service, and peer mediation. They don't make the honor roll or receive any public accolades. Their names and the names of their parents never appear in the " good news " reports.That's only for the " other" kids.
So hubris does it's work and gradually sets the tone for the school and staff. There is so much effort and push by the staff to save themselves and their school that the process often has a negative impact on their classroom teaching. Unexpected consequences arrive. Often it takes the form of settling, laziness, drifting and abandoning the marginal kids who need their help, care, and energy the most. Sure the school's public relations ongoing " good news"reporting promotes a school that allows "no"child to fall through the cracks but marginal kids and a few caring administrators and teachers know differently. They know their school operates in two different worlds; one for the " good news" kids and one for the " no good news" kids.
The result? The process often alters the helping behaviors of once-caring teachers. They pretend they haven't changed and love, care for "all" their kids but the school they once knew now exists in name only. The " good news" process has become an unwanted visitor.It's now all about fame for the best and brightest and they are sucked up in the process, ready or not. Consciously or unconsciously using the god news stories of the best and brightest students as the ticket to the survival of their school and themselves.
Lessons to be learned? Be careful what you ask for. Self-promotion should be managed carefully.No, not easy as schools and their staff do feel the real pressure to promote how they are doing. However often in this process they oversell themselves. Result? In the process of " selling" their worth as a product they, as they saying goes in sports, "give up or ignore what brought them to the dance. " What made them a good school serving ,"every" students , has now become a school focused solely on the " good news" students who deliver the positive spin that says "all is well here."
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