 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Early last month, sixteen leaders from ten different U.S. school districts and district-networks came to the Harvard Graduate School of Education campus to begin a unique two-year experiment in professional development and district-wide school improvement. Sponsored by the HGSE Change Leadership Group (CLG), the Coach Learning Program (CLP) seeks to support the commitments and capacities of local school leaders whose districts are engaged in system-wide improvement of student learning.
“These folks are pioneers in at least two ways,” says Meehan Professor Robert Kegan, one of the co-directors of the Change Leadership Group, of the participants in the new Coach Learning Program. “They are bravely creating a whole new role in American public education—that of a person skilled at instigating a complex change process that aligns the central office, school principals, and classroom teachers in a common effort.” Kegan goes on to explain that the participants will have the greatest influence over the program's future shape. “Though my colleagues and I have spent two years preparing for their arrival,” explains Kegan, “they will be our teachers for the next two years, as much as we will be theirs.”
According to the model envisioned by the Change Leadership Group, the “change coaches” needed in America's school systems are the teachers themselves. Their mission is to foster a new kind of system-wide learning by all adults in the organization. The model refers to the distinction between “technical challenges” and “adaptive challenges”, as made by CLG Advisory Board member and KSG faculty member Ron Heifetz. Technical challenges are those for which, however daunting, the problems and solutions are well-defined; the necessary capacity to solve the problem has already been developed. Adaptive challenges may have none of these qualities, and always lack the third. New capacities must be developed to meet adaptive challenges. The Change Leadership Group's change coaches seek to develop those capacities in their home systems, as the CLP seeks to develop the ability of these capacity builders. Leave No Child Behind
“The basic learning rhythm of the young is about ‘making the strange familiar,’” says Kegan, an expert in adult learning and adult development, “but the basic learning rhythm for us when we are adults may be ‘making the familiar strange.’ Kegan believes that school improvement “may require as much ‘unlearning’ as learning. In order to 'leave no child behind,' those who run our schools may need to significantly alter their own beliefs about effective teaching, and this is incredibly hard work.” About the Coach Learning Program “We hope the coaches will form a network among themselves they can continue to draw on when their program ends,” offers Wagner, “and that their action learning projects will further not only their learning but our own. Collectively, the program is going to create a very rich action-science research base, which we look forward to studying with the participating HGSE doctoral students.” For More Informatiom
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
|
||||||||||||||||
