Abstract:
This book takes on the longstanding and “wicked” problem of school improvement.
At the core of this problem is the interaction between students (their understandings,
capacities, aspirations and dispositions) and their experiences in schools.
These experiences are shaped - but not determined - by their teachers, peers, families,
classroom and school structures and wider communities. In the face of the
enormous potential diversity on both sides of this interaction is society’s expectation
that, somehow, all students will achieve (among other unpredictable things) a
common core of outcomes. Logically speaking, this is an entirely irrational expectation
and the extent to which it is realized stands as something of a taken-for-granted
miracle.
Achieving this miracle becomes more likely, we are to believe, when teachers
and school leaders do things certain ways, when district leaders provide certain
forms of support, when policy makers establish certain systems of sanctions,
rewards and the like. All the while, these certain ways of doing things, forms of support
and systems of sanctions and rewards are variously ignored (often for good
reasons) or under constant refinement, debate, critique and re-formation. Achieving
the miracle, one might easily conclude, stands no chance absent an innate disposition
on the part of children to learn from social interaction.
So, that is one perspective on why the school improvement problem is “wicked”;
it can sometimes be reduced in complexity and made easier to understand.
Occasionally someone even hits a home run. But is never going to be “solved” in the
typical meaning of the term. Just because the problem is wicked, however, does not
mean we have the choice of not working on it. Taking on this problem, the best way
we know how, is a requirement not an option, for all of us working in and around
schools.
