Educational Change by Challenging Thinking to Move Beyond the Achievement Plateau
Change is never easy. Especially in an environment that varies
as much as each student within it. It seems like we hear a new focus from the
Ministry of Education yearly, depending on the standardized test scores. Focus
has shifted from literacy to numeracy, yet there is still an expectation to
improve literacy scores in the process.
When literacy scores reach a level that holds consistent
over the years, it is said to have reached a plateau. Michael Fullan in his article “System
thinkers in action: Moving beyond the standards plateau” (2004) references
Heifetz and Linsky’s (2002) work on going beyond the plateau. In order to go beyond the plateau, Heifetz
and Linsky recommend tackling adaptive challenges that are above our current
practice and capacity. The adaptive challenges provide us with an opportunity
for reflection on reform and change. This forces the vested community (policy
makers, administrators and teachers) to work together in a different manner to
create and inspire quality ideas and practices. Practices and skills that have
been successful in the past, are not tossed to the side. For instance, balanced
literacy, guided reading, high-yeild teaching strategies are continued, but the
goal is to introduce new, innovative strategies. Ultimately leading to a
solution to break the plateau- increasing reading achievement.
How does a new solution come about?
It comes from the knowledge and skills of the vested
community. Fullan refers to Surowiecki’s phrase “the wisdom of crowds”. The
vested community of educational professionals needs to have certain conditions
to foster their creativity such as:
- · Members need to feel original and independent.
- · Members need to be diverse in experience, backgrounds, needs, and interests.
- · Members need to be lateral communicating and inspiring one another.
- · Members need to have a method to formalize and bring together their ideas.
So what does this mean?
Teachers are continuously experimenting and problem solving
in their classrooms in order to help each student achieve their potential.
Sometimes they use strategies that were learned in teachers college or from
professional development workshops. Other times, teachers go on a whim and try
a brand new strategy and it works. Tapping into the strategies that have been
successful and sharing them with other teachers promotes ingenuity and change.
Valuing that ideas for change come from the grassroots level of education
(classroom teachers) can provide a solution to confronting the plateau and
surpassing it. Solutions will come from
those that are faced with the challenges consistently, and those are the
teachers in the classrooms.
How has your administration promoted risk-taking and sharing
of teaching strategies to promote inventive solutions?
