On change management
For anyone who needs to hear it.
The Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, which serves almost 800,000 of the state’s students, has recently announced that explicit teaching is the way to go. Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools have announced much the same; a recent inquiry into literacy and numeracy practices in the ACT suggests that Canberra may be about to head down a similar path.
I should be celebrating. But in many cases, mistakes have been made in the decision-making and direction-setting process. So far, it’s a ‘what not to do’ in change management. With little consideration of the natural human aversion to change, the response by teachers has naturally been … I’m looking for a word here … panicked? If I was told that I was to teach in a certain way on Monday, a method I knew little about, I would feel defensive too.
I’m going to outline what little I know about change management to propose a better way. I realise from the Twitter/X reactions that the horse has bolted, but I don’t think it’s too late to at least try to catch it and allay some of those fears. I’m going to use the ADKAR model to structure my suggestions, for whatever they’re worth. I was introduced to this model by powerhouse Elena Douglas of Knowledge Society and I lean on it often to assess my own approaches to significant projects.
A is for Awareness
This is certainly a double-edged sword. Teachers do get tired of being hit over the head with reports of poor outcomes. But there are plenty of success stories in Catholic and Department schools to shout about, plenty of students from disadvantaged schools who are punching above their ICSEA. There are available case studies where principals have made changes and turned their schools around. This means that there are existing models for change. There is also plenty of free advice and resources and old-fashioned professional generosity out there.
Teachers are aware of declining results, but are they aware that improvement is well within their reach?
D is for Desire
Desire is trickier. The media has done such a great job of beating teachers up that reports of underperformance are met with scepticism. Recentring the story around students, rather than all of the things teachers are not doing, would be fruitful. Most teachers go to work each day for the students. And as with the ‘awareness’ agenda, lifting outcomes is not impossible.
The larger problem may be leadership. Change requires unwavering principal buy-in, energy and ongoing support. Similarly, regional roles like the Director, Educational Leadership, need to be aligned. These people are the cheer-squad who maintain school, region and system-wide desire. I would never say it’s too late to turn a ship around, but a time machine would be handy right now. Leadership comes first.
K is for Knowledge
The Catholic Education Archdiocese Canberra-Goulburn (CEACG) has done a fantastic job of setting an example of best practice in upskilling. I’ve heard Patrick Ellis speak at grassroots professional learning events so many times over the last few years. In the early days, the story was about the investment in professional learning. In the interim, it was, “Here are some promising early results,” along with, “We’re not there yet.”
More recently, the data is going in a direction that can’t be ignored—but the system is four years into heavy investment. Patrick still says, “We’re not entirely there yet.” There’s no end-point. Just as the science of learning is always evolving, improvement is a work in progress.
A is for Ability
It’s nice when change happens quickly. It’s also highly unrealistic. It’s hard enough to transform a school, let alone retrain a system full of experienced teachers! This is why the literature on turn-around schools usually features those which are small and agile. Behavioural change takes time and resources.
A ready-set-go approach to mandating explicit teaching is not enabling. The biggest barrier teachers face—in almost anything they want to do well— is time. And as we know, time costs money. It’s not a one-and-done or a set-and-forget. It takes time and ongoing learning to embed explicit practice. I say this from personal experience.
You may have noticed by now that a lot of the elements of this model are interconnected. Bringing in the best expertise for professional learning is also an enabler. I realise that when it comes to teaching explicitly, many teachers claim—possibly through lack of knowledge—that “I already do this.” Credible information can go a long way to dispel rather than reinforce myths.
R is for Reinforcement
And here we come full circle, where changes in practice should be reinforced through all means available. This could be through ongoing professional learning and reflection, but a big part of reinforcement includes recognition.
With change management, recognition needs constant attention at all stages of the process; what are the wins? What are the stories? Who is doing great work? With our projects that require change management, this is a rolling meeting agenda item. We are constantly on the lookout for people and results to celebrate.
Recognition should be multi-layered—at the staff morning tea, on LinkedIn, at grassroots conferences and of course in person. Who needs to hear that they’re doing a great job at your school? I promise, if you tell someone they’re doing great work, that will be the best part of your day.
I’ve heard so many stories over the past few years about the guilt and shame that can arise from learning a better way. This seems paradoxical, but once you know, you can’t un-know. Realising what your students missed out on, especially when it comes to the Science of Reading, can be like the seven stages of grief—denial, pain, anger and later, hope. The reactions to explicit teaching mandates are completely unsurprising to me now.
Poor change management can do some serious damage. But find me a large-scale project that hasn’t experienced some early stumbles. Now, urgently, the best and only thing that can be done is to give teachers—human teachers—what they need: knowledge, support and recognition.
Great article because change is so difficult, especially if it something you believe in. So we are assuming that inquiry based teaching is the problem? Are there any studies that show this? I think we need to be careful before we jump into that assumption. Also inquiry based teaching can take many forms and needs a certain structure to work.
Very wise advice and thanks for the continued focus in your blog on the complexity of implementation.