The Road to Change –
Thoughts on Debra E. Meyerson’s “Rocking the Boat, How to Effect Change without Making Trouble.”
Book Review
Unlike so many books that I’ve read during my years of education training, Rocking the Boat was realistic. Practical challenges that are often overlooked were put front and center, along with realistic options for responses. I definitely identified with the tempered radical model, and saw my own professional behavior patterns in the descriptions provided. The reality of any school environment is one where decisions are made in the context of a complex set of relationships between coworkers, supervisors, students and parents. When I make decisions, I always need to weigh the possible perceptions of these different stakeholders and for my own family’s sake I must place more emphasis on the opinions of my supervisors since they could choose to terminate my employment. However, my experience is that administrators are usually so busy that most day to day decisions fly under their radar, and picking and choosing when to disagree is really important.
I appreciated the examples that highlighted constructive disagreement by staying true to one’s own personal and philosophical beliefs when asked to compromise them. One important difference I noticed between the situations described by the author and the situation I find myself in is between the desire to effect change and the desire to protect something valuable from harmful change. Ms. Meyerson addressed this directly, noting that her book concerned conservative workplaces in which the radicals she described felt obliged to push for change to reflect their cultural and philosophical beliefs. A school is a very specialized setting, and in my case I find that some of the hard fought gains my department has achieved to establish a superior learning environment for our students are now under threat from district level changes that do not reflect the true needs of our students. I would love to read a companion piece about how one can rock the boat by fending off an incoming tidal wave.
Differences
Although being female qualifies me for the social group differences category described in Rocking the Boat, my current work environment does not feel overtly sexist enough to routinely trouble me. I do however identify with the idea that philosophical differences can set one apart in important ways. This category of difference described by Meyerson is so broad however, that I believe it deserves a more detailed examination.
The two biggest differences I experience stem from my love of and comfort with science, as well as my belief that a skills based education is inadequate and lacking in beauty. The current educational trend is to maximize reading and test taking skills, usually at the expense of learning true content. I find myself fighting a battle to maintain parts of the curriculum that students enjoy, illuminate the grandeur of the natural world and prepare them for future collegiate science coursework. I take pride in my ability to help students get excited about understanding the beauty of our universe. I have yet to meet the student (or teacher) who gets excited about taking another standardized test. I’ve also seen significant research that shows how content rich curriculum encourage standardized test growth when implemented properly.
I’ve taken the approach of defending my students’ right to learn basic chemistry concepts and my right to teach them. My teaching methods and styles have certainly adapted to incorporate opportunities to practice the skills assessed on standardized tests, but I am steadfast in my belief that these exams shouldn’t hold center stage. I speak freely about this belief in mandatory professional development and seek opportunities to discuss these ideas during voluntary school-wide curriculum meetings. I think the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that by focusing too much on test prep, we are in fact lowering the bar in terms of our students’ overall science learning experience.
Making a Difference
At certain points throughout my career, I’ve employed each of the five strategies Meyerson describes to effect change: Resisting and quietly staying true to one’s self, Turning personal threats into opportunities, Broadening the impact through negotiation, Leveraging small wins and Organizing collective action. Each situation faced at work has a context that helps me to determine the degree of my willingness and/or ability to pursue change actions. What is important to me above all though is that I maintain a high level of openness and honesty in my interactions with all colleagues in my efforts to improve my school environment for both kids and teachers. I think one has to assume that those who disagree with you are not coming from a place of malice, but simply disagree with you about the best way to advance learning for students. The one exception to this last rule may be at the district level, not at the individual school level, and this is why I have from time to time supported political action calling on politicians and community members to properly fund public education through collective action.
Challenges
Meyerson lays out four major challenges faced by those working for incremental change: Ambivalence, co-optation, damage to reputation and frustration or burnout. As a scientist, I feel that I am trained to have a greater comfort level with ambivalence than most folks. In a sense actually, this is to me the founding characteristic of scientific thought. Science means getting comfortable with the idea that questions may not yet have solid answers, but that more evidence may come to light later to change one’s understanding of a phenomenon. Whether the phenomena occur in the natural world or in the human relations at work, I am comfortable weighing different viewpoints or explanations and waiting for more information before drawing conclusions. There was a time that I felt the initial pull of the administrative path, which I consider to be a form of co-optation. I realized quickly though that the joy of working with students day in and day out would lead to much a higher degree of personal fulfillment than to spend my days putting out fires as an administrator. In teaching as in anything else, maintaining a reputation for excellence is of course, both crucial and desirable. So far, the earnestness with which I approach my craft, the positive outcomes in my classroom and the relationships I build with students, parents and colleagues have let me speak freely without fear of reprisal. I hope that never changes. I can readily admit to carrying degrees of frustration at different phases in my career as an urban public school educator, but I think anyone in any field would say the same. I have never once felt that term burnout even came close to describing my feelings. I love teaching teens science way too much.
Future Plans
After reflecting on Rocking the Boat, I’ve come up with two short term goals. In the next 5 months, I will lead a PD on how to incorporate NGSS skills based learning in a way that works for our school. Instead of shifting entirely to a skills based curriculum, I will lead discussions with representatives of the three core science departments about how to supplement skills based learning with essential biology, chemistry and physics content. Ideally, making science learning more process oriented shouldn’t be a choice between content and skills, but a blending of the two. I feel I am well positioned to lead this discussion and look forward to the challenge. I’ll also focus on increasing my students’ exposure to critical reading in class, thus providing a platform to negotiate with my supervisors about the need to assess all relevant chemistry content on summative unit exams. I feel hopeful that with continued discussion, an agreement can be reached where all parties feel their learning goals are being addressed.
In the long term, I am optimistic about the chance to continue working with the CPS high school specialist’s team on transitioning CPS to an NGSS model. The initial work I’ve done with this team has consisted of rewriting the chemistry performance task used to evaluate teachers and attending district sponsored NGSS professional development. I’ve been encouraged that the CPS science team recognizes this transition is a process which will take years and I’ve found agreement that the standards for physical science are not nearly as robust as those for life science. As a long term goal then, my hope is to help the district fill out the missing pieces in the physical science NGSS chemistry standards so that chemistry instructors across the city feel confident they are preparing their students with a well-rounded secondary school curriculum, providing them a solid foundation for future science studies at the collegiate level.
Unlike so many books that I’ve read during my years of education training, Rocking the Boat was realistic. Practical challenges that are often overlooked were put front and center, along with realistic options for responses. I definitely identified with the tempered radical model, and saw my own professional behavior patterns in the descriptions provided. The reality of any school environment is one where decisions are made in the context of a complex set of relationships between coworkers, supervisors, students and parents. When I make decisions, I always need to weigh the possible perceptions of these different stakeholders and for my own family’s sake I must place more emphasis on the opinions of my supervisors since they could choose to terminate my employment. However, my experience is that administrators are usually so busy that most day to day decisions fly under their radar, and picking and choosing when to disagree is really important.
I appreciated the examples that highlighted constructive disagreement by staying true to one’s own personal and philosophical beliefs when asked to compromise them. One important difference I noticed between the situations described by the author and the situation I find myself in is between the desire to effect change and the desire to protect something valuable from harmful change. Ms. Meyerson addressed this directly, noting that her book concerned conservative workplaces in which the radicals she described felt obliged to push for change to reflect their cultural and philosophical beliefs. A school is a very specialized setting, and in my case I find that some of the hard fought gains my department has achieved to establish a superior learning environment for our students are now under threat from district level changes that do not reflect the true needs of our students. I would love to read a companion piece about how one can rock the boat by fending off an incoming tidal wave.
Differences
Although being female qualifies me for the social group differences category described in Rocking the Boat, my current work environment does not feel overtly sexist enough to routinely trouble me. I do however identify with the idea that philosophical differences can set one apart in important ways. This category of difference described by Meyerson is so broad however, that I believe it deserves a more detailed examination.
The two biggest differences I experience stem from my love of and comfort with science, as well as my belief that a skills based education is inadequate and lacking in beauty. The current educational trend is to maximize reading and test taking skills, usually at the expense of learning true content. I find myself fighting a battle to maintain parts of the curriculum that students enjoy, illuminate the grandeur of the natural world and prepare them for future collegiate science coursework. I take pride in my ability to help students get excited about understanding the beauty of our universe. I have yet to meet the student (or teacher) who gets excited about taking another standardized test. I’ve also seen significant research that shows how content rich curriculum encourage standardized test growth when implemented properly.
I’ve taken the approach of defending my students’ right to learn basic chemistry concepts and my right to teach them. My teaching methods and styles have certainly adapted to incorporate opportunities to practice the skills assessed on standardized tests, but I am steadfast in my belief that these exams shouldn’t hold center stage. I speak freely about this belief in mandatory professional development and seek opportunities to discuss these ideas during voluntary school-wide curriculum meetings. I think the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that by focusing too much on test prep, we are in fact lowering the bar in terms of our students’ overall science learning experience.
Making a Difference
At certain points throughout my career, I’ve employed each of the five strategies Meyerson describes to effect change: Resisting and quietly staying true to one’s self, Turning personal threats into opportunities, Broadening the impact through negotiation, Leveraging small wins and Organizing collective action. Each situation faced at work has a context that helps me to determine the degree of my willingness and/or ability to pursue change actions. What is important to me above all though is that I maintain a high level of openness and honesty in my interactions with all colleagues in my efforts to improve my school environment for both kids and teachers. I think one has to assume that those who disagree with you are not coming from a place of malice, but simply disagree with you about the best way to advance learning for students. The one exception to this last rule may be at the district level, not at the individual school level, and this is why I have from time to time supported political action calling on politicians and community members to properly fund public education through collective action.
Challenges
Meyerson lays out four major challenges faced by those working for incremental change: Ambivalence, co-optation, damage to reputation and frustration or burnout. As a scientist, I feel that I am trained to have a greater comfort level with ambivalence than most folks. In a sense actually, this is to me the founding characteristic of scientific thought. Science means getting comfortable with the idea that questions may not yet have solid answers, but that more evidence may come to light later to change one’s understanding of a phenomenon. Whether the phenomena occur in the natural world or in the human relations at work, I am comfortable weighing different viewpoints or explanations and waiting for more information before drawing conclusions. There was a time that I felt the initial pull of the administrative path, which I consider to be a form of co-optation. I realized quickly though that the joy of working with students day in and day out would lead to much a higher degree of personal fulfillment than to spend my days putting out fires as an administrator. In teaching as in anything else, maintaining a reputation for excellence is of course, both crucial and desirable. So far, the earnestness with which I approach my craft, the positive outcomes in my classroom and the relationships I build with students, parents and colleagues have let me speak freely without fear of reprisal. I hope that never changes. I can readily admit to carrying degrees of frustration at different phases in my career as an urban public school educator, but I think anyone in any field would say the same. I have never once felt that term burnout even came close to describing my feelings. I love teaching teens science way too much.
Future Plans
After reflecting on Rocking the Boat, I’ve come up with two short term goals. In the next 5 months, I will lead a PD on how to incorporate NGSS skills based learning in a way that works for our school. Instead of shifting entirely to a skills based curriculum, I will lead discussions with representatives of the three core science departments about how to supplement skills based learning with essential biology, chemistry and physics content. Ideally, making science learning more process oriented shouldn’t be a choice between content and skills, but a blending of the two. I feel I am well positioned to lead this discussion and look forward to the challenge. I’ll also focus on increasing my students’ exposure to critical reading in class, thus providing a platform to negotiate with my supervisors about the need to assess all relevant chemistry content on summative unit exams. I feel hopeful that with continued discussion, an agreement can be reached where all parties feel their learning goals are being addressed.
In the long term, I am optimistic about the chance to continue working with the CPS high school specialist’s team on transitioning CPS to an NGSS model. The initial work I’ve done with this team has consisted of rewriting the chemistry performance task used to evaluate teachers and attending district sponsored NGSS professional development. I’ve been encouraged that the CPS science team recognizes this transition is a process which will take years and I’ve found agreement that the standards for physical science are not nearly as robust as those for life science. As a long term goal then, my hope is to help the district fill out the missing pieces in the physical science NGSS chemistry standards so that chemistry instructors across the city feel confident they are preparing their students with a well-rounded secondary school curriculum, providing them a solid foundation for future science studies at the collegiate level.