Malcolm GauldLegendary Yankee catcher Yogi Berra (1925-2015) famously said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Here are five school culture secret sauce ingredients where I have made like Yogi.
Never kid a kid – My own formal education included two years at a prestigious private middle school. Every few weeks we received effort grades that were presumably sent to our parents. As well-intentioned as these may have been, we shared a collective consensus, right or wrong, that they neither impacted our final transcripts nor carried any meaningful incentives. The school’s gotta walk the walk.
Walk in their Shoes – Imagine that your students were asked to put a percentage on how much you care about their academic or extra-curricular performances versus who they are as people. How would they break it down? Strong cultures value attitude over aptitude, effort over ability, and character over talent.
Swing Kids – Every school has them and you gotta win them over. Who are they? They’re the ones who, if they get with the program, they will pull a dozen or more kids with them. And if they don’t get with the program, assume that there are a dozen or more kids that you are not going to reach, some of whom will lead a counterproductive underground. (Helpful Hint: Sometimes younger faculty are best at spotting the swing kids and can serve as invaluable conduits between the school’s leadership and the student body.)
Inside Jokes – Some might say that those school boys in the Dead Poets Society dishonor their fictional Welton Academy when they revise its 4 pillars of “Tradition – Honor – Discipline – Excellence” and change them to “Travesty – Horror – Decadence – Excrement.” Maybe, but I interpret it as proof that these values have both entered and found a home in their consciousness. All schools profess to have a common language. One way to tell if it’s actually spoken is to hang out in the hallways and lunch rooms. If you hear kids making jokes with reference to the words in your professed school culture, you’ll know it matters to them. (Even if they don’t realize it.)
Of Comfort Zones – Is your school a place where the star athlete might give theater a try? Do the cool kids mix with the wallflowers? Are there activities and traditions that cause this to happen?
BONUS: Do the faculty present themselves as all-knowing… Or… Do they model the notion that they are human works in progress? In great school cultures, all the players in the game exhibit mixtures of courage and humility as they strive in common to be better versions of themselves.
Next Up: Ingredients I’ve… Stolen! (But I’ll do my best to divulge where/who from.)
Onward, Malcolm Gauld
