A Few Thoughts on Policy: Proceed With Caution

First, a few thoughts balance: In a community, such as say a teaching faculty, it’s important. It’s not a directive, it’s a choice. It’s achieved through active, ongoing engagement. It is personalized. It is not provided, it is sought.  It is maintained through shared experiences and ongoing discussion, listening, respect, open-mindedness, thoughtful contribution. The very idea of balance invites engagement and support. 

And now, a few thoughts on Policy: In a community, such as say a teaching faculty, it’s important. It’s a directive. It does not provide choice. It is final and wide reaching. It leaves little room for debate, discussion. It instills fear; fear of what will happen if broken, fear of what will happen if not maintained.

It has been my action plan these past two years to explore the idea of community: the importance of fostering and understanding how it may empower professionalism and autonomy,  unleashing the potential of all members (teachers and students alike) in a way that inspires each other. Most recently, this exploration has been a reflection upon the ideas of balance and policy, and the extent to which they often sit in opposition. In fact, until recently,  I haven’t really given much thought at all to the the separate entities they occupy. The tension between balance and policy, however, is ever present. Just like in life, a teaching and learning community will turn to policy when conduct and behaviour become disruptive. In such instances, laws provide clarity and make us feel safe. I find this curious. (This is perhaps a little extreme, but I actually find myself returning to The Handmaid’s Tale as Atwood, to an extreme (?) extent, captures the complete willingness of a humanity to surrender moral freedom in the face of uncertainty.)  

At a boarding school, this tension is highly pronounced in the final days preceding a long weekend or an extended break. Students are getting squirrely and so their behaviour, at times, becomes unruly.  Quite suddenly, it seems, the community turns to policy. We clamp down harder on existing policy, or we identify the lack of policy. Sometimes it can feel as if the very reason students are unruly is because we are not insisting upon policy strongly enough. At our school for instance, we do not maintain a published policy on late and missing work. Therefore, it can feel as though the reason a project is not submitted on time is precisely because of our lack of policy. Is this actually true though?

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Perhaps it is my experience as a parent that causes me to pause. I have two kids (4 and 7) who are beautiful angels but they can also be entirely “unruly.” When they loose control, the easiest thing for my wife and I to do is yell and punish; to provide clear consequences. Their behaviour solicits my anger, and so it’s very easy to unleash that anger. It is much MUCH more difficult to help our kids through those moments; to love them, to listen, to learn something of them – their feelings, frustrations, their day, their extremely complicated little lives – and to help them learn something of themselves and their effect on others. Indeed, there are sometimes consequences. Often in fact. Hitting is not ok, and Maki and Gus need to know that. I’m just not sure the rule is more strongly pronounced and maintained because of the consequence attached to it. Is Gus less likely to hit because he knows his dinosaurs might be taken away?

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It strikes me that in the teaching world we can easily feel caught between extremes. We should, I think, always be evaluating our place within multiple dichotomies. There is an ever present danger, however, as the tension of a professional discussion can suggest that we’re to pick an extreme, to declare a clear, collective stance. What do you pick? high expectations over love and support? Critical feedback over encouragement? Controlled outcomes or constructivism? Outcomes or experience? Inside or outside? Instruction or inquiry? Test or project? Focus or fun? Phones! Learning tool or distraction? Hey, anyone want to talk about grades? Be clear, I don’t believe that any of these examples are actually opposing 

Each of these are great topics for incredibly rich professional discussion, and we need to be actively and openly pursuing these discussions. Indeed, it is essential for a school to be facilitating these discussions in thoughtful ways that actively solicit the voices of  the many PROFESSIONALS comprising the community. The danger occurs when the intent of those discussions shifts to consensus. Or, even worse, POLICY! Is it common in all professions to desire governance as strongly as the teaching world seems to? To tell or be told clearly, in black and white, the institutional stance on a particular “issue?” Or is that desire a remnant of our conditioning? Does it have something to do with the sometimes concerning fact that we find ourselves in this odd reality of engaging in, and perhaps even attempting to reimagine and innovate, the very institution that in part created us? It seems a little like becoming the mayor of the small town you never left. Thoughts, ideas, approaches, initiatives are often deeply rooted; in this way, they are often tainted by emotional connections and experiences that manifest as biases. 

Cohort21 lifer and former facilitator, google innovator and educator/dude supreme @ddoucet and I were very recently having an incredible discussion about biases just the other day. I think I can sum up his wisdom with this question: have you ever noticed how easy it is to validate a bias within a school community? To pick one side of a discussion and quickly gather evidence that might in some way validate it? I can’t begin to express how dangerous I think this is! To be clear, I do think it’s great to feel strongly, passionately about something. I believe it indicates engagement and concern. It also, however, underlines how essential it is for a school to be always pursuing the very idea of open, professional discussion. The great educators understand how important it is to both acknowledge and challenge personal biases. I believe a great school will facilitate, if not insist upon, this process. 

If we live in a world primarily focused on policy, that seeks consensus truth, then we are also in a world that informs rather than engages us. In a school this may mean that “professional development” is intended to dictate or train, rather than stir and excite (where exactly is the development?). A school ruled by policy – a classroom ruled by policy – sends kids out when their phone turns to distraction. It has the potential to negate the healthy discussion built upon a nurturing relationship. 

Hey, I happily acknowledge the utopianistic tone of this piece, because I do believe the pursuit, if idealistic, is also worthy. Actually, it’s essential. Imagine the implications in a classroom for instance if our first instinct is to explore and understand the tension of a moment rather than solve it; relevant, memorable, lasting experiences may in fact be built upon this idea. I will also happily acknowledge that any community requires grounding. But let’s direct greater attention and urgency towards creating the essential time and space that allows for shared learning and thoughtful discussion, processes and procedures. Let’s “co-construct” shared understandings. And let’s never stop revisiting those understandings. In any school community, we have the capacity to formulate agreements about, say, the purpose of a grade on a report card. It’s important to know why we do the things we do. There is a lot of power in founding the agreement upon discussion, particularly if that discussion is ongoing. 

As educators, we are provided with the most powerful grounding force imaginable: our students! All thoughtful educators have experienced this epiphany (perhaps again and again): when the frustrations of a day, a moment are suddenly washed away by returning to the student experience. In his recent post @gnichols at least alludes to the importance of meeting students where they are and building learning upon that. In her most recent post, @jsheppard captures the vital and even urgent need to hear each other and work as one. Indeed, we are in a time of tension, of actively distancing ourselves from a tradition so that we may better understand both it and our present, and to move meaningfully beyond in a way that addresses the needs of our world, of our students. What a complex yet exciting process, and one that more strongly favours action over compliance, understanding and empathy over directives. Balance over policy.