A school is a very complicated organization. Public schools, especially, are becoming ever more complicated with federal and state mandates trying to cooperate or maybe compete with local control. There are many interests each trying to influence the nature, purpose and outcomes of public schools. That being said, it is critically important for school leaders to know when to listen and take heed of the constant banter and when to listen but not take heed.
Why is this important? Educators often use metaphors to illustrate their lessons, so here’s another. A school is a very large ocean-going vessel. More to the point, a school is a training ship. Think of the USCG Eagle, the Coast Guard Academy’s training ship. Can you envision this tall-masted sailing ship with its many sails? School is not a cruise ship for entertainment and it is not a freighter hauling goods to distant ports. It is not an excursion boat out for a lark and it is not a submarine meant to sail unseen. A school is a working vessel that sets sail for the purpose of educating its children, just as the Eagle embarks trainees and disembarks Coast Guardsmen. School Boards and school leaders give great attention to the planning and preparation of a school’s annual voyage of education. Planning is done with the purpose and means for giving every child aboard a complete year’s learning of their grade level curriculum. Once at sea, a school is in constant motion until it reaches its destination in June.
The helm of the ship keeps the ship on its course. There is little worse than a ship with a helmsman who is beleaguered with constant course changes. “Go this way! Go that! Make these changes! Make those!” Such a ship is as good as dead in the water. And, that sadly is the state of too many school leaders, adrift at sea due to the constant course change demands of reformers, politicians, and special interest groups who envision education as a means to their disparate ends.
For this reason, I advise school leaders to follow the organizational, curricular, and instructional design charts they made for their academic year. Do not attempt great sea changes while in motion. Do not attempt structural reforms in school organization or in curriculum or in instructional design while teachers are engaged in the daily teaching of children. School leaders, like the captains they are, will, of necessity, make minor adjustments en route. No ship sails in a perfectly straight line and no school year advances without adjustments in the margins of its plan. But to make major changes while in motion is an injustice to the education of children.
It also is an injustice to teachers. Teaching begins with a linear design from one end of the academic year to the other. Along the way, it becomes impossible to find any straight lines as the learning needs of individual children at any point along the voyage require a teacher to make many mid-course adjustments. To institute major curricular or instructional delivery changes once the school year is launched is tantamount to floundering the on-going instruction of children.
It is best practice to have filed your course of study, as a ship files its sailing plans, well before your launch date. Once filed, keep the helm on the planned course. Reformers had their chance to influence the course of the school year before it was launched. Keel haul anyone who demands major mid-year changes!