Living on the Edge of Chaos: Leading Schools into the Global Age, Second Edition

366 Pages·2008·1.762 MB·English

by  Snyder, Kristen M., Acker-Hocevar, Michele, Snyder, Karolyn J

Living on the Edge of
Chaos
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Living on the Edge of
Chaos
Leading Schools into the Global Age
Second Edition
Karolyn J. Snyder, Ed.D.
Michele Acker-Hocevar, Ph.D.
Kristen M. Snyder, Ph.D.
ASQ Quality Press
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203
© 2008 American Society for Quality
All rights reserved. Published 2008
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Snyder, Karolyn J.
Living on the edge of chaos : leading schools into the global age / Karolyn J. Snyder, Michele Acker-
Hocevar, Kristen M. Snyder.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87389-741-9 (casebound : alk. paper)
1. School management and organization—United States—Case studies. 2. Total quality management—
United States—Case studies. 3. Educational change—United States—Case studies. I. Acker-Hocevar,
Michele, 1948- II. Snyder, Kristen M., 1964- III. Title.
LB2806.S585 2009
371.200973--dc22
2008013088
ISBN: 978–0-87389–741-9
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Special Thanks . . .
For this second edition of Living on the Edge of Chaos, we want to thank
our friends and partners around the world for the opportunities you gave us to
learn about local living conditions, both good and poor, as well as the schooling
challenges you face each day. We have found everywhere that great opportuni-
ties exist for educators and students who venture out onto the global stage. Your
contributions to our lives have made this new work possible. The ideas from
systems, chaos, and complexity theories continue to be the foundation for living
and working in this dynamic and challenging global age. And many of you gave
us examples of how these theories play out in practice as we journeyed through
your schools and your lives and learned to live together in digital cultures. The
stories of your school’s global mindset, new images of power relationships, and
the power of social networks provide a pathway to the future for many. To the in-
ternational directors, board members, offi cers, hub coordinators, and Principals’
Council members of the International School Connection, we are grateful for the
special journey we have had together over the last decade as we explored options
and found pathways to the future for twenty-fi rst-century schools.
We want to give special thanks to several individuals who have made a dif-
ference for this second edition. To Professor Xinmin Sang and Professor Shuhua
Li (who wrote the introduction to this book) for showing us the unique gifts to
the world from the Chinese culture and its rich traditions. While Eastern and
Western cultures are very different, we learned that we shared common views of
the opportunities for educators to learn and work together across regions of the
world. As such, your contribution to this work is important. To our colleagues
and friends in the Pasco County School District in Florida, USA, who, after 20-
plus years of working together, recently gave us a new challenge: to design a
training system to prepare school- and district-based leaders for building and
leading sustainable school development for this global age of living. The sto-
ries about the cutting-edge work of Pasco County School District that fi ltered
through the fi rst edition have provoked new thinking and action for many educa-
tors around the world. It is our hope that the new story of the last several years
will once again inspire leaders to consider the importance of preparing their lead-
v
vi Special Thanks . . .
ers with a systemic world-view, digital cultures, and a global context for school
development.
A special thanks is given to Dr. Elaine Sullivan, our colleague in the Interna-
tional School Connection, who carefully edited and redirected our thinking about
the new Chapter 1. To Dr. John Fitzgerald, also our colleague in the International
School Connection, special thanks for your perspective, recommendations, and
careful consideration of the intent of the fi nal chapter in this book. Your perspec-
tives mattered. And a special salute to Bob Anderson, our faithful (great) editor
friend, who lived with us through the birth of this work in the woods of Maine
one summer and who helped us craft each chapter in both the fi rst and second
editions. We are grateful!
Karolyn J. Snyder, Michele Acker-Hocevar, and Kristen M. Snyder
2008
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Professors Xinmin Sang and Shuhua Li, Nanjing University
Part 1 Shifting Paradigms of Education Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1 Reinventing Schooling for a Global Age of Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Perspectives on the New Mission of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Comparing Nations on Educational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Global Trends and Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
New Global Forms of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Human Challenges in the Global Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Networking: The New Leadership Capacity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Benchmarks for a Global Learning Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 2 A Mechanical View of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Newtonian Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Modern Bureaucracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Schooling as a Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Breakdown of Bureaucratic Thinking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 3 An Organic View of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Relativity Theory and Quantum Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Pioneers of a New Work Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Systems Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Quality Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 4 An Emergent Theory of Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chaos and Complexity Theories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Basic Principles of Natural Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Living on the Edge of Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Principles of Emergent Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
vii
viii Contents
Part 2 The New Mental Dance for Guiding Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Chapter 5 Living on the Edge of Chaos: A New Theory of Organizational
Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Lesson 1: Growing Systems Respond to Environmental Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Lesson 2: Disequilibrium Promotes Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Lesson 3: Energy Builds Through Connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Lesson 4: Natural Systems Self-Organize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Lesson 5: New Systems Evolve from Complete Prototypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Lesson 6: Change Is a Dance of Life and Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter 6 Confronting the Issues of Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Personal Power within Our Family of Origin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Moving Beyond the Family Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Historical and Traditional Defi nitions of Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Two Perspectives on Organizational Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Two Frames of Power: Dominator and Partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 7 The Power River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Schools as Partnership Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Power River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Studies of Teachers’ Perceptions of Power Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Journeying Downriver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Chapter 8 Acting Locally and Thinking Globally about Poverty and Race. . . . . . . 133
What Are the Connections among Poverty, Race, and Values? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Looking to the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Part I: Global Perspectives—Let the Revolution Begin! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Part II: Making Connections Locally, Research on High- and Low-Performing,
High-Poverty Schools of Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Part III: U.S. Policy of No Child Left Behind—Still Acting Locally!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Part IV: Lessons for Principals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Part 3 Tools to Facilitate New Prototypes of Schooling. . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Chapter 9 Taking Stock of Your Organization: Benchmarking, Evaluation,
and Accountability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Philosophical Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Accountability: Moving from Compliance Monitoring to Benchmarking Change . . . . 162
Evaluation: Moving from External Judgment to Continuous Improvement. . . . . . . . . . 165
Benchmarking Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Information Systems for Benchmarking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Chapter 10 Building a New Dynamic through Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Education for Engaged Global Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
The International School Connection: Engaged Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Contents ix
Chapter 11 Digital Cultures for Learning in a Global Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Digital Culture: A Conceptual Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
The Digital Culture as a Pedagogical Revolution in the Twenty-fi rst Century . . . . . . . 208
A Case Example: Global Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Chapter 12 The Strategic Dance of Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Assessment and the Strategic Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
A Case Study Example: The Dynamics of Work Cultures in High- and
Low-Achieving Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Part 4 Thriving at the Edge of Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Chapter 13 Developing Work Teams as Learning Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Trends on Teams as Learning Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Benchmarking Team Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
The New Work of School Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Becoming World Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Chapter 14 Leading Schools as Global Learning Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Part I. Leadership Capacities for Sustainable School Development:
The Latest Development in the Pasco County Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Part II: Stories about Leading Schools onto the Global Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Appendix A Global Learning Center Benchmarks: Examples from Many
Schools Around the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Appendix B The MORE Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Appendix C Training Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333