Author: Alan Jones

Dr. Alan C. Jones

“The Reflective Practitioner”

by Alan Jones

Part 1:

Reflection in Action: Doing Things Right

            A required reading in most administrative certification programs is Donald Schön’s

 book, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. In the book, Schon describes how professionals really go about solving problems. Schön contends that most challenges professionals face at work rely less on various heuristics learned in schools and more on the kind of improvisation learned in practice—what Schön terms, “reflection in action.” Along with the listening, observing, and adjusting that professionals perform in the reflective process, at some juncture professionals will step back and “reflect on action.” When in action professionals are focused on “doing things right.” When stepping back from the action professionals are focused on “doing the right things.”

      School administrators are most comfortable with the first administrative move in Schon’s reflective model—reflection in action. Their training, along with the managerial tools in their offices, are designed to implement—getting stuff done. The table below outlines the steps and functions for doing things right. The distinction Schön will draw between doing things right and doing the right things is the pure act of reflection. In the implementation stage, reflection is embedded in the feedback function. Every task in the implementation function provides immediate feedback—budget overruns, lack of personnel, lack of time—which require immediate attention. All administrators good at their jobs will acquire the knowledge and skills to make the necessary adjustments to make certain that all tasks in the implementation function are carried out. In the next two blogs, I will describe what Schön means by reflection on action which is rarely practiced in main offices.

TO IMPLEMENT  
  Doing things right  
    STUDYObserve
Research
Theorize
Select  
    PLAN      Goals—
Objectives
Assessment
Organize
Train  
    DO  Train
Schedule
Allocate
Monitor
Measure
Adjust  
    INSTITUTE  Budget
Personnel
Material
Location
Supervise
Assess
Document

“Philosophy at Work”

by Alan Jones

“…Real knowledge arises through confrontations with real things. Work, then, offers a broadly available premonition of philosophy. Its value, however, does not lie solely in pointing to some more rarefied experience. Rather, in the best cases, work may itself approach the good sought in philosophy, understood as a way of life: a community of those who desire to know.”

(M.Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft)

     For a number of years, I taught a Philosophy of Education course to teachers seeking certification in school administration. For the first couple of years I used a traditional philosophy of education textbook, which, was a compendium of philosophical writings in education from Socrates to Dewey. While I personally enjoyed rereading these philosophers, it was clear to me that the students in front of me found little relevance in the vocabularies and stances of these philosophers.

      What did spark some interest in the class was when I related a particular philosophical stance to school policy or a personal experience in the classroom or main office. I responded to these sparks of interest by redesigning my instructional approach into three parts: case study—>concepts/theories—>philosophy. On the one hand I was pleased with the class discussions that were generated by this redesigned pedagogical approach. On the other hand, I felt somewhat guilty that my students were leaving my class unschooled in the particular philosophies covered in my colleagues’ classes.

      As I was struggling with how to reconcile both pedagogical approaches to teaching philosophy of education, I came across the quote that begins this blog from M. Crawford’s book, Shop Class as Soul Craft. My epiphany in reading Crawford’s book, was treating philosophy, in his words, as “some more rarefied experience,” rather than as a “confrontations with real things.” My experiences in the classroom and main office, the “work” of schooling, offers, in Crawford’s words, “a broadly available premonition of philosophy.”

      The point Crawford in making is all work experiences involve the what and how of getting stuff done. Lurking in the background of all work experiences is a “why.” The why may be reduced to an instrumental outcome—a paycheck—but, also may pose a variety of moral, ethical, intellectual questions that philosophers have grappled with and, which, guide the what and how of enactment.

      The error I had made when assigned the course, the same one my colleagues were making, is creating a firewall between philosophy as an academic discipline, and philosophy as a living, breathing, discipline that serve as a means of making collective sense out of the problems that arise in all work experiences. This divide between academic ideals and workplace realities is made worse when a discipline, like philosophy, is presented as embodying eternal truths that, if interpreted correctly, will offer up truthful answers to human and worldly problems.

      The pragmatists philosophers, John Dewey being the most notable, countered this academic view with the position that truth is not discovered, but, rather developed based on experience. For pragmatists philosophy is not a discipline so much, as just one more tool, among many academic tools, that come in handy when solving real world problems. Again, returning to Dewey, in his words, it is not what you study, but, rather, habits of thought and methods of inquiry that become the all-important tools in making sense of the day-to-day home and work problems.

“We Must All Fail in Life”

by Alan Jones

“No one should be allowed to work in the West Wing of the White house who has not suffered a major disappointment in life.”

(Bill Moyers)

     Of all the dramatic experiences children and adolescent experience in schools, is their first encounter with an F on a school product they have submitted. The F becomes more onerous when accompanied with that look of sadness or contempt on the part of teacher handing out the F. From those early days in elementary school to university classrooms, students go to great lengths to avoid the F, most of which, dismiss the corrective goal of the F, and, instead, develop all manner of strategies to obfuscate the meaning or impact of the F.

      I will not in this blog critique of the educational problems with the zero-sum game created by institutional grading policies. [1]What I will focus on is a broader look at the value of failure in learning and living life or to be it more succinctly: we must all fail in life to succeed in life. Strictly from a pedagogical stance, the feedback function, is integral to mastery of a subject, of an occupation, or of human experience. One does not learn from being right, but, from being wrong—assuming the feedback function is correctly practiced.

      Putting aside failure as a pedagogical tool, as a human tool, those unacquainted with failure or have become skillful at rationalizing failure, develop a lack of caution that business and political leaders often display in the actions they undertake on behalf of other people. A thread that runs through all of our great leaders is how they came to terms with human fallibility. Lincoln, for example, was very open about the mistakes he made and the human cost of those mistakes. And, in admitting these mistakes, he followed up, by working to correct those mistakes, often by making dramatic changes to strategy or personnel. Lyndon Johnson on the other hand, had great difficulty admitting mistakes, and in fact, instead of changing course, he often doubled down on what had become clearly a big failure.

      Last, but not least, failure is the source of all forms of innovation in our world. No part of our lived experience has not been touched by someone, somewhere, sometime, trying to figure out what went wrong with a failed idea, and, trying again to make that idea work. In the real world, we applaud those pioneers who never give up on an idea that has been branded with a F. In the world of schools, however, an F, terminates any further study of a topic, idea, or concept. Not only does an F terminate further learning, but, leaves a student wearing the the Scarlet Letter F until the next test.  

[1] Joe Feldman in his book, Grading for Equity: Why it Matters, and How it Can Transform Schools and Classrooms, provides an extensive critique of institutional grading policies of schools and alternative grading policies that understand the proper function of feedback as both a learning and motivational tool.

SHIFT #5: How We Get Work Done

by Alan Jones

      The fifth shift school leaders must undertake is how they get work done. Presently, main and central offices get work done by employing routine managerial tasks and functions—budgets, schedules, protocols, hierarchies that control outcomes. To best prepare our students for the digital world of work, school leaders must go beyond being CONTROLLERS to becoming COACHES who operate with a mindset of discovery and foster continual rapid exploration, execution, and learning. The leadership practices enabling this shift include the following:

  • Moving from a hierarchy of individual leaders to networks of leadership teams;
  • Regularly reprioritizing initiatives to simultaneously execute today’s programs, co-create tomorrow’s programs, and let go of yesterday’s programs;
  • Engaging and leading people, helping them understand—and be excited by—the fact there will be ongoing and significant change.

In closing, all of the five shifts described in these latest blogs, if followed by school leaders, would require a fundamental shift in how schools are organized—grades, departments—how curriculum are organized—courses, subjects, credits—and how teachers are organized—classrooms, transmission—and how schools are located—in buildings. Embedded in all of these shifts is shift in mindset from institutional goals to educational goals—the goals that are listed in mission statements, but, are quickly forgotten when main and building office doors close.

SHIFT #4: How we Organize: Beyond Command to Collaboration

by Alan Jones

      The fourth shift school leaders must undertake is HOW THEY ORGANIZE THEIR OFFICES. Presently, main and central offices employ a command and control organizational structure. To best prepare our students for the digital world of work, school leaders “must beyond being directors that receive and give instructions up and down a vertical hierarchy to being CATALYST that empower and guide self-managing teams, fostering connection, dialogue, and cooperation across traditional organizational boundaries.”(McKinsey Quarterly, May 2023) .Students in today’s schools continue to sit silo like classrooms and departments in a private sector world organized around networks of autonomous teams working together. The following leadership practices can help drive the shift:

  • Breaking up traditional silo like organizational structures—grade levels, subjects, departments, specialties—into self-regulating entrepreneurial teams based on themes, problems, fields of interest.
  • Moving from a hierarchy of individual leaders to networks of leadership teams.
  • Developing communication networks that share innovative approaches to teaching and learning.