As I outlined earlier, British Columbia is a high-performing system. One of the features of this system is the existence of a voluntary network of educators with a clear purpose. The networks use a 'spiral of inquiry' in a drive to understand an identified issue and improve learning and life outcomes for their students. It’s an iterative process of checking, scanning, focusing, developing a hunch, learning and taking action.
What this approach recognises is that when you unite smart people, doing complex work like teaching, to an audacious purpose and give them the opportunity to get on with the job, they do so in powerful ways. Daniel Pink's book, Drive, explains why. What is absent in this approach is coercion, bureaucratic restrictions and undue system accountabilities and monitoring measures.
In the majority of Western systems the drive for improvement comes from focusing on standardised test scores, comparative performance data, discussion of teacher performance and teaching quality, league tables and in some places, performance pay. In many systems, the industrial mindset is when there is evidence a particular strategy can produce academic results, that shiny thing is imposed from above.
What RAMPS indicates is high-quality outcomes are achieved when the right conditions to motivate people within the school (and by extension the schooling system) are put in place. Not surprisingly this demands of us recognition that its the activity in the middle levels of an organisation that is key to system growth. To enable this high levels of Psychological Safety must be established and a rhythm within the organisation of meeting, sharing and learning together established.
In summary, what I learned from British Columbia, and more recently from the Lighthouse Schools utilising the Designed inGenuity framework, is that what we need is not large educational bureaucracies, but agile structures in schools where high levels of safety are present, iterative cycles of learning benefit all and accountability flows from purpose, rather than being imposed.
Next: Meso Level Activity
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