Developing a Learning Culture: How School Leaders Can Use B.A.S.I.C. to Drive Change

Developing a Learning Culture: How School Leaders Can Use B.A.S.I.C. to Drive Change

The culture of a workplace–an organization’s values, norms, and practices–has a huge impact on our happiness and success. ~ Adam Grant

Developing a Learning Culture

We always say that school leadership is complex, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Unfortunately, no matter which way you turn, the complexities of school leaders seem to be amplified. You may be feeling like every new initiative adds one more thing to your plate. We’re not going to tell you that it “gets easier” or that it “slows down.” In fact, school leadership stands to get harder and go faster. That’s why school leaders need tools–tips, strategies, and tactics to handle the hard stuff and simplify what seems too complicated to tackle. 

If your system is like ours, your team is focused on multiple initiatives at once: making MTSS more effective, embedding Social Emotional Learning in every classroom, taking a more restorative approach to student behavior, finding ways to tackle unfinished learning, uncovering supports to retain staff, filling vacancies months after the school year has started, and the list goes on. What we know for sure is that none of these initiatives will work in a static environment, and they’ll fail if we see each of them as silos.  

In Passionate Leadership we described a learning culture, defined below. In a learning culture, everyone is a learner. The opposite is a teaching culture where the staff comes to work to impart knowledge but not receive it. For schools to thrive, we need learning cultures. For some schools, this is a huge shift; for others, minor tweaks will get you there. We’re going to unpack the best and simplest path to a learning culture so that every school leader has the tools they need. 

A model learning environment is a space of contentment, comfort, and value with an extreme focus on learning. It’s vibrant and radiates positive activity, grounded in an emotional connection between the students and teachers.

 

Lifelong learning isn’t just a catchy slogan. It’s a mindset that all staff–paraprofessionals, teachers, counselors, building and district administrators–must embrace. Take a look below at the graphic that describes the fundamental differences between a learning culture and a teaching culture. In a learning culture, schools thrive; in a teaching culture, schools just survive. 

Great school leaders know that a successful school rises and falls on the degree to which the staff engages within a learning culture. That starts with assessing your current reality as a school leader, classroom teacher, or support staff. Take a moment and answer the questions below. Assess your classroom, school, and/or district through the lens of the survey questions. 

Assessing a Learning Culture in Schools 

  1. Is your classroom/school/district culture dynamic or passive? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  2. Is your classroom/school/district culture motivated or uninspired? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  3. Is your classroom/school/district culture courageous or fearful? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  4. Is your classroom/school/district culture resilient or submissive? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  5. Is your classroom/school/district culture supportive or compliant? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  6. Is your classroom/school/district culture authentic or unreliable? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  7. Is your classroom/school/district culture intrinsic or extrinsic? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?
  8. Is your classroom/school/district culture growth or fixed? What qualities distinguish one from the other in your classroom/school/district?

Hopefully, you answered positively to at least some of the 8 indicators of a learning culture versus a teaching culture. Every school can work on culture, some are working to change culture, and others are using tools to sustain what they have. No matter the case, accepting the status quo never works. You’re either working on continuous improvement or you’re watching things slide backward. The status quo never gets better on its own. To help you on your path to a fully functional learning culture, we introduce B.A.S.I.C. as a model to get you there.

 

The B.A.S.I.C. Strategy to Develop a Learning Culture

To build a learning culture, and to battle the constraints of a teaching culture, we need to keep things B.A.S.I.C. We can’t stress this principle enough–in a time when things are getting more and more complex, school leaders must create simplicity. As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Keeping things simple is at the heart of B.A.S.I.C. When done well, students and staff thrive.

 

Belief

The B in B.A.S.I.C. represents Belief. Beliefs are the fundamental driving force of the school. They are the foundational principles that guide decisions and empower the staff. By identifying what a school believes–the core that guides decisions at every level–clarity is achieved. 

Schools are famous for their vision and mission statements, but they should also have core values, which are the backbone of the belief system within the schools. As an example, does everyone believe that all students can and should learn in a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment? How about this: all staff will hold all students to high expectations in any school activity

One important tip for school leaders who are trying to change culture is that you don’t do so by trying to change beliefs. This might sound counterintuitive, but much of leadership is counter to what we think. To change beliefs, we have to change behaviors. When we have core values, we need to identify the behaviors that are associated with each. People either believe their way into behaving or behave their way into believing, and we’re far better and faster at the latter. That’s why we focus on behaviors first. 

School Leader Reflection Question:

What are my school or classroom beliefs that help guide decisions within our culture?

Alignment

The A in B.A.S.I.C. represents Alignment. Think back to all of the initiatives we named earlier. There is no shortage of ideas, programs, challenges, and criticism. The superpower of an effective leader is being able to take a multitude of seemingly separate, and sometimes competing, initiatives and align them as all being the same thing. Whatever we name as needing our attention is likely something aligned with student success. The leader keeps the main thing, the main thing. 

For example, many schools are focused on a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for student achievement, but the question is how does MTSS serve and connect with all of our other initiatives? In other words, how does MTSS fit with restorative practices, social-emotional learning, after-school enrichment efforts, etc? When we take a systems approach–as we described in 7 Mindshifts for School Leaders–the answer is simple. Leaders show everyone else how all of the initiatives are aligned with our greater purpose and school-wide goals. 

One important tip for school leaders is to think of alignment as an illusion. Alignment in schools is a perception. When people say, “This is one more thing,” it’s because they don’t see how all the things connect. It’s the leader who explains the connections so that others understand how it all works together. 

School Leader Reflection Question:

How aligned are your initiatives to what can be considered the main thing?

Support

The S in B.A.S.I.C. represents Support. We cannot overstate the importance of support. Burnout is real and we are seeing it play out in our schools every day. Support is dynamic and can take on a variety of different forms. We mentioned social and emotional learning (SEL), which should include staff SEL as much as it does the students

Support can be demonstrated in many ways, including how school leaders allocate funds, dispense resources, find coverage for classes, assign duties, and a host of other ways. One key to promoting a learning culture is to make sure that supports are in place for people to take risks with new learning. No one can learn in a culture that doesn’t value failure. In a supportive environment, It’s okay to try new things and see things differently than we did in the past. It’s the only path forward. 

One important tip for school leaders who want to foster a supportive environment is to remember that support doesn’t come without pressure. Support without pressure is support for our current conditions–the status quo. Pressure without support is not fair, though, so school leaders have to balance their methods of pressure with the support needed to meet high expectations. 

School Leader Reflection Question:

How are you actively and consistently supporting your students and staff?

Implementation

The I in B.A.S.I.C. represents Implementation. We often wonder why things don’t go the way we intended–whether in life, school, or business–and we are prone to blame a person, a product, or an initiative. Usually, though, the problem is implementation. One key to implementation that a learning culture gets right is that everyone owns the implementation strategy. As we’ve stated, people either believe in the vision and direction, or they at least understand the expected behaviors necessary for the change to occur. “Ownership of and commitment to change have the greatest bearing on a major change effort’s outcome.”

Implementation requires consistent oversight and widespread ownership. In a teaching culture, people view implementation as someone else’s problem. In a learning culture, we’re all picking up pieces of the implementation life cycle. In a teaching culture, folks wait for conditions to be perfect. In a learning culture, we’re only striving for one or two examples of where progress is being made. 

One important tip for school leaders who are focused on implementation is not to confuse implementation with starting something new. When implementation fails, it’s often because we started something but didn’t adhere to the other aspects of our B.A.S.I.C. strategy. The tip is that implementation requires ongoing feedback. Only with feedback can we sustain the implementation of something new, and in a learning culture, we’re always trying to get better at whatever the new initiative is. 

School Leader Reflection Question:

How well are you giving feedback to the people who are working toward the implementation of a new initiative?

Consistency

The C in B.A.S.I.C. represents Consistency. We wrap up B.A.S.I.C. with consistency because it is the glue that holds everything together. We cannot know how well something or someone is performing without evaluating how consistent they are. If we’re totally inconsistent with a new change that we’re putting into practice, then we’ll never really know if we’re getting new outcomes. Without consistent efforts, any improved result is due to chance. It’s only with consistency that we can measure our progress.  

Without fidelity of implementation and thorough and consistent effort and execution, we will never know if something is actually working. Consider how often we jump from curriculum to curriculum or from one learning series to another, ultimately blaming the ineffectiveness of the product. In reality, we may not really know why the initiative is failing because of inconsistent practices. 

One important tip for school leaders is that in a learning culture, people stick to the new initiative because they’re hoping for a positive change. In a learning culture, people aren’t afraid of trying something that doesn’t have proof that it will work. The only proof that they need to try something different is that what they’re currently doing isn’t working. 

School Leader Reflection Question:

What initiatives do you have going on that you need to determine how consistently they’re being done with fidelity? 

Using B.A.S.I.C. is a tool for school leaders who want to develop a learning culture so that change initiatives thrive. There’s no doubt that school leadership can feel complicated, and we’re often faced with so many goals that it can seem impractical to achieve them all. But, when we use B.A.S.I.C. within a learning culture, we’re able to find success because of our focus on beliefs, alignment, support, implementation, and consistency. 

As always, we want to hear from you. Please hit us with a like, a follow, a comment, or a share. It helps us, and it helps other readers, like you, to find our work so that more school leaders can lead better and grow faster. 

We can’t wait to hear from you. 

Joe & T.J.

Season 4, Episode 11 of the FocusED School Leadership Podcast with Laurie Barron

Season 4, Episode 11 of the FocusED School Leadership Podcast with Laurie Barron

Strengthening School & District Communities with Laurie Barron

This is Season 4, Episode 11 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Laurie Barron. It was originally recorded live for a virtual audience in Delaware and provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Laurie says about strengthening school and district communities as a teacher and leader…and so much more.

 

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Laurie Barron Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Laurie Barron is in her twenty-seventh year in education, serving as a high school English teacher, a middle school assistant principal, and nine years as a middle school principal.  

Since 2013, she has served as the superintendent of the Evergreen School District in Kalispell, Montana. Barron holds a bachelors in English Education from the University of Georgia, a master’s in Supervision and Administration from the University of West Georgia, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Sarasota.  

The following are just some of her accolades:

  • National Superintendent Certification through AASA
  • National Board Certified Teacher
  • Teacher of the Year
  • STAR Teacher
  • Georgia Middle School Principal of the Year
  • National Middle School Principal of the Year 
  • School Administrators of Montana G.V. Erickson Award
  • Empowered Superintendent of the Year by the Montana Educational Technologists Association
  • Montana Superintendent of the Year

She has co-authored 3 books: 

Dr. Barron is a national speaker, consultant, and leadership coach, and she says she’s living the dream in northwest Montana with her husband Daniel, where together they enjoy spending time with family watching Georgia Bulldogs football, snow skiing, camping, rafting, hiking, and watching their daughter Emma play college soccer.

FocusED Show Notes with Laurie Barron

Laurie started out the conversation with the fact that the concept of instructional leadership may have confused us during NCLB into forgetting about the whole child. Her book brings that back to the center of the conversation with a sense of belonging. 

Joe asks Laurie to get granular about strategies for helping students understand and feel that they matter in school. Her response: Trusting relationships are the biggest key.

Laurie breaks down a timeline for engagement: 

  • Every classroom door, every morning. 
  • Every classroom was visited every week. 
  • Feedback to every teacher every month.
  • Twice a year check-ins with every direct report. 

Dr. Barron talked about earning the credibility to give teachers ideas that they’ll use. Part of it comes from visibility; the other part comes from our ability to have tough conversations.

Laurie talked about the level of accountability that comes from having crucial conversations. Timing is everything. 

Laurie talked about the myth that holding high standards will push people out. She says that we might need to “love harder” and “explain more.” 

The best advice that Laurie has for leaders is to develop a network. Wisdom from her mentor: Keep one foot in your job and one foot in your profession

Laurie recommends What Great Teachers Do Differently by Todd Whitaker 

Joe asks about books outside of education. Laurie mentions Mindset by Carol Dwek and Daniel’s Pink’s Drive. Must read!

Laurie Barron Quotes from FocusED

It’s really hard to engage and participate if you feel like you don’t matter. ~ Laurie Barron 

Honesty is kind. We need to give very clear feedback to teachers. ~ Laurie Barron 

How we work with people and our honesty with them are critical. ~ Laurie Barron

More School Culture Resources from TheSchoolHouse302

3 Ideas About Innovative School Culture

5 Ways to Show More Support to Create the School Culture that Teachers and Students Need

Retention for a Change

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

Season 4, Episode 10 of the FocusED School Leadership Podcast with Lorea Martinez

Season 4, Episode 10 of the FocusED School Leadership Podcast with Lorea Martinez

Social and Emotional Learning and Leading with Lorea Martinez

This is Season 4, Episode 10 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Lorea Martinez. It was originally recorded live for a virtual audience in Delaware, and provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Lorea Martinez has to say about SEL in schools, including what leaders can do to support staff…and so much more.

 

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Lorea Martinez Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez is the award-winning founder of HEART in Mind Consulting, a company dedicated to helping schools and organizations integrate Social Emotional Learning in their practices, products, and learning communities. She has worked with schools, districts, and organizations to guide SEL implementation efforts, including training teachers and leadership teams, and provided guidance to educational technology and media companies to help them integrate SEL into their products.

An educator who has worked with children and adults internationally, Dr. Martínez is a faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College, educating aspiring principals in Emotional Intelligence. She has conducted extensive research in the SEL field with a focus on SEL implementation, principals’ Emotional Intelligence, teacher preparation, and school climate. She frequently blogs about how to incorporate SEL in teaching practices, leadership, and parenting.

She received her Doctor of Philosophy, magna cum laude, in Quality and Innovation in Education from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2014, she was awarded the American Education Research Association Graduate Student Award for Excellence in SEL Research from the SEL Special Interest Group.

Dr. Martínez started her career as a special education teacher and administrator. A native of Costa Brava in Spain, she currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.

Buy her book, Teaching with the HEART in Mind: A Complete Educator’s Guide to Social Emotional Learning.

FocusED Show Notes with Lorea Martinez

Don’t miss what Lorea says about teaching SEL: “We wouldn’t let reading teachers teach the skills of reading without knowing how to read well themselves.” 

 Lorea talks about the need to practice SEL in front of students. They don’t just learn because we teach them the skills. They learn because we show them. 

 This conversation doesn’t gloss over the incredible needs in schools today, both socially and academically. 

 Lorea talked about the system changes that need to be made for SEL to work. 

 Dr. Martinez talks about the fact that we’re teaching teachers how to teach students, but we’re ignoring the fact that we also need to help teachers to help themselves. 

 Don’t miss what she says about her HEART acronym. 

 We discuss the need for teachers and leaders to process their emotions so that they don’t come up against a wall when they’ve swallowed them for too long. 

 The E in HEART is “elect your responses,” which is about our behavioral patterns and making better choices than what we do on autopilot. 

 Lorea provides listeners with specific strategies to use. Don’t miss what she says about taking the weather report with popsicle sticks. 

 We discuss the need for leaders to have real conversations about how people feel. 

 We love the fact that she highlights the need for leaders to celebrate and praise the staff. We have to continue to find positive moments and bright spots. 

 Joe follows up to underscore the importance of praise, using our specific praise model, and the way we need to be very intentional about celebrations and individual accomplishments. 

 Lorea tells us about everyone’s tendencies to look at their low scores versus celebrating the strengths we have. 

 Dr. Martinez brings up Six Seconds as a place to go for materials and assessments for leaders who want to improve their emotional intelligence. 

 Lorea mentions two books: Cultivating Kindness: An Educator’s Guide (research about kindness in kids) and Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You (a business book). 

 Joe brings up CASEL and the notion that all of this isn’t new…it just may be new to you! 

 Lorea wishes that someone would study more about adult SEL, specifically about organizational leadership and core values. How are the systems and routines we build embedded with emotional intelligence? 

 We invited Lorea to talk about the course that she created for teachers. Don’t miss what she says about how to use it.

Lorea Martinez Quotes from FocusED

We cannot teach what we don’t practice; the students are always watching. ~ Lorea Martinez 

Educators are great at having empathy for students, but they need to get better at having self-empathy. ~ Lorea Martinez

More Social and Emotional Resources from TheSchoolHouse302

Season 3, Episode 4 of FocusED with Lorea Martinez

Leading Better & Growing Faster w/ Joe & TJ: Thoughts about Supporting SEL in Schools

Our Interview with SEL Expert Thomas Hoerr

Season 3, Episode 2 of FocusED with Jeffrey Benson

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district with more knowledge, better understanding, and clear direction on what to do next.

How School Leaders Can View Problems as Possibilities To Improve Their Schools, Leading Better and Growing Faster with Joe and T.J.

How School Leaders Can View Problems as Possibilities To Improve Their Schools, Leading Better and Growing Faster with Joe and T.J.

How School Leaders Can View Problems as Possibilities To Improve Their Schools

In this episode, Joe and T.J. explore what it really means to mind your mental map. Our minds can be very scary places if we are not careful. School leaders must remain in a productive space in order to lead effectively, but the thread of events throughout the day and week can take its toll. This is why school leaders must do the following:

  1. Flip Your Thinking
  2. Don’t Jump to Judge
  3. Adapt, Don’t Adopt

Key Points from Joe & T.J

T.J. starts the conversation on the crucial importance of being aware of the potential of living on Groundhog Day–experiencing the same set of events over and over.

Joe double-downs on some ChatGPT, unfinished learning, school climate, an increase in student discipline, the teacher shortage, and ESSER funds running out, and how we frame all of these circumstances in our minds is critical. Yes, they are problems, but where are the possibilities? We are firm believers that with the right approach, no problem is unsolvable

 

Take control of your thinking and flip it. Listen to T.J. talk about Tim Ferris and how he approaches an issue

  • Innovation and analysis–think with your team.
  • Don’t jump to judge–so easy to judge others by their actions and not intentions. 
  • Adapt, don’t adopt–put an issue on its side.
  • Perceptual illusion–what don’t you see?

The Leading Better & Growing Faster with Joe & T.J. Show

Let us know a topic that you want us to cover by contacting us at contact@theschoolhouse302.com. And don’t miss our leadership newsletter every week by subscribing to the site. Like, follow, share, and comment–we appreciate it!

We can’t wait to hear from you. 

Joe & T.J.

Two Books For School Leaders Who Want To Become Their Best Self, Leading Better and Growing Faster with Joe and T.J.

Two Books For School Leaders Who Want To Become Their Best Self, Leading Better and Growing Faster with Joe and T.J.

Joe and T.J. Recommend that School Leaders Read Harvard Business Review’s On Mental Toughness and Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude

In this episode, you’ll hear key points made by both T.J. and Joe about two books every school leader should read to mind their mental map to the future.

T.J. immediately underscores that On Mental Toughness has a bonus article with Martin Seligman. Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman is the Director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center.

You also don’t want to miss the critical points he makes on mental toughness and the value of perseverance.

Joe shares one of his favorite books because of the power of the success principles featured in it, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. Spend a life pursuing them, and you will grow as a person and a leader. 

In each episode, Joe and T.J. leave a tip to lead better and grow faster. This month’s reading tip is to build in time to reflect on what you’ve read. This is easy to do, but so often, we just move on without reflecting on how we might apply the information in the books we read. Knowledge without application serves no one and won’t make you any better than you were before you started reading. 

The Leading Better & Growing Faster with Joe & T.J. Show

Let us know what you’re reading by contacting us at contact@theschoolhouse302.com. And don’t miss our leadership newsletter every week by subscribing to the site. 

 

We can’t wait to hear from you. 

 

Joe & T.J.

 

Claim Your FREE Copy to Our Praise Practice- Practical Praise Giving Tips for Principals

Learn how you can give practical praise each day as you lead your school to develop a better and more positive culture through this complimentary eBook we use in our workshops to help principals all over the nation and subscribe for more resources like this one delivered to your inbox. 

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