Clarity and Toxic School Cultures

I’d like to share with you my recent thoughts on how toxic school cultures can impact learning in the long haul and provide a few helpful solutions.

No one intends to obfuscate their communication. No one intends to confuse their school. Instead, we intentionally plan events and use tools that give clarity.

Sometimes a map gives clarity. Sometimes a message gives clarity. A conversation, a plan, a meeting — these also provide clarity, sometimes.

Teachers are gathered into a room, asked a few questions, and next thing you know, they are on a quest to boost some apparently random metric. Next week, the same team is in a different meeting with a different facilitator, discussing a different topic, and are pointed to a different metric. A month later, the pattern continues.

Meet. New topic. New metric. Each month or so, something new often under the guise of “flexibility” and “adapting to students”.

While the school leader may be seeking innovation and effectiveness. The school staff are perceiving pendulum swings and uncertainty.

Questions to consider:

Obscurity. Opacity. Generality.

These are the enemies of clarity and are easy to come by if there’s no clarity at the outset.

School culture isn’t built. It isn’t created — it’s already there. It’s the outgrowth of foundational factors (which we’ll discuss below).

School culture is, however, crafted.

You can craft culture using a few strategies and principles. Here are a few to consider:

These five strategies are discussed in yesterday’s podcast.

Here are three more essential strategies and principles for crafting school culture:

I know, easier said than done. And the purpose of this list isn’t to imply there’s a simple “plug and play” way to avoid a toxic school culture.

Beneath the surface of strategies is the foundation of school culture.

Involved leaders create engaged people. When people are engaged, they trust that the organization will consider their human needs in pursuit of accomplishing objectives.

Leaders in a school set the tone for trust by being transparent, showing vulnerability, asking questions, sincerely listening, and setting clear and predictably measured outcomes.

Here are four questions on my mind. I’m curious what your thoughts are. Leave me a comment below.

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