TeacherDrivenChange

Creating Positive Classroom Management

A shift towards recognizing positive student behaviors -- rather than focusing on disruptive behaviors -- vastly improved the culture in educator Marti Schwartz's classroom.  Schwartz, who is the creator and co-facilitator of Brown University's Novice and Experienced Teachers Working Together program, recounts her attitude-changing experience in both for and finding more positive behaviors to reward.  Continue reading.

CTA-IFT Inspires Positive Deviance

Don’t let the inspiration fade away. That was the message of a Merced High School student at the conclusion of a one-day Positive Deviance Workshop sponsored by the CTA Institute for Teaching. Several Merced students, teachers, and administrators were among those attending the event earlier this month, which was designed to explore how positive deviance can help reduce the dropout rate.Download PD Presentation- CTA.ppt (20475.0K)

 

The Positive Deviance approach suggests that it is possible to find successful solutions to problems right now before all of the underlying causes are addressed and that the best solutions to community problems come from the within the community meaning the best solutions to school reform come from within the school, rather than from the top down or the outside in. There must be real ownership of the solutions rather than merely buy-in. The group of 14 from Merced as well as local association leaders from San Jose, Pomona, San Juan, Sacramento, Coachella Valley, Moreno Valley, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cucamonga worked to design solutions unique to their own communities. Positive Deviance works to allow teachers to emphasize talents over weaknesses to create a learning environment that supports and encourages every student to do their best.

High School Dropouts Targeted by CTA IFT Positive Deviance Grant: Merced Teachers Meet with School-Community to End Dropouts

Merced Union High School District teachers, administrators, school board members, and community leaders have joined forces to learn why some students succeed despite the odds. MUHSD teachers and district administrators have teamed with the California Teachers Association's Institute for Teaching (IFT) to implement an IFT grant to bring a Positive Deviance project to reduce dropouts in Merced High School. Click here for more information on Positive Deviance (PD). Teachers with school-community stakeholders met on February 26, 2009, to begin learning about the PD Approach and develop a plan of action to end student dropouts. According to MUHSD Teachers Association President Sheila Whitley, the Positive Deviance project is based on a fundamental idea: "In every high school   there are students that are practicing behaviors that are keeping them in school. In every high school there are teachers, administrators, parents and community members who are practicing behaviors that are keeping students in school." Whitley, a mathematics teacher at Merced High School, adds, "Unfortunately, school reform measures have generally ignored what is working in our schools, why students remain in school, and the educational practices that increase graduation rates." The Positive Deviance Grant is designed around the concept that the most efficient way to improve our schools and reduce the dropout rate is to use locally homegrown available, sustainable, and effective approaches. "We applied for the grant because we liked the idea that Positive Deviance is a strength-based approach," says Whitley. She believes that too often, school reform initiatives frame the dropout challenge around teacher, parent, and student deficiencies. "As a result, we have become experts on the problem, but we still know little about solutions or strategies to reduce high school dropouts." Paul Chambers, a staff member of the California Teachers Association, appreciates the approach being promoted by his organization's Institute for Teaching. "Policy makers and elected officials have created an environment where teachers are frustrated, parents are disenchanted, and issues are politicized," says Chambers. He is hopeful that the CTA IFT project will yield positive results so that this new and unique approach to school improvement can be applied throughout California.

Positive Deviance: A Case Study

Positive Deviance and Student Retention in Argentina: In the Misiones Province of Argentina, school retention was a major issue. Almost half of the students drop out before the end of the third grade. In order to address this problem the Ministry of Education and the World Bank decided to pilot a Positive Deviance project in two districts; Alem and San Pedro. Click her for details.

Do You Practice Positive Deviance?

Do you practice Positive Deviance in you school community? Throughout our school communities, there are positive deviants or as Kevin Buck refers to them as Positive Innovators -- individuals whose uncommon behaviors enable them to find better practices to pervasive problems, while sharing the same resource base as other stakeholders within their respective community. The Positive Deviance Approach allows us to recognize and acknowledge what's working in our school communities by publicizing behavioral strategies that lead to success. By focusing on what works, we can begin to close the achievement gap and increase student retention. One example of the Positive Deviance Approach in schools is in Brazosport, Texas, a district which basically eliminated the achievement gap between racial and socioeconomic groups by tapping the talents of successful teachers and amplifying their strategies around the district. [For a detailed description of Brazosport's methods, see The Results Fieldbook by Mike Schmoker (ASCD, 2001) ] We need to know the Positive Deviance behaviors and practices that you and your colleagues believe lead to successful school change. Email the IFT about your PD behaviors. How are you using strength-based thinking in the teaching and learning process? What great things are taking place between teachers and parents that are helping students? Email us at IFT@cta.org

A Pathway Wide Enough for All Students to Travel

While there certainly is a pathway to educational success in our public schools, it is evident that this road remains too narrow for many students to travel. Efforts to expand educational opportunities through regulatory models have not resulted in significant success, nor, have procedural and structural changes expanded the road of success to a growing number of African American and Latino students. A new approach to broaden this pathway may be through strength-based school change initiatives, generally, and specifically, through the application of Positive Deviance. Positive Deviance is an approach suggesting that within every community there are certain individuals who are deviating from the norm and behaving in such a way as to provide insight on how previously intractable problems can be solved.

So, what does Positive Deviance (PD) look like in actual terms? How do we move from theory to practice in real time with real results? One example that tugs both at the heart and mind is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. (View Last Lecture video below). Randy, while both a scholar and a practitioner, was most of all a teacher. It is from this perspective, teaching, where his Positive Deviance was most obvious. While PD is unique in so many ways, it is particularly distinct by promoting change from the ground-up. If we want to improve our schools, take a look at what teachers and other stakeholders are doing both in and around the school-community.

A Tinkerer at Life: Dr. Pausch was a tinkerer at life where he pushed, poked, and pulled to get the very best out of himself and those around him. While Randy exhibited numerous PD teaching examples, here are four:

(1) Always use clichés. Randy's thinking about the use of clichés is certainly uncommon, especially at a time when so many people try to be trendsetters by attempting to invent new terms, phrases, ideology, and expressions. This is most obvious when it comes to school reform and student learning. Everyday there seems to be a new approach or slogan that is being promoted to improve our schools. Randy's view was that clichés can inspire and motivate students and that clichés can help students, regardless of age, navigate the challenges they face each day. His approach deviated from current practices which are so often filled with empty promises and limited support. Pausch believed that clichés grounded students, by helping them to visualize the accumulated wisdom of the past in simple, yet powerful ways. Randy was a Positive Deviant because he was not in vogue. He felt that teaching was as much an art as science and that clichés helped to convey a set of values driven by the very best of who we are or what we might become. Clichés were not something to be avoided but represented our great and wondrous past. This is not to suggest that Pausch was bound by clichés from the past only; he was also a fan of pop culture. I don't mind when my children watch Superman, not because he's strong and can fly, but because he fights for "truth, justice and the American way." I love that line.

(2) Being Sorry. Most teachers today are familiar with collaborative teams and professional learning communities to improve relationships and increase trust, while encouraging dialogue around the teaching and learning process. Most of these approaches are accompanied by intensive and extensive training and professional development. For Randy Pausch improving relationships and increasing collaboration were not very complicated. Randy was much more into the little things that we can do immediately and not necessarily a big fan of major structural and procedural changes. Using a baseball metaphor you could say that Randy appreciated small ball over home run hitters.

Here are a few of Randy's thoughts on the subject: Apologies are not pass/fail. I always told my students: When giving an apology, any performance lower than an A really doesn't cut it . . . Working in groups was crucial in my classes, and friction between students was unavoidable. Some students wouldn't pull their load . . . By mid-semester, apologies were always in order.

Even though Dr. Pausch's students were college age, in one of the most prestigious University's in the country, Randy felt it was necessary to carefully, but unambiguously instruct his students on why personal apologies, when appropriate, promote team and relationship building. Randy's outline for a proper apology included three parts:

1. What I did was wrong.
2. I feel badly that I hurt you.
3. How do I make this better?

Randy would tell his students that some individuals will take advantage of you but he suggested most will come around if you have both faith and patience.

(3) Saying Thank You. Dr. Paush would tell his students that behaving with gratitude is one of the most powerful, positive things that human beings can do for each other and that the practice of handwritten thank you notes is the easiest way to do this. In an age of emails, voice, and text messaging, writing a personal note with pen and paper is both symbolically and substantively more meaningful. Randy said it this way: Despite all that is now going on in my life and with my medical care, I still try to handwrite notes when it's important to do so. It's just the nice thing to do. And you never know what magic might happen after it arrives in someone's mailbox.

(4) Be the First Penguin. Dr. Paush would organize many of his classes by teams and at the end of each semester he would honor one team with The First Penguin Award – a stuffed penguin. The award would go to the team that took the biggest gamble in trying new ideas, projects, etc., while failing to achieve their stated goals. According to Randy, it was an award for glorious failure and it celebrated the use of imagination in a daring way. For Randy and his students, First Penguin winners were losers who were definitely on the road to success. The title of this award is based on the behaviors and practice of Penguins – but only certain Penguins; the Positive Deviants. The story is that when Penguins are about to jump in the water that might contain predators, someone must be the first Penguin. It is this Penguin that has the internal courage and sprit to risk everything. The story of the Penguin describes behaviors that are internally driven and celebrates risk and encourages students to attempt hard things and not to worry about failing…failure is not just acceptable, it's often essential.

How's that for Positive Deviance? In an era of tests, externally driven reform, individual and collective dependency, and standards that are often viewed as arbitrary, Randy Paush left a legacy for teachers and the entire school community that common sense combined with a good heart can provide a pathway that is wide enough for all students to travel.

More on the Positive Deviance Approach

In every high school there are students that are practicing behaviors that are keeping them in school.

In every high school there are teachers, administrators, and parents practicing behaviors that are keeping students in school.

The Positive Deviance Approach is a quick, low cost method to identify behaviors and practices that keep students in school and encourages the rest of student community to adopt them

The Positive Deviance Approach has been used successfully in a variety of different venues and conditions.

The potential for the Positive Deviance Approach to reduce high school dropouts is vast and largely untapped