Opinion
Leading a School Towards Change With The Help of a Core Team
In a school, this core is teaching and learning, and it carries the responsibility of the young generation’s education. It might comprise a group of teachers, perhaps not especially skilled in conducting research, but having in-depth knowledge about the culture of the school.
A system is made up of a group of components working together. And in any system, there exists a main area that keeps all the components alive. This area is known as the “core.” For instance, let’s consider the human body. The heart is the core, the main organ responsible for the smooth functioning of the body, while all other organs support it. Thus, it is vital to exercise our whole body to keep the core healthy. Now, if we compare it to an organization, corporate or otherwise, we can understand that its core work area plays a crucial role in keeping it alive.
In a school, this core is teaching and learning, and it carries the responsibility of the young generation’s education. To keep the core strong, a team is appointed by the school which regularly conducts research and identifies changes that are taking place in the field of education. Since these changes are bound to directly affect the core, the team analyses them and helps the school adopt them. The team’s main work is to explore, ideate and innovate and discover ways to improve the process of imparting education. It might comprise a group of teachers, perhaps not especially skilled in conducting research, but having in-depth knowledge about the culture of the school. This helps them to be on the same page while studying, learning and researching ways to make the core excel.
A challenge that the teams face is our tendency to be averse to change. When we have a set of systems in place, change is undesirable, as we view it as something disruptive. Convincing the organization that change is actually an opportunity to evolve, is a task for the team. To carry it out, the team itself needs to be porous to change, and see the positives that it offers.
For any person, the unwillingness to change stems from a lack of clarity, and thus, the changing surroundings overwhelm him. A team plays an important role in clearing the confusion and patiently guiding people to slowly adapt to change. For people to accept it, the transition needs to feel organic, and this can happen only when the people associated with the school introduce the change. They are able to modify it to perfectly conform to the culture of the school since they have the knowledge about it.
And here is where many school leaders falter. Believing that their teachers might not be able to handle this responsibility, the work is outsourced to someone who is considered to be an expert. But that person is present only for a few months, perhaps a year, and he is unable to correctly point out which approach suits the best for that particular school. No outsourced agency can bring about a change that feels organic. Thus, to improve the core, it is crucial that the team is associated with the school, and is working diligently for it.
An example of the work of a team is the newly-introduced National Education Policy. Many educators had been presenting their views on how our curriculum needs to be upgraded, and a team was formed which researched on all these aspects, took everyone’s views into consideration, and came up with a more comprehensive education policy.
This policy is a new change that is introduced to the world of education, and now, it is up to the team in every school in our country to make this transition as smooth and organic as possible.
About the author: Siddharth Rajgarhia, Chief Learner-Director, Delhi Public School, Nashik, Varanasi & Lava Nagpur