Let’s Make Our Schools More Thrilling and Beautiful

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By Dr. Barrett Mosbacker

Cruising at thirty thousand feet and intensively absorbed in my work, I was startled by the sudden outburst of fearful crying from a three year-old little girl frantically running down the aisle of the big jet. Her brown eyes were wide with fear and her face wet from the tears cascading down her cheeks. Somehow she managed to leave her seat without her mother’s notice. Disoriented and scared she stumbled past row after row of strangers unable to find her mother in the sea of unfamiliar faces. As a father of three daughters and the “pawpaw”of a little granddaughter, my heart went out to her. Although prudence dictated otherwise, I wanted to leap from my seat and pick her up to comfort her.

My heart also goes out to teachers and school leaders who, like that little girl, find themselves disoriented, perhaps even a little intimidated and frightened by a strange and constantly changing world. This is a new experience for most educators.

School work has historically been comfortable and predictable. It has been observed that if you took a teacher from the early 1900s and dropped her into most any classroom today she would hardly skip a beat. She would find a board at the front of the room (albeit it may be electronic) and neat rows of students waiting for her to speak. There would be some new things, a computer on the teacher’s desk and a copier down the hall, but fundamentally things would look and feel much like they did at the beginning of the 20th century.

This predictability is giving way to uncertainty created by the relentless currents of cultural, economic, and technological change. Nothing in our schools is untouched. Whereas schools have historically been islands of relative tranquility, teachers and school leaders are now feeling uncertain about their roles and methods amid the changes invading their schools. We feel the seismic vibrations of shifting cultural norms beneath us. And we are confronted with the ever quickening pace of technological innovation that is reshaping the way we work, communicate, and entertain ourselves.

Like the girl on the plane, these cultural and technological changes can cause us to become disoriented, feeling overwhelmed, even frightened. The familiar is giving way to the new and the strange. That which once seemed like bedrock—steady and predictable—now feels like quicksand.

Consider the Internet and mobile technology. In their just released book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Business, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen summarize how the Internet and mobile technologies are fundamentally reshaping our lives and institutions.

The proliferation of communication technologies has advanced at an unprecedented speed. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the number of people connected to the Internet worldwide increased from 350 million to more than 2 billion. In the same period, the number of mobile-phone subscribers rose from 750 million to well over 5 billion (it is now over 6 billion). Adoption of these technologies is spreading to the farthest reaches of the planet, and, in some parts of the world, at an accelerating rate. By 2025, the majority of the world’s population will, in one generation, have gone from having virtually no access to unfiltered information to accessing all of the world’s information through a device that fits in the palm of the hand. If the current pace of technological innovation is maintained, most of the projected eight billion people on Earth will be online …

As global connectivity continues its unprecedented advance, many old institutions and hierarchies will have to adapt or risk becoming obsolete, irrelevant to modern society. The struggles we see today in many businesses, large and small, are examples of the dramatic shift for society that lies ahead. Communication technologies will continue to change our institutions from within and without. We will increasingly reach, and relate to, people far beyond our own borders and language groups, sharing ideas, doing business and building genuine relationships.

If you substitute school for institutions and businesses in the above quote it reads, “As global connectivity continues its unprecedented advance, many [schools] and hierarchies will have to adapt or risk becoming obsolete, irrelevant to modern society. The struggles we see today in many [schools], large and small, are examples of the dramatic shift for society that lies ahead.” No one wants to become obsolete and irrelevant.

There is a sense in which the students sitting in front of us, or if we are an administrator, the young teachers in front of us, are strangers. They live in two worlds, not just one. They live in the physical world and in a virtual world. And they know nothing of our educational experience, one that relied on the teacher, the librarian, and the encyclopedia for information.

Our students are growing up in a world where everyone is, or soon will be, connected with each other. They carry the world’s information in the palm of their hand. If they need extra help, they don’t “need” to ask the teacher-they can text a friend, video-chat with an expert, or watch remarkably well constructed tutorials on Khan Academy. If they need information, they “Google it.” Teachers are needed for other things but they are not needed for delivering information.

How should we respond as Christian educators? With courage not fear, with optimism not pessimism, with excitement, not dread; with a vision for the future, not with a nostalgic longing for the past. We should respond with creativity, vigor and innovation, not with the mechanical and routinized habits that have become so comfortable but are increasingly arcane and irrelevant for our students.

Carpe Diem This is not Pollyannaish happy talk. The ability to seize the day, to courageously and creatively adapt one’s teaching and leadership to the opportunities before us and to the needs of our students,—not to our needs and preferences—is firmly rooted in God’s sovereignty, his commands, and his commission. 

—God’s Sovereignty— When thinking about change, one of my favorite passages is a short epitaph to King David: “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers.” (Ac 13:36) This epitaph reflects the relevant servant leadership of David. David did not serve the previous generation, he served HIS generation.

That is our task, to serve the generation of students God has entrusted to our stewardship. We are not to be subservient to our past, to our habits, to our comfort, or to our preferences. We are to serve the purpose of God in our generation. In our case, this means the Internet generation—always connected and immersed in a world of ubiquitous technology.

We can serve optimistically and confidently when we learn to rest in God’s sovereignty, recognizing that he has determined when and where we are to serve.

God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’… ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (Ac 17:24–28).

We do not get to choose when or where we are born nor the circumstances and conditions under which we serve. We do choose how we are going to respond. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, the wise wizard Gandalph responds to Frodo’s dismay and fear:

Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” 

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

That is how we should respond to the disruptions and changes around us—with the confidence that God has placed us here at this time, under these circumstances so that we might serve his purposes in our generation. It is not for us to decide when and where we serve, only how we will serve.

—God’s Command— Christians ought to be optimists, positive and excited about life. There is plenty wrong in this world—there always has been and there always will be until Christ returns. But Christians of all people are to be optimists and this optimism should shine as a bright light of encouragement and as a model to our students and a watching world. The last thing our students need are hesitant, pessimistic, fearful, stuck in the mud teachers.

Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something. Should that not describe Christians who place their confidence in Christ who has redeemed us, gives us eternal life and who will give us glorified resurrected bodies? This same Christ will ultimately redeem this world and at the close of history God will descend from heaven and live with a redeemed humanity on a beautifully restored earth no longer marred, by nor laboring under, the devastating effects of sin!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new … And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and here will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. (Re 21ff)

This bright ending had a bright beginning—a beginning which is still to guide our lives and work. It is interesting that in Genesis everything that God communicated to man was positive with the one exception of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God creates man in his image, makes him an eternal embodied soul, gives him the world and tells him to go forth, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. God’s tell man to go forth and build culture! Man was not to stay in his comfort zone—the Garden. He was to venture out and to create as an imitator of the Creator whose image he bore.

This is still our primary mission. We are to build, develop, create, innovate, and progress. Sin has not removed nor diminished this calling. It has made it harder but it has not destroyed it.

Christian teachers and administrators, of all people, should model this perspective and it should animate our teaching and leadership. We should be the consummate innovators and builders of culture and users of new technology under the Lordship and for the glory of Christ.

—God’s Commission— When we think of God’s commission, we think of the Great Commission of Christ-to make disciples of all nations. This is certainly the Great Commission but it is founded on the First Commission:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Ge 1:28–31)

The Great Commission is the work of reclaiming and redeeming people to progressively and righteously fulfill the First Commission. This truth is reflected in Rev. 21 so that Genesis 1–2 and Revelation 21 are the bookends of history. The Great Commission is the restoration of the work started in the Garden, which was corrupted, not destroyed, by sin.

The little girl on the plane was scared. Suddenly, after leaving her mother—the place of safety and comfort—she found herself lost and surrounded by strangers. Fortunately, a flight attendant saw what happened and quickly picked up the little girl and returned her to her mother. She stopped crying. Everything was okay.

For Christians everything is okay. It is not necessarily easy or comfortable, but in Christ, everything is okay—even change. Christian educators do not need to fear the changes around us nor be preoccupied with condemning what is wrong, although that must be done.

Instead of condemnation and fear, we should be biased toward positive living with a positive message—the life and culture encompassing gospel. Andy Crouch, in his excellent book, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, asks some probing questions that we need to answer:

Why aren’t we known as cultivators-people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the hard and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done? Why aren’t we known as creators-people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful?

Let us go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, guided by God’s word, to transform lives and culture. Let us serve God in our generation by being creators of culture and as relevant Christian educators. let us dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before in our schools, something that makes our schools more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful for our 21st century students. 

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How to Teach Your Students Business

 I’d like to introduce you to Patrick Bell – a fellow educator and a “Kingdom” entrepreneur. Along with his MA in Inter-cultural studies (Wheaton College Graduate School, Illinois) and his MBA in International Business (Regent University School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, Virginia), Patrick has lived and worked in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He has recently returned to Canada (Kelowna, BC) after 23 years abroad and lives with his wife, Holly, and 3 children.

Besides teaching and continual development of the Amaze Online High School Business Curriculum, he works as a professor of business at the Okanagan College School of Business. I’ve seen in him an intense desire to transcend theory to practical application and that philosophy of education is reflected in his course content and style of instruction.

I think you’ll find it interesting what he has to share.

Dr. Mosbacker, CSJ Publisher

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Guest article by Patrick Bell

In the early stages of 2012, God laid upon my heart to write and produce a full curriculum of high school business courses that would prepare young people around the world with practical business building skills, but also capture their hearts to live for the glory of God in their work environment. As a “4^th Generation missionary”, I was raised to believe that missionaries and “full-time workers” were elite Christians. It wasn’t until I was running a business as a “tentmaker/Kingdom Entrepreneur” in Japan that I came to realize that it’s not so much the work that we do in this world that pleases Him, but that we are working in the field that He has called us to.

It is my belief that Jesus has a keen interest in our business activities and indeed, as we operate our businesses under his leading, working for the glory and honor of God, we engage in worship as we work (Romans 12:1).

In May, 2012, at the Vancouver Symposium for Christian Education in the 21^st Century, Christian educational leaders today were calling out for a strong curriculum that prepares the next generation of students to be entrepreneurial, innovative, and possess the practical skills to envision, create, and manage a business that meets the needs of society around them.

My heart was practically burning up as I shared with Barrett and others, “That’s what I’m doing!” One year later, we’re getting ready to launch.

The Amaze Online High School Business Courses will help develop extraordinarily competent, entrepreneurial young people who lead with excellence, integrity, and innovation, guided in all things by Jesus Christ, grounded on a solid Biblical foundation. This preparation will involve learning the technical and practical skills of business and entrepreneurship. It will focus on the transfer of wisdom and practical skills, not just theory or knowledge.

The courses will distinguish themselves by the following characteristics:

• Business Education from a Christian Worldview: The combination of my graduate school studies at Wheaton College and at Regent University together with my business experience across various cultures help define the inter-cultural sensitivity, rigour, and practical business knowledge throughout the courses.

• Entrepreneurial Perspective: Whether our students plan to work for a large company or start their own businesses, our emphasis on creativity, innovation, and change will help them develop and implement new ideas to serve changing markets.

• Technology is changing the face of education at a hyper-speed rate. The courses use cutting edge technology to engage students and encourage learning. The lessons will be available in text, audio, or video to accommodate different learning styles, and will be available anytime, anywhere, by anyone, using any device.
 

My goal is to teach our students

     • how to use business skills to help meet the economic and spiritual needs of their nation (especially important in a developing country);
     • biblical principles and character (including biblical ethics) in the marketplace;
     • their business can be a blessing to their community and their country's economy;
     • their business will enable them to present the gospel by word and deed;
     • they can produce, market, and sell products or services that are in harmony with God's divine order and purpose;
     • they can influence others by showing them how to run a business while treating people of all walks of life with dignity and respect, not just as a means of profit;
     • they can empower their fellow workers with knowledge and methods;
     • they can serve God fully in their business, and that ministry is not just for pastors and evangelists;
     • they are instruments in bringing about a sustainable economic and spiritual transformation to the communities in which they serve.

Our first course, Entrepreneurship & Creative Innovation (Grade 11, 120 hours) is currently in peer review and will be available in June. Internet Marketing (Grade 12, 120 hours) will be available in September. You can learn more about these courses and our vision by visiting www.HighSchoolBusinessCourses.com or by contacting me at patrickb@alphaic.com.

May God’s peace be yours today!

Patrick
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Please note that Patrick will teach a limited number of students in the first year and will make these courses available to license in subsequent years. If you have four or five entrepreneurial-minded students in your school that might benefit from these courses, and who would serve as “pilot students” for your school, please contact Patrick and get on his short list.  I’ve seen his course outlines and believe me when I say that they’re impressive. Even we need to learn these things.  

Dr. Mosbacker, CSJ Publisher

It’s Not so Easy

Guest article: Mark Kennedy, ACSI Canada

Soviet dissident and author Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote this about a

fellow prisoner in the Soviet gulag during the Russian Communist era:

“Before the war Anatoly Vasilyevich had graduated from a teachers’

college, where he had specialized in literature.  Like me, he now had about

three years left before his “release” to a place of banishment.  His only

training was as a teacher of literature in schools.  It seemed rather

improbable that ex-prisoners like us would be allowed into schools.

But if we were---what then?

“I won’t put lies into children’s heads!  I shall tell the children the truth

about God and the life of the Spirit.”

“But they’ll take you away after the first lesson.”

Vasilyevich lowered his head and answered quietly: “Let them.”

I couldn’t help wondering ‘what if every evangelical Christian teacher in secular schools in Ontario and the Maritimes decided to follow Vasilyevich’s example? What if they committed to tell their students the greatest and most important good news all on the same day, irrespective of consequences?’ Unlike Vasilyevich, they wouldn’t be put in jail, not in our pseudo-tolerant culture. But I doubt if their unions would defend them from being fired or put on probation and severely reprimanded. Of course it’s easy for us to raise that scenario from the relative safety of Christian schooling. Our jobs are not at risk when we share all of God’s truth with our students. We aren’t hazarding the loss of generous salaries and comfortable lifestyles by expressing our faith at school. Christian teachers in secular schools would need extraordinary courage and faith to follow Vasilyevich’s example. In the real world, courage isn’t all that common. 

And what about us in Christian schooling? What would we do if our jobs and even our schools’ existence depended upon us teaching values that we know are false – like say, affirming the homosexual lifestyle? Most of us know that’s not out of the question in Ontario at least in the not-so-distant future. Although at present we have constitutional protection to teach our values, how would we react to the leverage of, for example, new elementary and high school provincial accreditation standards and even the possibility of provincial government funding? ‘Your school will be accredited/certified/funded only if you teach  ……….,…’

“We would never abandon our convictions for those things!” I can imagine us  saying. But talk is cheap. That statement is uncomfortably like Peter’s promise to Jesus prior to the rooster’s convicting crow.

The voice of uneasy compromise tells us, “Well at least we would still be able to present the gospel message, so our students can be saved.” But what does that do to our Christian integrity? And that would just be the beginning of the compromise, with many more to come down the road. Accepting compromises is a bit like eating potato chips. It’s hard to stop at just one.

 Courageous actions are a lot more difficult than courageous words, especially if the consequences of those actions might threaten our personal security. In the past few months I’ve been praying for the Lord to give us in Christian schooling, and me specifically, real courage in the face of opposition from an increasingly antagonistic media and culture- Anatoly Vasilyevich’s kind of courage.

Mark

Are Christian Schools Elitist?

Guest Article: Mark Kennedy, ACSI Canada

“Why, that’s like charging people for God!!” That’s what one outraged lady said when I told her families at our school had to pay tuition. It’s not an uncommon sentiment with those who believe that public school education is free or with people who cling to the pseudo-Christian philosophical canard, ‘If it’s cheap and easy it must be from God.”

More reflective thinkers would realize that, apart from tuition, there aren’t a lot of financial resources out there with which Christian schools can pay bills and salaries. So we have to charge tuition, whether we like it or not. It isn’t that we’re trying to limit enrollments to the economically advantaged or that we’re fending off the ‘hoi-polloi’ by pricing our schools beyond their reach. Most Christian school people aren’t elitists. But we do want first rate teachers and outstanding, God-honouring school programmes. And those things cost.

Setting Tuition

 Over my past 35 years in Christian school leadership I’ve learned some worthwhile things, more than a few of them I learned the hard way. Take the business of setting tuition.

I used to think that Christian schools should set their tuition as low as possible so we could be accessible to just about any family. It was a charitable thought and, since I was an audacious, rather than sagacious, administrator, that’s just what I did at our school.  The results were disturbing.

Lower income families didn’t flock to the school. The percentage of families not returning from one year to the next remained about the same. And, because of inflation, each year we had less money to pay teachers and improve programmes. So ill-paid staff and a few committed parents inevitably found themselves under enormous pressure to do more and more fundraising. It wasn’t fundraising for new equipment or buildings – the kind of projects that can unify and enliven a school community.  It was ‘bailing bucket’ fundraising, ‘please keep us from sinking’ fundraising, ‘here we are on the brink of disaster once again’ fundraising. And it wore us all out.

Not only that, but our modest tuition didn’t curry much favour outside the school community either –where, in most people’s thinking, low cost equals low value. It’s a standard North American message about any product or service: quality costs.

And wealthy folk who could have made substantial donations to ministries like ours, never did. That’s because financially successful people, especially people from the business community, reach their position through careful planning – which includes appropriately pricing their products and services. They set their prices to be comfortably higher than their operating costs, their income to exceed expenses and they look for the same from any ministries they might consider supporting. People don’t give generously to schools that are annually on the verge of extinction.

That should speak to us. In the interest of providing an effective ministry for our students and reasonable salaries for teachers we need to set tuition high enough to comfortably exceed operating costs. The prospect of doing that is pretty daunting for principals and board members. What if families pull out?! What if we go broke and have to close?!!! In the past 10 years I’ve seen a fair number of Christian schools close in our region –too many. Most of them died with agonizing slowness, trying to keep their tuition ‘as low as possible to make the school financially accessible to working families.’ They would have at least had a chance to survive if they’d set their tuition high enough to more than pay their expenses.

Raising tuition to an appropriate level can be done without creating a disaster. Here are 5 steps to accomplishing that goal:

1. Calculate what tuition income you would need to pay your expenses with at least a 10% surplus.
2. Educate school families in the concept that Christian schooling is a shared sacrifice.  Parents aren’t the only people who pay for their children’s Christian education. Most of our teachers and principals are making huge financial sacrifices too. They choose to earn salaries 25% to 50% less than they could earn in public education so they can teach God’s truth freely to their students thereby equipping those students well for life. And our board members work for free! Maybe that’s the way it should be. Sacrificing to bless others, especially our own families, isn’t something strange for Christians. According to Jesus it is central to our faith.

“If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34

Christian school leaders have the daunting financial responsibility of making that ‘shared sacrifice’ equitable for parents and school staff as well.

1. Educate parents in the relationship between tuition income and the ability to enhance programmes and improve equipment and facilities.
2. ‘Grandfather’ current families by raising tuition to the ideal level in consistent annual increments over a defined number of years (5 or less).
3. For new families, have a higher tuition rate to begin with.

But if we keep tuition low won’t the Lord’s miraculously provide to meet our financial needs? It does happen, especially in places like Haiti. I’ve seen it. The Lord sometimes provides for the poorest of his people in astounding ways. He does that in North America too but it doesn’t seem to be as common here. It seems that, in Canada, one of the wealthiest nations in all history, God treats Christian school leaders like toddlers learning to walk. In our first few years he intervenes on our behalf, figuratively holding us up when in our financial innocence or naivety we trip up.  But as we mature he seems to expect us to maintain our balance by applying biblical wisdom, guidance from others and lessons from our own experiences. And sometimes he allows us to stumble painfully so in the long run we can learn to stand.

What about our responsibility to “widows and orphans”? Both the Old and New Testament tell believers to care for ‘widows and the orphans’. For us in Christian schools, that means we have a responsibility to help families that share our beliefs but can’t afford our tuition.  Some schools address that responsibility by filling empty classroom seats with students from families that can only pay a fraction of the tuition. That’s a sensible short term plan with a serious long term flaw. It gives everyone the illusion that the school is doing well. After all, look at all the students! The reality may be that a lot of the students are on some sort of unfunded, reduced tuition plan and that the school is struggling with a steadily increasing deficit. Inviting low income families into a financially troubled school eventually becomes a bit like inviting struggling swimmers onto a sinking ship – not a good long term solution for the swimmers or the ship’s passengers. It is far better for a school to direct part of its fundraising efforts to a scholarship/tuition assistance programme. People like to give to that sort of thing. The goal is to eventually limit bursaries to the amount of real money in the tuition assistance fund.

When it comes to providing for needy people, maybe we should borrow a philosophy from the airline industry. The pre-flight safety instructions always say, “In the event of an emergency, make sure to put on your own oxygen mask first, before you attempt to help others.” They’re not advising a ‘me first’ selfishness, they’re simply saying you need stability in order to help others effectively. I think that’s what Paul meant in Hebrews 12:12,

“Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level the paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled, but healed.”

A few months ago I got a phone call from a fellow Upper Canada College ‘old boy’. After trying unsuccessfully to pry support out of me, he passed on some fascinating information. It seems that at Upper Canada College, where tuition starts at $28,000 and there’s a huge student waiting list, 25% of the tuition, (“only 25%” he said), comes from bursary funds donated by people like me. “We want to increase that percentage,” he explained, “because in the States the average ‘elite’ school receives 45% of tuition from donated bursaries!”

Now I’m not suggesting that our schools take on the airs or the tuition rates of elite private schools. But we could at least follow their example by making sure tuition more than covers operating costs and by raising bursary/tuition assistance funds to support lower income families. And there’s nothing elitist about that!

Keeping the Faith when Transitioning from Christian High School to Secular College

Guest Author: Linda Forshaw

Linda Forshaw is a Business Information Systems graduate from Lancaster University in the UK. A frequent contributor to college review site Degree Jungle.com, she is a full time writer and blogger specializing in education, social media, and entrepreneurship. Contact her on Twitter @seelindaplay

Keeping the Faith when Transitioning from Christian High School to Secular College

With such a diverse range of college and university options available to high school seniors, choosing which institution to attend can be daunting at best. When the desire to maintain a faith in Christianity is added into the mix alongside such factors as cost, location, and career prospects, the choice can often become bewildering. 

Many faithful students will automatically believe that their most attractive option will be to attend a private Christian college or university, automatically discounting all other options as unrealistic or simply not for them. The importance of staying in the fold of a college where religion is at the core of teaching is a viewpoint that can be seen to be supported by the likes of Abby Nye, whose book “Fish Out of Water: Surviving and Thriving as a Christian on a Secular Campus” suggests that students for whom faith plays a major part in their lives will be under some sort of liberalist assault from day one. Still other surveys, and what is considered “conventional wisdom,” appear to prophesize that significant numbers of high school Christians have ceased active practice of their faith by the end of college. 

As with any opinion, there is always a counter argument; in this case it is perhaps best provided in an article entitled Finding Jesus at College (The Chronicle Review, March 7, 2010). As a result of his study of students of Christian faith in the Netherlands, author Edward Dutton believes that a college environment where everyone holds similar views such as at Bible college or other religious school is not necessarily conducive to keeping faith alive. Dutton also points to the work of Phillip Hammond and James Hunter whose own research led them to the conclusion that students of a Christian faith who attend a secular institution tend to leave those institutions with a stronger faith than when they started. 

It does seem that unless a student is particularly drawn to a religion-centric institution, their options pertaining to higher education are just as broad as their peers who choose not to walk a faithful path. It’s not as if Christian students head off to secular college and instantly dive headlong into a world where sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drugs are the only paths to take. On the contrary, support for students attempting the transition between a Christian high school and a secular education is widespread and easily accessible.

Resources for Christian students in secular education

 - Faith at State: A Handbook for Christians at Secular Universities (Rick Kennedy, 1995)
 - How to Stay Christian in College (J. Budziszewski, 2004)
 - Live Above (Online Christian community)
 - InterVarsity(Evangelical Campus Mission)
 - Emerging Scholars Blog (Program of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship)
 - Youth Transition Network(Nonprofit organizations aimed at decreasing the loss of youth from the church)

Tests and temptations are a natural part of life for everyone; Christian or otherwise. How the faithful student addresses such challenges will make all the difference.

How to Make Your "Pig" Fly

How to Make Your "Pig" Fly

Pig fly.jpg

By Dr. Barrett Mosbacker

Have you ever had an idea for the future of your school but others aren't buying it?  I hope so.  Leaders who are leading and not merely managing focus on the future, asking "what should we be doing to prepare our students for their futures, not our present?"  Leaders do not maintain the status quo, they create a new normal.

Thinking carefully about what is and what might be requires attention to the present and to emerging trends.  It requires an open and agile mind.  It requires the ability to hold fast to our first principles and worthy traditions while having the courage to innovate.  Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria recently challenged faculty and alumni to embrace both tradition and innovation:

We must have the conviction to hold fast to the many traditions that have defined us for so many years: the case method, our residential campus, our focus on a transformational learning experience. At the same time, we must have the courage to innovate. Because today's traditions were, in fact, innovations in their time.1

Your idea may look like an eagle to you.  To others it may look like a pig.  What do you when you are having a hard time getting the "pig" aloft, when you "pig" is stuck on the runway?  What do you do when others do not embrace your ideas for change?  

Here are a few practical suggestions that will help you maintain your vision while bringing others along.   I have borrowed some of these ideas (in quotations) from Krippendorff's excellent article "How To Stick With It When Your Ideas Are Ahead Of Their Time." 2

• Be prayerful.  One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 16:9: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."   We should plan and work hard to see our plans realized but God is sovereign.  He may redirect us to an entirely different end or may direct us to the same end but along a different and unexpected path.

• Guard your motive.  Be sure that your motive is holy.  We must remember that we were created for one primary purpose, to glorify God.  Everything else, no matter how worthy, is secondary.  Make sure that your ideas are not about you or your school but rather how others may "see your good works and glorify your father in heaven." (Matt. 5:16)

• Listen.  Not all of our ideas are good.  Good ideas often need modification.  Even if our ideas are excellent, we need to listen as a matter of respect to others and to understand their fears and concerns.  One of Steven Covey's Habits of Highly Successful People is to "seek first to understand and then to be understood."  This is a derivative of the biblical injunction, "be quick to hear and slow to speak."

• Keep it simple. "Usually when an innovator sees the world is going to change, the logic behind the change is obvious … The world changes all the time. It’s easy to see it is going to happen. What distinguishes innovators from the rest of us is not that they see farther into the future; it’s that they take action. While “experts” bring up complicated logic to explain why things will not unfold as the innovator thinks, the innovator just starts moving. Jeff Bezos saw that the Internet was going to change retail, so he left his job at the high-tech investment bank D.E. Shaw, and started selling books online … So don’t over think...outthink. When your logic is complicated it means you don’t understand. Think until your logic becomes simple, then act."

• Keep believing. "Remember that an innovative vision is usually inconsistent with prevailing logic and beliefs (otherwise it is probably not that innovative). It may be inconsistent with practices and rules … Steve Jobs, for example, knew it just made sense for record labels to distribute content digitally, so the iPod and iTunes became the natural net to capture this future." It seems so obvious now, now that digital music is common. But it was not obvious before Steve Jobs pushed ahead with innovation. It takes time for other to catch up. Many "will not get it" until after the fact. So, don't give up-keep believing, keep pushing forward. "Albert Einstein once said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Great innovators stay with their visions longer while others get distracted or disillusioned."

Do you have any "pigs" sitting on the runway?  They can fly!  It just takes prayer, humility, handwork, and patience.  Don't give up--keep innovating.  Our students' futures depend on it!

References

1. Nohria, N. (2012, January 1). Priorities. hbs.edu. Boston. Retrieved October 27, 2012, from http://www.hbs.edu/dean/priorities/

2. Krippendorff, K. (2012, May 31). How to stick with it when your ideas are ahead of their time. fastcompany.com. Retrieved October 27, 2012, from http://www.fastcompany.com/1838871/how-stick-it-when-your-ideas-are-ahead-their-time

Bullying's Raw Materials

Guest post by Paul Couglin, The Protectors.

Letter of Endorsement (Larry Taylor, Prestonwood Christian Academy)

Bullying's Raw Materials

Within the freedom-from-bullying community, traditional thinking had it that after high school you were usually safe from high-school-like bullying. Yet more and more tragic stories from colleges across the globe are telling us that bullying is likely increasing even past high school--an alarming indicator.  [http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/1107/1224326238140.html.] Why such longevity for this intentional form of abuse and anti-social behavior compared to just 10 years ago? Because the raw materials needed to produce bullying are more plentiful than before, and these materials are often not what many of us think, making our response ineffective. For example, too many in education still cling to the now discredited belief that Bullies have low self-esteem, among related myths. Here is a list of bullying's major components, which have far more to do with adult culture than school culture:  

• Arrogance: Along with unprecedented material wealth has unfortunately come the belief that the person with the most stuff not only wins--he or she is more important and valuable than others. For proof, consider how bullying's rise coincides more with our economic boom years than recent recession years.  
• Hubris: When surveyed, American high school-aged children score the highest in personal confidence when compared to students from other countries. But they rank 18th in test scores and academic performance. We're Number One! in thinking we're number-one anyway. That's not healthy confidence--that's delusional hubris, which is excessive self-confidence, conceit and haughtiness. The sages of old warned against such thinking, and we would do well to open our ears to heed these old truths again.  
• Jealousy & Envy: his tag team of discontent within a person's soul goes to the core of much bullying behavior. Unfortunately for us, who even talks about such negative and corrupting emotions? We better if we're serious about diminishing bullying. Jealousy relates more to loss, anger and resentment due to relationships, and is more likely to lead girls to lie, gossip and extort, than boys. Envy, resentment of another due to what they possess (such as status, clothing, boyfriend, girlfriend), compels people to commit abuse and related cruelty that they wouldn't commit otherwise. Narcissists often bully, and the narcissistic personality is prone toward envy. Worse, to secure a sense of superiority in the face of another's ability, bullying narcissists often use contempt as a means to diminish the other person. 
• Disdain & Contempt: Not only do a growing number of students believe they are more valuable and important than others, more and more are looking down their noses at others, believing (though we don't come out and actually say so) that others are not worthy of consideration or respect. As history is quick to remind us, some of the worst human atrocities begin with an unjustified belief in superiority over others. This helps us understand why physically and mentally challenged children are often among the most bullied. Hitler and his henchmen had them murdered, and bullies are trying to take their life in other ways today.
• Immaturity: Failure to launch--the inability of a frightening number of youth to become independent adults--isn't funny anymore. It's a serious social crisis wherein people behave in petulant ways that 10-15 years ago would have caused shock and disbelief. "That's so high school," an expression that reminds us that people usually outgrow immature behavior such as bullying someone due to how they walk and talk, is now being used to describe behavior well into a person's 20s and even 30s. To be immature is to be inevitably self-centered, self-consumed, and self-interested--breeding cells for bullying. We're expected to move past these hurdles and into adulthood and pro-social behavior. This isn't happening like it used to, and we are paying a very large price with prolonged bullying being just one of them. 
• Incivility: From most any reality TV show to just about any election above local dog catcher, our nation has become increasingly uncivil. We no longer agree to disagree agreeably to the degree we used to. Worse, crass behavior that would have caused shame decades ago is now exalted through mediums such as reality TV to the point that being a bully today can mean fame as well as fortune. Time for a national referendum on reality TV? Absolutely.  
• Fallout from the Self-Esteem Movement: A bomb went off in our culture about 30 to 40 years ago, and we are still suffering from its mutating radiation. Most of us know someone whose parents reared them to think that they are really special. Now we get to suffer the consequences of their bullying behavior. Narcissism is the unintended love child of society's union with pop psychology's panacea to society's ills: low self-esteem. For years, we've been giving the patient the wrong medicine. Your average Bully needs more humility, not more self-importance. Instead of writing poems about how special their Inner Butterfly really is, our children need to meditate on the truth that everyone is special and important.
• Shame-Free Culture: What happened to good old-fashioned and healthy (yes, healthy) shame? This negative emotion can point us back to a True North, a right form of conduct. It can help us grow in maturity by making amends for anti-social and life-diminishing behavior. It's required to repair relationships due to inevitable tearing, much the way Vitamin E helps wounds heal.
• Loss of Evil: Bullying isn't merely unfortunate, inevitable, concerning and so on--in prolonged and intense cases it's actually evil, which is among the most antiquated beliefs and words today. Fundamentally, this unique expression of evil stems from what Dante described as "cupiditas." For Dante and other Middle Ages thinkers and philosophers, the sins that spring from that root are the most extreme, or "sins of the wolf." This spiritual condition is the worst of all, in that whatever exists outside oneself has worth only as it can be exploited or consumed by one's self. People aren't people to those ensnared by cupiditas. They are commodities, meant to be consumed, exploited and even ravaged the way a wolf treats its prey and the way Bullies treat Targets. Remind you of anyone you know? Remarkably, such people tend to think that they are very moral. I have known three people ensnared by cupiditas. All have stellar church attendance and do not swear. Hitler was opposed to drinking, swearing, premarital sex, and so on. By drifting from a fundamental understanding of evil, we have drifted from a fundamental strategy to oppose and if possible transform it, leaving us with various expressions of appeasement, which are historically anemic and dangerous. As a society, we are going into battle against bullying with the wrong weapons.
• Cowardice: Most Bystanders know and feel that bullying is wrong. They usually don't need an adult to tell them. But what they need help with is overcoming a common vice, or as the Bible lists it, a sin (Rev. 21:8): Cowardice. Our children, daily, are succumbing to this vice and sin when they have the power to act and help a Target, but they don't because they listened to fear more than doing the right thing afraid. The Greek word for manliness, andreia, is the same word that represents the virtue of the warrior--bravery and courage. When you think of what it means to be manly today, do these two words come to mind? Can we say with a straight face that courage is on the rise? More likely, it's convenient opposite has grown in popularity, which is tragic since male athletes often set the moral thermostat in schools.        

Bullying will get better, but only in pockets of resistance. Let us help you. For proven solutions, go to: www.theprotectors.org

How do I get the most out my HS teacher evaluations?

A School Success Excellence grade.jpg

A - Ask your students!

Guest post by Dr. David Balik

I’ll never forget when one of my doctoral professors warned us as a cohort that we’d better have a dissertation topic that we’re really interested in, so that when “the going gets tough” and we’re grinding our way through the writing and the research, the level of interest and excitement we have towards our subject matter will carry the day, and help keep us going. After ditching my first topic because it didn’t meet the aforementioned litmus test, I continued to search for a meaningful topic that would actually add something to the over-all “conversation” in education today. I soon realized that it was right under my nose!

Three years ago, along with the support and guidance of my Superintendent (Dr. Barrett Mosbacker), I developed a “Student Feedback Survey” that we determined would be carefully incorporated into our Faculty evaluation process, at the high school level. Part of this decision was driven by my reading and research on teacher evaluations, and their relative uselessness where instructional improvement and student learning were concerned. Case in point: the Department of Education recently released data that shows 96.8 percent of teachers and 93.8 percent of principals evaluated received satisfactory or “proficient” ratings. While most teachers and principals across the country received a state 'satisfactory' rating, officials – including the Secretary of Education - say that means there's something wrong with the evaluation system used to rate them. One spokesman said, “It is very difficult for me to rationalize how a state can have virtually 100 percent of educators evaluated as satisfactory when, based on the statewide assessment, one-in-four students are scoring below proficient in reading, and one-in-three are scoring below proficient in math.” What’s more disturbing, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), more than half of our 4th and 8th grade students are scoring below proficient in math and reading. I believe these results are a clear indication that our current evaluation system is in major need of change. Herein lies the problem.... across much of the United States, the system of teacher evaluation is old and outdated, and does not accurately assess or evaluate teachers in such a way as to truly promote better instruction and improved student learning.

Teacher ratings are most commonly associated with student evaluations at the college or university level. Student evaluations can be used in both formative and summative systems (Peterson, 2000). That distinction is critically important because the two goals require different techniques and personnel. Student evaluations are formative when their purpose is to help teachers improve and enhance their skills. This seems to work especially well when used during a semester to determine what practices are working well and which are not, to pinpoint needed changes, and to guide those changes. Student evaluations are summative when they are used to assess the overall effectiveness of an instructor, particularly for tenure and/or promotion decisions.

The use of student rating evaluations in assessing teacher performance has received considerable attention in the literature for many years. They began in the 1920s, when Harvard students published assessments of their professors’ effectiveness. The first published form for collecting student ratings, the Purdue rating scale of instruction, was released in 1926.

Important, useful, and reliable data about teacher performance can be obtained through student feedback. Students are good sources of information because they are the objects of the instruction, have closely and recently observed a number of teachers, have the subjective bias of students, and benefit directly from good teaching.

According to Peterson (2000), “seventy years of empirical research on teacher evaluation shows that current practices do not improve teachers or accurately tell what happens in classrooms. Administrator reports do not increase good teachers’ confidence or reassure the public about teacher quality” (p. 18). Peterson (2000) goes on to assert that teacher evaluation as presently practiced does not identify innovative teaching so that it can be adopted by other teachers. Despite these obvious and long-standing problems, many schools continue to rely on principal reports.

Common sense suggests that the most effective form of student evaluation for formative purposes would include ongoing assessment combined with teacher response over the course of a semester or year. There are several studies that explored the impact of student feedback with consultation on teacher performance, student attitudes, and student learning. For instance, two different meta-analyses conducted by Cohen and L’Hommedieu, Menges, and Brinko (1990) indicate that teachers who received mid-term student ratings feedback and peer or administrative consultation showed significant improvement in teaching effectiveness. In a more recent study (Hampton & Reiser, 2004), final student rating results revealed significant differences in favor of the assessment/feedback/assessment model on teaching practices, ratings of teaching effectiveness, and student motivation. Similarly, a study conducted indicated that feedback with consultation provided statistically significant changes in the overall effectiveness of instructors.

Research also shows that students of teachers who received feedback and consultation demonstrated more positive attitudes than students whose teachers did not receive feedback and consultation (Hampton & Reiser, 2004). They found that teachers receiving student feedback and consultation had higher ratings from their students in relation to how interesting their subject area was thought to be. In another study at a large university that addressed the ratings of 263 teachers, different treatment groups showed significant differences in personal interest towards courses. Furthermore, teachers in the feedback and consultation group were rated higher according to the overall value of the course.

Today, student evaluation is being promoted by the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and led by more than a dozen organizations, including Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and University of Washington, Educational Testing Service, RAND Corporation, the National Math and Science Initiative, the New Teacher Center, Cambridge Education, Teachscape, Westat, and the Danielson Group.

            Partnering with nearly 3,000 volunteer teachers in six school districts around the country, the MET Project is based on three simple premises:

1.when feasible, an evaluation should include students’ achievement gains,

2.any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations, student feedback) should be demonstrably related to student achievement gains, and

3.most importantly, the measure should include feedback on specific practices that can support professional development.

Launched in 2009, the preliminary findings of the MET project stated

any measure of teacher effectiveness should support the continued growth of teachers, by providing actionable data on specific strengths and weaknesses. Even if value-added measures are valid measures of a teacher’s impact on student learning, they provide little guidance to teachers (or their supervisors) on what they need to do to improve. Therefore, the goal is to identify a package of measures, including student feedback and classroom observations, which would not only help identify effective teaching, but also point all teachers to the areas where they need to become more effective teachers themselves. (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2011, p. 5)

            Students in the MET classrooms were asked to report their perceptions of the classroom instructional environment. The Tripod survey, developed by Harvard researcher Ron Ferguson and administered by Cambridge Education, assesses the extent to which students experience the classroom environment as engaging, demanding, and supportive of their intellectual growth. The survey asks students in each of the MET classrooms if they agree or disagree with a variety of statements, including “My teacher knows when the class understands, and when we do not”; “My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class”; and “When I turn in my work, my teacher gives me useful feedback that helps me improve.” 

            The goal is for students to give feedback on specific aspects of a teacher’s practice, so that teachers can improve their use of class time, the quality of the comments they give on homework, their pedagogical practices, and their relationships with their students.

            Despite the work of the MET project, the vast majority of the research on student evaluations has been done at the college and university level. Even so, research on the impact of midterm feedback to instructors is almost nonexistent (Mertler, 1996). In an exhaustive literature review of these studies, Finley and Crawley (1993) found that about 80% of studies concern higher education. Less research has been done at the high school level (Peterson, 2000; Smith & Brown, 1976; Traugh & Duell, 1980), and even less real application of this method occurs in high schools (Levin, 1979). Hanna, Hoyt, and Aubrecth (1983) stated that student evaluations at the high school level have been largely neglected. That is why initiatives like the MET Project, and this study are critical to research of high school students.

Teacher evaluation is an integral component of a teacher’s professional career. Nevo noted that evaluations are usually perceived as a means to control, motivate, and hold accountable teachers, including firing them for poor performance. He also concluded that evaluations have the reputation of being harmful rather than helpful to teachers.

            Current evaluation methods are seriously flawed. The system relies often on untrained evaluators lacking time, expertise, and resources needed to accomplish the task. Most current teacher evaluations serve only a summative function and thus have little effect on professional development. Many researchers recommend methods providing better feedback to meet this formative function.

            Student evaluations are not the only basis for instructional improvement, but they are a cost-effective, readily available technique that provides a unique perspective–that of the education consumer. As Cashin mentioned “… extensive review of literature indicates that in general student ratings tend to be statistically reliable, valid, relatively free of bias, and useful, probably more so than any other form of data used for teacher evaluations”. Therefore, when properly constructed and administered, student ratings can provide valid and reliable data for both formative and summative purposes.

            Teachers exposed to student feedback should understand how it can provide a valuable and useful review of their present practices, and a basis for modifying those practices to improve instruction. 

When Schools Go to War

Guest Article by John C. Littleford , Senior Partner, Littleford and Associates

When Schools Go to War

Recently, a client sent this Consultant the following note. 

“Gentlemen:

Over the last several days, we have learned that certain “concerned” members have organized a group with the intention of removing some or all of the Board. We have further learned that this group has sought members’ signatures to call a General Meeting, the sole purpose of which is to remove the Board. The formal removal of a Board is a method used when board members or the Board as a whole have committed egregious acts, failed to fulfill duties or have fallen into a conflict of interest.  Clearly, none of these are the case.

Though the Board has achieved many successes this year, especially in the areas of finance, fiscal management, control and governance, it continues to be plagued by the effects of seemingly unpopular policy changes in the dining room.   Perhaps we changed too much too quickly, and should have communicated the vision more effectively. But, I assure you we forged ahead with the best of intentions.  Though I believe we did an exceptional job delivering our mission statement, it appears it is no longer an accurate statement of our purpose.

The “Concerned Members” say it themselves: “no problem with the core operation.”

Unfortunately, these feelings have been further fueled with gossip, rumored terminations, misinformation, and accusations of micro managing. Though we could refute every allegation, what would we achieve?  Members have likely heard enough and just want not be mired in a political debate. 

A General Meeting to remove the board is an extreme remedy to deal with this matter. No one has done anything egregious. So, to avoid an otherwise divisive and confrontational General Meeting, and in the best interests of all, I hereby tender my resignation.” 

What School is this? It is actually a Country Club Manager responding to the events noted above. But this Consultant has seen similar letters throughout the world coming from heads of schools to their boards, and often responding to “concerned parents” or “concerned alumni” or “concerned faculty.” 

A few years ago, these kinds of “concerned” notes might appear on the bulletin board of the faculty work room, but increasingly they appear on the Internet, in blogs, some of which are vicious in tone. Or they may appear simply as an e mail “blast” to the entire board or entire parent/alumni community. I have seen one on the inside community page of a local newspaper where disgruntled teachers took out an ad to attack the administration and board.

Lessons Learned

There are messages in the letter above that have equal relevance to schools as well as other organizations, profit or nonprofit. 

The “concerned” members’ tactic is an old one. Often the “concerned” parties do not sign their names so we cannot ascertain whether there is a strong movement afoot or there are simply one or a few disgruntled individuals.

The “General Meeting” reminds this Consultant of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) that takes place in many schools in Canada and worldwide.  These can be simple, sparsely attended sessions, which is actually a good thing.  A crowded “annual AGM usually means trouble as some angry group of parents and/or staff is attending for the purpose of berating or overthrowing the board or school leadership.

Managing constituent relations is a key responsibility of school and other nonprofit leaders and their boards.  Not managing them well leaves to frequent board turbulence which spills over to the school or the nonprofit.  The same holds true for the leadership of for profit companies.

The comments about pace of change in the letter above are key and on target. Many new heads are fired early in their tenure because they change even the seemingly most minor procedures or policies too quickly, often at the board’s insistence.  When the new head has not yet built up enough “political capital” to institute some basic and often needed changes, the rank and file faculty will become riled, feeling that the new leader does not understand the mission, culture or traditions. The comments from the manager above about healthy governance and a healthy fiscal structure can mean little to those most attached to “the way we have always done this.” 

One new Head of School arrived to find a mascot that in his mind was a throwback to an earlier time and symbolic of historic rivalries. In even suggesting a change or the thought of one, she ignited a firestorm. Her good intentions were not respected and she was criticized for being an outsider who did not understand the local culture.  

The letter above illustrates two out of the three reasons that heads/directors are “fired”:  managing the type and pace of change poorly (even if the board demands the change); and becoming the “scapegoat” in an incident that simply takes over the life of the school or entity.  The third reason (and the most common one) is a lack of institutional memory on boards due to frequent turnover of trustees which could have played a role in the case above as well.

How to Avoid the “War”

Schools go to war with themselves, when the well intentioned highly emotional board members or constituents, who cannot listen openly to another usually broader point of view, wreak havoc. In our previous Newsletter, entitled “Who Fires the Head” we talked about a case of a long term Chair and Head. The head was in danger after the Chair was forced out in a skillfully orchestrated coup d’état.  The person who engineered that result has now resigned from the Board, leaving the Board a healthier place and the Head with possibly a longer tenure. That board member had often manipulated parent opinion to further his own goals which I am sure he felt were aligned with the best interest of the School. 

Annual sessions on board governance can help avoid these problems. Many schools assume that they only need governance training if they are in trouble and that “generative” think is the next new horizon in board governance. In this Consultant’s experience governance training for all boards needs to be annual and “generative” thinking on the highest strategic level can only occur when boards are truly wise enough and mature enough to rise above the petty issues that so often challenge our schools and boards. Even the oldest, wealthiest schools with some of the most powerful board members fall into these traps of not knowing how to manage constituent unrest or perceived unrest. 

Here is one final piece of advice: always have at least one to three CEO’s of publicly held companies on your board. They tend to have the training to see the larger picture and have a more long term strategic vision. Most of our boards are dominated by good hearted, well intentioned and successful lawyers, financiers, accountants, marketing and HR people, but they do not have even one CEO of a large publicly held company. This speaks again to the key role of the committee on trustees/policy committee, which is the most important committee of any board (and includes the functions of board development and nominations as part of its role). 

Guest Article by John C. Littleford , Senior Partner, Littleford and Associates

When Schools Go to War

Recently, a client sent this Consultant the following note. 

“Gentlemen:

Over the last several days, we have learned that certain “concerned” members have organized a group with the intention of removing some or all of the Board. We have further learned that this group has sought members’ signatures to call a General Meeting, the sole purpose of which is to remove the Board. The formal removal of a Board is a method used when board members or the Board as a whole have committed egregious acts, failed to fulfill duties or have fallen into a conflict of interest.  Clearly, none of these are the case.

Though the Board has achieved many successes this year, especially in the areas of finance, fiscal management, control and governance, it continues to be plagued by the effects of seemingly unpopular policy changes in the dining room.   Perhaps we changed too much too quickly, and should have communicated the vision more effectively. But, I assure you we forged ahead with the best of intentions.  Though I believe we did an exceptional job delivering our mission statement, it appears it is no longer an accurate statement of our purpose.

The “Concerned Members” say it themselves: “no problem with the core operation.”

Unfortunately, these feelings have been further fueled with gossip, rumored terminations, misinformation, and accusations of micro managing. Though we could refute every allegation, what would we achieve?  Members have likely heard enough and just want not be mired in a political debate. 

A General Meeting to remove the board is an extreme remedy to deal with this matter. No one has done anything egregious. So, to avoid an otherwise divisive and confrontational General Meeting, and in the best interests of all, I hereby tender my resignation.” 

What School is this? It is actually a Country Club Manager responding to the events noted above. But this Consultant has seen similar letters throughout the world coming from heads of schools to their boards, and often responding to “concerned parents” or “concerned alumni” or “concerned faculty.” 

A few years ago, these kinds of “concerned” notes might appear on the bulletin board of the faculty work room, but increasingly they appear on the Internet, in blogs, some of which are vicious in tone. Or they may appear simply as an e mail “blast” to the entire board or entire parent/alumni community. I have seen one on the inside community page of a local newspaper where disgruntled teachers took out an ad to attack the administration and board.

Lessons Learned

There are messages in the letter above that have equal relevance to schools as well as other organizations, profit or nonprofit. 

The “concerned” members’ tactic is an old one. Often the “concerned” parties do not sign their names so we cannot ascertain whether there is a strong movement afoot or there are simply one or a few disgruntled individuals.

The “General Meeting” reminds this Consultant of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) that takes place in many schools in Canada and worldwide.  These can be simple, sparsely attended sessions, which is actually a good thing.  A crowded “annual AGM usually means trouble as some angry group of parents and/or staff is attending for the purpose of berating or overthrowing the board or school leadership.

Managing constituent relations is a key responsibility of school and other nonprofit leaders and their boards.  Not managing them well leaves to frequent board turbulence which spills over to the school or the nonprofit.  The same holds true for the leadership of for profit companies.

The comments about pace of change in the letter above are key and on target. Many new heads are fired early in their tenure because they change even the seemingly most minor procedures or policies too quickly, often at the board’s insistence.  When the new head has not yet built up enough “political capital” to institute some basic and often needed changes, the rank and file faculty will become riled, feeling that the new leader does not understand the mission, culture or traditions. The comments from the manager above about healthy governance and a healthy fiscal structure can mean little to those most attached to “the way we have always done this.” 

One new Head of School arrived to find a mascot that in his mind was a throwback to an earlier time and symbolic of historic rivalries. In even suggesting a change or the thought of one, she ignited a firestorm. Her good intentions were not respected and she was criticized for being an outsider who did not understand the local culture.  

The letter above illustrates two out of the three reasons that heads/directors are “fired”:  managing the type and pace of change poorly (even if the board demands the change); and becoming the “scapegoat” in an incident that simply takes over the life of the school or entity.  The third reason (and the most common one) is a lack of institutional memory on boards due to frequent turnover of trustees which could have played a role in the case above as well.

How to Avoid the “War”

Schools go to war with themselves, when the well intentioned highly emotional board members or constituents, who cannot listen openly to another usually broader point of view, wreak havoc. In our previous Newsletter, entitled “Who Fires the Head” we talked about a case of a long term Chair and Head. The head was in danger after the Chair was forced out in a skillfully orchestrated coup d’état.  The person who engineered that result has now resigned from the Board, leaving the Board a healthier place and the Head with possibly a longer tenure. That board member had often manipulated parent opinion to further his own goals which I am sure he felt were aligned with the best interest of the School. 

Annual sessions on board governance can help avoid these problems. Many schools assume that they only need governance training if they are in trouble and that “generative” think is the next new horizon in board governance. In this Consultant’s experience governance training for all boards needs to be annual and “generative” thinking on the highest strategic level can only occur when boards are truly wise enough and mature enough to rise above the petty issues that so often challenge our schools and boards. Even the oldest, wealthiest schools with some of the most powerful board members fall into these traps of not knowing how to manage constituent unrest or perceived unrest. 

Here is one final piece of advice: always have at least one to three CEO’s of publicly held companies on your board. They tend to have the training to see the larger picture and have a more long term strategic vision. Most of our boards are dominated by good hearted, well intentioned and successful lawyers, financiers, accountants, marketing and HR people, but they do not have even one CEO of a large publicly held company. This speaks again to the key role of the committee on trustees/policy committee, which is the most important committee of any board (and includes the functions of board development and nominations as part of its role). 

Computer Labs and Labrador Ducks

Computer Labs and Labrador Ducks

Guest Post by Mr. Mark Kennedy, ACSI Canada

They’re extinct now, Labrador Ducks. And they hold the dubious distinction of being the first North American species on record to disappear from the continent, beating out the passenger pigeon by some 36 years. It wasn’t that they were over hunted. They tasted bad so weren’t worth shooting. It appears that they simply couldn’t adapt to the changing environment around them.

School computer labs may be heading in the same direction because of the changing technological environment in education. For many students, the things we’ve been teaching in those labs are redundant. Students already know them and are sometimes way ahead of us. The adaption that is most appropriate for schools serving a tech savvy generation is integrating technology into every subject. It isn’t just a matter of giving a laptop, or notebook or tablet to every student, although that would be a good start. It’s about training, or in some cases, retraining our teachers to make the most effective use of technology in order to improve student learning and raise the quality of Christian school education.

I don’t think technological change in education is going to disappear any time soon. But if we don’t learn to adapt to it our schools just might. Sort of like the Labrador Duck.