Some insights after reading “Transforming Schools: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement” by Allison Zmuda, Robert Kuklis, Everett Kline
ASCD, 2004

While browsing through google books, I came across this book, and I found it very inspirational, so I wanted to share some of the insights in it with others through this blog. I intend to continue to publish similar insights from other sources I come across in the future. The book suggests a continuous improvement model for principals and teachers. It focuses on increasing staff motivation and collaboration to create a shared vision and effort for improvement.
This book uses a fictional school environment and imaginary school people to recommend a constant development scheme for administrators and teachers. It outlines a plan to increase staff engagement and collaboration to create a shared vision and improvement efforts.
The authors point out that a competent school system can be achieved through establishing a shared vision of the school as a complex living system with a purpose made possible through systems thinking and collegial discussions. The objective is to analyze the assumptions that preserve the current system by recognizing complexities and conflicts.
Establishing and maintaining a competent system may require fundamental changes in how the school community views itself and defines the relationships among its members. This change can include the following transformation
*Leaders and coworkers should see the school system as a whole instead of separate and independent.
* The staff members should build a reality based on internal and external information instead of untested assumptions.
* The staff must transform their work devotion from being focused only on individual work in school or classroom to sharing and critically examining their own practice with others as trusted members of the school community and stop acting only out of self-interest.
* Teachers should stop seeing student achievements in terms of individual efforts of teachers rather than the product of a program.
To manage such complex and significant transformations, leaders and coworkers at the school must carefully consider how time and resources can be used effectively for staff development.