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To grow and flourish, everything needs stability. For a plant to take root, the soil must be healthy, nutrient-dense, and steady. The weather must be amiable and reliable. Every part of the equation must be working cohesively, in sync, and able to rely on one another to push on towards the future until the results of that growth are clear, petals blossoming into the sky.
I’m not a gardener, but my experiences have helped show me how to nurture this kind of cultural development – how to create an environment that allows students, teachers, and educators to develop to their full potential together.
School culture is vital. What the students see, hear, and feel at school shapes the entire learning environment. Children learn best in a stable, harmonious environment where there is a genuine sense of momentum – of everybody pushing in one direction together.
Of course, this is especially vital after the recent years’ disruption of children’s education worldwide, and the ramifications of that, which will reverberate for the years to come. It has fallen to teachers and administrators to help rebuild that stability and restore a healthy sense of normality to students’ lives while also trying to overcome the advanced rates of teacher burnout that accompanied that disruption.
The relationship between administrators – whether they be principals, vice principals, or superintendents – and teachers is as vital as the bond between students and the adult staff. It is what creates the foundation for the school that everything else fits into.
Whether it is concerning changes to the curriculum, adopting different aims and standards, or defining the terms of parental outreach, the administrators create the structures and shapes that teaching staff have to fit into.
Similarly, these structures created by the administrators rely on the teaching staff to actually have any effect. They should be seen as parts of one interlocking whole, connected parts that fit together smoothly into one cohesive, propulsive system, bonded together through interpersonal connections, shared goals, and work-based team building.
There are, of course, many different techniques and ideas to improve school environments. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all miracle cure.
It is important for administrators and staff to listen to one another, be honest and authentic about what they are trying to achieve, and be realistic about where they are on that journey.
Be present and available, offering constructive advice while being engaged in a collaborative decision-making process in which people feel heard. Throughout my life, I have seen the radical effect that this feeling of having responsibility can have for personal and group empowerment and cohesion.
From the top down, the bottom up, internal and external, it is possible to remodel a whole school culture if staff and administrators collaborate.
These more general approaches are why specific, team-focused, play-based approaches can work so effectively. They create the conditions for professional personal interaction, getting to know each other as real people. More active than listening to a motivational speaker, they are a guided way of engaging with each other around shared goals.
In my experience, House of Cards is one of the most effective forms of these team-building group activities. The game is designed to show people how to come together in order to overcome obstacles.
Participants are split into groups of even numbers, and each receives a set of cards. The aim is simple: they have to construct a house of cards that is steady and robust enough to stand on its own.
Of course, things aren’t that simple. Half of the group can only use their non-dominant hands.
If, or perhaps when, the cards fall, everybody must start over, with each person swapping to their other hand. Whenever more cards fall, repeat the switch. The group that has built the highest during the set time limit is crowned victorious.
It’s a simple game but one that works to set people in new environments and at new ability levels where the only way forward is together.
Every school culture should be built on the foundation of a strong working relationship between teachers and administrators. From day one, this core bond is essential to creating the atmosphere in which learning can flourish.
There is some advice in the words above, but each school culture is different, each set of students, teachers, and administrators are their own, unique people and require an approach that is tailored to them. Get in touch to discuss how we can create the environment for the next generation of students to grow, thrive, and blossom.
