Quality in Education

Thanks to Leon at ASQ for providing the topic for this entry. Leon commented on the last entry (“In the Absence of Direction, People will Set Their Own”) and asked the questions “How did the kids respond?” and “How did the adults respond?” These are excellent questions that I thought warranted some discussion.

To answer Leon’s question regarding the lunch situation in the last entry – we realized that we needed to implement a back-up system for the lunch periods to address the “outside the comfort zone” affect that schedule changes create for this particular group of students. What didn’t seem to be an issue for groups in the past has all of the sudden become a “probletunity” for making adjustments to our way of thinking.

Clearly, paying attention to how students respond to our processes is critical to the success of improvement efforts. That valuable feedback provides us with evidence that our efforts are – or are not – having the desired impact. Continually asking ourselves how our students are responding to our efforts puts the focus where it needs to be – on the stake holders.

Perhaps of more importance is the question “How do we respond when our current systems do not produce the desired outcomes?” It’s easy to find a system that works for us and continue to use it because we have seen results in the past. However, frequent feedback from our students (and other stake holders) may dictate that we adjust our systems on a regular basis to meet their needs – not ours – at the time. In my experience, the idea of making paradigm shifts is, to say the least, uncomfortable for people. I’ve also learned over time that being taken outside our comfort zone from time to time is what makes us grow and reach for something better.

How comfortable are you with your current systems and how do you respond when your systems aren’t producing the desired results?

Paul

Posted by Paul Hayes at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The recent weather in Iowa is worthy of the record books. Late starts, early dismissals, and all out closings have been occurring weekly – making it difficult to maintain consistency and focus (just one of my excuses for not making an entry lately). We as adults often find it difficult to deal with situations that are outside our normal routine. Students, too, are beginning to feel the stress of change and unpredictability. What better opportunity to write about the power of setting direction and maintaining focus?
As the result of one of our late starts this week, the lunch shifts needed to be adjusted. Typically, our 250 8^th graders eat lunch in two shifts. On this day, they all ate together. I volunteered to supervise the lunch shift to help maintain some order in the face of an uncommon situation. By this time in middle school, 8^th graders have eaten hundreds of lunches in our cafeteria and are well aware of the expectations and procedures. It was assumed that they would rise to the occasion and conduct themselves in a “business as usual” manner, so no direction was given about how to proceed. While I wouldn’t describe the 30 minutes that followed as chaotic, some students were confused and others took advantage of the latitude the new circumstances provided.
As leaders of Continuous Improvement, it’s easy for us to assume that the direction we set at the start of an endeavor will be consistently followed. After all, we are working with professionals who have been doing this for a long time and who are focused on improving the state of education. However, just as 8^th graders are thrown by the introduction of a new scenario, in the absence of direction, we as adults are going to create our own route. Some will head straight down the road while others will veer off on a side road or pull over to the side. As leaders, we must routinely remind people of the destination in an attempt to reduce confusion and maintain focus on the goals for reaching it, particularly in the face of change and unpredictability.
I intend to share the lunch story above with the staff in our building at our next in service meeting as a prelude to revisiting where we are on the Continuous Improvement highway. What’s your plan for keeping CI in the sights of your staff?

Paul

Posted by Paul Hayes at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)