Friday Afternoon Ambience
The Fictitious Example of Cranky Hollow
Friday afternoons in Cranky Hollow are riotous. Students do not listen to the lessons and because of the disruption students do not clearly understand what has been set for homework. Disgruntled students come in on Monday mornings underprepared. Across the school marks are slipping and because of a higher demand for accountability teachers and administrators are concerned about school image.
A demand for an investigation of the situation found teachers located throughout the school claiming that students were tired and their behaviour was anticipatory of the weekend approaching. There was not much that could be done about the situation. This is why teachers felt it better to opt for movies on Friday afternoon. In an attempt to lift marks they were setting homework much earlier in the week. They did this because they thought students would actually listen then. They did it this way," so that students would come to school on Monday better prepared." This approach seemed to work leaving what teachers laughingly called the "Friday Afternoon Ambience" comfortable and happy.
However the principle was concerned about lost time and continually experienced an uneasy feeling of being blackmailed and impotent. He was a humble unassuming old chap, however, he felt teachers should be empowered to feel that their classes would behave as expected without such contrived comprise.
Teachers were challenged to come up with constructive solutions to this problem. There was an expectation they would find ways to engineer proactive change within this dismal situation.
"What exactly should be investigated?" They said with eyebrows raised, adding "Isn't the question for discussion one that is already closed?"
But true to form, the feisty principle reopened the topic and refused to accept what he called "mere convenient assumptions" as an adequate depiction of reality. The gentle old soul was eventually able to persuade teachers to conduct a mini inquiry with their classes. They decided to "play along" partly because they thought they already knew what was going on.
Over time this feint hearted effort took up a momentum of its own and teachers together with their students found ways to make Friday Afternoon Ambience the most looked forward to empowering time of the week.
After the first step of deciding an issue to investigate had been attended he encouraged his staff to suspend assumptions.
"How do we ever know what someone else is thinking and what their motives really amount to?" he asked.
Now Percy the Principle was a clever little chap, so his second step was to give the teachers a little jolt. One of the initial data collection strategies was to ask the students directly what their view of the situation really was! And the second was to allow parents into the dilemma.
"Did they really know that students were just watching movies of a Friday afternoon?" he asked at a public forum. Again eyebrows twitched and then rose.
A little more compliant now teachers scurried off to start a literature search on the topic to see whether other schools faced the same problems. May be we don't need to reinvent the wheel they chimed.
Over the course of this search a behavioural expert was located and teachers suggested they ask her to the school. "This way we feel that the process will be thorough and adequately conducted," they all said together. And Percy the Pesky Principle just smiled sweetly and picked up the phone.
The expert suggested that both teachers and students keep a reflective journal.
"I am happy to do this too," said Percy.
"I am sure you are" the teaching staff replied and they scurried away to get started.
The first cycle of the process turned up a shock for all concerned. Students claimed that they felt that by Fridays the teachers did not care about what went on because the weekend was coming. They said that the teachers seemed as though they were there but never really present! They had interpreted the provision of movies as a sign that their behaviour did not matter and that Fridays were just "babysitting days" and "sigh about surfing siesta," days.
Parents were far from happy with the wasted Friday scenario. The literature search showed that when other schools had tackled the same problem they had found a similar "Blindness to respondents various insights" as it was so politely called. But with insight, foresight and not without a little hindsight, Percy the Pleasant but Pesky Principle again took the lead. He proclaimed it an "occasion for empowerment."
Under Percy's encouraging eye, the process cycled until together students, teachers and parents came up with a strategy that meant Fridays became showcase days. The only movies to be shown on this day were movies that the student had made themselves! The day would become a "performance day" so that the work students created and produced would be showcased. Other potentially empowering opportunities for exhibitions, educational market fairs etc would occur on these days.
These strategies for full teacher, student engagement were pursued with great success and the results were documented and published. However the success of the inquiry process led teachers and students alike to ask the question,
"Just how many of our assumptions do we take for granted?"
Teachers, students and parents who were now familiar with the process asked the question,
"How much impact does it have on student learning when parents are involved and engaged?"
The process progressed through many refining cycles and eventually the parents were so pleased by the impact the learning inquiry had on the children's development that they volunteered to help the students run an online multi media school magazine.
They anticipated that the success of the venture could be captured and shared with other schools in the district. This was true and those schools too, created their own magazines and discussion boards. Now district wide the movement could become even more empowering and inclusive. It was not just literacy scores and a feeling of wellbeing that soared within the school communities. District Supervisors picked up on the process, which was even further empowered by funding for publication and dissemination.
Perhaps this scenario is too good to be true, perhaps it is not. The point is that action research is cyclical and that the questions evolve as the process proceeds. Assumptions are always challenged and challengeable. Designers are encouraged to think about the fundamental nature of the cycling of the research process. They are encouraged to become ever more aware that assumptions are often unquestioningly accepted with little corroborating evidence.
The very most important point to be made is that whole cultures can change for the better when people embark upon the process called Action Research.