School Culture (Part 5: Creatures of Habit)

We are all creatures of habit. We find our routines as individuals just as we settle into routines in our interactions as groups. Looking at the interactions through a discourse lens, we can identify discourse routines. Even the children in Golding’s Lord of the Flies, without any external influences, developed novel adaptations to their daily routines suitable for interactions in their new deserted island context. There was a brief period of adjustment for the children and the vivid detail of this account led me to suspect that Golding must have been a teacher at some stage and arrived late to playground duty one too many times. Regardless of the source of his inspiration, the scenario is believable, as we know that our interactions fall into routines and these routines can change. Discourse routines are malleable.?

Schools are complex systems and the telling of the story becomes one of the numerous elements of the system, all of which interact with each other in unpredictable ways, not only influencing the way other elements function but changing their very nature. As the school's story was originally crafted from the dominant ideas emerging from day-to-day interactions, representing the core values of the school community, it is these interactions that the story can impact. School culture emerges from these day-to-day interactions.?

It is here that complexity theory and discourse theory are on the same page. For example, Hendrick (2009) states that in a complex system, macro-level outcomes are the result of numerous micro-level interactions. Referring to discourse, Gee (2003, 2005) describes small ‘d’ discourse as individual utterances (language in use), while from these emerge capital ‘D’ discourse as meaning-making at the societal level (or the community level on a smaller scale). The macro-level outcome from complexity theory and the capital ‘D’ discourse from discourse theory are what we experience as ‘culture’. We all know that if everyone is treating everyone with respect on a day-to-day basis, we could guess that the nature of the school culture would reflect this. We see this connection every day in our schools.

As a shift in day-to-day interactions is our target when we attempt to deepen a school culture, we can consider this process as a community learning experience. Just like any learning process, we are hoping to build on existing skills, knowledge, understanding, and attitudes. For this reason, when telling our story, it is not a bad idea to build on existing discourse routines - the patterns in our interactions that we inevitably fall into, oftentimes without conscious thought. These patterns emerge naturally and are important starting points. Identify some that you want to nudge in a particular direction and get to it.

The example that I would like to use today is the ubiquitous school assembly. We held regular whole school assemblies where all of our students, from the 3-year-olds to the 18-year olds, would gather, and we were small enough to be able to do this. As part of this assembly, we presented the primary classes with learner profile awards for students who had been recognised for displaying a particular learner profile attribute. We didn't do this in secondary school and this was for no particular reason—it just wasn't part of our routine. These assembly-based recognitions are a good example of a discourse routine that can be easily shifted to help tell a story. Everyone is already gathered, and we are already providing recognition, so why not add an element to this existing discourse routine to help tell our story better?

I had been considering this when I visited London in 2019 for a Principal’s Training Centre (PTC) workshop, which was great, by the way, as always. While checking into my hotel, I noticed that there was an appreciation form rather than a feedback form on the front desk. Guests could fill this out to express appreciation to specific hotel staff: front desk, restaurant, cleaning staff; grounds staff etc. The prompt on the card was, ‘You made my day by...’ There was a brief explanation that every staff member was dedicated to making guests feel as welcome as possible and the hotel wanted to recognise their work behind the scenes. It said that the hotel manager would personally present these cards to the staff member in recognition of their contribution. I loved this idea. The hotel had taken its existing feedback forms and shifted the focus from mainly complaints about the hotel in general, or the abstract idea of the hotel, to a very specific human interaction. It wasn’t about the hotel, it was about the kind waiter who provided that much-needed coffee early in the morning. It prompted the guests to consider their interactions with the staff and I noted that the staff were very welcoming and the atmosphere was bright and friendly. I don't think this was a coincidence. People being supported in recognising a positive aspect of their organisational culture helps to deepen that same culture. A little recognition is a powerful driver of this positive cycle.?

Using this great example as inspiration, back at school we started a cross-school appreciation during assemblies using a ‘Peaceful Moments’ cards with the following instructions:?

"We encourage all of our community members to be mindful of our individual contributions to a peaceful school culture. So, if there is someone who has made your day by showing kindness, empathy or compassion (a peaceful moment) we would love to know about it so we can say thank you, too."??

This addition to the assemblies became a new routine and provided an opportunity to consider diverse identities, inclusive relationships, and a peaceful community (our school’s story) within a series of real moments in the school community, some that would bring a tear to the eye. A little more about this next time.?

References

Gee, J. P. (2003). A sociocultural perspective on early literacy development. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 30–42). New York: Guilford.

Gee, J. P. (2005). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. London: Routledge.

Hendrick, D. (2009). Complexity theory and conflict transformation: An exploration of potential and implications (Working paper 17). Centre for Conflict Resolution, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford: Bradford, UK.