COPS

Sometimes, people ask me stuff like, "What is the model on which you base your ideas about curriculum planning and development?"

To be honest, I don't have one of those name-branded models. I've read too much stuff to attribute my ideas to specific researchers or specific models. What I think is a reasonable answer is this: In any endeavour targeted at humans, we begin with the human basis, and then we follow up with continuations that humans can accept as rational.

Today I was chatting with an officer from the Tower of the Book. She effectively asked me that very question. So I said, "It's all about COPS!" To her quizzical look, I continued, "Culture, Organisation, Process, Sense-Making."

That was an impromptu effort, actually. But it does cover the four basic ideas I have.

In any enterprise of the human sort, you should start out by examining the state of the art, the situation, the environment, the background or context of the matter. This is Culture.

Then you organise the material you have found in a way that is easy to see, to analyse, or whatever else you want to do with it. This is Organisation.

You then work out the necessary things you have to do with the material you've organised. This is Process.

Finally, you package it nicely and sell it to other people as the fruit of your consultancy. This is called Sense-Making (although some people call it Salesmanship, Story-Telling, or Scenario-Planning).

And there you have it. A new model, just fresh off the press.

I will close by noting that the meta-skill required to do this is itself the product of such thinking. It is either cyclical or recursive. I have yet to make sense of it, but it pays the bills.

Writing a TOK Essay (Part I): Before You Begin

TOK, of course, stands for 'Theory of Knowledge'; this is the title of what is perhaps the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme's most notorious element. I used to teach people how to write TOK essays. I still do. I've done it myself a fair number of times. What impels me most forcefully into the writing of this post is the hash that some people make of it (either the teaching or the writing).

It's not a difficult task. It's just one that needs reasonably careful, self-critical and accurate writing, for fewer than ten hours of your time. The TOK essay-writing process can be broken into three general parts: surveying, writing it out, and evaluating your own work. The latter two feed off each other until you reach the final version.

Here is a list of things to do (and questions to ask) before you begin, in the survey phase.

1. Read the list of prescribed essay titles carefully. Do any of them look interesting? Can you outline a five-sentence argument (definition, approach, elaboration, examples, conclusion — or the equivalents, which are many) for one of them without looking up any sources? If so, you can cautiously conclude that this topic is a good candidate for your further attention.
2. Looking at the topic, can you pick out the key words and define them succinctly and exactly to your own satisfaction? If so, you are either very easily satisfied or you are good enough at thinking up definitions. Don't fall back on a dictionary or encyclopaedia; if you need to, you don't know the material well enough.
3. Based on the topic, are there any obvious knower's approaches, ways of knowing, or areas of knowledge that need to be addressed? If so, are you familiar with the issues associated with each of them? Which knowledge issues are implicated?
4. Do you have first-hand experience of anything related to these issues? What were your thoughts and responses like?
5. Based on the definitions you've used, can you trace a thread of argument that links the definitions, key points, and your own responses into a consistent and coherent structure?
6. If so, what conclusion will you probably reach, and is it likely to answer the question you began with?

These are very general points, but I am certain I've addressed specific issues elsewhere in this blog.

For those of you who know who I am and where my public folder is, there are some resources available in the TOK subfolder. Copyright is retained by me for some of those, so please don't abuse your public access. Apart from that, you are welcome to look around and use them to help you plan your line of attack. In the days ahead, I'll look at the writing phase and the evaluation phase. But I won't do that yet, since those of you who need to pick a topic should do that first.

The Plan: Part I – Criterion 3 Situational Appraisal (Reprise)

Criterion 3 has long been the domain of staff welfare and other staff-related enablers of action. Just recently, I had the opportunity to work with and review and international standard for staff-related matters. This standard is applied far more widely than the anaemic stuff we work with in educational circles.

Briefly, and reworded to retain confidentiality, the three subcriteria in the standard are: a plan designed to ensure rational staff recruitment procedures and follow-up; a plan designed to ensure a high level of staff retention that acknowledges the value of the staff knowledge base and loyalty; and a plan designed to provide individual coaching, staff development, and the meeting of staff aspirations (not the aspiration of staff meetings, ha ha). A close examination of this international standard reveals that international standards for fair staff appraisal, transparency and compensation are higher than local ones.

That is not to say that the actual application of those standards results in better staff-related policies. In fact, it is not common that this is so. However, the fact that such standards exist (as, for example, the human rights standards promulgated by the UN) can act as an inspiration towards better things.

Here, for example, are four maxims from the New York Academy of Sciences, regarding the making of legendary research teams (Burke, 2008). It's probably applicable to many knowledge-based enterprises.

• Hire well
• Be more guide than boss
• Do your best to foster an open, congenial, collaborative culture
• Put teaching and career development first, research second

This year the Chinese celebrate the Year of the Rat, associated with wealth, intelligence, charm, cunning and double-edged weapons. I wonder how these attributes will play out when applied to the world of human resource management. It would be very short-sighted for any institution to continue to operate with a 15-20% staff turnover rate without significant overhaul of its internal procedures.

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Reference: Burke, A.; NYAS Mag., Winter 2008, p.21.

The Plan: Part I – Criterion 3 Situational Appraisal

The staffing of a school is always important. If the human resource department is doing its job, staff are recruited in an open and transparent process which is effective at bringing in quality at rates which are competitive both for the employer and employee. Once recruited, staff develop high morale, perform well in open appraisal, are acknowledged by their colleagues for their successes and contributions, and have access to all necessary training.

This state is maintained by careful needs analysis, interviews which are constructive and open-ended, and developmental sessions which are helpful and non-threatening. This state is improved by fulfillment of training needs in a convenient and effective way, genuine team-building, proper acculturation and mentoring processes that are directed and helpful.

A negative state is often indicated, created or maintained by several obvious things. These include low but persistent unhappiness, lack of financial support, dysfunctional teams, uninspiring management or leadership, closed or opaque processes for evaluation and appraisal, and excessive effort for minimal returns in terms of acknowledgement and bonuses. A high staff turnover rate, say in excess of 5%, is also a pretty obvious indicator.

A simple question can be asked, which if answered truthfully, will reveal the perceived staff quality at all levels: "Would you recommend your immediate superior/subordinate/cubicle neighbour for a promotion in grade?" The fewer positive answers are received, the worse the situation; conversely, if everyone says yes, either they all have no clue or they are all happy with the existing quality. In any case, positive returns should mean that the school has reached steady state in morale.

Negative answers are more useful because they reveal what can be done to improve the school as a whole. In general, any problems with staff morale, welfare, competence and ability should be examined carefully to see if related school processes are inadequate or lacking. Staff should be happy, healthy, effective and clever. Sometimes, a relative lack in one of these traits as compared to the rest is enough to cause problems. The HR department must be perceptive and handle this as best as they can. At the same time, it is probably the principal or CEO of the institution who has the greatest part to play.

The Plan: Part I – Criterion 1 Situational Appraisal

Every organisation needs a plan, as Nodachi and I were talking about over the last few weeks. Coincidentally, as I was visiting the Great Powers at their little base far away from the White Tower, I bumped into a little book by John C Maxwell. Yes, there are many books by John C Maxwell, and I've read many of them in my career, but this one struck a chord.

As a leader, what kind of people are in your inner circle? That was one of the questions Maxwell posed in that book. He said a few interesting things:

1. If the organisation is to grow, the leader has to develop his inner circle.


2. If the leader doesn't develop his inner circle, the organisation will stop growing effectively and efficiently – although it may continue to grow in size and in terms of accretions.


3. If this happens, the leader is not being a leader.


4. Hence, true leadership involves the correct development of the inner circle.


5. And therefore, you can predict the future direction of an institution by looking at this inner circle.

So, what kinds of people should be in a leader's inner circle?

• People who are always improving themselves in terms of effectiveness and ability – self-starters


• People who are always improving the organisation in the same way – change managers


• People who are able to improve others likewise – mentors


• People who are able to improve the leader himself, by giving honest feedback – mirrors


• People who are going to develop all the other kinds of people – leaders

It is interesting to use this list as a rating guide for any institution that you might be in. If all five are not present, the inner circle is incomplete.

Too many leaders surround themselves with people they are comfortable with, reasoning that people who are comfortable with each other make a better team, and therefore all are 'team players'. But the 'comfortable' part is probably the least important part of being a team; the most important part is that the team carries out the functions required while ensuring that they can be replaced at short notice. This is one principle of highly effective teams.

A team that cannot be replaced with a functional unit in a short time might be an elite team, but it is certainly not good for the organisation in one specific way: it cannot ensure a smooth transition to an equal or higher level of performance in event of disruption to itself.

A team that is too comfortable internally has probably become a clique. Like any good mechanism, it functions smoothly but will be disrupted when the environment changes. But the environment changes all the time; therefore, such a team needs to be disrupted by honest and uncompromising feedback, perhaps from unlikely sources who come from one of the five 'inner circle' categories listed above.

A team that is comfortable is likely to be incomplete, because a complete inner circle is full of people who cannot accept the existing level of performance. If they did, they would not be improvers; they would be comfortable. "Iron sharpens iron, as one man sharpens another," as the Good Book says. (This is not to say that uncomfortable teams are complete – discomfort can come from dysfunction as well.)

Kipling used to say that part of growing up includes the ability to "meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same." It is particularly instructive to see how leadership copes with triumph, since 'disaster management' is the normal order of the day but 'triumph management' is not. Good triumph management fuels better performance, and not a falling-off into 'same old same old' or other mediocrity. It fuels learning and a renaissance at every corner and every step.

Lastly, leadership communicates in a way that inspires. Without at least the inspiration at human level that leads to better change management and improvement, the organisation starts to stiffen up as the leadership tries to codify previous triumphs and avoid disaster. This is not to say that reckless inspiration wins, but that inspiration should be available which does not draw upon past triumphs or the fear of future failure.

These were some random thoughts as I sat in front of the 50000-word overview of situation that came my way. I wonder if any of them will be of use. And for now, I will append Kipling's admonitory and inspirational words, as my father gave them to me.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master,
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!