Community Schools in the Netherlands, Working on New Opportunities

Community Schools in the Netherlands, working on new opportunities

Dr. J.M. Doornenbal, Hanze University for applied Sciences,

A.M. van den Berg, Hanze Universtiy for applied Sciences, National Office for Community Schools

1/ Let me first introduce myself to you. Since 2006 I work as a professor at a University of Applied Sciences, Hanzehogeschool Groningen, in particular at the faculty for education and social work. Our research domain are community schools and our main question is: What are the what- work-principles in CS, what makes a difference for children and parents?

2/ Today I want to talk with you about the role of practice based research: can it contribute to sustainable CS development? As Job already said and as you know by experience CS development leads to new questions and problems: how can we work together as professionals from different backgrounds like teachers , social workers. How can we cooperate with parents who have different moral values about upbringing? How can we build future perspectives for poor and disadvantaged children? How can we build a safe but at the same time daring environment for children so they can grow?

Our point of view is that practice based research is needed, (in contrast with theory based reserach), to find usable answers for these practical questions.

Practice based research is a big word consisting of at least two forms. I distinguish between evidence and design based research. Today I’ll go into both of them, but I will speak about design based research more in detail, because we think that although EBR is necessary and useful, design based research provides probably better opportunities to solve the practical problems professionals are confronted with.

3/ We have a problem to solve: the gap between theory and practice. There is a lot of good science and hard working professionals in CS but there are complaints at both sides. I see it as an image of people shouting at each other of the top of the roof: you do not use our new knowledge and that is not wise. And at the other side: I do not use it because it is not relevant for the my practice. You do not listen to what I need.. How can we bridge this gap. The aim of Practice based research is to bridge this gap. Do not shout at each other from the top of the roof. You will not connect. But walk on the solid ground together.

4/ The aim of evidence based research is to answer the question: do we know for sure that what we do does work as meant? (no intuition but evidence). EBR is booming in the Netherlands. The expectation is that the quality of education, youth care and youth aid will improve when professionals work with evidence based programs and methods. On their behalf, the national government wants to know if community schools make a difference for children. They commissioned a national research at the results of community schools in comparison with ‘traditional’ schools, because they want to know if their financial investments in CS are worthwhile. The main question of this research project which is just started, is: What are the results of CS for the academic performances and the social emotional skills of children and can these results be attributed to the community school movement? On a smaller scale some process evaluations have been done, but insight in the results/effects of community schools still cannot be proven.

This is the same for most programs and methods in community schools: we cannot say that they work and most community schools do not work data driven or follow the PDCA-cycle. To use data for community school development is scarcely been out of the egg.

Of course EBR is important for the community school development in the Netherlands, but is does not solve the questions of professionals in a daily context. Questions with also moral, ethical, historical and political aspects: what do I have to do when parents do not cooperate? Do I have to intervene? Is it good for children to be in school all day long? Do I have to prepare breakfast for the children in the morning or are the parents responsible for feeding their kids? DBR is involved in these kind of meaningful questions about right or wrong: about parental versus public responsibility, about different opinions about pedagogical interests of children.

5/ The aim of design based research is to develop valuable and usable solutions for those meaningful problems in the working field. So DBR is rather solution than problem orientated. Design based research contributes at theory building, as well as at innovation and improvement of the practice in community schools. The idea is that for the development of these kind of solutions practice and theory must work together.

6/ The supposition is that you need a learning community of professionals, researchers and managers to develop together, in interaction, this practical knowledge. These three groups of actors participate in this learning community from his or her own perspective. They each bring in their own expertise. But difference does not mean hierarchy. In a learning community everybody is equal. That is crucial, because to develop workable and valuable solutions you have to create an environment in which a ongoing dialogue between these actors is possible: thinking together, critical feedback, questioning. Collegial (fraternal?) collaboration is a condition for DBR. During the whole process they stay together. Also professionals can do research, reflect on questions and the pros and cons of possible solutions; they do not only apply new knowledge which is developed by researchers, they are co-constructors. Professionals are not only instrumentally acting persons but their acting in practice has by definition also a moral, historical and political character.

So, in PBR there is two-sided knowledge circulation: between the codified knowledge of researchers and the tacit knowledge based on experience of professionals.

7/ DBR follows steps of the regulative cycle (in comparison with the empirical cycle: questions, hypotheses, testing, theory refinement, application by practioners). It follows the steps of posing the problem, analyzing the problem, defining the problem, designing solutions, trying out solutions, evaluate the results: the usability of the solutions and implementation. Professionals, researchers and managers/leaders are involved in all the phases but some phases are more theoretically driven than others. And so the involvement of the three groups can change per phase.

In design based research the phases of problem defining and analyzing are pivotal. Because what is at stake is not only the technique but primarily the improvement of the practice. And the practice is not neutral but formed by politically, historically and morally involved acting professionals. So a dialogue about these political and moral judgments and appreciations is necessarily. A good start is half of the work, says on old Dutch proverb.

I am glad to introduce to you now Tonny van den Berg who will illustrate my rather abstract introduction with an example of DBR we conducted in a poor neighborhood. I can tell you that is an adventure.

Pedagogical Power in the Community, changes the ‘Open Window School’ Groningen.

Introduction

Thank you all for your interest in our work with community schools in The Netherlands. First let me introduce myself. My name is Tonny van den Berg. For two days in a week, I am a project leader at the Hanze University for the project ‘Pedagogical Power in the Community’. Jeannette is my colleague (and boss). For the remain days of the week I work as consultant for the National Office for Community Schools in the Netherlands. There Job and Dieuwke are my colleagues.

Jeannette told you about the various ways of research. I’ll go deeper into research were practice and theory meet each other: the community of learners

‘Pedagogical Power in the Community”, runs as an community of learner. The goal of this project is to improve the collaboration between professionals in order to create a better educational environment for the children.

First I’ll present a briefly the background situation of the community. After that I give you some theoretical notions about behavioral change of professionals. Next I’ll explain how we analyzed the child-related problems in the community and how we worked with the professionals to improve their work. I’ll illustrate this with one example of change: Parent involvement. In the last part of my presentation, there are some matters I want to discuss with you.

Power Neighborhood / Field problemfield

The community: De Hoogte / Indische Buurt is a so called ‘Power Neighborhood’, a euphemism for a multi problem area. It is one of the 40 most disadvantaged communities in the Netherlands. For the last 10 years there is an Open Window School, the Groninger name for a Community School. Actually it is not a real Community School. It is a partnership of two schools, childcare, playgroups, daycare centers, afterschool program, youth work, social work, health, and many other institutions. This Open Window School was a top-town set up. The municipality and the managers were involved in the creation of it, not the professionals of the institutes. The goals of the Open Window School were: create better educational opportunities for children, create a better environment for education and civil engagement.

8 Years later, the professionals in this Open Window School partnerships were very disappointed about the collaboration and were ready to stop their partnership. Many children did not well in school, there was a lot of criminality and drug addiction among teenagers, school dropout, there was a very low rate of parent involvement and as you say in the USA: it was time for a change. A group of professionals from the Open Window School came to us with the question: can you help us. We can improve, these children deserve the best but it’s so hard to give them the best. How can we cooperate better for the sake of the children.

Change / Analysis

Cooperation in the community school partnerschip. Let’s take a step back: When there was no Open Window School, there was no cooperation at all. Once that there is an Open Window School, we expect that professionals work together. But it takes so much more for professionals to really change the way they work: they need to align their agendas, to discuss the way they work, to learn from each other, to give and to take. They need to see the child and their own responsibility for the child in a broader perspective: not only your own responsibility for your part of the day, but a shared responsibility for a window of time for the children. How do you do that, what do you need for that? When the Open Window School partnership was introduced, they did not spend time and effort on this (I told already, it was a top-down decision where professionals were not involved). In the beginning of the project Pedagogical Power, we took some time to reflect on behavioral change.

Important factors for change are:

-  How do players experience the innovation, how the innovation is used in daily work and activities and how innovation contributes to improvement of work process and content (Fullen 2006).

-  A different style of leadership is needed: focus less on control but more on problem solving. The manager should initiate and support interactive and experimental behavior.

-  There should be a natural bridging between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. (Seashore Louis, 2009). Practical knowledge is the knowledge that school leaders and teachers gained through their own practical experience. Theoretical knowhow is evidence based knowhow from (experimental) science. Often practitioners use their N=1 experience as a guideline for future action. They find evidence based knowhow not practical counter intuitive and hard to understand.

-  There should be a natural bridging between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, as Jeannette explained already. (Seashore Louis, 2009).

Orientation on the problems / Analysis

Orientation: we started with an extensive period of orientation. We investigated the academic performance of the children, background information about the community, and all kind of other statistics like crime rates. In addition to that, we put out a questionnaire to diagnose the inter professional cooperation. I had individual discussions with all the managers of the key institutes: the schools, the daycare center, afterschool program, playgroup and health and youth work.

All this data we put together and we presented our findings to a meeting, were every professional in the community was invited.

Conclusion / Diagnosis

Roughly we found:

1.  In 2007 many children under 12 do well in school: The general results on language was better than the national average. A small group of children were far behind. This was a small group in one particular location.

2.  Compared to other parts of the city, more teenagers have serious problems: school dropout, drugs and criminality.

3.  All professionals were disappointed in the cooperation under the flag of the Open Window School, but they all agreed on the goals of the original set up. They want to improve but under better conditions: more hours, less projects, more continuity and better involvement;

4.  In the eyes of the professionals, parent involvement in care and education was very low and disappointing;

5.  Professionals favored cooperation on a more practical, day to day basis. (Early Childhood Education, Parent involvement; bridging the gap between primary and secondary education and the connection between ‘in school’ and ‘afterschool’ learning.)