Ethos and effectiveness
Supplied by Fred Martin (GA, Secondary Education Section Committee)
How is the ethos in your geography department? Ethos is hard to define and you can’t measure it, but you know it is there. This fact in itself causes some people a problem because of the present culture that gives no value to what is not quantifiable. Yet ethos is as real and arguably as important as a pile of textbooks, Schemes of Work or a set of benchmarks, policies and targets. At best, you can feel it as a warm, welcoming and embracing glow. At worst, you could cut the air with a knife. An effective ethos usually lies at the heart of what makes a department really work. If the ethos is not right, then the individuals who make up a department are unlikely to perform effectively, irrespective of systems, resources and whatever individual strengths they may have as individuals.
Teamwork
The ideal departmental ethos is one that is conducive to the department working as a team. A department that works in this way is more likely to be successful than one that does not. For a minority subject such as geography, the need to do this is certainly as important as for a larger department, though perhaps for different reasons. Larger departments can share the workload by allocating tasks, often with separate posts of responsibility. In a geography department, exactly the same tasks need to be undertaken, such as ordering 30 books rather than 90, but usually without extra financial incentives. In extreme cases, even the head of geography becomes a teacher ‘i/c geography’ who is unpaid for the privilege. A positive ethos in which teachers want to work effectively as a team may have to take the place of hard currency.
The advantages of working as a team with real team spirit and participation are fairly obvious, but because this does not always happen, they are worth stressing.
- Individual expertise, ideas and resources will be shared. Geography has many different branches and no teacher can be an expert in all of them.
- Tasks can be dispersed, for example, looking after ICT developments or the field visits programme.
- There is ownership of what is taught and assessed, rather than teachers simply ‘delivering’ what a head of department lays down.
- There is a sense of belonging and desire not to let others down; something that can have a positive effect on the quality of departmental resources, such as worksheets.
- There can be a degree of being interchangeable in emergencies, for example, if a teacher is absent because of illness, field work or a course.
Working as a team may be fairly easy if members of the department work naturally in that kind of way. This however, should not be taken for granted. But whether achieved naturally or by proactive processes, the head of department has a responsibility to ensure that a collaborative ethos is in place. There is a subtle art to do this, mostly requiring interpersonal skills on the part of the head of department. Overt techniques are likely to do more harm than good. Ethos has to be the glue that brings together the corporate with the maverick, the less experienced with the more experienced, the pessimist with the optimist, the human geographer with the non-specialist teacher of geography.
Mutual respect
A starting point to developing a collaborative ethos is to ensure that every member of the team feels valued for the unique contributions that they bring. This involves having mutual respect between all members of the department. This needs to extend from the newly-qualified teacher (NQT) to the most experienced teacher. Respect needs to work in all directions. The NQT needs to appreciate that a more experienced teacher who, although out of date in some aspects of the work, still has much to contribute. Perhaps a more common danger is that the more mature teacher, who always gets good results, becomes closed to new ideas, especially from younger teachers.
Being valued should manifest itself in an ethos that celebrates success. This does not have to be something crass, obvious or formal. What colleagues need is to be noticed and encouraged by the head of department. Less experienced teachers usually have enormous respect for those who have already proved themselves in the classroom, so gaining their recognition and approval is highly valued. Even a few simple words to demonstrate recognition and appreciation can go a long way. Teachers get little enough recognition from government, children and parents, even from their own senior management. So the least the head of department can do is make the effort to keep in close touch with what members of the department are doing and to show appreciation for it.
Social issues
Some departmental teams operate effectively entirely within the work context. Others, sometimes due to genuine friendships that develop, extend relationships to social contexts. Although I do not imply any need to extend relationships beyond the work context, social interactions can play a part in helping to build the team. This can be through an annual departmental dinner or more frequent social events. Even small gestures such as bringing refreshments to a departmental meeting can help to make sure that everyone feels involved. A theme lunch based on produce from a country can combine enjoyment with business. There is however, a danger in using social interaction as a technique, no matter how well intentioned. Each member of the department is entitled to their own life and to choose their own friends. Social events can be counter-productive if one person does not want to take part. Others may regard the ‘non-attender’ as anti-social and not part of the team. But then, taking account of different viewpoints and life styles should be nothing new to geographers.
Collaborating and decision taking
A collaborative ethos can only be achieved it there are common frameworks and systems. This is where ethos and active management must come together. Teachers in a department, for example, need a common filing and storage system. Resources that are shared such as maps, past exam papers, software, worksheets and textbooks, are best kept in one central place. Filing resources such as these in individual classrooms is no way to encourage collaborative working.
There is an ethos relating to decision taking in a department that is far from straightforward. The head of department is the team leader who controls the department’s budget. The head of department, however, has no ultimate powers to ‘hire and fire’. So while being ‘responsible’, the means of authority to effect action is more limited. One mistake is to think of the ethos as if it is a democracy in which everyone has a vote to make decisions. While most staff will appreciate open discussion on issues, they will equally appreciate a head of department who is able to make clear and rationale decisions having listened and reflected. When a decision proves to be wrong, then admission of the error is also appreciated.
So even if the Schemes of Work are written by the head of department, it needs to be seen to come from an open exchange of views within the department. This approach leads to the kind of stability that allows everyone to know what everyone else is doing. Establishing stability is perhaps perversely, the most effective way not only to share ideas and resources, but also to create thinking and development time to try out new ideas.
An ethos of fairness needs to be associated with decision taking. There are many occasions where a head of department needs to take decisions that appear to favour one person or another. This can be decisive to who teaches an AS/A2-level group, allocating resources for a computer, funding for in-service training work or other occasions where limited funds involve hard choices. In a small community such as a school, there is no point in trying to hide or disguise reasons behind decisions. Although the job of a head of department is difficult enough in this respect, the job of a head of humanities faculty can be infinitely more difficult. A complication is when the head of geography is also the head of faculty, responsible for allocating capitation to work in history, geography, religious education and perhaps also to other subjects. Perceptions of favouritism need to be avoided when carving up finite resources.
Not all members of a department are overly concerned with playing a part in departmental decision taking. In particular, teachers who work in several departments may simply want to be told what to do and be given the resources to do it. Members of senior management will likewise appreciate being told what to do, as they are often unable to attend meetings. Creating any kind of ethos in a fragmented department is one of the greatest challenges to a head of department. Teachers from other departments and senior managers may have their own classroom in a location that is geographically divorced from the rest of the department. This separates them from central resources and from the kind of monitoring and support that a head of department should provide. It is hard to find a positive spin to this all too common scenario. At best, it provides the head of department with experience in managing a diverse and sometimes disinterested group of teachers. It is no accident that heads of geography are so often promoted to management positions!
Innovation
A desire to innovate at least one thing each year should be part of a department’s ethos. Without innovation, there is stagnation. Many new ideas about the very nature of geography are coming into schools from recent graduates, ideas that often lie beyond the wording of the Orders for geography. The department needs to be open to new ideas, giving individuals some scope to feel some degree of freedom to be innovative. Doing this can only come about if the head of department can show some trust in members of the department. The ‘control freak’ is not a style of leadership or management that is conducive to learning from others. It is certainly the case that nobody in a department has a monopoly on good ideas.
But innovation can bring risk - something not to be taken lightly in today’s assessment-dominated culture. It is becoming more difficult to find any year group that is not as important as any other and with whom the occasional risk might be justified. So part of the ethos has to be one that accepts the rewards for success,as well as the consequences of failure. It is often the case that an experienced teacher will see problems that are not so obvious to one who is less experienced. What needs to happen is that new ideas are handled with sensitivity, perhaps in some cases, allowing for the mistakes to be the instrument for learning.
Reflection
The ethos needs to encourage reflection on teaching practice. One way to do this is to engage in classroom research and for the results to be shared. Another is to take a trainee teacher into the department. Doing this involves having an open door approach so that others can watch you. It can also help you to analyse and evaluate your own practice. And you never know, you might even learn something new!
Enjoyment
The ethos should incorporate a strong element of enjoyment, perhaps even of fun (see Ethos Island below). Teachers are used to laughing with students. They also need to share some lighter moment with each other. If the job cannot be enjoyed, at least for some of the time, then perhaps it is time to stop. For the more mature teacher, the humour of professional cynicism is a useful tool to face up to problems and constant change. It is however, something to be used with extreme caution when in range of less-experienced teachers.
Staying sane
The head of department needs to make sure that his/her teachers can feel that they are sheltered from distractions that can prevent them from doing their job effectively. Part of doing this can involve protecting them from initiative overload. The head of department can do this quietly by filtering out the worst excesses of the latest educational agenda. New initiatives that have to be implemented need to be introduced in ways that are workable. The head of department may need to take the lead to show what can be done.
It is becoming all too easy to slip into an ethos that puts statistics before students, calculations before commonsense and targets before teaching. It is easy to be carried away with education-speak that seems to be obsessed with measuring. Teachers are being encouraged to believe that statistics of educational achievement can be measured to within an accuracy of a few percentage points. This is madness. Yet it is creating an ethos that moves the focus away from teaching and learning. Instead, there is a production line approach in which students are progressively moved from one level to the next until they finally emerge with a collective figure that meets whatever target government and the school governors have plucked from the air. An ethos of sanity and humanity is desperately needed in some departments and in some schools!
The relationship between departments creates its own tensions that are part of the general ethos. There is a real sense in which this relationship is based on an adversarial principle. If one department is allocated more time, more money, more staffing and so on, it usually means less to another. Teachers need to be confident that their head of department is capable of fighting their departmental corner at the highest levels of school management. On a more parochial level, teachers of geography, history and religious education often work in the same faculty, even teaching across different subjects. Yet the current options system creates competition between the different subjects. Teachers in this position need to find a way of working that keeps their own subject edge, but at the same time, plays a full part in ensuring the survival of the others. The phrase ‘friendly rivalry’ probably best sums up this ethos.
To conclude, the departmental ethos is something that lies at the heart of how teachers relate to each other and work together as a team. I have no hesitation in arguing that teachers in a department who work as a team will be more effective than individuals who operate on their own. It is in everyone’s interests to develop an ethos in which this can be achieved.
Ethos Island Gazetteer
Cape Celebration: you come here fairly regularly for picnics to celebrate anything that someone does well.
Collaboration confluence: the meeting place where everyone comes together to join ideas and resources so you can all flow along together.
Cynic’s Col: an older member of the department sits here watching what is going on, but does not seem able to move either further up, or go back down again.
Enjoyment Estuary: the sunshine coast of Ethos Island where you feel you can enjoy yourself.
Fairness forest: a magical forest where the head of department goes to contemplate when a difficult decision has to be made.
HoD’s headland: the head of department watches out from a lighthouse at a good vantage point to spot any incoming innovations that might be dangerous and to shine a beacon light.
Humanity hills: all members of the department go on an annual pilgrimage to Humanity Hills to ward off the evil influence of the Statistical swamp.
Innovation Inlet: new ideas sometimes land here and are welcomed by the islanders.
Isolation inselberg: some people like to sit here on their own, sometimes everyone on the island sits here.
Maverick Mountain: the island maverick lives here, sometimes causing enormous destruction, but also bringing occasional benefits.
Promotion Point: some of the leading islanders leave from here (they are sometimes pushed), but often come back as visitors.
Reflection River: when there is a problem to resolve, you throw stones in the river to watch the ripples spreading out, then you reflect on the effects of your decisions.
Respect Reef: if you miss this one, you are likely to run aground and be eaten by sharks.
Risky Rapids: the ride down Risky Rapids is great fun, but you can get very wet and sometimes badly injured.
Sea of Sanity: this is where you can go to look back at Ethos Island and get a good view of what is really happening.
Sheltered Shoreline: this is a conservation zone where you can feel secure from too much change.
Sierra Stability: the cool mountain air makes this a good place to go for a walk when the lower ground is getting too full of hot air.
Statistical Swamp (known locally as Benchmark Bog): this looks really attractive from a distance, but you can get stuck here if you go this way.
Target Tor: toughest of the Ten Tors in the annual race across the island’s Levels.
The Clear View Coast: come here to get a good view of what is happening in the outside world.
Vale of Value: the island’s most beautiful area where everyone can feel really good about themselves.