BIG CHANGES COME FROM FOCUSING ON TEACHER AGENCY
A 4CTL Case Study from Callaghan College, Waratah Campus, 2022
THE STORY SO FAR
AT CALLAGHAN COLLEGE WARATAH
As told AT OUR NOV 2022 NETWORK DAYS, by Margo BOWEN from Callaghan College Waratah Campus
Ponder this quote: How we are is what it becomes – Barry Svigals
Can you define for yourselves what this might mean?
Svigals means that the way you are in a process determines the outcomes. The openness you decide to bring, the willingness to dislodge firmly held assumptions, the ways in which you listen, the ways in which you connect to your fellow human, the risks you take….all show up in the final product.
For us at Callaghan College Waratah this captures an essential quality in learning.
We shifted our language and focus away from ‘Professional Learning’ and instead shaped the vision to be articulated as the Professional Learner. The distinction may seem insignificant, but quite the contrary. It has galvanized our capacity to design learning that places the learner at the centre. Our values for guiding the learner became courage over comfort, spirit of endeavour and long term stamina.
As the school shifted the paradigm of learning towards transformation, some common myths arose. The two main culprits being “this is just another thing” and “I already do this”. The way we tackled each is discussed more in the write up below. The Story So Far - Callaghan College.
We determined it is a mistake to focus on ‘teacher buy-in’. Instead we focused on making processes that enabled teachers to use aspects of themselves that were previously missing from Professional Learning. If the learning process didn’t create the opportunity for interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive skills - it didn’t make the cut. Courage over comfort.
Though it can be tempting to measure the amount of ‘buy-in’ from staff, this thinking needs to be challenged. We have determined it is more useful to see it as a circuit. An interesting feature of a circuit is - the higher the current, the lower the resistance. Current and resistance have an inverse relationship. We began to differentiate PL to include a massive range of options, including one-on-one PL. The goal being - to meet every learner where they’re at. To keep their current flowing as high as possible (and in doing so, lower resistance)
Choice is not differentiation. So it’s important to note each level of learning was strategically designed to maximize the chances of keeping them authentically engaged in their own current.
To harness this into collective efficacy we ensured that the myth of 4C being ‘another thing’ was well and truly busted. We did this via deep, unrelenting messaging and reflection about our one goal - Agency. We explicitly and frequently say “There is only one goal at this school. Agency”. It is not a thing. It is THE thing.
Now that there is clarity, everything we do in PL serves THE thing.
Beyond the professional learner is where the story becomes even more transformative. We took the goal of agency and used it as a lens to everything we do and everything we are. Like the Svigals quote, we tuned into noticing who we are within the things we do. This led to, amongst other things, a complete and powerful evolution of three things things:
The way we meet
The way we lead
The way we think
Inspired by Priya Parker - “we do not leave human interaction to chance”. We strategically and explicitly began our learning of 4C Coherence makers with Noticing, Alert To Messaging, Enabling Voice and asking Why? Really Why?
The thing we are attempting to make coherent is us.
This is the vital learning we would like to share with the network.
A version of part of this complex story is below.