Dee Hock says, "Have a simple, clear purpose which gives rise to complex, intelligent behavior rather than complex rules and regulations that give rise to simplistic thinking and stupid behavior." If we're doing professional development well, we will see complex, intelligent behavior. If what we see is stupid, simplistic behavior, then we have failed.

Linda Darling-Hammond says it is clear "most schools and teachers cannot produce the kind of learning demanded by the new reforms--not because they do not want to, but because they do not know how, and the systems they work in do not support them in doing so."

She is making an assumption here, and she is saying something that I also hold to be true.

Take 30 seconds to formulate for yourself what you would say if you were responding to Linda Darling-Hammond's statement.

Examining our assumptions

A number of years ago, when I gave talks, I would say that I thought 95% of staff development wasn't much good. The first time I said it, I expected to be contradicted. When I got up to about the 10th or the 20th time, I thought, "I'm not going to be challenged on this. No one is going to come up to me and tell me that I'm wrong."

Why is staff development of such low quality? I wanted to go deeply into this question--past the conventional answers and into the root causes, the fundamental issues. I also wanted to find more powerful approaches to addressing the issue.

The following statements represent my claims about the problem:

1. Staff development practices associated with improving student learning aren't implemented very often.
2. Best practices don't move from classroom to classroom and around the school.
3. Most of us, professionally and otherwise, use only a small portion of what we already know.

Those are pretty big claims.

Take two minutes to talk to a colleague about your own claims or assumptions about the current status of professional development.

I created a little exercise that I would encourage you to do after you formulate your claims. I asked myself why I think each of these statements is true. For example, when I asked why there is a low level of implementation of quality staff development practices to improve student learning, I came up with four reasons (see chart in PDF version of this article):

1. The ideas and practices have not spread to all schools. People don't do what they don't know.
2. Even if the ideas or practices have been introduced, people's understanding of them is not very deep. They know the terms or the list or the guidelines, but they don't know enough to put them into practice.
3. Our current mental models - our assumptions and belief systems--support current practice. My assumption here, of course, is that our mental models affect what we do. If you change people's practices without changing their mental models, they will keep getting pulled back to their old ways.
4. Educators do not set ambitious goals for student learning. You don't need very good staff development to get to mediocre goals. Good staff development is really only necessary if you have ambitious goals such as high levels of learning for all students.

I took my inquiry a step further by looking at each of these four reasons and asking myself why each seems to be true. This process led me to three possible root causes: a low sense of efficacy, limiting mental models, and the design of teachers' workdays (see chart in PDF version of this article).

What did I discover by doing this investigation? Here are the big ideas I came up with:

1. The barriers are not what we think they are. They are mostly habits of thought and behavior--fundamental choices, mental models, and big assumptions that limit possibility and invention. Time is important, but it is secondary because I believe that most schools can find more time for professional learning if they have a really productive use for it.
2. The existing talents and creative potential of educators are a vast and untapped resource.
3. Leaders matter a lot, and individuals can make a profound difference.

Take some time to talk to a colleague about what you hold to be true about these ideas, and most particularly about the third point. As you dialogue, think about what you could do to translate all your good ideas into action.

Practice delving deeply into your assumptions and beliefs so you can really understand them. This is the basis for transformative learning, that is, learning at the level of our beliefs and assumptions. All kinds of changes in practice can follow from it. An example of how that can happen is Rosa Smith's story (see "Changing beliefs" in PDF version of this article).

The barriers

As a result of all this inquiry, I developed a rubric about the commitment of instructional leaders to quality professional development (see chart in PDF version of this article). This rubric is very useful to have when somebody calls me to give a talk. I can ask them to look it over as a way of finding out where they are in terms of making a commitment to high-quality professional development. Do they just want to plan a single professional development event? Do they want to build awareness? Are they looking to change instructional practices to benefit student learning? The latter is where our work starts.

There is one more level that says, "In addition to the other three, I commit to long-term cultural and workplace changes that will support professional collaboration and provide time and other resources for learning." This is a serious commitment.

As a way of gaining some clarity about what you ask of others and what others ask of you, think about the kind of difference you want to make. If you've decided you really don't care if you make much of a difference, then you will be on the left side of the rubric. If, on the other hand, you want to make a real difference, then you are going to move along toward the third and fourth columns.

I then devised a similar rubric for participants (see chart in PDF version of this article). We've all known people who say, "I don't have any desire to change. I'm attending this workshop because I'm supposed to be here," or, "I expect to learn little of value here. If you motivate me, I may acquire some knowledge or skill, but I have little commitment to change my professional habits." The vast majority of staff development takes place in those two areas.

The level of commitment increases as you move to the right on the rubric: "I hold high expectations for this professional learning experience. I have clear goals and am committed to using what I learn in my work for the benefit of students." And finally, the kind of group we would always like to work with: "I hold high expectations and am willing to step outside my comfort zone to collaborate with peers, to share my work with others for the purpose of improving teaching, to network with others about best practices, and to meet regularly with peers to study teaching and learning."

Presenting this rubric is a way to engage people in some reflection about their purpose, about what their intention is. My assumption is that when people are located toward the left side of both rubrics, not much meaningful professional development is happening.

Creative potential

David Levy, an inventor, said, "Never dismiss a problem because it seems impossible to solve. Make the bold assumption that anything and everything will one day be better. Your job as an inventor is to make it so." This point of view is really important to what I'm saying to you today--the power of creation and invention to make a better world is yours. That, I believe, is the nature of your work--you are inventors. Teachers, principals, district administrators, and staff developers are all inventors. And your inventions are really interesting and really important because you are dealing with big problems and big issues, and you have less than adequate resources to do your work. Anybody can be inventive dealing with small problems using lots of resources. It is much more exciting when you have less than what you need to do the job and you have very large goals. That's when invention becomes really important, and it is critical in creating better professional learning.

The act of creation, by definition, is dealing with the principle of uncertainty. Peter Senge says, "Most situations in life don't have a single right answer. In my experience, the most effective actions arise when we live the question, 'What do we want to create?' The key to all this is pretty simple--believing that every person has the capacity to create." This is a profound assumption--that everyone has the ability to create.

Talk to a colleague or a group of peers about what your assumptions are, related to what Peter Senge said. What do you hold to be true?

An element of this act of creating that is important to keep in the picture is the fact that the act of creation is a joyful one. In his book Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Results (2000), Robert Quinn says, "Our greatest joy, no matter our role, comes from creating. In that process, people become aware that they were able to do things they once thought were impossible. They have empowered themselves, which in turn empowers those with whom they interact."

How do individuals make a profound difference? One of the ways is in how you "show up" in terms of your attitudes about other people's capacity to create a better world. If you believe that people, individually and collectively, have this capacity within them, you will interact with them differently than if you believe that you have the answers to their problems.

When people talk about others' resistance, I know they are not creating. People who are invented for or invented upon do a lot of resisting. You cannot resist and be creative. There is no joy in resistance, and inventors do not resist.

A lot of times we take a good practice that somebody has created and bring it to other people in another place only to find that those people are not particularly eager to do it. Then we push harder to get them to do it. Human nature being what it is, people feel manipulated and they push back.

The best things I've read about creating were written by Robert Fritz (1989). He describes two structures: oscillating and advancing. In an oscillating structure, you create something that looks like it's going to go someplace, but then it just comes back to where it started. The advancing structure goes from one place to another place that is better. Oscillating structures are based on tension resolution. Here is an example: If we feel like we're overweight, we go on a diet. But what happens when you don't eat as much as you are accustomed to? You feel hungry and deprived, so you eat. Then you are overweight. And you keep doing this. With each new diet, you see new hope, and you go through the process again.

One of Fritz's assumptions is that you cannot problem-solve your way out of an oscillating structure. When you start doing problem-solving behavior, the problem diminishes to some point where it is tolerable, and then what do you do? You quit doing the problem-solving behavior, and the problem returns.

But it's not hopeless. The situation can be different, but the difference comes from creating a new structure, which Fritz calls an advancing structure. An advancing structure has three elements:

• A stretching, morally compelling vision of what you want to create;
• A thorough, ruthless assessment of current reality; and
• Some really good strategies to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Unfortunately, we too often avoid doing these things. Who wants to set a goal so lofty you can't get there? When you fail, people will say, "Told you so!" Who wants to talk about current reality in a noncomplaining way? It's depressing, and we feel guilty or defensive.

But I am convinced that goals that are morally compelling and a vision that stretches is the way to get important things done. The National Staff Development Council has a stretch goal: In five years, every school in the country will have quality professional learning for every teacher and every administrator.

Unfortunately, NSDC doesn't have a comprehensive set of strategies and action plans to get us there. We have to invent them. I'm asking you to join us in finding out how to do this. I believe in our collective capacity to figure it out.

Robert Quinn says he thinks the kind of changes we're talking about require a social movement or something equivalent to it. We have the good fortune to be working in a profession where what we do matters a lot. It affects the destiny of millions of people over generations. Our work is important work--it is worthy of a social movement. Dee Hock says, "It's no failure to fall short of realizing all that we might dream. The failure is to fall short of dreaming all that we might realize." This is a reminder to us not to dream small only because it's less risky.

There are all kinds of things that conventional wisdom dictates can't be done. The conventional wisdom in education has been that particular groups or types of kids can't learn very much. We are part of a process of reinventing that. We are part of doing something many people think cannot be done--teaching virtually all students to high levels.

You will run into dragons on your journey, but the biggest dragon you will meet is yourself. You will not believe that you can make a difference. It is important to remember the fundamental thing people cannot take away from you is your attitude. What would our professional lives be like if we interacted on a regular basis with people who believed we could create a better world for our students?

Speaking for myself, I'm going to be creative and be inventive in the face of doubt and opposition. And I plan to have fun in the process.

Leaders matter a lot

Leaders matter a lot for several reasons:

An article I read (see related article on page 46) described the work of Save the Children in Vietnam. It said large-scale aid projects typically do massive infrastructure work in countries. They spend billions of dollars to build highways and sewer systems and similar infrastructure.

Save the Children decided to use a very different approach. Members of the organization went into villages where children were suffering, and in some cases dying, from malnutrition. But in these villages were also a few children who thrived. All the parents had the same resources.

The researchers labeled the parents whose children thrived as positive deviants. They set up a process by which the village investigated itself. Villagers looked at the variations in children's health and tried to figure out what parenting practices caused some parents, who had similar resources as those whose children weren't thriving, to get better results. They found some parents were doing unconventional things like using certain roots that were available to everybody but considered low-class foods. Another thing the villagers discovered was that when children had diarrhea, the positive-deviant parents continued to feed them. This was in contrast to the parents whose mental model was, "Why bother feeding them when they have diarrhea?"

After they identified these things, they had the positive-deviant parents teach the other parents, and the kids' health improved dramatically. And then the positive-deviant parents began doing new things to make their kids healthier. And they began to be recognized as leaders.

This example made me think of American schools. We have examples of positive deviance at every school, I believe. Here is an assumption of mine: Virtually every school in the United States can get a lot better by having the most effective practices in the school spread throughout the school. This can be done without a lot of new information coming in from the outside.

Take a moment to reflect and discuss with a colleague your assumptions about positive deviance at your site.

Some people may think that if you can't direct or can't control the system, what's the sense in being a leader? In his book, Surfing the Edge of Chaos (2000), Richard Pascale says you can do important work without being directive: "The insight that we cannot directly but only artfully disturb a living system does not prevent us from taking bold action."

What are some ways to exercise this bold action? As I said earlier, you can change the conversation. You can move people from debate to dialogue. Another thing you can do is to establish a compelling goal, one that draws the organization out of its comfort zone. You can make sure the right people are involved in the conversation. Pascale says to make sure nobody is excluded from the conversation who can end what you are doing without putting their fingerprints on it.

A bold leader will insist on uncompromising straight talk to foster relentless discomfort and fuel disequilibrium. Showing up with a clear set of assertions as an invitation to dialogue is one of the best ways I know to have straight talk. Usually people think of straight talk as one person telling another what's wrong with him. Who's not going to get defensive in that situation? But if a leader shows up with a clearly expressed point of view and really wants to hear others' views, the group can engage in dialogue which may have profound consequences.

Another bold action is to increase discomfort through well-documented facts. This is where the value of data comes into play. A leader can also create a sense of urgency to force people out of their comfort zones.

Yet another approach is to generate and disseminate ideas that lead to breakthroughs in thinking and creativity. When people relate to one another in resignation, the whole organization spirals down. When people relate to one another out of a sense of power that comes from creation, the relationship is completely different.

Power of individuals

The difference individuals can make begins with recognizing that change begins with you. Individuals can:

Robert Quinn describes it this way: "The transformational change agent says, 'Here is the standard, which I know is impossible, so let's stand together and learn our way into a higher level of performance.'"

A year from now, American schools would be different if every leader interacted with followers in that way instead of, "I know you don't like this standard, but that's the way it is, and we have to live with it."

Nelson Mandela says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of the universe. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory that is in us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. And when we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I believe that the people sitting in this room today can profoundly change the quality of professional development in five years--if you choose to and invent the way to do it. According to an African proverb: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today."

References

Fritz, R. (1989). The path of least resistance: Learning to become the creative force in your own life. New York: Fawcett Books.

Pascale, R.T., Millemann, M., & Gioja, L. (2000). Surfing the edge of chaos: The laws of nature and the new laws of business. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Quinn, R.E. (2000). Change the world: How ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Quinn, R.E. (1996). Deep change: Discovering the leader within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This presentation was part of the 10th Annual Colloquium, "The Quest for Educational Transformation: Ideals and Realities," sponsored by the California Staff Development Council in cooperation with the California Department of Education and held in San Diego Feb. 7-9, 2002. This text first appeared in the California Staff Development Council's October 2002 Professional Development Brief.

About the Author

DENNIS SPARKS is executive director of the National Staff Development Council.