From Teacher to Profit Centre in 3 Steps

We are now all aware of the declining standards in student performance in Australia.

It’s a very hot topic in the media’s spotlight and it’s shaping up to be a key election issue. Unless we can arrest and reverse these worrying trends, we will continue to see a decline in the quality and equity of schooling in this country.

Surprisingly, numerous studies have revealed that an increase in education spending has not led to better outcomes and in fact a decline in outcomes has often occurred in parallel with increased spending.

So, if money can’t fix this critical problem, what will?

By Richard Maloney

FROM

TEACHER TO

PROFIT CENTRE IN

3 STEPS

There is no question that great teaching is the single most important factor for schools in improving student outcomes, which makes the fact that between one in three and one in five Australian graduates leave teaching during their first five years out of university so alarming.

The financial cost to taxpayers, of money invested in education without a long-term return, is obvious. But the cost to the education of our children, who are the future of this country, is incalculable.

We also know that, while university applications for teacher education continue to fall, those teachers that remain in the game are often disengaged and disillusioned in their jobs. And who does that directly impact? The students of course.

A recent Australian study* showed that by year 9, only 55% of our students found school engaging, leading to students becoming disconnected and disengaged from their studies.

In the classroom, disengaged teachers are those whose professional practice is characterised by superficial instruction. Disengaged teachers tend to stick to the same ‘tried and true' content and instruction, they disregard individuals' needs and are content with superficial learning.

Other characteristics of disengaged teachers are their emotional disconnect and disinterest in students as individuals who have their own knowledge bases and interests. They do not seek to actively improve their knowledge or education practice.

Teacher disengagement severely impacts on the quality of their instruction and thereby becomes an element of disadvantage for some students.

An engaged teacher on the other hand, makes an active and conscious effort to affect teaching and learning outcomes for both their students and themselves.

Effective, engaged teachers have an extensive repertoire of skills and knowledge for engaging students and promoting deep learning.

In addition, effective teachers are student-oriented; they understand how students can learn and can analyse differently.

They evaluate and implement new strategies to create and manage learning environments that are supportive, safe and needs-oriented. And they are genuinely motivated by their students succeed.

The three levels of teacher engagement are highlighted below:

As a high school student, back in the late eighties and early nineties, I was surrounded by disengaged teachers who were not at all concerned by the palpable need to adapt their cookie cutter approach to learning to cater to the needs of individual students. They just didn’t connect with those of us that needed a different level of understanding.

On the odd occasion when a teacher really went above and beyond however, I excelled. I think we all have a memory of a teacher who really impacted our lives and inspired us.

I’m sure that they all had one thing in common: No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Unfortunately for me, these teachers were a rarity and for those of us unable to effectively absorb the ‘one size fits all’ approach of most teachers, it was simply tough luck.

This inflexibility resulted in me being classed as a disruptive student with idle potential that simply couldn’t focus and I was ultimately asked to leave the school.

Funnily enough this same school later invited me back as an engagement expert to provide leadership and mentor advice to students. The irony was not lost on anyone I can assure you!

So how can we re-engage our teachers, thus engaging more students, in a fast and cost-effective way?

Due in part to the dramatic end to my schooling years, followed by an equally dramatic end to my elite Australian Football League (AFL) career as a teen, I became fascinated by the science behind human behaviour.

I embarked on a journey to improve myself and to discover the key to improving the heart of every organisation, its people.

I now have a global employee engagement company that’s represented in 75 countries and our programs are neurologically designed to create highly engaged employees / organisations via our Group Activation System™.

When several of my coaches approached me about taking our engagement program into schools, I embraced the opportunity and we are now building our presence in the Asian and Australian education market.

To create a strong culture, you must first build a united leadership group, which ideally would include all department heads or teachers (depending on the size of the faculty).

Here are 3 of the 12 proven engagement activities that we implement in our engagement programs.

You can introduce these tomorrow to create a rapid and significant shift in your school, producing highly engaged, united, re-energised, innovative, empowered people.

1

LEADERSHIP ACTS

Select up to 12 of your key staff. Leaders within the school and those you consider to be emerging leaders. Ask the group this question: “What do we need to change / improve to become the best school in the state”?

Once everyone has listed their answers on post it notes, write all answers down on a whiteboard and separate them in either the ‘heart’ or ‘brain’. The heart of your organisation refers to the soft stuff.

Anything you can nurture or develop. Culture, leadership, communication, building relationships with staff and students etc.

The brain refers to the more practical issues, such as systems, processes, procedures etc.

Once all areas for improvement are listed, ask your key leaders to select one area of improvement from the heart category as a focus for each week. From there they are all required to commit to one small, simple individual action as a group (which we call a ‘Leadership Act’ or ‘Business Success Act’) that addresses the area for improvement selected.

For example, if the area for improvement listed for Week 1 was ‘teacher and administration staff relationships’, a leadership act that addresses this issue could be ‘Find out three new things about a staff member you don’t know well and share it with the group at the next weekly session.’

When it comes to finding out new things about people, it’s worth noting that people are more likely to like you if you’re like them on some level, so taking the time to unearth personal connections is both meaningful and powerful.

Over a 12-week period, with 12 staff participating, that’s 144 simple leadership acts that begin to chip away at workplace failings and most importantly, it takes the focus and pressure off the key leader to manage by themselves.

The energy and unity that stems from these small acts over a short amount of time begins to create a movement and you will see a waterfall effect that impacts everyone within the school.

To keep every leader accountable, we use a colour coded scoreboard that is updated at each weekly meeting. See example below:

2

SPEED RATING

Speed rating is the fastest way to build a strong leadership brand amongst many. It is a simple and powerful activity that allows each participating leader to self-assess and rates their relationships with all other employees within the school. To create a great school, we must first have a strong nucleus of united leaders and staff.

As per the example below, list all school employees (up to 50) and rate your relationship from 1-10. 1-4 being poor, 5-7 being average and 8-10 being excellent.

Throughout the duration of the 12 weeks, each leader should aim to improve on the relationships rated poor and average. The speed rating assessment should be self assessed every fortnight and at the end of the program.

The goal is to move everyone into the green! I’ve seen this activity transform leaders into key people of influence in a very short amount of time.

Leadership is not a right, it’s a responsibility.

3

REWARD & RECOGNITION

At every weekly meeting (weeks 2 through to 12), the leaders will individually and publicly nominate one other person from within the group as their chosen ‘leader of the week’.

This nomination should go to the person that is considered to have excelled in improving the heart of the school through their actions.

The power of recognition is obvious, but it’s also important to note that the quickest way to heal any broken relationship is when one person publicly recognises and acknowledges another for a job well done.

After every participant has nominated their chosen leader and voiced the reasons for their selection, the leader with the most nominations each week and at the end of the 12 weeks should be recognised and congratulated. Public recognition not only inspires the high achievers to continue achieving, it also motivates those not achieving or being recognised to act and to strive further.

In short, an engaged school is a thriving school and building a united team of caring leaders is the first and most influential step towards achieving this. A strong culture is achieved when everyone is thinking the same way with a common vision. as apposed to a poor culture is when everyone has their own ideas on how things should be done around here.

And lastly - no one care’s how much you know until they know how much you care!

For more information visitwww.engageandgrow.com.au

Richard Maloney is quickly becoming known as the world’s no. 1 team engagement expert as he leads over 100 empoyee engagement coaches in 70+ countries.

He is disrupting the education and psychology industries with his bold statement: Traditional training is dead.

Richard is also the author of ‘The Minds of Winning Teams – Creating Team Success Through Engagement & Culture'.