Culture and Change

I would say that Perry Hall High School's culture is one that is primarily centered around tradition.  Not only is it part of the school's mission statement--Tradition, Pride, Excellence, but it's also an older school that is currently hosting its 50th graduating class.  It's located in an area that has a minimal transient population, and many of the students at Perry Hall are the children of past alumni.  We also have a considerable number of teachers who are alumni of the school or have been teaching at the school for many years.  All of these factors contribute to a culture of tradition and school pride.   The walls and trophy cases are packed with pictures, trophies, and awards from the past.  Our library walls host pictures of all the previous principals and the backs of our auditorium chairs have the etchings of previous student's notes and names.  This culture has its perks--we have a strong sense of identity at Perry Hall and we have a long-standing reputation as being one of the best schools in the county.  But, it is also a culture that resists change.  Both the staff and the students resist change because we are so comfortable hiding behind our traditions.  We think of change as a criticism, rather than as an opportunity to grow.    

Perry Hall promotes a positive school culture for teaching and learning that is inclusive of all students in a variety of ways.  First, we have over 85 clubs and extracurricular activities at our school and all of the clubs are inclusive to all students.  There are clubs that range from the Black Student Union to the Knitting Club and by offering this range of clubs, we are able to appeal to the interests of almost all the students in the school.  The majority of these clubs and extra curriculars are sponsored by staff members because we have established a culture at Perry Hall that compels teachers to get involved in student's lives outside of the classroom.  This area of teacher performance is assessed at the end-of-year evaluations.  We have several mentor programs in the school that promote students helping students.  Whether it be National Honor Society students tutoring underclassmen or lower-level students or the peer mentoring program where model seniors act as mediators to settle underclassmen disputes, these programs are helping to promote inclusiveness and a positive school culture of teaching and learning.  We also are a PDS school, meaning that we host a number of Towson student interns and student teachers.  The mentor teachers and hosting departments promote a culture of teaching and learning by helping the student intern establish, develop, and refine his/her practice.  Finally, many of our staff members are or have been a member of a graduate level cohort program or are taking graduate level courses.  This practice demonstrates for our students what it means to be a life-long learner.  I believe that Perry Hall has an extremely dedicated staff and that is the result of our school culture.  Most of us are not satisfied just working within our contracted hours and responsibilities, which is why those people that do, either do not last long at the school, or simply do not make an impression on the staff or the students. 


My ideas on how Marzano's research of first and second order change could be used to improve our present school culture relate to intellectual stimulation and the change agent.  At first, I was surprised to find culture ranked in the first-order change list.  However, once I got to thinking about it, I suppose he's right.  Culture is developed over time based on the incremental and day-by-day activities within a school.  If a leader attempted to change everything all at once, I imagine he/she would be met with negative attitudes and strong resistance.   But changing a school culture can be done with taking one or two dramatic departures from traditional school practices.  At Perry Hall, our leadership team has been struggling to create a culture of teaching and learning using 21st century learning skills and the use of technology.  As I discussed earlier, this change, like many others, has been met with resistance.  I believe our leadership team could benefit from Marzano's research on second-order change when meeting their intellectual stimulation and change agent responsibilities.  Using Marzano's words, a leader cannot expect to grow a culture which "fosters knowledge of research and theory on best practices among the staff through reading and discussion" using gradual and incremental change. This may need to be required of the staff, rather than suggested.  In terms of technology and best practices, this change can also not be met with our current set of strategies, since technology is relatively new to education.  E-learning communities have rapidly changed higher levels of education and we need to prepare our students for this in the lower grades; therefore, we don't have the time for this change to be gradual.    In addition, a leader cannot "challenge school practices that have been in place for a long time" with gradual change--the outdated practices need to be challenged with strategies that a school hasn't already tried.  In thinking about technology integration, a leadership team might challenge the staff's current method of implementing a socratic seminar with a socratic seminar on a wiki page.  Or,  a leadership team might challenge the NHS's current method of tutoring with one using SafariLive or Skype.  Then, the school can evaluate whether they are seeing the benefits of these "dramatic" changes or not.