Resistance to Change in St Johns High School - Literature review Example

Running Head: Resistance to Change An Example of Resistance to Change in St. John’s High School. Name: Course: Tutor: Outline Topic: Resistance to Change in an Organization: An Example of resistance to Change in St. John’s High School. Introduction Description of the Organisation: Background Information. Description of the Case: Example of Resistance to Change. Conclusion Introduction Resistance occurs in organisations when major changes are required. The causes of resistance being, the “fear of the unknown, reluctance to let go, threats to power base, threat to self esteem, fear of failure, low trust organizational climate, threats to established skills, lack of information, high anxiety, threats to status, lack of perceived benefits, history of previous custom, loss of team relationships, fear of looking stupid, feeling vulnerable and exposed, stress and loss of control of one’s own destiny” (Clarke, 1996). Dipaola and Hoy, (2001) indicated that resistance occurs when individuals feel negatively affected and arise due to the difference in people’s ideas. Schools experience a lot of conflicts due to the diversity in the schools. Conflicts arise due to the difference in goals and the fear to be negatively affected. Because in a school there are so many diverse groups and diverse groups have different goals and ideas, there are high chances of conflicts occurring (Dipaola, and Hoy, 2001). Other sources indicated that the real cause of resistance to change is lack of understanding or coming to an agreement to implement a plan (Wendel et al, 1996), and Clarke notes that change can only occur when the forces behind change are more than the cost of change (1996). In another article, the conclusion made out of a case study which found resistance to change to be a result of lack of good communication, was that the only way to make change possible is through making the parties involved to understand the aims of the change and work together (Weedal, 2004). This paper aims to describe an example of resistance received in implementing school programs aimed at achieving improved performance in the school. The case is of a high school known as St. John’s high school in Florida. The name of the school and the cases of resistance are not real but are just to show areas where resistances to change do occur in organizations. The examples of resistance shown are caused by several factors as described by Clarke, Dipaola and Hoy and some others. Background Information St. John’s Bys High School is a public school that was always associated with good performance, drew a good number of academically able students from so many urban districts and had an integrated student body. The school was headed by Mr. Pethrelli who was known for his good performance whenever he went. For the past two years the school had been experiencing problems with reduced performance to below standard levels and the number of academically able students also reducing (Rossman et al, 1998). From 1996 to 1998, St John’s high school was not performing as good as it used to do in the previous years and there were no signs of it improving with the change in the students that were being enrolled for studies in the school (Rossman et al, 1998). Below is a description of all that had changed and all that the school experienced during the two years. St. John’s high school during 1996-1998 became associated with issues such as minority and poor student population. This was because of the behavior that the students had developed and the teachers’ attitudes towards the students. The teachers were frustrated because of the transition from the golden old days to what they termed “the riot years” (Rossman et al, 1998). The teachers had a rough time controlling their classes and could not even achieve their instructional goals. Schools from which St. John used to get the academically able students stopped sending their students to the school and some black parents started sending their children to private schools. At this time, most of the teachers thought that the population that remained in the school was poor in academics. Teachers felt that they were wasting their efforts on those who could not appreciate nor grab anything. They felt that they had to teach what was supposed to be taught in elementary schools. Some teachers even went further to insult the students just to see if they could improve. There was no empowerment to work. Some teachers selected top students they thought shared their interests and worked to enrich their curriculum (Rossman et al, 1998). Students on the other hand turned out to be the rude group. The students were not responsive to any teaching efforts that the teachers put on them. Most reported cases were that the assignments were not done, disruption of classes and absenteeism. There was a lot of tension in the school as some of the students viewed teachers as their rivals (Rossman et al, 1998). All these came to an end in 1999 when Mr. Pethrelli, the head teacher, came up with an idea to make things right in the school. A search for excellence, quality, continuous refinement and improvement had to begin (Tye, 1992). According to Carroll every transition begins with an ending followed by a period of confusion which then leads to a new beginning. The end of St. Johns golden days led to a confusion during the two years of poor performance which then led to a new beginning of an improved performance (Carroll, 9&11). Resistance to Change Case Description Mr. Pethrelli developed an idea which was, to involve every staff member before making any decisions. He proposed that the schools policies would be reviewed often in meetings with the teachers and other staff members. Revisions were to be made on the teaching methods, how to increase the self esteem of the student body and on ideas proposed for improvement of the school performance (Constas and Sternberg, 2006). Mr. Pethrelli also proposed that at the end of every year, he would be distributing end of year suggestion sheets for teachers to write their preferences and ideas. Suggestions for improvement could also be made on these sheets (Constas and Sternberg, 2006). This led to the development of programs that received resistance in the school. These programs included supplementary writing, reading and other subjects’ lessons, programs for under prepared students and learning to learn lessons (Dembo and Seli, 2004). When these programs were developed, some teachers felt that it would be too much work on them for those students who would never change and some teachers were not able to produce results as expected. Most teachers however understood the need to go back to the previous golden days of being envied by other schools including me, and so accepted to put in more effort. Some students never changed their study behaviors and obtained constant average grades irrespective of the efforts made by the school teachers. Some two students revealed to their teachers that they could not change. The two boys, Jens and Clay, believed that they lacked the will power and the strength to change their studying habits. Irrespective of attempts to use the new methods, Jens and Clay confessed that they never believed in such methods as effective and would go back to their previous study methods to feel confident in studying. They feared changing as any attempts to use the new strategies made them more fearful that they had not prepared enough (Dembo and Seli, 2004). Some of the students did not just want to change. Johnson is an example of such students. He was one of my students in the mathematics class and believed he already had good study habits and needed no other strategies. Jonson believed that his study habits were as good as the ones being taught. Attending learning how to learn lessons was out of question for Jonson. (Dembo and Seli, 2004). Another case of resistance from students was from those who did not know what to change. There were students who had difficulty identifying the areas they had problems in, that is, they could not find out what was preventing them from getting higher grades. Most of these students stated that they could not identify if it was their study methods, their use of time or their test preparation methods that made them still not achieve higher grades (Dembo and Seli, 2004). Another problem was with the students who did not know how to make the changes, even though they knew what was needed for them to increase their grades. This is the same resistance described in O’Toole’s article where a company’s CEO and chairman, failed to make changes due to lack of the ability to make the changes irrespective of the knowledge of areas where changes are required (1995). Teachers were able to identify some students who had problems changing their learning habits. The learning how to learn strategy is one for all the subjects, but some students had difficulty applying such strategies in all the subjects. A group of students from grade two informed their class teacher that they had problems in applying the new strategies on different subjects. Denis, one of the students complained he could not take calculus notes with the same strategy as history notes, Mark complained that he was always left behind when taking notes in the biology class using the new strategy and Collins said that he could not figure out how to make out notes in the geography class with the new strategy. Without the ability to know how to change, these strategies could not be effective in them (Dembo and Seli, 2004) Since the head teacher had developed a system of improving performance and producing quality through innovations, at one time in one of the meetings, one of the teachers proposed an improvement in the grades for the students to compete in the scholarship awards (Gidney and Millar, 1990). The students had even lost the chances to compete for scholarships during the 1996-1998 periods and this was to be regained (Rossman et al, 1998). A weighted grades program was then agreed upon (Wendel et al, 1996). This was not an idea that the head teacher accepted easily even though he gave room for new ideas to be proposed. Mr. Pethrelli thought that making students fight for scholarships would distinguish the poor from the rich and get the school back to its fighting times. Most students whom were offered scholarships were those who obtained higher marks and were unable to pay their higher education school fees. Mr. Pethrelli therefore informed the teachers of his fears about the idea of improving grades for scholarships. He thought it was a good idea but had fears of the outcome in the school (Reese, 2005). Most of the teachers however managed to convince him of how beneficial the idea would be to the school and the students with just a little effort on counseling students. Some teachers however thought that counseling would take some of their time and lead to inefficiency in the school practices again. Counseling would mean more time for the students to be in school in addition to the supplementary lessons allocated time. Some teachers felt that this would be asking too much from the students and some even went back to the head teacher’s fear that the students might retaliate. This idea was in the end implemented after further discussions in several meetings and later implemented (Wendel et al, 1996). Conclusion Even though the teachers experienced rough times in ensuring success with the programs and new ideas, improvement was in the end achieved with support from the head teacher and the teachers themselves. Cooperation and good communication led to a success in the transition in St. John’s High school. Almost ten students received scholarships each year. Mr. Pethrelli’s first idea made the school a continuously high performing school. References Carroll, L. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 8-25. Clarke, L. (1996). Essence of change: Anticipating and Managing Resistance. Constas, M. A and Sternberg, R.J. (2006). Translating Theory and Research into Educational Practice: Developments in Content Domains, Large Scale Reform, and Intellectual Capacity London, UK: Routledge. Dembo, M. H. and Seli, P. H. (2004). Students’ Resistance to Change in learning Strategies. Journal of Developmental Education. 27 (3) 1-8. Retrieved on 5th May 2009 from: http://www.ncde.appstate.edu/reserve_reading/Outstanding_JDE_V27-3.pdf Dipaola, M. F. and Hoy, K. W. (2001) The International Journal of Educational Management. MCB University press. 238-244. Gidney, R. D. and Millar,W. P. J. (1990). Inventing Secondary Education: The Rise of the High School in Nineteenth-century Ontario. Ontario, Canada: McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP. O’Toole, J. (1995). Leading Change: Overcoming the Ideology of Comfort and the Tyranny of Custom. 1st Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. 153-170. Reese, W. J. (2005). America's Public Schools: from the Common School to "No Child Left Behind". Maryland United States: JHU Press. Rossman, G. B., Corbett, H. D. and Firestone, W. A. (1998). Change and Effectiveness in Schools: A Cultural Perspective. Albany, New York : SUNY Press. Tye, B. B. (1992). Global Education: A Study of School Change. Albany, New York : SUNY Press. Weedal, M. (2004). A Case Study of the Fidelity Approach in an Educational Innovation. The International Journal of Educational Management. Emerald Group Publishing. 18 (1) pp 49-57. Wendel, F. C., Hoke, F. A. and Joekel, R. (1996). Outstanding School Administrators: Their Keys to Success. Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More