Understanding and Overcoming Teacher Resistance
Research shows that teacher quality is the single most powerful influence on student achievement, and yet teachers in U.S. independent schools have typically received far less professional development, mentoring, and planning time than teachers in the world's highest-achieving nations. Historically, most independent schools have relied upon fragmented, ineffective one-day or two-day activities. Relatively few learning opportunities for independent school teachers have featured either the intense emphasis on content or the collegial work that has been found by researchers to positively influence teacher learning, teacher instructional practice, and student learning.
Things are beginning to change, however, as U.S. independent schools are increasingly working to build the structures and cultures needed to support the kind of job-embedded, sustained, contextual, collaborative teacher professional learning that leads to improvements in teaching and learning. As schools work to transform their professional development programs, many confront challenges related to faculty resistance to change. In fact, the question I'm asked most often when I work with school leaders who want to transform their professional learning programs is, "I agree that we need to implement new programs, but what do we do about all those teachers who don't want to collaborate with colleagues and who don't want to change?"
When efforts to institute new professional development programs fail, teachers often end up getting blamed. School leaders lament that teachers were just resistant to the new approaches, were stuck in their old ways, and did not give the new strategies a chance to be successful. Rather than be surprised by teacher resistance, and blame them when things don't go as planned, it is more productive for school leaders to seek to understand why teacher resistance occurs and what they can do to make it easier for teachers to successfully implement new professional learning strategies.
The tendency to hold on to the familiar and comfortable is a common human impulse, but teacher resistance to change efforts is best understood as a symptom of multiple underlying issues. Noted educational researcher and consultant Jim Knight suggests that the specific issues that are causing teacher resistance can often be brought to the surface and understood by considering these six questions.
1. How have teachers experienced past professional development activities?
The degree to which teachers resist your current professional development initiatives is inevitably connected to their prior experiences. If past professional learning opportunities respected teachers' need for autonomy and input, were connected to teacher and student needs, were thoroughly supported by school leadership, and involved opportunities to learn and collaborate during the school day, then teachers would approach your professional learning strategies with enthusiasm and little resistance. However, teachers more typically have had poor experiences with traditional professional development practices and are skeptical that new initiatives will be any better. Not only have independent school teachers typically experienced traditional workshops and speakers as fragmented, intellectually superficial, and ineffective in helping them address real problems of practice, many have experienced a particularly destructive pattern of failed professional development initiatives that Knight calls the "attempt, attack, abandon" cycle. In this cycle, a school leader introduces a new professional development approach, but provides little or no follow-up for teachers. As a result, many teachers never try to integrate the concept or method into their teaching, or attempt it with little success. Because the professional development approach produces few changes in teacher knowledge or instructional practices, both teachers and school leaders begin to attack the approach and eventually abandon it altogether. Not only does this cycle lead to little teacher professional growth and learning, it causes teachers to have little trust that future professional development initiatives will be worth their time, energy, and commitment.
2. Are teacher needs and preferences being considered?
Professional development activities historically have been imposed on teachers with little consideration given to their specific needs and preferences. Because past professional development experiences are linked with a sense of powerlessness and disregard for needs, ideas, and perspectives, teachers will view new professional development initiatives with caution. If the needs, experiences, and opinions of teachers are not considered when choosing and designing the mode and substance of professional learning opportunities, significant teacher resistance is sure to follow.
3. Are teachers treated with respect?
Commenting on how another professional works is always delicate because we all have so much of our identity and sense of worth woven into how we work. Teachers may view a new professional development strategy as an assault on their current teaching strategies and respond with resistance to protect what is so personal to them. The wise school leader recognizes the personal nature of teaching and strives to respect it while also supporting learning opportunities that promote the ongoing development of teachers. One of the most frequent complaints I hear about traditional professional development approaches is that they fail to recognize and respect teacher experience and expertise. Bringing in an outside "expert" to give a lecture or conduct a workshop may communicate to teachers that their knowledge, skills, and experiences are not recognized and valued. Teachers can leave such sessions feeling patronized, disrespected, and frustrated, and unlikely to adopt any good ideas presented by the "expert."
Of course, no school leader intends to make teachers feel disrespected, but what matters here is what teachers perceive. If teachers feel that their identities — their sense of how talented and competent they are — are under attack, resistance is likely. School leaders need to listen respectfully and communicate appreciation so frequently and authentically that they foster an environment of ongoing regard. School leaders need to communicate recognition of and respect for the knowledge, experience, and expertise of faculty members by making collaborative work among teachers the foundation of the school's professional development program.
4. Are teachers accustomed to being asked to collaborate, think, and innovate?
Teachers are what Babson College professor Thomas Davenport calls knowledge workers. Knowledge workers "think for a living and regularly are called upon to make decisions, meet the needs of customers, collaborate and communicate with others in the course of doing their work, and innovate to create better solutions to the problems they face."1
Few individuals do more thinking at work than a teacher in front of a classroom of students. Yet independent school cultures typically have not treated teachers like knowledge workers. They have not encouraged innovation, experimentation, risk taking, and collaboration. Teachers may therefore be skeptical about professional development approaches favoring these things and/or may be unsure how to actively engage in strategies emphasizing collaborative experimentation. Resistance in this instance may be due to fear of the unknown, lack of clarity about how to do something, or distrust that new norms of teacher learning will be fully supported.
5. Do school leaders make the new strategies easy to implement?
Many teachers experience what school-improvement expert Michael Fullan calls the "press of immediacy." On an average day, teachers create and teach lessons, grade papers, attend meetings, speak with parents, and coach sports. So when they are asked to implement a new program on top of what they already do, it is understandable that they may feel overwhelmed and not fully commit to it. If teachers feel that professional development activities interfere with their ability to meet their job's "press of immediacy," then they will resist them. A common teacher frustration is that "our professional development activities are added to everything else we are asked to do, so we never have the time or energy to make the programs work and try new things in our classrooms." Furthermore, if they are asked to implement a new strategy without significant support to understand how and why to use it, then resistance is guaranteed. The wise school leader recognizes the "press of immediacy" and works to remove barriers impeding teacher commitment to professional development programs.
6. Are professional development activities linked to a compelling purpose?
Traditional professional development activities have not been linked with a compelling vision connected to the mission of the school or to some other overarching purpose. Without a "why," teachers see little reason to endure the "how" and come to feel that traditional professional development is disconnected from their work. Teachers will be more likely to fully engage with a new professional development strategy when it has been connected in a meaningful way to the mission of the school and the core work they do with students.
Breaking Down Barriers
It is important for school leaders to address the problem of teacher resistance by understanding its root causes. Jim Knight and fellow educational consultant Thomas Guskey emphasize five important ways to break down that resistance and make it easier for teachers to successfully implement new professional learning strategies.
Involve Teachers in the Process
It is essential to involve faculty in all-important decisions about your professional development program. This begins when together you work to specify the new knowledge, new understandings, and new skills teachers need to acquire in order to effectively address current student needs and weaknesses. Once the learning goals have been set, school leaders earn teacher commitment by offering choices at other essential steps and valuing teacher opinions. For example, teachers should be involved in deciding which professional strategy to adopt and how it will be adapted to the unique context of your school. The more teachers have a say in how and what new practices they will implement, the more likely they will be to embrace new ways of doing things.
Help Teachers Experience Early Success.
Because many teachers have had bad experiences with traditional professional development practices, it is important to provide all the support you can to ensure that their earliest experiences with your new strategy will be positive. And it will take more than words to persuade them to commit fully. As Fullan has observed, "When it comes to teacher resistance, verbal persuasion rarely works."
The key is to get teachers to stick with the new strategy long enough for them to understand its value — to recognize that it can help them address problems of practice in meaningful ways. When it comes to completely disposing of all resistance, teachers have to drink the water of success, so to speak, before they will fully commit to the new strategy. Guskey emphasizes this reality when he says, "Teachers will not commit until they have seen it work, and by work I mean when they see clear evidence of improvements in the learning of their students."
The implications for school leaders are clear. Trying to verbally persuade teachers to fully commit to a new strategy without providing successful experiences with it will be futile. A better approach is to be patient and support teachers' early attempts to experiment with the new strategy. If the strategy is powerful and leads to improved instruction and student learning, then teachers will jump on board.
Support Teacher Efforts.
Because of the "press of immediacy," school leaders should do all they can to remove barriers that prevent teachers from engaging with new professional development strategies. Several types of support are particularly helpful. First, many teachers have told me that they benefit from seeing demonstrations of new strategies before they try to implement them. Similarly, they find it helpful when new strategies are broken down into clear steps. School leaders should carve out time, with at least some of it during the school day, for teachers to do the work connected with the new strategy. They should provide ongoing support to help teachers work through the early stages of learning how to collaborate with colleagues and implement the new strategy, and they should privately and publicly acknowledge and celebrate teacher efforts to engage with the new strategy.
Attend to Context.
Teachers will resist implementing new strategies unless a context supportive of adult learning is taking hold in your school. School leaders should constantly monitor school culture to make sure it fosters trust and promotes adult learning, risk taking, experimentation, and collaboration. Time should be available for learning and working with colleagues and the level of trust and communication should be sufficiently high to enable the formation of a genuine community of learners. As Guskey says, "The single most important factor in breaking down teacher resistance to new professional strategies is relational trust."
Teachers need to be able to trust that their division head and colleagues will focus on student learning and instructional best practices when they open up their classrooms to observation and feedback. The bottom line, according to Fullan, is that "when relational trust improves, teacher resistance wanes, and real progress can be made in improving the instructional practices in your school."
Keep the Focus on Student Learning.
A common complaint I hear from teachers is that their professional development experiences lack any coherent purpose and are largely disconnected from the challenges they face in the classroom. If the reason for doing something is not clear, relevant, and alive, most people will not engage in the activity. Why should they? When working with your faculty to choose and implement professional development strategies, you will need to work tirelessly to keep the focus on student learning at all times. When the goal of professional development is clearly and consistently to improve student learning, and when professional development strategies address specific problems of practice identified by teachers, then teacher resistance is likely to dissipate.
Time for a Change
Professional development is supposed to contribute to lasting change in the classroom. When it doesn't, we waste valuable time and resources and compromise teachers' trust. For many independent school teachers, past professional learning opportunities have not respected their need for autonomy and input, have not been connected to teacher and student needs, have not been thoroughly supported by school leadership, and have not involved opportunities to learn and collaborate during the school day. It is not surprising that some teachers will approach professional learning strategies with skepticism and resistance.
Rather than complaining about this resistance, it is more productive for school leaders to seek to understand it, acknowledge it, and be clear about what they will need to do to decrease it over time. When school leaders keep the focus of professional development on student learning, involve teachers in the design and content of professional development activities, provide ongoing support as teachers learn new professional development strategies, help teachers experience early success with new strategies, and provide time for teachers to collaboratively engage in professional development activities, resistance will be minimal.
School leaders would be wise to heed the words of educator and author Dennis Sparks when he advises, "Perhaps the most important thing to remember as a school leader facing teacher resistance is that you must model and embody the attitudes and behaviors you seek from your faculty."
Note
1. Thomas Davenport. Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers, Cambridge, MA Harvard Business School (2005).