N. Davies.
I'd like to split what I want to say into two parts. First a brief look at the background ideas that caused me to question what I was doing. Second the way that I have tried to incorporate the thinking into the way I do my job as teacher of maths and Personal and Social Education.
Firstly, the background:
This idea of co-operating rather than competing is best exemplified for me in the teaching of W.Edwards Deming. I have 30 minutes only to tell you about the most transforming idea that I ever came across in my life. I want to describe how it has changed my life and the way that I do my job as a teacher. If I sound like a religious convert that I'm afraid that's too bad, I'm not going to apologise.
Deming shifted the focus away from the individual and towards the system. Whether we are talking about a family, a classroom, a school, a business or an entire country, we face similar problems of the management of systems. We don't do a very good job of management at present, but we can learn to do better.
Sometimes personal stories can get through to you when you are considering how to change. For instance I heard on tape an American businessman call Jim MacIngvale describe how his business underwent a transformation with the help of Deming.
He had built up a successful furniture business with some $20 million sales annually. He made a lot of money using conventional management by results techniques - commission payments, incentives and sales contests. There were punishments for underachievers and a weekly battle to fudge figures and make the quotas to stay ahead of the field. The sales people were blind to the concerns of customers. Staff turnover was around 15 per month. Employees could not successfully budget or plan for their futures as earnings fluctuated wildly as they fought for pole position at the start of each month. None felt secure as all operated under relentless pressure.
He became intrigued by Deming's idea of continual improvement and felt that if Sony, Honda, Toyota, Ford and General Motors were using him then maybe there was something to be learned. MacIngvale went to a lecture by Deming, and experienced an initial deep questioning of his view oft he world. He began to persuade some of his employees to change with him.
Over a period of time he gradually removed quotas and incentive payments. Everyone was put on a regular salary and profit sharing schemes were implemented. To his amazement he found that people did not work less, they worked more. His workforce began to release talents and skills that had previously remained hidden. Older sales people became mentors to the younger employees, passing on their accumulated experience, whereas previously they had avoided them as threats to their income and position in the company. They began to work in all aspects of the business and the exchange of knowledge benefited the company to such an extent that profits have soared.
Management now spent time doing what they should do: helping people, coaching and nurturing not rating, ranking, firing or refereeing commission battles.
"Gallery Furniture had been lucky and successful in spite of my bad management. It had crushed people and their intrinsic motivation, or 'joy in work'"; his own words.
The Deming route created a chain reaction. They were able to improve quality, decrease costs, increase productivity, decrease prices to the customer, increase the size of the market not only for themselves but for their competitors. This illustrates that there can be arrangements in which everybody wins and there are no losers. This idea of win/win is central to Deming's thinking. He saw competition as a virus which destroys systems. The total behaviour of the system must be considered. It cannot be understood by the method of analysis, the dissecting process which has come to dominate our thinking. We have to develop new ways of understanding, a new epistemology.
There were four main areas to his thinking:
The principles for change came to be summarised as the '14 points' See Appendix 1; this is available as a separate handout.
Present OHT of the 14 points, then switch off.
To give a flavour of his writing I made a quick selection of some quotations :
"Systems have to be managed, left to themselves the components become selfish and competitive".
"The most important figures are unknown and unknowable". This is an early appreciation of the inherent unpredictability of chaotic systems.
"The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to management".
"One requirement for innovation is faith that there will be a future".etc.
Play the Deming tape extract at this point if there is time
After Deming I would like to list certain signals of organisation entropy (which is to say a measure of the disorder of a system) and ask you to consider if teachers would recognise any of these at the present time:
The evidence from Social Psychology research is compelling, Alfie Kohn has produced helpful critiques of the harmful effects of rewards and competition.
Rewards:
From the early 70's onwards studies have been showing that if you offer a group of people a reward to do a task then they do it less well than a control group offered no reward. This has been found with all sorts of subject populations and many different rewards and tasks. For example children trying a yoghurt drink: the rewarded ones ceased drinking it in the long term. Children doing maths homework: the rewarded ones enjoyed it less and did less well.
Notice these results cannot be explained using any behaviourist theory where the opposite result would be predicted. More than 20 studies have shown that offering people a reward reduces the quality of their performance. Long-term studies of people stopping smoking, losing weight, etc. show that programmes tend to be less effective when rewards are offered for compliance. Children who were rewarded by their parents for being helpful were less generous than their peers who were not rewarded. It was concluded that the children had learned that the only reason to be kind is that you're going to get something for it.
No study has EVER found, in Kohn's view, a long term enhancement of the quality of performance as a result of any kind of incentive plan. See 'Punished by Rewards' for nearly 400 pages of overwhelming evidence against what we all commonly seem to do in schools.
Competition:
When people are compared on how they perform on a wide variety of tasks those who are told they are competing always produce poorer quality work than if no mention of competition is made. This was found in work ranging from academics doing maths problems to little girls at a birthday party painting pictures which were then judged by artists!
Scientists were rated as to their competitiveness and also the success they enjoyed in their field of specialisation. The most successful people turned out to be the least competitive. This finding was so surprising that the research was tried again with psychologists, business people, university students, airline pilots and sixth formers. The results were the same, the inverse relationship was found!
It is sometimes said that we are naturally competitive, 'like all living things'. But we may have been seduced by a simplistic view of evolutionary biology. It was Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest'. Vero Wynne Edwards in his book :'Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour' (1962) proposed that animal populations which showed self-restraint in reproduction and exploitation of natural resources survived longer than more profligate groups, so that self-regulation of population size developed during the course of evolution.
If it were human nature to compete then more 'technologically primitive' cultures - being closer to nature - should be more competitive. The reverse is often seen to be the case with so-called 'civilisations' who set up institutions (like schools) where one can succeed only if others fail.
Among other ideas Kohn proposed:
William Glasser has stated that the ideas of Deming should be brought into education. His technique of 'reality therapy' is proving a useful tool in the pressured atmosphere of schools. It is being used at all ages in many parts of the world. The British Deming Association is involved with a number of schools in the UK who are pioneering these approaches, some have industrial backing. I have recently made contact with this organisation.
Essentially, punishment, reward and competition is replaced by the WDEP method developed in counselling. What do you want? What are you doing? Evaluation - is it working? What is your plan?
It is very fast and very effective. Reality Therapy changes the teacher from an external manipulator who is in the way of the child's getting instant gratification, to a person, important to the child, who does not judge and can help the child to satisfy their inner needs.
For Glasser the model of the needs system helps us to make sense of all observed human behaviour. We want to belong, to feel accepted by others. It is vital that we know there is at least one person around who cares whether we live or die. We want to feel a sense of our own significance, that we have something worth saying. People show a desire for liberty, freedom to choose for themselves what they believe. Finally we exhibit behaviour which seems to derive from a need to simply enjoy things for their own sake.
When none of these needs can be filled there is a tendency to choose what we call 'depression', a loss of vitality or the desire to be alive. In time the suffering from lack of need satisfaction may lead to suicide.
To facilitate a counsellor or teacher helping another person to fulfil their needs he gave them the simple names of : 'love', 'power', 'freedom' and 'fun'. We all need to be helped to 'face reality' and overcome a state of self-deception or 'denial' that results from an inability to obtain need satisfaction in a reliable and efficient way. Often the problems can be traced to the destructive effects of punishments rewards and competition, or faulty conditioning in general.
His 'Choice Theory' model is a feedback control loop explanation of how we are biologically programmed to satisfy these needs within the confines of the unique world in which each individual finds themselves.
Now for my own research as a teacher.
I have found the following useful to think about as I prepare my lesson plans: How can you motivate someone? You can't! All you can do is to create and environment in which they may recover their basic urge to do quality work.
Since moving into teaching over 5 years ago I have been very impressed with the quality of some of the teaching I've observed. My own teaching was continually falling short of the best stuff that I saw. I wanted to be like them. I asked them how they did it. They couldn't tell me. I tried to copy them. It was an even bigger disaster. I would try a relaxed approach and students would ignore me. I, feeling humiliated, would shout louder than before. How to get in on the act?
I had read some theories earlier. Notably Glasser's 'Schools Without Failure' had prompted a career change. It had convinced me that there was hope after all. But I constantly strayed off course, though I tried to remain loyal to the ideas, believing them to be right.
Last year I came across the 'Centre for Reality Therapy' at Leighton Buzzard and enrolled on their training programme. My mentor was a visionary man called Ronald Threadgall, a retired teacher, who ran his own counselling practice. Unfortunately he has recently died but I feel constantly inspired by what he taught me. I did the training course sand started to keep a diary of thoughts, reactions and results to the changes that were being tried. I continued to read Deming and Kohn as well as deepening my understanding of the Glasser techniques.
Now references from the diary of a teacher of mathematics:
I find it useful to think of the three C's. Kohn referred to them as necessary preconditions for quality: Content, collaboration and choice.
Content: I would try to eliminate boring work. Get rid of excessive repetition of examples. For example SMP books and booklets. The effect has been that I do more whole class teaching, work from the board more by giving careful neat notes for their books. I use a ruler and drawing instruments more. I also prepare more of my own material on computer. I work to a high standard of presentation. In this respect I seem to have returned to a method of teaching that I associate with some teachers from my own past. I set myself higher standards
Homework was usually prepared in advance and kept strictly relevant and appropriate to the course. Often produced on computer. Record keeping has been affected. I have developed a method of tracking the progress throughout the year including absences, work covered, etc. Follow up for missed assignments or those not passed.
Many compliments from parents received, Particularly gratifying were those who were teachers or Ofsted Inspectors.
Co-operation. Grades for work have been abolished. Largely meaningless comments like 'good', 'excellent', etc, are avoided. Even verbal 'rewards' are suppressed. We now tend to discuss the issues more, and written comments are specific and useful, or may describe some aspect that I liked. Work is 'passed' upon reaching a standard, I take trouble to explain the criteria in advance. We have tried to abolish failure. The result is no competition for scarce grades, the scarcity being arbitrary and manufactured in any case. Much more co-operation observed in classroom, children spontaneously work together sharing what they know. Why shouldn't they now? They have nothing to fear. There are more questions to me in front of others. Less anxiety is evident. Girls in particular seem a lot happier. Plus and minus points got rid of. Initially much justification needed with the children with most in favour of keeping them. Now no one wants them back. Even children who were most vociferous We spend time now discussing the issues in relation to the work and not arguing about whether its worth a plus point, or why I've been so unfair in awarding them.
There has been some conflict with the school's policy in certain areas. Last December I was asked to give out commendation certificates - 'two or three per class' I was told. I found it impossible to do this as students were nearly all working very well and I could not separate out a small group. I felt it would de-motivate the whole group and turn the winners into 'boffs'. The management justified it, of course, as a motivation to the rest to work harder. Here you have an example of alternate models of behaviour leading to opposite conclusions.
Choice - sometimes disastrous results were produced due to hasty decisions. I seemed unable to proceed without explaining too much to the children.
Choice in year 11 has yielded some good test results, where compared to a control group a class's results have steadily increased when given a significant amount of freedom to choose the work they do; (diagram).
Choice may be brought into a lesson in a number of ways if you plan for it. Even small amounts (e.g. at this point choose between topics A and B) can produce quite remarkable effects upon the group, resulting in increased productivity.
I use a Glasser technique which is abbreviated to W.D.E.P. for convenience; - remember it stands for want, doing, evaluation, plan. Let me explain how it works with an example. M. was talking and disturbing a group who were trying to catch up with some notes that I had put on the board. I asked "What are you doing?" Tone of voice is crucial here, it is a genuine question with no criticism or judgement. Mostly you get a straightforward and accurate answer. "I was talking to the others". Now my question "Is that helping you M"? Usually they will be honest and say "No!". I may then say "OK what's your plan?" and then when they themselves decide upon an course of action they invariably stick to it, as M did on this occasion.
I do not understand why this technique works so well. It seems to have something to do with the formation of the plan in the person's own words. I use it constantly. I caught a child that I did not know from year 8 running through some newly planted bushes. When I asked why did he think I might want to talk to him he knew immediately. He answered himself that it was a garden to be enjoyed by all. He formed a plan upon my asking. He would run around them in future. He has continued to avoid them. There are many variants on this theme; 64 permutations are possible of one to four from the four parts of the process. It is very fast and very flexible. It is, I believe, a brilliant adaptation of the Glasser counselling procedure for use in teaching.
In General:
The Quality of the work in all areas has steadily risen. There is some evidence of marks rising relative to a 'control' group in year 11.Self-evaluation is crucial to the transformation. I had not seen its importance at first, but tried to plan for it. I tried to persuade the students that it was their opinion of what they did that mattered, not mine or anybody else. They mark their own and others work. They correct work with the help of others. I supply answers to homework in advance very often. I discuss their reports and only tend to write down what we agree upon. This has changed the tedium of sixth form reviews into a worthwhile exercise. When on 'report' the lesson evaluation is agreed upon between us.
The alteration in the tone of voice is something that I have not had to practice. It is fascinating that it seems to change naturally once Choice Theory starts to displace the Stimulus - Response model of behaviour. There have been repeated lapses back into the old way of doing things, though they seem to be getting less frequent now! I was surprised early on when I did a year 10 English cover. I came in as another teacher was leaving and the class, observing me closely, got noisier. I asked a girl at the front whether the assignment had called for group discussion. It was meant as a genuine question and asked as if they had been a class of adults. I can only assume it was the voice tone that produced complete silence for the rest of the lesson.
Use of paradoxical techniques is more spontaneous and quite common. A sixth former was talking manically to others whilst they were working, I politely asked if he would like to move as other people were disturbing him. Evidently the paradox so surprised him that he thanked me and worked silently for the rest of the lesson.
I shout less. There are far fewer confrontations in class. Children's behaviour can be affected quite dramatically. One boy was failing in year 10. At the end of one lesson we talked over the options. All my admonishments had produced no change. He chose to sit nearer to me so that I could help him. From that day onwards he was like a different person, it was as though a switch had been thrown and he continues to concentrate and has made very good progress.
Children are less anxious and learning seems to take place almostspontaneously. I have come to realise that teaching maths is not about finding clever ways to make things clear. You can't 'explain' maths at all. My most difficult group have begun to think for themselves. I have had to recheck work they produced because I did not believe they could do it.
Co-operation seems contagious. They are observed helping those who have not grasped a point so quickly. (When used with reception children in 'vertical grouping'. the older ones are seen to 'mentor' the younger ones spontaneously, as MacIngvale described earlier). I have better class control and experience less anxiety in the job. Marking homework has been affected in an interesting way, it has become easier and less stressful (due to not grading or increased relevance - not sure!). I'm able to remain calmer in the chaotic atmosphere of a large comprehensive school and actually help the children instead of shouting and punishing.
We have just started a process with the tutor group which we have called 'continual improvement'. It has involved finding out what each wants in various aspects of their lives. What is happening in the class to hinder the improvement, (in confidence). How each subject teacher sees the group. I have presented this as an alternative to the punishments they are getting as a result of what teachers call their 'immature' behaviour. Students were involved from the start. They suggested it and helped to design the forms. It has the backing of the management.
Where I have no agenda for them it has been possible to help them sort out their relationship problems. A said that D had been calling her some terrible names. It turned out that A had been giving out her fair share of abuse because her dad had told her to give as good as you got. I asked if this was working. When she said "Yes - of course" I asked her why she had come to me for help if it had worked. She said "Not that well" and together we all agreed on other things to try instead of name calling. The simple question "Is it working" can often provoke deep thought.
We have managed to stop fighting which has resulted from long term feuds between families. This has been done in front of the whole group sitting in a circle, as advocated by Glasser. Again it is remarkably fast and involves a no judgement, non blaming tone. We help them to substitute behaviours that satisfy their needs in more efficient ways than the older patterns. The solutions really seem to stick.
Year 9 parents evening was particularly gratifying. Here a top set is taught and I have applied all the ideas and have become totally open with the parents. They were very positive, unanimous and extremely complimentary. Many said that I had their total support, and that their children would benefit from this approach when they went into the world of work. Nobody wants their child to compete and they seem to understand that rewards are patronising!
Year 8 with a set 2 produced some interesting results. One man grasped my arm and said that I was the first person to voice suspicions that he had always harboured and to carry on with what I was doing because it was benefiting his son, who was sitting beside him.
N, 11 years old, is in my tutor group and arrived late for registration on most mornings. The school wanted to detain her. for 10 or 15 minutes at the end of every day that she arrived late. When I told N. what the plans were, and that I disagreed with the policy, but it was beyond my control I felt the relationship that I had built up suddenly dissolving. I explained to the management one day how strange it was that we punish people for not having parents who could help them to organise their lives. Mysteriously the punishment idea vanished. The plans we formed together now have her coming on time, without needing detentions. The reasons N. had been coming late? She had been sleeping badly. She told of her parents fear of the a drugs gang who were now in prison for tying up her parents and torturing them. This crime was well known in the area and had made the national press.
This sort of conflict or dilemma happens on an almost daily basis. I feel it represents the collision of two incompatible paradigms in relation to human behaviour.
In less that a year I have begun to shift away from a Stimulus-Response theory of humanity. Basically it is a do this and you'll get that approach where rewards are offered contingently upon some behaviour taking place. The direction is an alternative theory of the world which has been called 'choice theory' by Glasser.
The change is like a wrenching. Like tearing an alien thing from my body. Often I slip back into S-R mode and my anger seems even stronger than before. It is not an easy path. But the effects are paradoxical in the sense that doing something with an inappropriate model is probably the hardest work of all. In any case I cannot do anything other than to go down this road of exploration
I feel that this is where our education philosophy is at the present time. The management of the whole system is founded and foundering on an erroneous and harmful model of what it is to be human. The change needed is fundamental it would encompass the following:
I decided that in order to satisfy his need for power he needed more choice in the amount of money he could earn. He would get a basic pocket money and then opportunities to earn credits for jobs around the house. Credits would be converted into money at a rate of exchange that would increase as he got older. He drew up an elaborate chart with boxes for each job against days of the week. The first week he earned a small fortune. Then he stopped filling in the chart even though he had done the work. It was too much bother, he said. He became quite distressed about the situation and kept apologising that he was useless. Very quickly he stopped doing anything and so earned less than he had before. With all his coursework and other homework filling in this chart seemed to represent information overload. This system, which a few weeks earlier had seemed such a good idea, collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity.
I cannot believe that I did this so recently as a year ago. Now I pay him double, by standing order, never nag him to do anything, ask him how I can help in relation to his workload, etc. The result is that he cooks and does other jobs and the room is a bit tidier - honestly. He seems more motivated in general, particularly in relation to his future.
I want to see John Colbeck's mirror. I believe we do project ourselves into what we see because we each create a version of the universe inside our nervous systems. It is this unique model, individually created, which we each project back out there and give the casual name 'reality'. Until we examine ourselves we assume that we all see the same thing. Perceptions are remarkably consistent and due to the structures and traps of our language we are lulled into this delusion that we each look through our spy holes and peer at the same screen for example. I believe this was a major contribution of Alfred Korzybski and his' Theory of General Semantics'; see his Science and Sanity (1933).
I still find it difficult to distinguish between competition which is within me from competition which is out there in the system. Although I have a suspicion that the managers are themselves highly competitive and set up systems which have this characteristic.
For example I have discovered that many colleagues share my own approaches. But they do this secretly and so I would have never known unless I started to ask appropriate questions.
W. Edwards Deming
1900-1993The 'fourteen points' adapted from 'Out of the Crisis' (1982) chapter 2;'Principles for Transformation'.
W. Edwards Deming : "Out of the Crisis" and "The New Economics"
Alfie Kohn : "No Contest" and "Punished by Rewards"
William Glasser : "The Quality School" and "Schools Without Failure".
Question : How do you motivate people?
Answer : You cannot. All you can do is to create an environment in which they can recover their natural urge to quality work.
Glasser developed a method of helping people to fulfil their higher needs. He named his method reality therapy since initially it helped people to come to terms with reality in a counselling situation. The needs he named love, power, freedom and fun. He showed that the classroom can become a place in which teachers and others give mutual help to this end. His techniques are eminently applicable to schools.
One useful tool is the acronym W.D.E,P. Which can be used in counselling or in managing a class, for example. What do you want? What are you doing about it? Is it working - evaluation? What is your plan?.. The video Managing disruption in the classroom shows some applications of techniques like this. It is difficult to convey the transformation to our teaching, and indeed our lives, that I and other teachers have experienced as a result of a brief acquaintance with this methodology.
There is something fundamentally flawed in what we are doing to each other. Research in Social Psychology has demonstrated that 'behaviourism' is an inaccurate and inappropriate model of human behaviour, and yet it is the basis of almost all of our interactions. There are major problems with the role of punishments, rewards and competition within the family, the workplace or in schools. The result is to drive down the quality of work produced in any sphere of life. Kohn's 'Punished by Rewards' is a critique of this theory, a copy of the final page is enclosed.
Glasser has recently applied the alternative to behaviourism, which he calls 'choice theory', to schools. The contents page from his 'The Quality School' is enclosed.
Under the auspices of the British Deming Association I hope to more effectively influence others and persuade them of the importance of an alternative approach to managing people. A copy of the first of a series of articles by Headteacher Robert Dupey from 'Managing Schools Today' is attached.
N.Davies (7.3.97)
In three minutes Deming moves from Japanese industry, the theory that everybody wins under co-operation, the idea that the most important figures are unknown and unknowable and finally he speculates on the tremendous waste of human resources that we witness in our schools.
THE MILEAGE CHART:
A statistical chart detects the existence of a cause of variation that lies outside the system. It does not find the cause. THE RUN CHART FOR SPRINGS
Both tails of the distribution fell within specification. The downward trend shows something is wrong. The frequency distribution has no predictive value. It tells nothing about the process because this is not a stable process. IMPROVED PRODUCTION OF STOCKINGS
4.8 % defectives was too high to sustain a profit for the company. They had no idea where the problems were. Workers and supervisors got involved right from the start.
Individual charts:
75. Excellent looper. many of her techniques were transferred to the department
22. Blind in left eye. 6/20 vision restored to 20/20 with spectacles. Whole workforce now get regular eye examination. 12 operators initially required spectacles.
27. Shown the chart : "I've been here for five years and this is the first time anybody told me that care mattered. I could do a much better job if it would make any difference".
Summary:
Neil Davies
22.4.97
e.mail: neil@nardavies.demon.co.uk
Dear Editor,
The article 'Elitism' that is failing us' all by Martin Jacques (20th.April), did, in my opinion, clearly describe the way that competition within a system destroys first the quality of work produced, and eventually threatens the existence of the system itself.
The customers in our schools are the children, they have to buy what you are selling in the classroom in order for the process that is quality to begin to take place. It is happening all over our country in spite of the system's inadequate management at all levels. From these customers through parents right up to the Secretary of State, all of us want the same thing, to experience quality in our lives. There is confusion over the means to achieve this, but fortunately help is at hand.
The academics whose solutions were described under 'Four tutorials on the way to run a perfect school' illustrate the problem that we all face quite well. Committed though they are to change, the welfare of children and avoiding the wastage of human potential, all have either overlooked the real means to effect the transformation, or have ensured that its occurrence may be delayed a few more decades.
It is the very belief itself in competition, punishment and reward that is the perpetuator of this human tragedy. We are not machines controlled by stimulus-response mechanisms such as the dominant theory of behaviourism has led us to assume. Some managers in industry are now beginning to understand this and they are studying the means to effect continual improvement and systemic change. The foundations of a new idea, called 'Choice Theory', have been laid by a number of people whose work is becoming increasingly accessible to the general public, as the Editor of this paper should be aware having spoken at the British Deming Association Conference last year.
To begin the dialogue my advice to all those interested in change and improvement in education is to read works such as William Glasser's 'The Quality School', W.Edwards Deming's 'The New Economics' and Alfie Kohn's 'Punished by Rewards'. It seems a little odd that we have to relearn how to co-operate in order to satisfy all our needs. Nevertheless we seem to be at the threshold of a way of thinking about ourselves which could allow us to move towards the elusive goal of human fulfilment. Managers need to change the way they behave, think and feel. Teachers are above all managers; they and their own management need to show leadership by example not by exhortation.
Yours faithfully,
Neil Davies
Teacher of Mathematics at a Comprehensive School