Culture refers to a set of customs, beliefs and behavior that are shared by a given group of people. The culture of a school consists of things such as policies, schedules, demographics and curriculum together with all social interactions that occur in between these elements to form the desired school image. Strategies that are not meaningfully linked to a school’s culture cannot improve instruction delivery as they are bound to fail. School culture is ordinarily formed when teachers and students interact during instruction delivery in a classroom; therefore classroom culture is a fundamental component of school culture. Educational excellence can be achieved by putting in place a strategy that is beneficial to a school’s culture and that can help improve instruction.
School culture entails unwritten rules that govern how students and teachers interact with one another. The thoughts, feelings and actions that both teachers and students have towards the school are synchronized by a set of unwritten rules in the form of an accepted set of norms, traditions, rituals, beliefs and values. Apart from student-teacher interaction, unwritten rules also determine the outcome of curriculum decisions, tests and curriculum instruction.
A school culture that is student-focused can be formed by encouraging teachers to pay much attention to efficient testing and curriculum that can facilitate the making of decisions in a school. This can be achieved by implementing a strategy that discourages teachers from teaching whatever they want and helps them move towards a more professional-oriented teaching culture by regularly celebrating student learning and achievement (Sergiovanni, 1984, p. 8).
Celebrations symbolize what is valued within a school community. By incorporating celebrations into a school’s culture, students are encouraged to be more attentive and teachers tend to follow curriculum instruction all the more. Celebrations enhance the rules engagement by making teacher-student interactions to be more encouraging, cordial and collegial. Celebrations can be in different forms. A school can prefer changing a slogan or motto that has been in place for a long time then celebrate and reinforce it so as to replenish teachers’ and students’ energy. Slogans and mottos form a very important part of school culture. A good slogan and motto should be that which communicates the values of a school (Gregory & Chapman, 2008).
Celebrations can be used as a way of transforming the negative aspects of a school’s culture and as a way of continually encouraging and developing the positive side of the culture. This can be achieved by initiating ceremonies and traditions that convey a strong message regarding the positive aspect of a school’s culture. Put in place a song that clearly conveys the value of the culture of the school. Celebration ensures that positive aspects of a school’s culture do not fade into oblivion and that threats to the positive culture are identified and transformed.
Threats can be any element of the culture that strains the relationship between the students and teachers. Celebrations strengthen a school’s culture and support improvements in instruction by clarifying the vision of a school through reiterating the school’s purposes and core beliefs (Louks, 1983, p. 7). Significant improvements in instruction are realized when certain beliefs in a school culture are strengthened, on the other hand, if they are weak, improvement of instructions will often be unpredictable, slow and occur less often.
References
Gregory, G. & Chapman, C. (2008). Differentiated instructional strategies in practice:Training, implementation, and supervision (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Louks, H. S. (1983). At Last: Some Good News from a Study of School Improvement. Educational Leadership, 41: 4-9.
Sergiovanni, F. T. (1984). Leadership and Excellence in Schooling. Educational Leadership 45: 4-13.