Theory of Change for Character Education
I'm going through a bad bout of Baader-Meinhof...in my pursuit of Theory of Change, I've started to see it everywhere.
In a previous post , I explored how a Theory of Change approach might be used for whole-school development of Teaching and Learning. Here, I will focus on Theory of Change for Character Education. Sometimes referred to as 'educating the whole child', this aspect of schooling is one that I've been thinking about a lot this year. Having hosted the Vision, Values and Character conference in the Autumn with the legendary Dr Phil Cummins, we have moved with a group of like-minded schools to form a 'Character Cluster' group, looking at evidence-based pilot projects in our schools. More on this in the coming months.
Theory of Change for Character
Some great work has been done around the evidence base for Character Education since I joined the profession. In recent weeks I have been reading the work of Australian educators Dr Phil Cummins and Adriano di Prato and the formidable work of Doug Lemov and colleagues from the Uncommon Schools group in the US. In 'Reconnect- Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose and Belonging', Lemov et al. point to three big challenges as we re-boot education after the pandemic. Firstly, it is argued that the pandemic compounded an existing crisis caused by social media and easily-accessible mobile phones: 'a crisis in mental health amid rising screen time'. Secondly, there is the 'growing mistrust in institutions'. And finally, the crisis in balancing individualism v collectivism in places like schools that 'rely heavily on social contracts'. The case is put forward in stark and compelling terms, backed up by the latest data. However, those who have read Lemov over the years know that practical, positive solutions will follow - and thankfully that is the case!
'We should note that it is not all doom and gloom: the rest of this book will be focused on solutions to the issues we describe".
And this is where the Theory of Change lens kicks in - small, plausible activities affecting a large, long-term goal are needed.... As teachers, we are relentless in our belief in the agency of schools to affect positive change for our young people, especially in such difficult times. Affecting change in Belonging, Purpose and ultimately, in Character is a long game - as Cummins put it in the recent conference,
"How do you eat an elephant?... one bite at a time".
One of the proposed remedies from Lemov is the intentional building of connection in schools: this begins with a robust plan for banning mobile phones, and runs through classroom practice, structure of social time (especially lunch) and routines. The 'Reconnect' book feels like the first must-read for educators coming out of the pandemic.
It is not just in America and Australia that these issues are being grappled with. As the dust settles on lockdown teaching, there seems to be a collective period of reflection around what we are doing in UK schools: a re-assessment of our purpose. This was the atmosphere I took from the Schools North East conference and it has continued into 2023. As one CEO of a local Multi-Academy Trust put it to me recently, we need to decide on our 'COVID-keepers' and where we need a 're-setting of basic standards and expectations'. Anyone working in schools will be familiar with such reflections. It is was in this context that I returned to the work of The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham. Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022 with the third edition of the Framework for Character Education in Schools, there are some pleasingly accessible and practical research findings for teachers. Not least the Building Blocks of Character infographic:
For those with a Theory of Change lens, this structure is familiar. The diagrams I use are usually the other way around, but here we recognise the Long Term Objective (or Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of Flourishing Individuals in Society, with a causal link flowing from an Internal / Interim Objective of what the researchers call Practical Wisdom. The Outcomes of Intellectual, Moral, Civic and Performance Virtues feed in to the Internal Objective. As ever, with Theory of Change, we now look for the specific intentional Activities that engender change towards these 4 Outcomes. The Framework from the Jubilee Centre states many ways schools can do this, but there are no silver bullets proposed: each school will necessarily have to develop their own approach based on their context and their community. This is where I hope the Character Cluster will provide inspiration and case studies that others may build on and adapt. For example, we have made a start on reforming our conception of Student Leadership in my school, and the initial steps are intentionally directed towards Character development. The difficult next piece of the puzzle will be to evaluate the results: how will we know we've been successful? To be continued...
Books
Cummins & Di Prato, (2022). Game Changers:
Leading Today's Learning for Tomorrow's World. Hawker-Brownlow
Lemov et al., (2023), Reconnect- Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose and Belonging'. Jossey-Bass
Papers
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