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TE KUAKA ISSUE 1 2014 7
“That’s why we don’t have any strong data around what’s
working, and what’s not. That was the real gap I found.”
During her research last year, Nicole volunteered at a Youthline
and Blue Light anti-bullying hui where she met Sue Hobbs, a
community liaison officer who introduces community organisations
into schools.
The pair joined forces and co-founded the Stand By Me
Collective – a coalition of organisations and individuals working
together to support young people, parents, whānau and the wider
community affected by bullying.
“Hopefully, it will continue to be a backbone organisation to
support all of the not-for-profit organisations, programmes and
initiatives that go into schools around bullying,” Nicole says.
As part of her PhD research, Nicole will evaluate and collect
data from the hundreds of anti-bullying services and interventions
to investigate whether they are effective, and what impact they
have within schools.
“It’s a stocktake of agencies and school-based programmes.
There are so many little organisations out there that produce really
effective material, but they are struggling for funding against the
big boys so they don’t get into all of the schools.”
With support from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre, the
Ministry of Education, the Human Rights Commission and The
Office of the Children’s Commissioner, Nicole also plans to set
up a research unit to record data around bullying. This data will
produce case studies that will be analysed for effective practices
and intervention plans.
Ultimately, Nicole hopes to create an effective intervention
project that schools can implement to help turn bullying on its
head.
“It should be an intervention plan to help student achievement
from a more holistic approach. You can’t just look at the academic,
you have to look at the social literacy of students as it goes hand-in-
hand toward student achievement.”
Dealing with difficult
issues the OTLTM way
Many educational leaders struggle with how to build trust while
tackling the difficult task of improving teaching and learning.
Some leaders delay talking about the difficult issues altogether
and others talk about them so indirectly that their message is
not clearly heard. At other times, leaders may impose their views
in ways that assume the truth of their perceptions and damage
their relationships.
Viviane Robinson, a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of
Education and Academic Director of the University of Auckland
Centre for Educational Leadership, has developed an approach
that teaches leaders how to understand why they find such issues
so difficult and how to resolve them in ways that are both ethical
and effective.
Now, a group of experienced principals and lead teachers
across the nation are set to become the first New Zealand cohort
of accredited facilitators for the Open-to-learningTM Conversations
programme.
Open-to-learning Conversations (OTLTM Conversations) is
an educational approach designed to help leaders improve
their schools by building and maintaining trust while tackling
difficult issues in teaching and learning. It has been delivered
to educational leaders in Australia, New Zealand, England and
America.
Viviane says she adapted the work of her professors, Chris
Argyris and Donald Schon, who developed the well-known concepts
of theory of action and single and double loop learning.
“I was a graduate student with Argyris and Schon at Harvard
and I thought it was an incredibly powerful way of understanding
and improving our practice. Rather than just talk about
improvement, Argyris and Schon were dedicated to teaching their
students how to intervene in ways that were ethical and effective.
They demonstrated their advice and expected us to as well. I
thought it was time I did more to develop a new generation of
facilitators and researchers who could carry on this work.
Viviane, an organisational psychologist, has applied the OTLTM
approach in both corporate and educational organisations, but
her heart is in the latter. She says this is because she hails from
a family of teachers. “I remember my parents, uncles and their
friends talking about education and teaching a lot. There was a
strong emphasis on service to others and fighting the educational
bureaucracy of the time.”
While Viviane has always included aspects of this approach in
her teaching, it was in the last 10 years she developed the research
and development approach she calls OTLTM.
Up until late last year, the only facilitators of the OTLTM
Conversations programme were Viviane and Jacqui Patuawa
– Director of the First-time Principals Programme. Viviane says
they are now expanding the number of accredited facilitators
in response to a strong demand from schools, professional
organisations and the government, who are all eager for OTLTM
expertise and knowledge. With the help of UniServices and a team
Distinguished Professor Viviane Robinson