Solutions and "problems"

The Solution Focus strategy attempts to maximise attention on solutions while minimising attention on problems. I support this orientation but it can be a challenge under certain circumstances. 

I have puzzled over the issue of solutions being so strongly linked to problems, especially in most everyday thinking. Many people come for assistance or justice with this mind set. And the situation itself often demands direct attention to a very real existing problem.

My personal response has been to address such 'problematic' situations at three main levels.  As much as possible I have worked with those involved to...

• Contain the problematic situation so that people and property are safe and the situation does not get any worse 
• Repair any harm done 
• Learn and Improve* things in order to reduce the likelihood of the problem recurring and to create a better future for all concerned.

The first two levels of response are clearly 'problem focused'. Perhaps only the third response is genuinely 'solution focused'.

However, containment and repairs can be prerequisites for achieving any desired improvements (sustainable solutions).


[* Notice that the last level is about 'improvement' rather than 'prevention'. Why? Because many initiatives aimed at prevention turn out to be counter-measures (containment, extra work,....) rather than actual solutions.]

Restorative practices is one example of a 'solution focused' strategy that often includes all of the above levels of response.

Over time it is possible for an organisation to become solution focused. When things go wrong (and they will go wrong!!) containment and repairs can be achieved fairly quickly because everyone knows that there is a firm commitment to learning from the situation and achieving solutions (long term improvements) that will reduce the likelihood of the problem recurring. I once had a staff member (Teacher) say to me in a puzzled voice: "We don't seem to have many of the problems we used to have !?!". I think this approach works.

Structures, Process & Windows of Opportunity

The purpose of structure is to support and enhance process including

• bringing the parties together
• in a timely fashion
• distributing authority and matching responsibility
• utilising contributions from all concerned, and
• achieving some of the purposes of all parties

That is, the purpose of structure is to create ‘windows of opportunity‘ that will

• enable the process to proceed successfully
• while meet the various needs of the parties involved

In this sense, for many people, education cannot be treated as piece-work – as simple mechanistic production:

• Input -> Process -> Output

In contrast, BigPicture and similar approaches incorporate the ongoing construction (and reconstruction) of generous, flexible,managed and negotiated “windows of opportunity”.

Understanding "solutions"

Learning takes a lifetime

I came to Solution Focus late via various milestones along the way, including 

• Quality Management - particularly continuous improvement (more here). This works well for those phenomena in which cause and effect are consistent over time and place
• Complexity... encountered while completing a PhD and 
• Solution Focus - more here. This works well where the relationship between cause and effect are not consistent over time and place...that is, when the outcomes are emergent

It is all very well to be focused on solutions but "solutions" are not always well understood.

Misunderstanding solutions 

For many years, as a teacher and Principal, I was good at resolving unhappy everyday situations, particularly those involving poor student behaviour. I was able to come up with "solutions" that enabled those involved to get back to teaching and learning... our core business.

But then I (finally) realised that I was coming up with "solutions" involving the same students in the same same situations every day or so. While I was 'resolving' the situations I was NOT producing a genuine long term solution that made my involvement unnecessary.  I needed to understand that what I was doing was actually 're-work' (waste) before the light came on for me.

What are solutions?


Firstly, "real solutions" do more than simply resolve current problems.  They also reduce the likelihoods that the problem will recur in the future; and if the problem does recur then it will be easier to resolve it next time.

In addition, genuine solutions are changes that make it easier for people to

• Know know what is happening
• Work together to improve what is happening
• Do their work really well 

They also reduce the need for counter-measures and rework

About counter-measures

While counter-measures may be necessary in the short term they represent low order "solutions" since they consume additional resources and have to repeated. For example, supervision, control, checking, repairing errors, redoing tasks... are all forms of waste. These activities are not really doing the core work. 

In contrast, real solutions are productive and sustainable, in that solutions

• make it easier to do better, and thus
• release resources for important activities, and also
• reduce waste and the need for rework by making sustainable improvements.

The problem with incentives

Today's solution can be the basis of tomorrow’s problem. 

The Australian Prime Minister has proposed substantial incentive payments to up to 1000 schools which show improvements in student attendance and results (more...). It is generally a good thing to recognise and reward achievements and the intended outcomes of the proposal are highly desirable.

However this is not simply a system-wide recognition and reward arrangement. Offering incentives with a limited number of possible recipients turns it into a competition.  Competition can certainly promote improved performance, as in sport.

At the same time, there can be unintended side effects. In any competition there will be winners and losers. Incentives work best for those who are likely to be rewarded and they tend to become less effective over time unless the rewards are increased. Very few of us commit ourselves to winning Olympic medals despite the ever increasing value of doing so.

To be competitive we need to minimise the factors that reduce our likelihood of success while maximising the factors that increase the likelihood of our success.  Other than luck, our likelihood of success is associated with factors over which we have some control.

The Prime Minister has promised that national criteria will be developed through consultative processes and measurement of performance will be overseen by an independent body. Fairness is important in any incentive scheme. But is this actually possible?

Student attendance and results are closely associated with many factors well outside the school's control including the natural abilities of individual students; family well-being; levels of parental education; and the families’ access to social capital, community resources and so on. But will the selection processes be able to measure the school’s and teacher’s contributions separately from these non-school factors?

If not, it would make sense for schools and teachers to generally avoid students who have additional needs for support and whose families are in distress; whose parents have low levels of education; and who live in communities with limited services, facilities and social capital.

Conversely it would make sense for schools to attract and retain students who have minimal need for additional individual support; whose families are in great shape; whose parents have high levels education and  easy access to material and social resources and services.

The unintended side effect is that the most successful school response to the Prime Minister's proposal could well be to avoid the very students the proposal is intended to assist.

Understanding Data

Why we need data
Data is used to construct our knowledge, actions and arrangements. In order to gather meaningful data we need matching concepts and some awareness of the context. A height of 170cm may be "tall" or "short" depending on the person's age, gender, race, group....

The application of data may, or may not, be problematic depending on the nature of causal relationships (if any) involved. For many physical phenomena, cause and effect are consistent over place and time. Thus data can be used to make reliable predictions and transfer best practice.

In most social phenomena, the relationships between cause and effect are not consistent over place and time. This fundamental reality is often masked by the fact that some observations can make sense in retrospect (after the event). The thinking error involved is, "because something can now be explained it could have been predicted before it happened".


Rather the following are often true if the phenomena are complex or chaotic:

• cause and effect may not be related at all in any meaningful way
• cause of effect may be remote from each other in place and time
• cause and effect may be related but also inconsistent over place and time - repeated experiments give significantly different results, or small differences result in very different results
• despite our best efforts, outcomes are unpredictable, messy

Data and Complex Phenomena

In complex phenomena such as social activity it is common for patterns to emerge in/from the interactions of the agents. That is, the outcomes are better understood as patterns rather than "products".
[Note: It is more appropriate to use  the term 'product' in relation to the outputs of a production process, one which can be properly understood in terms of Input-> Process-> Output (product)]

The use of data in relation to complex phenomena is to enable us to identify patterns, trends and opportunities rather than to manage our endeavours as production activities. Understanding the difference between production and emergence is critical in field such as education.  

Of course education and similar endeavours uses processes but they are typically iterative rather than linear, as is typical of production processes.

Moving forward and gaining momentum

Enormous efforts are going into improving schools, schooling and education but most are disruptive, counter-productive and undermine stakeholder commitments to future initiatives.

Here are some basic (but counter-intuitive and very challenging) ideas about the way forward for schools, schooling and education:

• Education is NOT a "process/production" activity and cannot be treated, nor modelled as such - A VERY BIG PROBLEM!!!  more...
• Reality is complex, messy, uncertain and unpredictable - Forrest Gump was right: "Sh-t happens!!"
• Certain people may be in charge at various levels, but it is not possible for them to be in control
• Hierarchical systems tend to protect senior officers from the inconvenience of knowing about the current reality
• Knowledge, not plans and policies, make people responsible (and knowledge can help make people, response-able)
• People want to do a good job (unless they are totally discouraged)
• We need to reduce the need for counter-measures (re-work) and move directly towards solutions by nurturing the emergence of what is desirable more...
• We need much less change but much more improvement
• Organisations (including schools) are constructed in the everyday conversations of those involved.
• Such situations require a set of agreed and easily retained rules of engagement/interaction (everyone's job description*), e.g.,
  
  
  • Know what is happening
  • Work with others to improve what is happening
  • Do your work in a way that makes it easier for the next person to do well
• When making changes/improvements always start by making things easier. 
• As a result of the above, everyone will do more and to do it better!!

That is, ongoing improvement of schools, schooling and education can be achieved quickly and economically  

• by working together and
• by adopting a strategy of  Easier First .

[*This 'job description' was used at RPS for the last several years of my time there and was clearly proven to work. In a school of 670 students, I taught 0.4 FTE, the APs taught 0.8 and everyone else taught full-time.  That is, 97% of all the available teacher time was spent working directly with students.]

Understanding Social Emotional Learning

I have been mulling over how to understand the social emotional learning component of School-wide Positive Behaviour Support.  The following is a summary of my current thinking
 

1. SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING (SEL)

For me, at this time, I see SEL as

• a major component of a school's taught, shared and lived curriculum
• complementing the academic curriculum
• enabling teaching, learning and belonging by and for all.

From listening to schools in the Network, and monitoring a lot of what is on the net, it seems to me that their are probably three SEL dimensions:

• School expectations/rules/agreements - These key school aspects are described and articulated in various ways. They are intended to guide everyone's ongoing actions and interactions but and detailed meanings change from context-to-context, from setting-to-setting. To understand, appreciate, accept and support the school's requirements involves substantial social emotional learning:  the expectations have to be met, the rules observed and/or the agreements kept.  The  capacity to do so involves social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy.
• Social skills - The ability to use verbal and non-verbal communication skills that enable successful interactions between members of the (school) community. That is to meet one's own needs in acceptable ways and to support the needs of others.  For example, Teachers frequently use 
  
  • Attentive listening (from Tribes....)
  • Active Supervision (SWPBS...)
  • Restorative Inquiry (Restorative Practices...)
  • Affective Statements (Tribes, RP...)
  • Showing appreciation (Tribes, RP...)
  • ...

• Habits of Mind - Patterns of thinking and acting in one's own best interests and leading to ongoing success. For example, You Can Do It!!proposes several 'habits of mind, including..."
  
  • Accepting Myself
  • Taking Risks
  • Being Independent
  • I Can Do It
  • Giving Effort
  • Working Tough
  • Setting Goals
  • Planning My Time
  • Being Tolerant of Others
  • Thinking First
  • Playing by the Rules, and
  • Social Responsibility ... seehttp://www.youcandoit.com.au/AboutYouCanDoIt/
  • ... 
  • For a more scholarly list, see alsohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habits_of_mind 

• Emotional Literacy - 
  
  • Identifying, relating and communicating one's (emotional) responses to experience, and
  • Understanding and appreciating those of others.

2. Implications arising

It seems to me that there are some major implications from the above:

Firstly, emotional literacy underpins success including the successful use of social skills and the development of useful habits of mind.

Secondly, the key elements of most structured SEL programs include elements from each of the above SEL dimensions.  Consider Tribes as simple example. The Tribes elements are

• Attentive Listening = habit of mind + social skill + emotional literacy
• Showing appreciation / No put-downs = social skill + emotional literacy
• Right to pass = emotional literacy + social skill
• Mutual respect = emotional literacy + social skill
• [Focus on task = habit of mind  + emotional literacy]

Thirdly, social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy are not subject to the law of physics: they are not universals in a determined sense. They are emergent, cultural and situated. This may mean that your school can simply choose its own preferred approach, and if done well, the school will make a profound contribution to the life and work of those involved, both now and in the future.

  
Fourthly, and keeping this last point in mind, consider your school's key expectations, e.g., "Be Safe, Be Fair and Be a Learner"

3. Discussion Starters

• What are the required social skills that will enable all staff and students to meet these expectations?
• What are the associated habits of mind that will make meeting the school's expectations natural and easy for staff and students?  
• What emotional literacy is required of staff and students in order for them to understand, appreciate and achieve the school's expectations.
• What educational strategies does your school currently have in place to develop the social skills, habits of mind and emotional literacy required?
• What needs are not currently being addressed? That is, what are the gaps in the schools continuum of support in these areas, and how do you know (data)?
• Possible next steps?