Autonomy, authority and anarchy: creating a better school culture

Most schools live with a quiet tension between what’s written in policy and what actually happens in lessons. Getting to grips with this tension is at the heart of creating an improved school culture.

I arrive at Schoolington Academy at 08:15. I spend the first 30 minutes in the boardroom with the senior leadership team, talking about the structure of the day and the lessons we will visit. One of the leaders tells me there has been a big push on Cold Call and mini-whiteboards in the school. These are now a part of the school’s T&L policy, and we should see them in lessons.

We head off into lessons, and across the course of the five-period day we see 20 lessons. In three lessons we saw mini-whiteboards, and in the remainder they were not in use when they could have been. In every lesson, we saw students calling out answers and teachers relying on students with their hands up. On a few occasions we saw teachers using Cold Call, but this was definitely a small minority.

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I didn’t invent this scenario, nor is it a one-off. Across many school visits and collaborations, it’s something of a recurring theme. All schools have some kind of Teaching and Learning policy, and all too often it doesn’t reflect the reality of what happens in classrooms.

This isn’t healthy for any organisation, let alone a school. The inconsistency it creates causes problems at multiple levels. Some staff become frustrated that they are the only ones trying to implement school priorities. Others become accustomed to ignoring policies, directives and leaders’ authority. Students receive an inconsistent diet, potentially leading to friction and conflict. This radical disjunct between “what we say” and “what we do” acts as an insurmountable barrier to building a high performing and professional school culture.

The rules and the reality

Discussing these issues can be complicated, so it’s worth starting by introducing some useful terminology. In the legal world, the term de jure relates to what the law or rule is, like whether dogs need to be kept on a leash in the park, or a motorway speed limit of 70 mph. Of course, there might be some citizens who ignore that particular law or rule, and risk letting their dogs roam free or hovering at 77 mph on the motorway. The term de facto can therefore be introduced to describe not the rules, but the reality.

Returning to the case of Schoolington Academy, de jure we have teachers using Cold Call and mini-whiteboards. De facto, however, they are certainly not.

So, what are they doing? What is the organisational culture that governs the de facto reality in Schoolington Academy?

In response, some might use the word autonomy, leaning on a definition of the term that relates to teachers’ de facto freedom to choose. I think, however, that we should resist using the term autonomy to describe this reality, and use the potentially more evocative term anarchy.

For most, the term anarchy conjures up images of chaotic and dystopian societies. Whilst it would certainly be an appropriate word to use for such contexts, at root it just means any situation in which there is no organisation or control. The etymology of anarchy is an, meaning “without”, and arkhos, meaning “ruler.” It describes a situation in which nobody is in charge or ruling over anyone else. As such, the term describes Schoolington Academy’s de facto reality perfectly: students might not be climbing out of the windows and throwing chairs around, but the strategies and techniques that teachers de facto use are completely anarchic.

The anarchy in Schoolington Academy isn’t deliberate or the result of defiance, nor does it necessarily result in a chaotic or unsafe environment. Instead, it stems from the gradual decay of weak systems and organisational culture, and results in a pedagogic incoherence.

Autonomy and anarchy

There is another reason to avoid the term autonomy in this context. Autonomy stems from the Greek autos, meaning “self”, and nomos, meaning “law,” and in moral philosophy autonomy then comes to mean “self-law”, or the decisions that we make based on the things that we value and hold dear. In moral philosophy, deciding “not to surpass the speed limit” because we think “it is unsafe for the drivers around me” is an autonomous decision: we have made it based on our own principles and will.

Schoolington Academy doesn’t quite feel like that. Are teachers allowing students to call out because they think that’s the right thing to do? Are they not using mini-whiteboards due to a specific, conscious value they hold? It’s possible, but it’s unlikely. It’s more probable that cultural inertia and organisational ineffectiveness have led to a situation where colleagues aren’t as conscious of their decisions as that, and are not making deliberate choices based on their innermost values and principles.

Autonomy and motivation

Developments in psychology over the last 30 years or so have shown that autonomy can have a large effect on people’s sense of happiness and self-fulfillment (see especially the work of Ryan and Deci). Research shows that whilst many teachers do not feel a sense of autonomy in their work (and in particular their professional development), increased autonomy correlates with stronger job satisfaction and likelihood to stay in the profession. True autonomy is desirable in a motivational sense: colleagues who feel a sense of ownership over their decisions and that those decisions match their values will be happier and more motivated than otherwise.

In the case of Schoolington Academy however, we can’t expect the motivational benefits of autonomy to emerge, because the intentional and values-based decision making processes simply aren’t there.

Autonomy and heteronomy

Returning to moral philosophy, autonomy is traditionally contrasted with heteronomy - a situation where an individual is governed by external forces. For example, deciding “not to surpass the speed limit” because we think “if we speed we might get caught and get a fine” is a heteronomous decision, not an autonomous one. It’s not based on internal values, but external coercion.

Applying this language now to Schoolington Academy, we have a heteronomous policy that tells staff to use Cold Call and mini-whiteboards and all sorts of other techniques. The reality, as we’ve seen, is that the heteronomy is only de jure: de facto we have neither heteronomy nor autonomy. Instead, we have anarchy.

Full autonomy

I arrive at The Critical Thinking School Academy at 08:15. I spend the first 30 minutes in the boardroom with the senior leadership team, talking about the structure of the day and the lessons we will drop into. The leadership team tells me that they have a highly autonomous approach to Teaching and Learning, and teachers are expected to run their classrooms in the way they see fit. Teachers are expected to justify their decisions, but the team believes that there’s no best way overall, and every teacher knows their students best. So in some lessons you might see teachers explaining things from the front, and in others you might see an inquiry approach. In some you might see teachers choosing students to answer questions regardless of hands up, and in others you might see teachers allowing students to volunteer, and not calling on students if they don’t see a hand up.

We go and visit some lessons and this is indeed what we see - a kaleidoscope of strategies, approaches and routines. In conversation with teachers across the course of the day, it is clear that they choose their methods based on their personal professional values and philosophies, and can always justify the decisions they have made.

The Critical Thinking School Academy has fully understood the term autonomy, and in its pursuit has crafted both a de jure and de facto situation where teachers can make decisions based on their own judgement.

I imagine (hope?) that regular readers of this blog won’t assume that I think The Critical Thinking School Academy model is a good or sensible one. I don’t believe that all decisions are equal, or that there’s no best way overall, or that teachers can ignore established or evidenced practices because they know their classes best. I unashamedly believe that there are some strategies that are simply better and more effective than others. The Critical Thinking School Academy, despite its allures, will be an incoherent place, with tangible student outcomes being highly variable across classrooms, and students who are confused and frustrated at the different expectations across the school. The lack of common routines and habits leads to lost time and inefficiencies, and despite teachers potentially being happier, we can strongly suspect that students will be no better off.

A radically autonomous system like this doesn’t work not only because people will make poor decisions but also because it can’t scale. Schools are big organisations with lots of people, and a student who has over ten teachers across 30 lessons a week will struggle with this level of inconsistency, and leaders will fail to guarantee a baseline expectation for quality. Autonomy might be desirable, but its not an end in and of itself. Autonomy’s ultimate purpose is better outcomes for students, and in failing to achieve these outcomes The Critical Thinking School Academy does not help us in our quest for a better school culture.

Heteronomy vs autonomy

None of the issues I’ve raised here are new. Whilst the specific terms we have deployed and introduced might not have always been used, the balance between heteronomy and autonomy has been debated and agonised over for years. Yet for all the ink that has been spilled about “teacher empowerment,” “aligned autonomy” and “innovative collaboration”, I don’t think many schools have cracked it.

Despite the difficulties inherent to creating a better culture in a context as complex as a school, we can suggest two profitable avenues that might be worth pursuing.

Avenue 1: Prerequisites

In a previous blog, I argued that leaders should use the term “prerequisites” rather than “non-negotiables” to frame their heteronomous directives. For example, a leader might say that:

In Schoolington Academy, we want all students to pay attention during verbal response questioning. One prerequisite for this is that teachers consistently place the name at the end of each question.

There are some clear advantages of this approach. First, it grounds the directive in clear and universal reasoning: what teacher wouldn’t want students to be paying attention? If a teacher wants students to pay attention and therefore uses the Name at End strategy, then we are managing to be heteronomous (i.e. we are telling colleagues to do something) whilst respecting teachers’ autonomy (i.e. they are then doing it because they understand and value the purpose behind it). Using “prerequisite” bakes the purpose into the directive, and forces leaders to communicate the value that lies below their directives. It locates leaders’ authority not in a hierarchical organisational structure, but in their values and philosophies.

Secondly, the language of “prerequisite” also doesn’t necessitate the desired outcome. In our case, using Name at End has the desired outcome of students paying attention. Without Name at End, students almost definitely won’t pay attention to the questioning, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily will if it is used (i.e., it is a necessary but not sufficient condition). This adds further nuance to our heteronomous policy, and gives teachers room to explore and experiment, and doesn’t erode leaders’ authority if this particular strategy didn’t work in a particular case.

Thirdly, it also gives us stronger recourse for discussion when delivering feedback. If we observe a lesson and a teacher doesn’t use it, we can explore whether that is a conscious decision or an unconscious habit. Exploring reasoning is always going to be more valuable than just pointing out that a person didn’t do something they should have done. It allows us not only to establish the extent to which this colleague shares our common values, but also to create a culture of intentionality - where teachers know that the decisions they make are expected to be purposeful and deliberate.

Avenue 2: departmental autonomy

Prerequisites also help with more sophisticated disciplinary applications. For example, there might be specific writing strategies that are highly effective in English (which requires flowing prose and clear sentence structures), but are redundant and inefficient in science (in which extended content can ordinarily be parsed as bullet pointed lists or diagrams). Leaders issuing a centralised policy around writing strategies therefore not only disrespect the disciplinary substance of the subjects but also erode teachers’ autonomy. For example, whilst a science teacher might value clear sentence structures in a general sense, they might not want to spend time on them in science lessons, meaning the directive does not harmonise with the teacher’s values. This split renders teachers’ decisions heteronomous and frustrating.

Many such cases exist, and I am reminded of examples like embedding literacy and numeracy in all lessons, using Bloom’s taxonomy, bluntly applying generic “oracy” or “metacognitive” strategies, or even implementing blanket marking policies.

Instead, leaders could move to a model of departmental autonomy. Using marking as an example, leaders might say “a prerequisite for effective long term learning is that teachers regularly read students’ work and give feedback on it.” A department might then collaborate and discuss whether they should use traditional written feedback, a whole class approach, a tech-based solution, what kind of work teachers might read, and so on and so forth. Whatever they decide, their decision will be based on their subject and their values, within the parameters of the prerequisite. This brings all the classic motivational advantages of autonomy, along with the outcomes-based advantages of pedagogical and disciplinary knowledge. It also minimises the scaling problems we discussed above: departments are small units within a whole, and inconsistencies between different departments are offset by both consistency within the departments and a general prerequisite-driven intellectual coherence across the school.

Drawing again on motivational theory, departmental autonomy also bolsters a sense of community and relatedness within a department, further boosting motivation and an enhanced sense of wellbeing and self-fulfillment within the school. My experience in such contexts is that different departments might alight on a common set of processes and have a de facto consistency, but because it springs from a de jure autonomy, the overall school culture is markedly different.

Conclusion

None of the problems presented here are easily solved. Schools are complicated places, and we should neither expect nor embrace simple or reductive solutions. What should be clear though is that the standard model of de jure heteronomy and de facto anarchy is unsustainable, and our colleagues and students deserve to live and work in a better school culture.

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I am extremely grateful to Thanos Gidaropoulos (senior leader at The Totteridge Academy) for introducing me to the true meaning of “autonomy” and how it can be deployed at a departmental level.

As ever, meaningful conversations about T&L are only possible where leaders and colleagues have a shared understanding of good practice, and there is no better tool for learning about and communicating classroom excellence than Carousel Teaching, which you can check out here.