First Principles for a New Administration
Teacher Autonomy
In his excellent book Drive, Daniel Pink discusses what he calls the secret to performance and satisfaction at work, at home & at school. The deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
According to Pink, there are three elements to true motivation that can help all of us realize our potential. Those elements are autonomy, mastery and purpose.
DPS Chalkboard has hit a subscription base of over 250 people. We're proud of that benchmark and thought we would take a step back and provide you with some details of one of our core values. We believe Teacher Autonomy is so important we should share our viewpoint on this happiness and motivational philosophy, perhaps with the hope that the School Board, our new Superintendent, building Principals, and most importantly Teachers would adopt our attitude and allow autonomy to take root and grow in Decatur Public Schools.
While exploring the Merriam Webster dictionary, you will find autonomy defined as follows:
1. the quality or state of being self-governing, 2. self-directing freedom and especially moral independence, 3. a self-governing state
As Pink discusses in his book Drive (2009), in the 1980s, researchers Edward Deci & Richard Ryan cite autonomy as one of three (3) basic human needs. They further fostered the notion that motivation is either controlled or autonomous. They write that “autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice… whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that come from forces perceived to be external to the self.”
Too often we tend to equate autonomy with an independence or “going it alone.” Not true. We when speak of autonomy, we speak of simply acting with choice and that we are capable of being both autonomous and interdependent with others at the same time. So here in America we naturally gravitate to the idea of independence. However, autonomy is more of a human concept, rather than a western one. The link between autonomy and overall well-being is found throughout North America, Western Europe, Russia, Turkey, South Korea as well as high-poverty, non-Western locales such as Bangladesh.
Autonomy can promote greater understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence in school, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being. Do you see where we’re going with this?
In August of 2020, World Bank Group published a study showing the impact of autonomy on education called Supporting Teacher Autonomy to Improve Education Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from Brazil. This study outlines a program offered in Brazil that supported teachers to autonomously develop and implement an innovative project aimed at engaging their students. To further drive home the importance of this research, the study focused on the sixth grade as the students prepared to make the transition from primary school to junior high (I think we can all agree that this period is a critical one in any students’ educational journey!). It also explores two other mechanisms – teacher turnover & student socio-emotional skills. The results were fascinating:
Improved student learning by 0.15 standard deviation
Improved grade passing by 13% in 6th grade
Reduced teacher turnover by 20.7%
An indication of positive impacts on conscientiousness and extroversions among the students.
Simply put, a sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude.
So, does DPS Chalkboard believe that autonomy can have a real impact on teaching in DPS61? You bet we do!
While scrambling to implement virtual learning at the onset of the covid pandemic, central administration went to great pains to establish strict time parameters for delivering essential subjects – math, science, language arts, etc. – in a greatly truncated school day. As we reluctantly returned to the classroom full time, it appeared that administration doubled down on this rigid schedule. I vividly remember hearing from a teacher-friend who was literally admonished by the building administrator because they were still focusing on math when the building’s “detailed daily schedule” clearly showed that they should have moved on to science for the day. Really? Autonomy? Far from it!
Education today is facing a number of challenges – staff shortages, waning levels of discipline, lack of appreciation for classroom teachers and burn out. Teachers, at all stages of their careers, are beginning to wonder if their efforts are really worth it. Look, we think it is safe to say that no one teaching in a classroom today is doing so because it was the only job they could find – the last option available to them before unemployment. Teachers become teachers because they have the desire to do so. It is truly a “calculated” vocational choice.
That being said we challenge all teachers to embrace autonomy. We encourage them to take control of their individual classroom. They know their students. They know what they are capable of doing or not doing. Even a fresh hire will soon learn what makes their students tick and can recognize how best to engage them in the classroom. Yes, central administration needs to set the tone for the school district. Yes, the principal is responsible for what happens in their building. But at the end of the day, it is the classroom teacher that can make all of the difference in a child’s education. They recognize what needs to be done day in and day out. The teacher is well aware of what’s expected, so why not leave the decisions of how their classroom achieves those expectations up to them?
The experts claim that autonomy in the classroom can lead to greater learning outcomes, greater teacher retention levels and an increase in the general well-being of students & staff. So why not promote that in Decatur Public Schools? Central administration should foster an environment that encourages autonomy at every building. Principals should strive to do the same for their staff. Finally, each and every teacher should emphatically embrace autonomy in their classroom. The teacher knows what the expectations are – just close your door, ignore the distractions, and do what you know how to do that will help your students flourish!
Let’s encourage our teachers to embrace autonomy, pursue mastery and develop their purpose. Once that mindset takes hold, we will be well on our way to creating a destination district… for teachers!