Building an Intentional School Culture

Excellence in Academics and Character
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4129-5377-1
Verlag: Corwin

Buch, Englisch, 160 Seiten, Format (B × H): 183 mm x 260 mm, Gewicht: 512 g

"Charles Elbot and David Fulton get it! They get how dominant a force a school's culture is in assisting—or thwarting—the development of learning and character and how extraordinarily difficult it is to make changes. Unlike most of us, they also get how possible it is to build a desirable school culture. This tidy little volume is the authors' first step in sharing their inventive 'lesson plans' from their successful work as school culture builders. When we take these lessons learned to heart, we too will get it!"
—Roland Barth, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Education
Harvard University

Transform your school by shaping a culture based on shared values, beliefs, and behaviors.

Based on lessons learned from the authors' work in improving school culture for more than sixty schools across the country, this inspiring guide for school leaders helps create an "intentional school culture" that fosters excellence, builds character, and improves student achievement. The book provides tools, case studies, strategies, and implementation plans for building a strong school culture and offers guidelines for teacher trainings, principal workshops, staff meetings, and district-level use. The authors demonstrate how to:

- Support students' independent and interdependent thinking and behavior
- Foster ethical decision making

- Collaborate with students, parents, and teachers
- Evaluate and monitor a plan to enhance the existing school culture

The authors illustrate how deliberately shaping a school culture cultivates faculty trust, sets the groundwork for raising test scores, and is a critical ingredient in building a successful school.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Elbot, Charles F.

Fulton, David

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Schulleitung, Schulentwicklung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Building an Intentional School Culture: Excellence in Academics and Character
The Importance of School Culture
Laneer Middle School: The Shaping of School Culture
Resource
2. The School Touchstone
Resources
3. The Four Mind-Set Model
Teachers and the Four Mind-Set Model
Students and the Four Mind-Set Model
Parents and the Four Mind-Set Model

Leadership and the Four Mind-Set Model
How to Use the Four Mind-Set Model
Resources
4. Introduction to the Eight Gateways
Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Relationships

Problem Solving
Expectations, Trust, and Accountability
Voice
Physical Environment
Markers, Rituals, and Transitions
Leadership
Resources
5. Applying the Four Tools
Timeline: The First 36 Weeks (Year 1)
Timeline: The Second 36 Weeks (Year 2)
Pulling It All Together
Closing
References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Fulton, David
After graduating from Emory University, David Fulton taught high school and middle school for four years in Denver, Colorado. While in graduate school, he worked for the State Department of Education in Wisconsin, was a researcher for a National Science Foundation-funded school reform project, and supervised preservice social studies teachers. After completing his MA and PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison in foundations of education, he lived in Northern Ireland as part of the International Forgiveness Institute. In 2003, he joined the Denver Public Schools Office of Character and School Culture. He is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver-School of Education and has taught courses at the University of Colorado-Boulder and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Elbot, Charles F.
Charles F. Elbot was born in Europe and lived his first twenty years as part of three cultures—French, German and American. After graduating from Wesleyan University, he pursued his dream to see the world. With his backpack, sleeping bag and only a few hundred dollars, he traveled west, crossing Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe over a three year period. For funds, he worked on ships out of Bali and Singapore. These were three extraordinary years of being exposed to a rich array of the world’s cultures.

Upon returning to the United States, he began teaching and then helped to found an alternative high school, September School, in Boulder, Colorado. After several years of teaching and serving as a principal, he attended Harvard University, earning his masters’ degree in moral development and educational administration. This was followed by serving as a principal in public and independent schools over the next twenty-one years.

Charles served as principal of Slavens School, a K-8 Denver public school, which in 2001 was honored as one of eight schools in the nation as a National School of Character. This school was also recognized for its extraordinary student academic achievement. These accomplishments attracted educators from around the country who spent days observing “how” things were done at the school. The following year Charles founded the Office of Character and School Culture and began to take these ideas to other schools in Denver and around the country. In 2003, the New Zealand government invited Charles to share these approaches with educators in New Zealand. Since then the Office of Character and School Culture has continued to develop the work of harnessing a school’s culture to build excellence in academics and character, culminating in this book.

Charles is married to Barbara Robertson Elbot and they have two children, Jason and David.