learning from success as leverage for school learning: lessons from a national programme in israel

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Learning from success as leverage forschool learning: lessons from a nationalprogramme in IsraelChen Schechter , Israel Sykes & Jona RosenfeldPublished online: 21 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Chen Schechter , Israel Sykes & Jona Rosenfeld (2008) Learning from success asleverage for school learning: lessons from a national programme in Israel, International Journal ofLeadership in Education: Theory and Practice, 11:3, 301-318, DOI: 10.1080/13603120701576274

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Learning from success as leverage for school learning: lessons from a national programme in Israel

CHEN SCHECHTER, ISRAEL SYKES and JONA ROSENFELDTaylor and Francis LtdTEDL_A_257482.sgm10.1080/13603120701576274International Journal of Leadership in Education1360-3124 (print)/1464-5092 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis1000000002007Dr. [email protected]

Collective learning from past school experiences (retrospective learning) has traditionallyfocused on failures and difficulties, depriving school personnel of learning opportunitiesembedded in their own past professional successes. In this article we present a nationalprogramme in Israel that aimed at fostering collective learning, stimulated by learning fromsuccessful practises in school life. Learning from success was systematized into both learningand documentation formats that structured the work and language of school personnelparticipating in the programme. Participants’ assessments with regard to the programme’seffects, as well as the impediments to this collective learning process, are presented. The arti-cle concludes with suggestions for further exploration regarding collective learning fromsuccessful practises and implications for school leaders.

Introduction

School restructuring efforts have generally failed to ‘penetrate’ the classroomwalls (Prestine 1994, Fullan 1995), and innovations in the classroom seldominfluence the entire school (Muncey 1994, Prestine 1994). Louis (1994)argued, in this regard, that school capacity for innovation and reform relieson the ability to collectively process, understand and apply knowledge aboutteaching and learning. In a similar fashion, Spender and Grant (1996)criticized schools’ over-emphasis on what should be learned, instead of theprocess of knowledge acquisition, creation, dissemination and integration.Focusing on gathering and processing information within and betweenschools, according to Barnes (2000), requires establishing opportunities forteachers to collectively think and share information on a sustained basis. Inthis regard, Sarason (1993) argued that creating and sustaining learningopportunities for the growth and development of teachers are of the utmostimportance if we expect them to be accountable for the growth and develop-ment of students. This said, the isolated working teacher will need to takesteps towards interactive professionalism (Fullan 1993), where teachers

Chen Schechter is in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy, School of Education, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel 52900. E-mail: [email protected]. His research areas include or-ganizational learning, educational policy, educational change, educational leadership and system thinking.Israel Sykes is an independent consultant.Jona Rosenfeld is a Professor Eemeritus in the Paul Bearwald School of Social Work at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, and a senior advisor in the JDC-Brookdale Institute, Unit for Learning fromSuccess, Jerusalem, Israel.

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302 C. SCHECHTER ET AL.

continuously think together about innovative practices and restructuringopportunities that relate to teaching and learning.

To develop and sustain learning interactions among practitioners,organizations need to institutionalize collective learning mechanisms(Lipshitz et al. 2002). Organizations ‘must create mechanisms and systemsfor such learning to take place. In the absence of explicit intention andappropriate mechanisms, the learning potential may be lost’ (Ghoshal 1987:432). Thus, in order to keep pace with environmental changes, collectivelearning activities that can lead to new and diverse knowledge bases shouldbe developed. More specifically, these learning activities focus on gathering,assimilating and developing knowledge bases that lead to better internaladaptations (e.g. changes in structure, procedures and strategies) (Ellis andShpilberg 2003).

However, teachers are still learning primarily from individual andisolated experiences and do not feel free to open themselves up to beingcritiqued by their peers in the collective arena (Scribner 2003). The majorstumbling block to collective learning can be attributed to Taylor’s (1911)principles of scientific management (e.g. division of labour, hierarchy andcontrol and impersonal orientation), which have dominated the proceduresand structures of public schools. In other words, schools are rational institu-tions based on bureaucratic characteristics, which greatly affect schools’potential to become learning organizations. Thus, despite the potentialcontribution of collective learning, we are still uncertain with regard to itssustainable development within school contexts. In order to rescue thepromising idea of collective learning from being just another fad or misun-derstood term the inquiry should be grounded ‘in the evolution of thinkingabout how schools change, and how … [they need] to be organised tofacilitate the best synthesis and application of professional knowledge’(Marks and Louis 1999: 735). Put simply, it is of the utmost importance tolearn how schools can move away from isolated learning towards a morecollective type of thinking regarding teaching and learning issues.

Collective learning from past school successes, as discussed in recent liter-ature (Rosenfeld et al. 1995, 2002, Rosenfeld 1997, Rosenfeld and Sykes1998, Sykes and Goldman 2000, Schechter et al. 2004), may provide an alter-native perspective on and strategy for developing collective learning that canbreak down teachers’ isolating barriers. The purpose of this article is to brieflydiscuss the notion of learning from success; to present a national programmeof learning from success in middle and secondary schools; to discuss somelessons learned (effects and impediments) from the implementation of thisnational programme; to suggest further exploration regarding collectivelearning from successful practices, as well as implications for school leaders.

Learning from success

The claim that past failed events are an essential prerequisite for learning hasbeen made explicit in the fields of social psychology and organizationalbehaviour (Ellis and Davidi 1999). Similarly, the management literature hastended to view learning as being centred on problem solving, thereby

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LEARNING FROM SUCCESS 303

eliminating undesired conditions (Kofman and Senge 1993). Although fail-ures and problems represent different circumstances in organizational life,they both stimulate a conscious search for meaning, clearly signifying thatlearning should take place. As in other inquiry disciplines, learning fromexperience as regards schoolwork has been associated with tackling prob-lems. Learning in schools, then, takes place when individuals and groupscollaborate in an effort to confront practical problems (Marks and Louis1999, Kruse 2001). Another version of associating learning with problemscan be found in the literature on deliberation (collective rehearsal of variouscompeting possible lines of action). Deliberation has been perceived as ‘themethod by which most everyday practical problems get solved’ (Schwab1978: 43). Thus deliberation has been used to decide how best to solveproblematic school-related circumstances (Dillon 1994). In this fashion,learning has been conditioned to experiences that have gone wrong, whichare approached from a problem-solving orientation.

While problems and failures can stimulate a critique of traditionalworking patterns, generating an unfreezing process (a felt need to change inlight of human beings tendency to maintain a steady state, homeostasis, andequilibrium) necessary to initiate organizational reform (Schein 1992), theyare also associated with denial and avoidance responses. The potential threatfor practitioners involved in reviewing failures is that it tends to perpetuatethe same defensive dynamic that may have contributed to the failure in thefirst place, thus restricting authentic inquiry and possible change. Whenattending collective forums learning is often characterized by defensiveexchanges, where members fail to express and test their assumptions andrefrain from communication that may involve tension (Argyris and Schon1996). These ‘learning disabilities’ (Senge 1990) or ‘dysfunctional learninghabits’ (Louis 1994) function ‘in a self-maintaining, self-reinforcing patternthat is anti-learning and noncorrective’ (Argyris 1993: 243). In addition,ongoing and persistent learning from failure produces instability in beliefsand disagreement with respect to both preferences and actions (Sproull et al.1978), both of which interfere with the effort to generate collective learningfrom past professional experience.

In the light of the above we can consider problems and failures that chal-lenge practitioners to question the status quo and seek alternative courses ofaction as effective triggers for learning, which can lead to double-loop learn-ing (questioning and challenging deep rooted assumptions and norms behindactions). Consequently, failures may be perceived to be the ultimate teacher(Abbdel-Halim and Madnick 1990). However, because of the potentialthreat involved in acknowledging problems or failures, practitioners becomeentrenched in denial and avoidance, which maintain a problematic statusquo. In other words, problems and failures do not necessarily provide a data-base that is conducive to collective learning (Ellis and Davidi 1999).

In contrast to the vast literature considering problems and failures aseffective triggers for learning, the professional literature on learning fromsuccess in organizations has tended to focus on the problematic dynamicsthat ensue from success. Where professional literature has alluded tolearning from success in organizations it has tended to focus on the problem-atic dynamics that, for example:

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1. learning from success often leads to actions that preserve the status quoand avoid risk taking;

2. learning from success tends to induce overconfidence in routines thatproved to be successful in the past;

3. learning from success strengthens homogeneity within an organization,while maintaining the same historical operating procedures and the samepersonnel makes it harder to experiment with organizational routines(Sitkin 1996);

4. learning from successful events rarely stimulates a conscious search formeaning, being processed, if at all, on ‘automatic pilot’ (Ellis and Davidi1999);

5. learning from success produces only first-order learning, reducing thelikelihood that organizations will respond to environmental change withtransformational change (Virany et al. 1996).

This bias against learning from success too often blinds professionals toa wealth of learning opportunities embedded in their own practices. Sitkin(1996) argued that learning from success enhances confidence and persis-tence, stimulating a coordinated pursuit of common goals. Learning fromsuccess may provide secure and stable grounds for the initiation of futureactivity. After learning that a specific action was successful, practitioners aremore confident in their competence and achievement and are highly moti-vated and satisfied. In schools the focus on learning from success can bringto light positive recognition of the staff expertise underlying their successes.The learning from success process can instil appreciation, respect and evenwonder in participants regarding the value of their own, their colleagues and,especially, their students’ accomplishments. In this way, the collective learn-ing generated from an intentional focus on past successes enhances a sharedbelief in the capacity of the school and its staff to succeed in their tasks andto learn from their professional experiences.

Learning from problems can be fatal to any collective retrospective learn-ing, whereas initiating an early process of learning from successes tends tobecome a self-fulfilling prophecy ‘which translates into a greater probabilityof subsequent success’ (Lant and Mezias 1996: 291). Similarly, positiveshared memories create an openness to and desire for future learning, whilememories based on failed experiences impede new learning efforts (Louis andKruse 1998). In other words, organizations that accumulate enough sharedexperiences of learning from success are better equipped to collectively tackleand solve organizational failures. Thus, although learning from success hasbeen perceived as the enemy of experimentation and innovation (Levitt andMarch 1996), the deliberate choice to learn from successful practices canserve as a springboard for nurturing productive collective learning.

The national programme

Background

The idea of learning from successful professional practices has long beenadvocated by the JDC-Brookdale Research Institute’s Unit for Learning from

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Success (ULS), as one of the ways in which social workers and other humanservice professionals can move beyond impasses in the service of people wholive in social exclusion. The rationale for this orientation is that analysingsuccesses can help people who live in deep poverty and despair reconnect withsociety. In this regard, learning from success is perceived as an essential stepin the transformation of social service systems. The key to learning fromsuccess is a shift from ‘selective inattention’, whereby these successfulinstances are ignored, to ‘selective attention’, deliberately focusing onsuccessful practices in order to uncover the wisdom that made them possible.

In 1999 the Rabin Centre for the Training of Senior Educators inJerusalem invited the head of the ULS to introduce the notion of learningfrom successful practice to school principals. Over time this group of princi-pals became enthusiastic about the potential of learning from success andbegan to take back ideas and methods to their schools. At this juncture anational supervisor in the Division of Secondary Education within theMinistry of Education began to put together a new initiative. This supervisorperceived the structure of off-site development as inadequate to the task ofintegrating learning from success into school practise. Therefore, she envi-sioned a national programme in which principals would be supported intheir schools in implementing learning from success. Around this vision apartnership was formed between the Ministry of Education and the JDC-Brookdale Research Institute’s ULS. This partnership is based on jointfunding and planning.

The major assumptions of the national programme are:

● the expertise of educational practitioners in schools is a rich, barely tappedresource;

● due to a systemic bias towards learning from difficulties or failures,successes in schools have rarely been the object of deliberate learning;

● for the expertise that underlies success to be tapped it must undergo aprocess (learning from success) through which individuals’ tacit knowl-edge is transformed into organizational knowledge, thus assisting facultymembers in verifying, sorting and filtering data (Nonaka and Takeuchi1995).

This national programme was aimed at integrating learning from successinto ongoing school processes and structures with the express purpose ofstimulating ongoing collective professional learning. The programme wasinitiated during the 2002–2003 school year. Participating in the programmewere 20 middle and secondary schools representing Jewish (15 schools),Muslim (3 schools) and Christian (2 schools) students and staff members.Schools were located in both urban (12 schools) and rural (8 schools)settings throughout the country. Participating schools were those whoseprincipals attended the training programme in Jerusalem (mentioned above)and expressed an interest in systematically implementing learning fromsuccess in their schools. The programme’s goals were:

1. to identify successes in selected areas of the schools’ work and to docu-ment them in actionable terms (Argyris 1996);

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2. to develop and institutionalize mechanisms that support in-school collec-tive learning from successful practices.

Development team and circle of learners

At each school the programme was carried out by both a development teamand a ‘circle of learners’. The development team at each school comprisedthe school principal, a learning coordinator (a senior staff member chosen tolead the programme), the school’s regional superintendent and a learningcompanion from the national development team (comprising members fromthe Ministry of Education and ULS), serving as a reflective critical partner.This forum meets about once every 4 weeks to follow up on developmentswith the school’s circle of learners.

The school’s circle of learners (typically between 10 and 15 participants)is a regularly scheduled forum facilitated by the school’s learning coordina-tor, in which both teachers and administrators take an active role (with noparticipation by outside forces, such as the learning companion). To supportthe learning coordinators in facilitating this workshop they were providedwith 28 hours of off-site training. This learning workshop (generallyscheduled after regular teaching hours) was self-directed and orientedtowards addressing issues that are at the heart of the school’s vision anddevelopment process. Learning in a school’s circle of learners includes:

1. holding regularly scheduled learning workshops;2. identifying and analysing successful school practices;3. documenting the learning;4. identifying effective modes of collective learning;5. disseminating the methodology and products of learning from success to

other learning forums within schools.

In particular, learning in a school’s circle of learners is based on twocomponents. The first learning component is ‘learning from success’, inwhich the school’s learning coordinator organizes a learning group, whichidentifies staff and students’ successes, coordinates structured group inquir-ies into the actions that contributed to these successes and documents theprocesses and products of these inquiries. In other words, educators in auniquely designed learning forum reflect upon school successes, discoveringand explicating the tacit knowledge that contributed to the successes andformulating them in actionable terms as a basis for their dissemination.

The second learning component of the circle of learners is ‘learningabout learning’ (deuterolearning as described by Bateson 1972). During thesecond part of each session participants are asked to reflect on the collectivelearning that took place in the first part of the session (learning fromsuccess), thinking together how they communicated in the collective arena.Learning about learning focuses on the following example questions: what isour preferred learning style; how can we learn better as a group? Otherexamples of learning in this area include the contribution of structuredinquiry and documentation formats to the capacity of practitioners to focus

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and deepen their learning and understanding the different tempos and path-ways of collective learning. Thus, throughout the year the participants reflecton their collective learning processes in order to generate insights intoproductive collective learning methods and procedures. In particular,towards the end of each session (approximately the last 20 minutes) theparticipants are encouraged to reflect on how they learned together duringthe collective inquiry into successful practices (the first component of eachsession, learning from success).

The learning from success inquiry format

The learning from success inquiry format necessary for such a venture wasstill barely formulated during the initiation phase of the programme.Learning from success was more an approach and an ethical stance than aninquiry model. Therefore, a preliminary model was developed, comprising aseries of headings that were as yet unelaborated. This preliminary model wasshared with the principals, the learning coordinators, the learning compan-ions and the participants in the circles of learners in order to assess itssuitability for school contexts. Thus, the inquiry format was fine tunedthrough ongoing feedback from participants.

The learning from success inquiry format (Appendix) is meant to revealthe hidden knowledge that contributed to successful practices, so that it canbe used in the future. As practitioners tend to use general descriptions whenreconstructing their past complex, successful practices, the inquiry format isstructured to ‘capture’ the specific actions that were taken on the way tosuccess. Therefore, persistence in viewing the success from the action perspec-tive is essential to enable teachers to reconnect with what they had done. Thelearning coordinators were instructed to carefully use the inquiry format inorder to develop layer upon layer that would ultimately join into a whole.

Methods of inquiry and analysis

How did participating practitioners assess the programme? Qualitative datawere collected at the end of the programme’s first year of implementation.An evaluation form (constructed by both a researcher from the ULS and auniversity professor whose research focuses on schools as learning organiza-tions) to assess the collective learning process and products was provided toparticipants and returned at the end of the school year. The learning coor-dinators were responsible for circulating the forms among participants andreturning the forms to the national development team. More specifically,participants were asked about the effects of the programme as well as theimpediments they encountered to this collective learning process. Thefollowing are examples of questions: what were your thoughts and feelingsbefore the first session; what were your thoughts and feelings in the earlyphase of collective learning from successful practices; can you identifyimpediments to this collective learning; do you think that this collectivelearning contributed to your professional knowledge; did the collective

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learning within the circle of learners’ sessions have any impact on theschool’s climate? One hundred and forty five evaluation forms were receivedfor analysis, representing all participating schools (a minimum of five evalu-ation forms from each school).

The analysis was performed in two phases:

1. vertical analysis, where participants’ voices within each school were anal-ysed;

2. comparative horizontal analysis, used to find common themes, contrastpatterns and illuminate differences between schools (Miles and Huberman1994).

This process involved ‘identifying patterns in the data: recurring ideas, …perspectives, and descriptions that depict the social world [studied]’(Rossman and Rallis 1998: 179). In this way generating themes was aninductive process, grounded in the various perspectives articulated by partic-ipants. Special attention was given to data that challenged the developedconceptualization (Erickson 1973), thus crystallizing the analytical themes.Furthermore, the emerging tentative themes were analysed by the firstauthor and then shared with the ULS personnel as a means of refining andchallenging them while providing alternative perspectives.

The educational context

Within the Israeli educational context middle and, especially, secondaryurban schools have been operating for several years in a relatively highlycompetitive environment (open enrollment zones, school choice). Zoningstill applies for urban elementary schools. In order to cope with this turbulentenvironment middle and secondary urban schools generally initiate variousprogrammes. In this context the learning from success’ programme was animportant process, but not necessarily the central one in school life. Whereasmost urban schools participating in this programme are located in relativelyhigh socio-economic status environments, most schools from rural environ-ments (including the Muslim and Christian schools) have a constant struggleto provide their students with a ‘good enough’ education in low socio-economic status environments. Thus, the learning from success programmewas perceived, especially by the principals of schools located in rural envi-ronments, as a possible ‘saviour’. Put differently, practitioners from ruralschools in low socio-economic status environments perceived the intentionalfocus on successes as a leverage for altering their sense of ‘stuckness’.

Participating schools varied in the composition of their learning fromsuccess workshops. These learning forums included school administrators,‘homeroom’ teachers, subject coordinators, grade coordinators and teachersof remedial classes. Successes studied by participating schools focused onthe following three areas:

1. improving the achievements of poorly performing students, e.g. studentsfrom a remedial class succeeding in mathematics, students from remedialclasses passing matriculation examinations;

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2. improving instruction, e.g. success in teaching complex concepts, successof children with special needs in inclusive classes;

3. coping with discipline and violence problems, e.g. success in respondingto incidents of vandalism, turning students from ‘troublemakers’ intoones with roles and responsibilities, developing an engaging learningclimate in the classroom.

The effects of the programme

Awareness of effective practices

Most teachers were grateful for the opportunity that the programmeprovided them with to discover the professional knowledge residing withinstaff members, which had generally gone unrecognized. Participantsacknowledged that through this collective learning process ‘professionalknowledge became public and visible to the eye, exposed’ (a communica-tions teacher). Data revealed that the process of listening to colleaguesand finding out the detailed path that led to their successes illuminateddifferent pedagogical strategies that were considered by participants asrelevant to their teaching practises. ‘I am a veteran teacher [20 years]’acknowledged a geography subject coordinator, ‘however, listening toothers’ successes exposed me to new pedagogical approaches that had notoccurred to me before’. This assertion was supported by a Historyteacher, arguing that ‘Participants were exposed to unconventionalsuccessful practices’. Thus, through this collective inquiry teachersbecame familiar with colleagues’ successful practices that otherwise couldnot be shared in the formal bureaucratic structure of schools, especiallysecondary schools.

In particular, participants gave examples of successful operationalmethods learned during the ongoing collective learning process.

a. Methods for improving instruction: ‘I learned new ways to teach inheterogeneous classrooms’.

b. Methods for improving student achievement: ‘I learned how to bettercraft my lesson plan as a means for improving student outcomes’.

c. Methods for overcoming discipline problems: ‘I learned how toempower troublemaker students by providing them with new roles andresponsibilities in classroom activities’.

d. Methods for enhancing student motivation: ‘I learned how to help turna student with a poor self-image into a student who is motivated’.

e. Methods related to school organization: ‘Based on the successful expe-rience my colleague described, I understood how to successfully imple-ment the fair in the 9th grade’.

In this regard, listening to colleagues’ successes provided teachers with newand diverse perspectives for interpreting situations, analysing their contextsand providing potential solutions and avenues of action.

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Learning from colleagues’ successes ‘revealed other and new sides ofteachers’ professional work’ according to a physical education teacher. Aninformation technology teacher acknowledged that ‘these other sides wereraised because this forum provided teachers who generally do not discusstheir professional practices with an opportunity to share’. A mathematicsteacher argued that ‘the learning forum provided the opportunity to hearabout practices that cannot be raised during hectic daily schoolwork’. Thus,collective learning from success helped teachers to gain a knowledgeable ofthe professional expertise of their colleagues that would not be accessible tothem otherwise. This process could take place because ‘the learning forumhelped teachers uncover their hidden professional knowledge, and conse-quently learn from each other’ according to a principal of one of the schoolsparticipating in the programme.

Listening to colleagues’ successes also led to a reconfirmation of alreadyused practices. ‘I learned through listening to successful stories, which hadsimilar characteristics to my practices. It strengthened my belief in my teach-ing practices’ argued a mathematics teacher. Inquiring into pedagogicalsuccesses provided a collective ‘assurance’ to the already known pedagogicalframes of minds and actions used in classrooms. Thus, inquiring intocolleagues’ successful practices resulted in the exploration (discovery) ofnew teaching strategies, but at the same time in the reconfirmation of alreadyknown strategies through collective assurance. Interestingly, the interplaybetween exploration and reconfirmation can also be viewed from theorganizational change perspective: ‘The inquiry into successes focused ourattention on various forces in schools; those teachers that push for changeand others that prefer the current situation’ (an art teacher). It may be thecase that collective learning from success exposes those forces both fosteringand inhibiting school change.

Open climate and teachers’ sense of efficacy

Practitioners emphasized the positive learning atmosphere establishedamong the staff, characterizing this climate as a ‘pleasant and supportiveatmosphere’ and as ‘an atmosphere of mutual appreciation and acceptance’(a biology teacher). This positive learning atmosphere contributed to ‘anopen and ongoing dialogue among teachers with regard to their stories ofsuccess’, thus ‘teachers learned to listen to one another’ (an Englishteacher). This resulted in a positive atmosphere in which teachers feltcomfortable opening up in front of the rest of the staff. In other words, theworkshop took place, according to a literature teacher, ‘in an atmosphere ofan interest in learning from one another’s experience, which enhanced feel-ings of partnership, togetherness and group pride’.

It is important to indicate that not all participants shared this positiveorientation. A literature teacher stressed that ‘Not all participants in thecircle of learners felt safe to be open with colleagues and to share theirsuccessful stories’. This lack of openness is illustrated by a comment by anovice teacher: ‘Experienced teachers think that they know everything,which tends to undermine the successes of novice and less experienced

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teachers’. It appears that lacking an open climate, inquiry into successescould not be effectively used in several schools and even resulted in cynicismand suspicion among the staff with regard to their ability as a faculty tocollectively learn.

The collective learning generated by the intentional focus on pastsuccesses fostered a shared belief in the capacity of the schools and theirstaffs to succeed in their tasks and to learn from their experiences. Thus,learning from success reinforced the learning competence of participantsand instilled in the participants appreciation, respect and even wonder at thevalue of their own and their students’ accomplishments. For example, acommunications teacher stated the following:

The fact that your success was announced within a group of teachers and collectively analysed islike a self-fulfilling prophecy that raises feelings of pride. It is an essential process in building aprofessional team because, as we all know, teachers rarely receive positive feedback.

The success-based orientation in a supportive atmosphere enhanced partic-ipants’ sense of efficacy about their own expertise and the expertise of theircolleagues.

Nevertheless, several teachers indicated that they rarely, if ever,experienced success in their professional work. ‘I was sitting with colleagueswho immediately raised professional successes. I wondered why it was sohard for me to find a success in my work’. A couple of learning coordinatorsacknowledged that this learning workshop frustrated teachers who perceivedthemselves as not experiencing professional success. As the data suggest,whereas the collective learning process enhanced ‘successful’ teachers’ senseof efficacy, this success-based orientation could also raise doubts with regardto teachers’ professional expertise.

Utilization of teachers’ knowledge

This learning mechanism served as an organizational ‘mind’ (database) thatcollected together information from individual teachers into a commonshared knowledge. A science teacher described this collective process oflearning from success as ‘taking stock of the school’s arsenal of pedagogicaltools for the benefit of all teachers’, whereas a history teacher acknowledgedthat ‘This learning process enabled us to understand what would be ourresources for future activities’. Similarly, analysing the detailed actions thatled to successful practises according to a history teacher ‘facilitated a betteruse of the knowledge embedded within us, something we seldom do andknow how to do, thereby contributing to a collective knowledge’. The learn-ing from success process, then, encoded individual pedagogical practicesinto a shared knowledge that was distinct from the individual mind andsurpassed it.

From a systemic point of view, analysing successes in various subjectareas led teachers to acknowledge the interrelationships among subjectareas. Teachers stressed that the learning from success forum facilitated ‘anexchange of ideas, approaches and professional knowledge between people

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from different teaching disciplines, who previously had no opportunity tolearn together’. The collective exchange of ideas ‘enriched [teachers’] inter-disciplinary learning and enabled [them] to transfer knowledge and teachingstrategies from one content area to others’ echoed an art teacher. A geogra-phy teacher described ‘successful experiences [as] usually residing withineach subject area. The collective learning helped teachers to extract theknowledge for the benefit of other subject areas’. In this way, inquiring intocolleagues’ successes exposed the underlying pedagogical interrelationshipsamong subject areas.

Furthermore, in several schools attempts were made to disseminate theprinciples gleaned from the inquiry into successful practices to other forums(e.g. subject coordinators). While seven schools acknowledged a successfuldissemination of successful principles to other forums (teachers who did notparticipate in the circle of learners), others encountered quite differentresponses. For example, a history teacher stated: ‘A request to consider thissuccessful model in other circles at the school was immediately rejected’.Thus, attempts to disseminate the successful practices to other learningforums were welcomed, on the one hand, and totally rejected, on the other.

Impediments to the collective process of learning from success

Is it legitimate to discuss one’s successes?

Participants were more comfortable in looking at their difficulties thananalyszing their successes in the presence of their colleagues. A mathematicsteacher pointed to teachers’ inclination to learn from their failed schoolpractices. ‘It is easier to find failures and try to solve them. It is much harderto acknowledge your success in the presence of your colleagues’. Teachersnoted that they generally convened to solve school problems, whereas theirprofessional successes were generally not collectively explored. It was foundin most schools that lack of an open climate prevented teachers frompresenting their professional successes to their colleagues. Interestingly, anEnglish teacher stated that ‘Some teachers considered exposing theirsuccesses in the learning forum as an arrogant act’. Similarly, there was acommon fear that by publicly displaying one’s successes one runs the risk ofarousing potentially destructive jealousy among others.

Was it really a success?

Teachers did not necessarily share the same beliefs and values as to what wasa successful professional practice, thus one teacher’s perceived success couldbe another’s perceived failure. ‘Only a few teachers who presented theirsuccessful work managed to convince me that we could recognize their expe-riences as successful and subsequently learn from them’ argued an Englishteacher. A chemistry teacher argued that ‘Because of a lack of innovation,there were almost no successful practices that I could directly apply in my

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own work’. Although the purpose of learning from success was to create alearning community, several teachers classified their colleagues’ experiencesinto either successful or not successful categories from the onset of eachinquiry, closing themselves off from the potential rich information thatresided within each experience.

Was it successful because of my actions?

Participants attempted to explain the end results of their successes quickly,rather than to engage in a process of determining the actions leading to theirsuccesses, which is the core of the learning from success inquiry format. Thisinclination to avoid critical reflection can be explained by a climate ofcompetitiveness. For instance, a literature teacher acknowledged that ‘Therewas a sense of competitiveness—who succeeded more and will impress theaudience’. Similarly, a learning coordinator reflected that:

Learning in the learning from success forum induced a sense of competitiveness, which dividedthe participants into two main groups; those teachers that succeeded and others who did notsucceed. The unintended division influenced participants to use general terms when asked todescribe the actions leading to their successes.

As a result of this division, some participants tried to escape the tediousinquiry into detailed actions because it presented a potential threat to thevalidity of their successes.

Moreover, teachers were reluctant to delve into concrete actions that ledto success and to praise their own practices because they wondered whethertheir successes might have been due to luck and coincidence, rather thanfrom their planned actions. The following remark was made by an artteacher: ‘I was hesitant to reveal my successes and to take pride in thembecause they might have occurred as a result of mere coincidence and notbeen directly caused by my actions’. Thus, practitioners were reluctant toinquire into successful practices because of the possible loose connectionbetween their actions and the successful results.

Unresolved issues, further exploration and implications for school leaders

A major unresolved issue in the programme is the extent of knowledgedissemination among schools. Knowledge explored in the circles of learnerswas posted on the Ministry of Education’s Internet site. While these materi-als can be easily accessed, there is little evidence that they have been evalu-ated by other schools. It seems that so far the major impact of theprogramme has been in the area of influencing school communicationprocesses, while less has been accomplished in the area of knowledge diffu-sion. Future programme efforts will seek out ways to make the collectivelyexplored knowledge more accessible, so that it can be reflected upon in otherlearning communities. In this regard, it is important to explore the possiblerole of school superintendents in facilitating the process of dissemination.

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Teachers indicated that they had learned considerably from one another.Nevertheless, little is known about whether and/or how this collective learn-ing affected classroom practices. Can learning from success ‘penetrate’classroom walls? Can collective learning from successful practices serve as aresource for innovative practices in classrooms? Put differently, can learningfrom success serve as a link between school restructuring efforts and innova-tions at the classroom level? What are the connections between systemicprocesses of learning from success and student outcomes?

Moreover, educational systems around the world are replete with policy-driven (top-down) school reform efforts. These policy-led school reformefforts (e.g. Dovrat National Task Force, Israel) are generally a response toa perceived crisis and/or problem. Initiated as a response to a crisis and/orproblem these top-down reforms often do not have a significant impact onschool life (Brooks et al. 2003). Nevertheless, reform efforts that evolve frompractitioners’ successes can tighten the link between policy-makers’ agendasand practitioners’ work, encouraging both to collaboratively build uponemerging successes as a leverage for school change. Can learning fromsuccess in the collective arena better form a better link between emergingsuccessful practicses at the school level and abstract policy-driven reformmodels?

The notion and practice of collective learning from past successfulpractices should be subjected to further exploration in a wide variety ofpopulations, such as elementary school faculties. Middle and secondaryschools are more complex, having more rules and regulations, with a greateremphasis on specialization and a division of labour, while elementary schoolteachers are much more focused on the holistic development of the student(Hoy et al. 1991). Thus, further analyses are needed to assess whether andhow the school level plays a role in the need for, application and effects ofand impediments to collective learning from success. Another aspect of suchan analysis would be to explore whether the training process for futureparticipating principals and learning coordinators should be specificallydesigned for each school level.

The programme’s expanded model attempts to create new knowledgebeyond sharing and applying existing knowledge (the heart of the learningfrom success process). In particular, the next component of the programmefocuses on the formulation of a learning question, thus inquiring into apressing issue at the core of the school mission that has so far defied effortsat resolution (e.g. how to generate academic success for students at risk ofdropping out of school?). The learning teams (circles of learners) build uponthe learning structures, capacities and principles developed in the previouscomponents (both the learning from success and the learning about learningcomponents), to produce future positive outcomes in the core area of schoolpractice, as identified by the learning question. How will participatingschools make the transition from learning from success as a retrospective(past orientation) inquiry to the learning question as a prospective (futureorientation) inquiry? This said, longitudinal studies are needed to explorewhether and in what ways collective retrospective learning from successfulprofessional practice can serve as leverage for productive collective learningfrom problems and failures, especially during highly threatening times.

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To conclude, several implications for school leaders are suggested.School leaders need to create institutionalized arrangements for collectivelearning from success by allocating time, space and resources. In otherwords, it is imperative to create spaces (Issacs 1999) where practitioners canshare their professional expertise that led to successes as a means of improv-ing pedagogical practice. These learning forums should be carefullydesigned and implemented. Beyond developing structural arrangements forlearning, school leaders need to encourage teachers to collectively inquireinto their successful practises, acknowledging faculty members as creativepartners in a joint learning venture. Similarly, it is well known that teachersdo not necessarily share the same beliefs and values as to what is successfuland what is not; thus one teacher’s perceived success may be another’sperceived failure. When participants classify their colleagues’ experiences aseither successful or unsuccessful categories the obligation of the administra-tor is to uncover the potentially rich information residing within eachexperience. In order to cope with the ‘unintended division’ between‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ teachers, leaders should serve as gatekeepersfor any dispositional ideology, while empowering teachers to authenticallyshare what they perceive to be their successful practices.

Furthermore, to motivate collective learning, lessons gleaned frominquiries into successful practices should be publicized in schools’ formalcommunication channels. Publicizing successful practices sends a clearmessage that organizational resources are mainly allocated to learning fromsuccessful practices rather than preventing possible failures. Formalcommunication channels focusing on lessons gleaned from successful schoolpractices focus teachers’ attention on collective learning as the mainresource for their development and growth. Finally, school leaders need tolearn from the successful activities gleaned from collective learning, while re-examining their a priori assumptions and theories. It is important that leadersremain open to lessons learned from the collective learning endeavourwithout being too bound up by rigid hierarchical rules.

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Appendix. The learning from success inquiry format

The learning from success inquiry format constitutes the heart of the learn-ing from success method. It should be viewed as a kind of a map to guide thefacilitation of group learning about a complex, past successful endeavour.

The inquiry format consists of seven steps.

1. Identify a success that is worthy of study: briefly describe successes andtentatively choose one for joint investigation. A success worthy of studyentails a positive benefit to student outcomes traceable to deliberateprofessional actions. This benefit needs to be aligned with the school’smission.

2. Succinctly describe the success in terms of before and after: participantsare asked to provide a concise description of the relevant situation beforeand after the endeavour was undertaken. Generating these two descrip-tions and highlighting the positive changes in the situation suggest thatsuccessful actions have indeed taken place.

3. Describe the positive outcomes: the group reflects more deeply and crit-ically upon how it determines success. Expanding and deepening theinvestigation into the successful outcomes enables the group to constructa clear picture of the nature of the change.

4. Describe negative consequences and costs: the group is asked to considerthe negative consequences of achieving the change described in theearlier steps. The quality and value of past success as a basis for learningcan only be determined by rigorously weighing positive and negativeoutcomes as well as costs.

5. Identify critical turning points or way stations on the path to success:choose critical turning points and reconstruct the concrete actions thatled to the successful outcomes. In other words, facilitators need tohelp the group break down the path towards success into chronologi-cally ordered stages marked off by turning points and/or key waystations.

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6. Craft tentative key principles of action on the basis of the successfulactions: principles of action are abstractions based on the details of eachspecific success story, but general enough to be reflected upon in othereducational contexts.

7. Identify unresolved issues for further inquiry.

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learning from success as leverage for school learning: lessons from a national programme in israel

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