The following is a list of the many replicable practices from this report. Practices are categorized according to key findings described in this report.

1. Make ethics and values a cross-cutting dimension of school culture:

• Emphasize play.
• Recognize and embrace the individuality of learners.
• Ask “why” as often as possible.
• Explicitly teach self-reflection.
• Encourage personalized learning experiences in place of “one size fits all.”
• Plan carefully for each individual learner.
• Avoid standardized content—it’s an invitation to cheat.

2. Promote critical thinking at every opportunity:

• Actively integrate examination of individual differences
• Ask “What is the decision s/he should have made?” whenever possible.
• Avoid lecturing. Pose questions.
• Ask students open questions that lead them to make a point of view and defend it.
• Build criteria into how students build a point of view: Do they use the material and learning to defend their point of view?
• Teach discourse skills and help students verbalize their opinions.
• Teach toward a range of cognitive skills, and be explicit.
• Avoid squeezing 21st century learning into 20th century assessment traditions.

3. Build relationships to build trust:

• Implement student mentoring programs to help new students learn to:
  >> Make sense of daily routine and expectations and reduce stress.
  >> Break down broad goals and tasks into doable steps.
  >> Celebrate accomplishments, however small.

• Reflect and provide perspective for new or younger students.
• Create mentoring programs that pair adult and students over four years.
• Deliberately build reflection into the mentoring program.
• Hold one-on-one meetings with each incoming student—without parents on hand.
• Share personal hobbies and interests with students to foster relationships.
• Promote service learning, community service days, and other events that emphasize generosity.
• Consider formalizing the signing of a school code of ethics for all students and adults.

4. Promote a culture of open feedback:

• Devote faculty meetings and other settings to “speaking your mind.”
• Frequently reexamine curriculum.
• Enlist teachers to design the student report card and portfolio system.
• Include informal feedback, videotaping and feedback, peer review and formal self evaluation in the teacher evaluation process.
• Set up small faculty groups to mentor and support each other, meeting on a regular basis.
• Expect faculty to weigh in on decisions that impact them or the direction of the school.
• Reduce bureaucracy through whole-faculty focus on substantive leadership issues.
• Encourage teacher freedom and autonomy through direct communication and ongoing self-examination.

5. Engage trustees in a focus on trust:

• Promote transparency by working in the open and not behind closed doors.
• Telegraph serious commitment to school cultures of integrity by modeling sincerity, compassion, and other core ethical values.
• Find opportunities to demonstrate these values in interactions with others.
• Seek constant outward/inward communication with other school stakeholders and use these opportunities to forward the vision of the school.
• Line up plenty of opportunities to circulate and meaningfully connect with students and faculty.
• Become the source and springboard for positive change: “Any culture shift has to start at the trustee/board level.”

6. Establish the tone at the top:

• Promote access to process for anyone impacted by an issue or decision.
• Model and promote informal opportunities for professional growth.
• Admit your own failings.
• Actively demonstrate an interest and confidence in moral reasoning.
• Decide on deepest priorities. Seek them actively and courageously.
• Explain and seek the kind of adults you want in the culture.
• Get clear on the vision and values, and get good at communicating them.
• Truly self-examine and align attitude with values.
• Invite feedback.

7. Promote tolerance for ambiguity:

• Provide relaxed and real time-and-space opportunities for adult critical thinking.
• Promote the questions you want students to hear.
• Find the thinkers.
• Expect higher order thinking to ground real life.
• Treat ambiguity as a positive.
• Resist reducing to black-and-white.
• Make critical thinking conclusive.

8. Draw from the ranks for professional development:

• Encourage educators to take responsibility for teaching each other.
• Make professional growth an ongoing and shared responsibility.
• Provide the quality time that growth and learning take.
• Make faculty meetings a consistent source for learning and growth.
• Organize cohorts to provide formal professional support.
• Urge teachers to develop curricula that speak to their passions.
• Organize student mentorship so that it feeds professional development.
• Recognize adult mentorship as professional development.
• Mentor new faculty as deliberately and with as much care as students.
• Always keep the focus on students.

9. Trust students with authentic input:

• Make sure each child has at least one leadership role.
• Draw on students’ perceptions and information regarding the state of the school.
• Let students be the messengers for upholding values and ethics.
• Let students tell the story about “the way we do things here.”
• Let students be the champions for school priorities like ethical development.
• Explicitly align the right thing with the right reason.

10. Make mistakes an opportunity for growth, not punishment:

• Make sure procedures align with the school’s underlying values.
• Invest up front in educating newcomers.
• Make the process reliable and systematic.
• Build relationships in advance of problems.
• Take responsibility for complexity and avoid mechanical discipline.
• Uphold a constitution, not a manual, leaving room for gray and “case by case.”

One Response to “Summary of Replicable Practices”

1. Ethical Literacy® Learning Community » Berkeley Hall School: Coaching Session Summary & Next Steps says:

   at

   [...] report, especially the following findings related to classroom instruction.  They will review the replicable practices at the back of the report, related to each finding.  They will think about possible next steps for [...]