How Do You Handle Resistance to Change?

People often struggle with change, especially, it seems, in the realm of education.  The largest concern we faced was How can students be successful in college with only a semester of "place subject here"?  When we rolled out our ideas, we thought others would easily catch our vision.  We didn't expect the push-back we received.  This came in two different forms:  fellow teachers and parents.  Each groups’ issues stem from concerns about the new method, and could have been alleviated by us had we fully appreciated what we were asking them to trust us with. 

The first group, fellow staff members, felt we were not preparing students properly in the sciences.  They had concerns that students were not being given the foundation they would need to be successful in later science courses.  They didn't see that the individual class was no longer the focus, but the entire spectrum of courses was the big picture as we pushed to create a functional application of the science knowledge they gained.  Due to our inexperience with program changes we did not anticipate ahead of time the issues others would have.  The experience of creating a course that teaches innovation and how to bring the pieces of the puzzle together to solve real problems has allowed us to take an idea and talk to various members of our staff to determine what issues they might have with the process.  This prep work gives us the opportunity to make sure that we address these issues, both within the program development as well as in our discussion about the course.  If we had done this originally, we would not still be explaining our thoughts about this process.

Our parents were an unexpected source of resistance as well.  We have a very involved parent population, which allows for some wonderful opportunities of support.  The downside is that, once again, our communication to these parents was sadly lacking.  This created an atmosphere of distrust about whether their child's teacher has their best interest at heart.  If we had talked to members of the parent organization ahead of time, and shared with them our ideas, we could have utilized them as a resource, allowing them to express their concerns so we could properly address them.

Our vision for the science department is to begin to move away from only compartmentalized chunks of seemingly unrelated topics towards the ability to allow cross-curricular learning.  Where students use the four semester foundation to inter-relate and apply their knowledge in the quest to answer bigger questions.  We believe that this intersection is where passions are ignited, and true learning can occur.  It isn't our idea that caused the problems, it was our inability to explain our thoughts, as well as allow others to catch the vision.

The world of education suffers from inertia.  As a whole, we tend to move along the same path as those who come before.  We may have new ideas that we use personally, but as an entity, there doesn't seem to be much change.  It is rather like turning the Titanic.  Gears may be shifted, wheels may be turned, but it will be quite a while before a new heading is followed.  The passengers on the ship had no idea that there was a reason for the change.  A very BIG reason in that case!  They responded with annoyance and confusion.  There wasn't time to have complete disclosure at that time.  We in education have our own iceberg to watch out for.  The good news is that we can fully include our shareholders in the process.  Allowing them time to question and absorb our changing needs in education helps to turn them from adversaries to supporters.  But we need to start the dialogue!