[Ous-lp-rp13] EDAD 6020, Answer to Question # 1

Jessica Orr jessica.orr at ccsd.us
Fri Jun 8 10:17:39 EDT 2018


       At Chillicothe High School, rational, natural, and open/social
systems can be found in various aspects of the organization. To begin, an
example of the school’s rational system would be within its mandated
instructional practices. For several years, the building principals have
directed teachers to utilize a set of research-based instructional
practices (bell ringers, review of learning targets and establishment of an
essential question of focus, gradual release model, and exit slips),
representing formalization to regulate teacher behavior. This top-down
approach, implemented with high rigidity and strict guidelines, has been
critiqued for reducing teacher creativity and autonomy, which is consistent
with a rational system. The mandated framework’s common goal was to
increase teacher effectiveness, but it was implemented without accepting
teacher feedback, and, to some, it showed the administration’s mistrust of
the staff to complete their jobs without constant direction. While this
structure served to improve efficiency, it could also be viewed as an
impersonal transactional approach (if teachers adhere to the directive of
implementing the instructional practices, they will be rewarded with high
evaluative marks) for managing individuals.
In contrast, while the rational system in place compels teachers to adhere
to a common set of standards defined at the state or national level, the
natural system in place gives teachers the freedom to construct their own
learning targets to connect to the standards. These learning targets allow
for teacher autonomy in terms of connections between topics and the order
of skills taught. Similarly, in the manner of a natural system, teachers
have the freedom to choose independently what content they use to deliver
the concepts of the course. For example, two teachers of the same course
might choose entirely different stories to teach the same concepts. As
such, teachers feel that they are in control, that their voices are being
heard, and that their administrators value and trust their content
expertise. The natural system displayed is people-oriented, and it allows
the teachers to feel respected and confident, which will increase
efficiency and productivity.
Finally, open systems exist at Chillicothe High School, in one aspect,
through the transformation of students. Students (inputs) enter the school
with an expectation of gaining skills to apply outside of the school.
Through offered graduation pathways, which are state-mandated and therefore
rational, students are given the opportunity to engage with the environment
outside the school through job shadowing and career exploration activities.
Students also obtain letters of recommendation and construct resumes and
cover letters to use to pursue a career or college acceptance. After
transformation, graduates (outputs) are released, having gained the skills
needed to succeed confidently in their environment. This open system is
also a social one because not only does it involve an interdependence
between the organization and its environment, it also proves to be an
intersection of all four perceptual lenses (structural through the
state-mandated graduation requirements, human relations through meeting the
individual needs of students, political through the emphasis on graduation
rates which impacts the perception of the school, and symbolic through the
inspiration of students to become productive members of their environment),
as well as a combination of both rational and natural systems.


-- 
Thank you,

*Jessica Orr*
English Teacher
Department Coordinator
Chillicothe High School
Phone: (740) 702-2287, ext. 16231

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you
have something to say."
       --F. Scott Fitzgerald
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