A complacent school

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday June 6, 2022 06:00

It is a school where cultural preservation is everything and cannot be traded for anything. Commitment to a certain way of life is pursued at all costs, including sacrificing the goal of achieving improved learning outcomes.

Writing on the subject of complacency, Michele Lundgren observed that “the first step away from academic excellence and toward mediocrity for any school occurs when a prevailing sense of complacency permeates the atmosphere.’’

Here are some of the signs of complacency, which educators must watch and design strategies to address them.

Complacent schools are content with just following the routine - doing things as they have always been. There is hardly any evaluation of efforts and why things have to be done this way and not that way.

Those who may have the courage to interrogate things could earn themselves unflattering remarks from the champions of the status quo. Everyone is cowed into submission. For the sake of peace, coupled with the fear of being labelled rebels and non-conformists, everybody tries to toe the line even when the way of life of a school is clearly detrimental to acceleration of student learning outcomes. A complacent school may often enjoy peace and tranquillity. Again Lundgren observes that, “a complacent school may mistake its complacency for a sense of peace. But it is a false peace.’’

A false peace is achieved where there is no engagement in a school and avenues for exploring new ideas are closed.

When self-expression is denied, people may choose to go on silent mode and literally sit on the fence.

In a complacent school, for example, the staff meetings could be more peaceful, less combative affairs but falling short of generating ideas that could move a school forward. Complacency is a dangerous culture, which does support teaching and learning. It is a case of everyone for himself/herself and God for all.

No one bothers to check what others are doing. Teachers routinely would go to class but no one cares whether the presence of teachers in the classroom is supporting the students.

A complacent school loses sight of the fact that while all teachers can honour lesson timetables, not all teachers are helping the learners to unleash their potential. On the contrary, a dynamic culture permits regular visits to teaching stations and interrogation of the work of teachers in the classroom in order to sharpen their pedagogical skills. Where complacency reigns supreme, classroom visits are made for compliance and not necessarily for professional development. The other big sign of complacency in a school is that the school mission is a lifeless monument only serving the unintended purpose of decorating the walls and not guiding the actions of the school.

A mission worth its salt should inspire change. But a complacent school cares less about the mission, which is supposed to be defining its existence. At the end of the day, prospects for change are distant in a school, which is happy to honour its culture but remains indifferent to student outcomes. For change to arrive, our public schools must swiftly move away from complacency to a more a dynamic phase.