Out of all the chapters in this text this one seemed the hardest for me to wrap my head around. It could be that the topic of interest is such a challenging one, even for the best administrators to tackle and maintain in their buildings. I definitely agree with the authors' statement that every building has their own culture and climate. As an administrator in a larger district and familiar with several of the elementary and secondary buildings, I have experienced the spectrum of climates from ones that are very open and focused on student learning to buildings that have dysfunctional relationships between teacher and principal and between teacher and teacher. I also concur with the authors' belief that the principal has much to do with the positive or negative vibe a school exudes. This knowledge will be influential as I consider which elementary building I may want to be a head principal in or even which school I would want to send my two children to in the future. As a prospective candidate for any of the elementary positions that will open up due to a principal's retirement, do I want to go into a building with poor climate and take on the challenge of changing the direction of the staff's focus? Or do I look for a position where the hard work has been done and the culture and climate of the building is open and collaborative but there are big shoes to fill? Neither scenario sounds like the perfect situation. Maybe the best solution for now is to stay as an associate principal in my middle school and continue focusing on the important work currently at hand.
Going back to the text, I did lots of highlighting and note taking whenever I saw information comparing and contrasting organizational climate and culture. I have always wondered what the different was between the two. I felt the authors did a nice job with this task, like describing how scholars use qualitative techniques to examine culture and quantitative techniques when examining climate. Also of importance from the text is the fact that both perspectives are an effort to understand the influence of social context on organizational life (319). At the present time when schools are expected to provide so many social resources beyond the core curriculum for kids, making an effort to see the whole picture of the student-instruction-learning process is vital if any building plans on making a positive difference in increasing achievement. One more piece of information that hit home for me related to this specific topic is the acknowledgement that all students can make significant progress in spite of their socioeconomic status, race, family situation, or disability. With that, I am always leary of any program that asks schools to allocate inordinate amounts of time and resources toward activities that try to control for the uncontrollables such as SES or diversity. An example I am thinking of right now are the canned anti-bullying programs. An educator worth their salt knows that the best way to deter harassment in schools is to have consistent building expectations, logical consequences for misbehaviors, and constant adult supervision of students. I guess it is easier for some administrators to focus on the fluff than to do the hard work and try to make important change that will have a lasting, positive effect on students and their learning.
