What Comprises Of A Good School Culture?

According to Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, an expert in education leadership and management, an organization's culture has a direct and a strong impact on the organization's performance. Even though most teachers and principals realize its importance, they are unable to define what actually forms a good culture. Additionally, they also don't consider it to be as much as a priority as test scores and graduation rates.

At a recent session at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Bridwell-Mitchell described culture as building blocks of organization's character.

Culture is Connection:
A strong culture will demonstrate qualities such as overlapping and cohesive interactions between members. A weak culture is characterized by sparse interactions between the members. A good communication helps in spreading out beliefs, values and actions. Excluding any group from the education system will make it tough for the messages of commitments to spread.

Culture is all about Core Beliefs and Behaviors:
Even within a culture, it matters what kind of messages are spreading. A good culture can only be reinforced in the surroundings by messages that work on traits such as hard work, honesty and collaboration. Here are 5 elements that have power to influence

    Fundamental beliefs and assumptions like "Every student is good at something"

    Shared Values or how the members feel about these assumptions.

    Norms or how the members should behave.

    Patterns and behaviors or how the members actually behave in school.

    Tangible evidence or sensory signs that indicate behaviors of people in school.


By: Neha Maheshwari

Content: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51746/what-makes-a-good-school-culture