The Difficulties of Building Up a New Paradigm of Working Organization in Schools

Abstract

With the stated aim of reducing inequities in the access to knowledge, most school systems have been reviewing and standardizing their curricula, emphasizing inclusion, strengthening school autonomy and parental involvement, introducing tertiary training of teachers and principals, and increasing institutional initiatives aiming to enhance teaching effectiveness. This contribution argues on behalf of empirical evidence, obtained by the observation of teachers’ and school practices which has been conducted during by the Geneva Research Laboratory, that these sorts of change strategies will not produce the desired impact unless they are combined with specific innovative actions aiming at a) thorough reorganization of work in schools, and (b) making actors and citizens change their attitudes concerning the possible ways of encouraging pupils to learn. The conclusion insists on the need to give professionals the opportunity to thoroughly reconsider the means by which they will be able to move on from bureaucratically founded, rigid and locked in towards a flexible working organization. This change strategy includes reflection on the principles of organization that guide teaching activities and/or on the new learning settings, which make possible new ways of learning. Key words: change strategies, conditions for learning, imagination, implementation, innovation, knowledge development, learning issues, limited rationality, work organization.