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The challenges!!
People involved in education who gain an insight into what Deming's work might offer begin to practice it in their own area but frequently report difficulties gaining support and influencing colleagues and others beyond.
Contributing Factors
I think there are several contributing factors
1. Deming's work is a paradigm shift for educators
- Deming thinks in terms of aligned aim/system/processes (with well ordered tasks and activities) with gains achieved by improvement
- The culture of educators generally focuses on isolated (but hopefully contributing) tasks and activities with gains achieved by change
2. So there is a paradigm difference between most current Deming practitioners and most educators:
- most educators and educational administrators can't recognise what they are shown
- similarly many 'quality' gurus' can't recognise the world in which teachers and students live and work: they confuse social processes with physical ones.
3. Teachers are in the middle - everyone has (often conflicting) expectations of education - this is why leadership is so important in any improvement initiative
4. There are two ways to understand Deming:
- the way statisticians and engineers do (left brain)
- and the way most educators could (right brain).
One of the saddest things is that the engineers got there first (TQM) and distorted everyone's understanding. The fact is that reality is so complex that it requires a whole brain (not one half or the other)
5. Teachers are auditory but the main tools of quality are visual (another obstacle)
6. The almost total absence of a process approach to pedagogy
7. Education general accepts vague notions of learning and how it is related to curriculum. It is complicated and there are so many factors but this is all the more reason to take a systems approach
I have recently begun development developing a framework based on Prof Reg Revans' action learning.
My strategy for introducing Deming into schools has always been to apply Deming's thinking in the context of
- working together
- which relates to our job description
- 'easier first'
- and the use of deployment flow charts (see also examples)
- and in future I will be pursuing the inclusion of pedagogy and action learning
Apologies!!
As Myron Tribus (a colleague of Deming's at MIT many years ago) says: "There is a simple answer to every question and it is usually wrong!! I am sorry it is as complex as this - but that is my experience. Even Deming didn't get
much of a breakthrough in his own country.
Feel free to use any of my material in working with teachers and administrators. There are so many important tasks to be done. Things could be so much better for the students, teachers, their schools and communities, everywhere.
Have fun and do well, and make it easier for others to do the same (the quality imperatives!!)