Powerful Practice

For some teachers, like Kelli and Diana, each of these four dimensions is essential, continuously active, and related to all the others. While directive, either/or thinking leads us to differentiate the four dimensions, the dynamic and complex logic of the co-creative perspective suggests that these are complementary dimensions that can be integrated. As teachers like Kelli and Diana develop, they learn to connect the quadrants and engage in what we call powerful practice.

Teachers may start out their careers predisposed to one quadrant of the Connect Framework. Depending on their experiences, they may become more open to and more capable in other quadrants. As this happens the teacher begins to engage in more paradoxical thinking and more complex behaviors. This ability to make connections across the framework seems to matter. Organizational research, for example, shows that executives with the ability to work across the framework are more-effective leaders.

In our workshops many teachers identified one quadrant in the model as their “home.” Some HETs describe their home quadrant as the dimension that best aligns with their personalities. They realize that If I try to teach like somebody else, it won’t work. This belief suggests that the journey to mastery is a journey during which we seek to discover and express our best and most unique self. In the remaining chapters, we use the framework to more clearly outline the processes and supports that have helped other HETs develop into their best selves. The best teacher in you is an elevated version of your current self. It may be a version that is more complex, more dynamic, and more unique. Perhaps it is a self that is continuously emerging and has to be continually reconstructed. This may explain why it is so hard for researchers to find linear relationships between teaching practices and effectiveness. Directive logic and research methods may not be appropriate for capturing the complex, dynamic, and unique nature of effective teaching.

Another way that teachers talk about their home quadrant is as the starting point for their practice or the “frame for everything else to come together,” and over time they learn how to “fit the rest in.” When teachers begin to integrate the attributes in their home quadrant with the attributes in the other quadrants, it appears that their capacity to be effective expands. Given that these teachers have different starting points, it is reasonable to assume that multiple paths exist to uncover the best teacher within.

Diana provides an illustration of this process. She attributes her success with students to her ability to simultaneously address all four quadrants in her teaching practice. We have inserted references to the quadrants in her statement: “I think that’s how my valued-added [blue quadrant] has done well because I give kids what they need [yellow quadrant]. I try to be creative, and I try to be flexible [green quadrant]. I let them know I care [yellow quadrant], yet I have some order to me [red quadrant], and I have high expectations [blue quadrant] …. That’s how I’m effective because I balance that all subconsciously in my mind without thinking about it.”

What is striking about the above statement is that Diana operates across all four of the quadrants “without thinking about it.” Integration is natural to her. She moves across the quadrants, creating synergies as she goes.