Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1: in one sentence

This post with keywords: Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization outlines the steps that school administrators and school owners may adopt to reorganize their school for sustainable growth. You will learn the meaning of school organization, the components of an organized school system as well as how to build a bulletproof system that protect the business while bringing about sustainable growth.

Introduction to Sustainable-School-Growth-part-1

This post, Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization, is the first of a 8-step post. The complete series will help school administrators and school owners to build a formidable school that will expand exponentially.  Following our independent education seminar which was held at FCAPT, Kano on October 1, 2019; many teachers, school administrators and school owners have requested for the manuals.

This particular 8-step post is an adaption of the manual on the topic ‘Sustainable School Growth and Multiple Streams of Income for Teachers in the 21st Century Environment’.

Preamble to Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization

That there is and will always be prospects in the education industry is a fact that needs no argument. There are prospects both for school owners and teachers. However, and just like any other industry, business in education is dynamic and follows certain principles. There are strategies to successful ends in education business. Unfortunately, not many school owners, administrators and teachers understand this dynamism and strategies for succeeding in education business. Hence, majority of education business stakeholders, especially upcoming ones, leave their success in the hands of uncertainty. Many have lost hope and quite a number would only say “I will do my best and leave the rest for God”.

Faith is good and I believe it is necessary for success. But I do not think there need be hopelessness and uncertainty in running education business. This is because there are empirical approaches to success in education businesses as in all else. In this post – Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization – I hope to discuss how school owners and administrators can position school their schools for sustainable growth.

Pre-requisite Knowledge for Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization

In this post, Sustainable-School-Growth-step-1-school-re-organization, I use keywords like school growth and sustainable school growth many times. I assume that you already know exactly what I imply by these terms. In an earlier post, I clearly defined school growth and sustainable school growth. In the post, I also explained why school administrators should pursue not just school growth but a sustainable school growth. If you have not read this already, click here and have a quick read.

What is School Reorganization?

In other that I may create a solid foundation for you to understand as much of this content as possible and for it to attain its objective – of helping you to make informed organizational decision that will lead to eventual growth – I will adopt the common classroom approach. I do this by breaking the term School Re-organization into three component units: School, Re and Organization. We shall first of all revise the elementary meaning of each as a reminder. You probably already know these elementary meanings. Hence, I state them here only as a reminder. You are perhaps well aware of the fact that your concept of a word or a thing determines your disposition towards it. And this in turn determines your effectiveness – using it to achieve the goal it is intended to achieve –  and efficiency – achieving the goal with less cost – with it.

Meaning Determines Effectiveness and Efficiency

Watch the clip below for instance. Mr. Bones, who assumes to be seeing bra for the first time initially asked “what is this?”. Thereafter, he answered himself by associating it with a previous meaning he knew of catapult. This made him to use the bra like a catapult!!

Evident from this analogy is the probability that the growth of a school may be stunted by the meanings which the school owner or administrator attaches to school and school organization.

We now come to the part where we discuss from the elementary meaning to the meaning of the words which is capable of inspiring growth. Before we proceed however, bear in mind that you have a role to play. The role of unlearning the previous meanings, if need be; and relearning the growth-imbued meaning. Note too that I am altering the dictionaries here. When I say growth-imbued meaning, I imply the meaning as in the context of the subject matter. So, the basic meaning of the terms that you learn from the dictionaries remains. You only have to remember that when you are talking from the context of school growth, you have to assume the growth-imbued meaning.

“Re”

The simplest of the three terms is “Re”. As I use it here, “Re” is a prefix – a letter or group of letters that we add to the beginning of a word to make a new word. The prefix “Re” means to “do again”. Hence, the word Re-organization means to organize again. This is basically the same as the meaning of the prefix “Re” in the dictionaries. Hence, there is no need to unlearn anything here.

School

Elementary Meaning and the problem

(Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (3rd Edition), 2008) defines school as a place where children go to be educated. This is not different from the meaning of school we know. But educationists and educators traditionally have additions to this meaning of school. While defining school in the official PED 412 course guide for level 4 education students of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Dr Nwangu stated that “… [schools] are not profit oriented but service goal oriented as they work for the realization of common goals of society”. Similarly, Dr Ajayi of the Faculty of Education, University of Ado-Ekiti writing on Topical Issues in Educational Administration for students of Ph.D degree programme in Educational Administration noted the existence of similar mindset among the teaching profession – where teachers were poorly paid because the belief was that they rendered services to God and they had to make sacrifice and looked for the rewards in heaven. This same mindset in unconsciously hides in the mind and heart of every Nigerian educationist and educator who is yet to unlearn this traditional meaning.

The growth-imbued meaning

No! I do not mean to say that such sacrificial mindset is wrong, not at all!! In fact, I totally believe that we (educationist and educators) cannot be payed enough – to commensurate with the good we render. So, I basically still believe that there is a special portion of reward for those that will make heaven – if you believe in it. But let me state clearly that the relegating meaning of school does not support growth.  And if you must attain growth, you will have to unlearn and relearn the meaning of school.

Difference between Sacrificial and Relegating Mindset about/Meaning of school

Now you may be wondering whether there is a difference between sacrificial and relegating mindset about or meaning of school. Well, let me point this out: sacrificial mindset is that in which when you have; you give up what you are supposed to enjoy or what is valuable to you SO AS TO HELP OTHERS. On the contrary, relegating mindset is that in which when you have; you refuse or reject growth thereby cutting off what you and others are supposed to enjoy.

What is the growth-imbued meaning of school?

To prepare your mindset for the school reorganization tips, you should understand that a school is much a business as any other business outfit – such as the banking, transport and communication industries. This means the same growth strategies and principles that make businesses in these industries to grow will also make businesses in education industry to grow – if properly localized to the industry. By being properly localized, I mean that although growth principles are universal, the business environments are different. Hence, the application of such principles must be from the context of the current business environment. The how of the latest is what I discuss in the remaining part of this post.

For now, let it suffice that you understand that a school is a business venture comprising of a group of people working together to render professional services (involved in educating learners) that satisfy given societal needs so as to make profit.

School as a Business Venture

As a business venture, every school is born out of a new (business) idea. And bringing the idea to fruition involves some level of risk and uncertainties. The idea from which a school is birthed is sometimes the vision/mission of the school. Are you a school owner? Think of when you wanted to start your school, what were your dreams? The principal thing that made you to start the school, what problems did the school set out to solve?

Take Home Point

Note that your growth or the growth of your school, and by extension its profit; is directly proportional to the efficiency with which you are (or the school is) able to solve the problem for which you (it) are (is)the solution. You should also know that efficient solution does not just happen. No! Efficient solution originates from the subconscious to the conscious and then implemented. By implication, this means for you to efficiently solve the problem for which the school is a solution; you and the team must internalize the problem into your sub-consciousness. Napoleon Hill in the Law of Success religiously taught that the best way of internalizing a thought into the sub-consciousness is by affirmation or repeated instructions. Hill suggested three simple actions to this end: Writing, Memorizing and Repeating (WMR).

The above injunction is not only for school owners. As a school administrator, your first responsibility is to acquaint yourself with the vision and mission of the school – If the school you now run already has one. On the other hand, it your current school hasn’t any; your first job should be to give direction to the school by drafting the vision and mission of the school.

One popular notion is that a school must be “big” before it has vision and mission statements. Say that to the Nigerian Microfinance Bank that has its vision and mission stated before the bank began operation. Or all well-doing multi-level marketing companies where you have to be inducted into believing their vision and mission before your first assignment as a staff.

In a nutshell, any business outfit that heads for growth always has a vision and mission for a direction – be it a big business or a small one.

Meaning of Organization: School as an organization or an enterprise

The other key words in the growth-imbued meaning of school is that is a group of people working together. This is in other words to say that every school is an organization. School being an organization stretches the definition to mean that the group of people in a school work together in a structured way for a shared purpose. This means the same thing as being an enterprise. However, as an enterprise; a school is not only an assemblage of people but of other economic resources which it requires to effectively function. This basically include time, space and infrastructures.

Consequently, in your growth-imbued meaning of school, you should remember that you cannot achieve sustainable school growth alone. You need a team. Not just a group of people but a group in which each person, though playing from his/her wing of expertise, contributes to a well-arranged whole. What will make your growth sustainable is that it involves people. Not only people to work as a team, but people to consider themselves a part of the team. Individuals that will be proud to call the school their place of work. In this wise, you should also remember that the growth is for all. You are simply the leader.

Definition of School Organization

Now that we have adequately discussed each of the key components of school re-organization, let us now define school organization. Just as school, we may define school organization in many contexts. For instance, Charlotte Danielson of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) defined school organization in context of enhancing student achievements as how schools arrange the resources of time, space, and personnel for maximum effect on student learning.

Consequently, since we are discussing school growth, let us define school organization within the context of school growth as below.

This article will be updated shortly check out other articles and return after a while.