My name is Muavia Gallie, a turnaround specialist of dysfunctional and underperforming schools and systems, in particular education systems. I created this blog separate from my personal blog, which is catering for those things I want to share with educators in general on a regular basis (muavia-gallie.blogspot.com). This one will specifically be devoted to the technical turnaround work that I do. I will hopefully share with you everything I know about turning around dysfunctional and underperforming schools in South Africa and Namibia, and I hope that I will be enriched by your comments and suggestions.
This will be a site where we will talk about the challenges your are facing, as a principal/school leader and/or SMT members of a school or learning institution. I will limit my conversation to the above-mentioned people because I believe that it is their duty to ensure that their institutions are functional. Yes, it is important that others in the organisation also contribute, but there has to be LEADERSHIP, someone and/or a group of people have to claim OWNERSHIP of the responsibilities. I don't like the argument of "everyone is a leaders, and not just those in positions". This might be true in a general sense, but organisations often employ, and pay certain people to make it their duty and to ensure the functionality of the organisation, and often they are given the space and time to do this job. Others can be leaders in their space, but the space of 'organisation functionality' is the responsibility of school leaders.
I therefore invite you to become a follower on this blog - where you claim OWNERSHIP, where you promise and commit yourself to do things differently, even during tough time, to improve the success of the learners at your school. This will be your first step of taking ownership for the current status of your school, no matter what it is currently. The journey that you are undertaking will not be easy, but it will be fulfilling once we start seeing the different we can make in the lives of ALL of our learners.
In particular, I identified four types of schools in South Africa, namely (i) High functioning schools (20%), (ii) Under-performing schools (50%), (iii) Dysfunctional schools (20%) and (iv) Chaotic schools (10%). The specific definition around these types of schools will be clarified in subsequent blogs. For now, it is more important how you define these types of schools, in your own head, and which one you claim for your own school and how you will give me the space to influence and stimulate your thinking around these concepts.
I have been doing this work on a full-time basis for more than three years - I mean turnaround work. Before this, I have been researching this phenomena for more than six years, and before that I was based at SACE, and before that I was a principal, HoD and teacher in a township school in Cape Town. During my turnaround work, I have interacted with thousands of principals and SMT members of different types of schools. I have opened myself up to challenges in relations to concepts and frameworks which will be shared with you in subsequent blogs. I will share with you testimonies (video clips) from group representatives and individuals who expressed their opinions on the work I do. Most of these video clips were recorded after a two days session with participants. I call the session the 'ownership workshop' since it focuses on getting participants to take ownership of their situation. Most participants who are part of the last three types of schools mentioned above, will come to the workshop with lost of excuses of why things are the way they are that their schools, and it will go hand-in-hand with blaming others and behaving like 'victims'. My job during this 'ownership workshop' is to making them aware of the powerful SELF within them, their ABILITY to change the situation they are in, their STRENGTH to turnaround their conditions, behaviour, cultures and climates, their PURPOSE why they joined the teaching profession in the first place, their deep-seated COMMITMENT to serve others and to give them opportunities and hope, and most importantly, to start SERVING this country as intended when they became teachers and principals.
I will try and keep the sequence of blogging as close to my natural process flow of how to turnaround your school. You will realise that sometimes the order might be appropriate for one schools, but should be slightly re-ordered for another, given the contextual circumstances of different schools and schools communities. The important things is that you will GET TO KNOW YOUR SCHOOL in a way that you never would have imagined before - this is part of the process of BECOMING AWARE. The journey that we are undertaking is not about GIVING YOU A FISH, but rather ASSISTING YOU HOW TO FISH. The benefits of this blog to you will be totally dependent on what you want out of it. You will get from this blog what you came to find - if you come to this blog to be enriched, I can assure you that we will go out of our way to serve you. As indicated in the name of the blog - I want to turnaround my school - we want you to be the change agent, the transformer, the catalyst of the turnaround, because our education system needs BRAVE individuals like you to STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.
So, press that 'follower' button to become part of a movement that will change the face of South African schools. Together we can turn this situation around - whatever it takes, no excuses.
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