Creating A Positive School Culture Through Innovation

What is the overarching culture that defines your school? Is it one of academics, of athletics, or perhaps the arts? How do the students, staff, and parents rank their priorities amongst the canon of school-related activities? Creating an effective school culture should be viewed as being as important as creating an effective classroom environment. Children will come to actualize their potential when placed in an environment that allows them access to a variety of outlets and possibilities.

In making such a proclamation, it becomes important to understand that both classroom and school culture is something that is created, but who is creating it? You may discover that the primary culture in your school or classroom is sometimes negative and undesirable. If this is true, it needs to be addressed, re-assessed, and re-focused.

The Diffusion of Innovation

Diffusion of innovation is a principle that is applied mostly in the world of business and technology. It is used to track popular trends within those paradigms. However, the same perspective could readily be applied and adapted to fit the school environment.

For example, choose the behavior or culture that you would like to see flourish within your school community and target certain pupils to highlight it. Focus on those behaviors as a unified school staff and understand the statistical principles applied below.

The Break Down Examined

• Innovators (2.5%) – This is where it all begins. What is the practice, behavior, or mentality that you would like to see dominate your academic surroundings? Locate those who are already participating in the behavior that you wish to foster and focus on them. However, this group is somewhat overrated.

• Early Adopters (13.5%) – This is the group that truly leads to change within a culture or society. The Innovators may affect the Early Adopters, but the Early Adopters are the ones who truly enact change within a group. These are the people who carry and spread the message that was created by the innovators. They give the innovators a voice by supporting and encouraging their behaviors or actions.

• Early Majority (34%) – The Early Majority group are followers, but they are necessary to create “school wide” change. This is the group that brings us to the fifty percent mark. By this point, they have watched and seen what has happened to the Early Adopters and now know that it is safe to follow in those footsteps.

• Late Majority (34%) – These people are skeptics, but by now the majority have tested the waters and the next thirty-four percent can follow and rest assured that they are not risking negative side effects or consequences.

• Laggards (16%) – The remaining individuals are typically not leaders, and they show little interest in innovation. The Laggards are not very quick to catch on and even once the culture has been changed; they may stick true to some form of “tradition” or outdated principle. These students should not be ignored. Hopefully, over time you can re-direct them.

Movement in Action

When plotted on a graph, you will see that these statistics create a perfect bell curve. When you have passed the fifty percent line (the top of the bell curve) you will see a drastic change in the culture of your school environment. This means it is best to focus on the behavior of the Early Adopters because they will, in turn, affect the actions of the Early Majority.

The late majority will follow in due time, and the last sixteen percent of your student or staff population (the Laggards) may never fully catch on. However, the positive change will catch on, and that’s what matters!

Additional Resources:

Understanding Where You Are