school organization essay

RETURN edited 2/13/20 - egr

THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANIZATION

There is a strong tendency in human society for the unorganized group to develop organization and for organizations to develop even where there has been no consciousness of a group previously, in which case the organization itself creates the group it expresses and embodies. Consequently, group conflict tends easily to pass over into organizational conflict, and the growth of organizations themselves may create conflict where no previous consciousness of conflict existed.  -- Kenneth E. Boulding Conflict and Defense: a general theory [1]

SELECTED TOPICS

            In this essay we look at the school as an organization. Many people, when they think of an organization, tend to think of it as a group of people working towards a common goal. Much literature about education depicts schools in this way. This conception of organization, however, is strongly biased by Temple and Factory images of the school. In fact, by focussing on presumed common goals, we easily lose sight of the conflicts that generate schooling controversies.

            We will approach organizations from a different perspective . We will consider an organization to be a social structure which allocates costs and benefits, both symbolic and substantial. This way of looking at the schools is made possible by the development of organization theory . There are many different aspects to this broad subject and we can go into only a few of them here. Organization theory ranges, for example, from studies of the effects of management, of bureaucratic structures, or of technology, to the systems of motivation and learning established in an organization. Of particular interest is the ability of organization theory to account for the failure of past school reform efforts. It also gives us indication as to what kinds of school reform are likely to take hold.

            To begin, we examine some standard kinds of conflict that arise in organizations and how they show up in schools. We will learn that different conceptions of human nature underlie different conceptions of organizations. We will see that relations of power among people determine to some extent these perceptions of human nature. Finally, we will look at different models of organizational structure and relate them to our images of the school: Temple, Factory and Town Meeting.

            The images of the school we presented earlier were based primarily on expectations. Temple, Factory and Town Meeting are expectation models of the school. A model is a schematic, an image which depicts the relationship of parts to the whole. So far, we have dealt with rather informally conceived models based on the expectations of people traditionally involved with schools, e.g. parents, students, teachers, administrators. Now we will consider a set of rather formal organizational models deriving from a concern with implementation. Contrasting and comparing implementation models with our expectation models, we will see that the notion of authority, control and policy varies with them.

Introduction: making sense of it all

            To the untutored eye, many things make no sense. To someone who knows nothing about the depth of cultural difference common situations of cultural conflict would make no sense. Similarly, not knowing about the functions of conflict, many people fail to understand why conflict persists when all involved desire to end it. Organization theory gives us another dimension of understanding. It helps us see that many situations we might otherwise see as a matter of personality conflicts, or, maybe, incompetence, are in fact a matter of organizational structure.

            In a large Eastern city, half-day classes are held for about a week in the middle of the year for "reorganization." The kids are sent home while teachers are given twelve hours to do paperwork. Since this paperwork needs no special skill to do, everybody's first reaction is that the situation "makes no sense." Why should teachers be given secretarial work, while the kids lose out on instruction? Narrow focus on the professed mission of the school, instruction, provides no answer. Organizationally, however, we can discern a rationale. Indeed, if we examine the costs and benefits of the practice, its reasonableness becomes clear.

•The paperwork done is absolutely essential for the continuance of certain funds by the State and Federal government. •Requests for budget money allotted for the additional secretarial help needed to complete the "reorganization" paperwork would be subject to review by a cost-conscious schoolboard. •The costs of using teachers are easily hidden. They get no additional salary for doing paperwork. It is merely a reallotment of time that need pass no budget review and remains at the discretion of school administration.

This practice is clearly an intelligent trade-off in a tight situation. Its benefits are clear and its costs are hidden. But it takes an overview of the school as an organization to understand it as "making sense," even if we still believe it is an undesirable practice.

Schooling: Education vs. Organization

            We know that schooling and education are not the same. Education pursues values that may not be realized in actual schools. And neither is socialization and education the same. As children learn to adapt themselves to the social situations they must cope with, they may not reach the goals their community aspires to. In studying the organization of the schools we learn how different organizational structures influence the socialization of children in ways which may undermine as well as support educational goals.

            The way schools work often has greater effect on what students learn than what their teachers try to do. Here is an example. For administrative convenience, some schools require final grades to be entered weeks before summer vacation begins. This is supposed to be a top secret. Invariably students find out about it. When they question their teachers about it, the teachers, following administrative directive reply that no grades are final and that any slacking off will be reflected in a lower grade. The students not only disbelieve this, they understand the teachers to be lying. Worse, they take them for fools to persist in lying in the face of common knowledge. Imagine the moral lessons these students come to learn, just for the sake of organizational convenience!!

            Here is another real example where crossed purposes produce questionable results. A principal of a large high school, feeling that school spirit is low, has senior and junior students brought to the auditorium for a pep rally the day before a major football game. At first the students are unenthused, but as bugles blare and drums boom and sparcely clad cheerleaders somersault , interest is aroused. Finally, the whole auditorium is on its feet, shouting, "Go!, Go! Go Team! Go!" Then the bell rings for change of class. "Go!, Go! Go Team! Go!" the students continue to chant, in their frenzy oblivious of the bell. The vice-principal in charge of assemblies runs onto stage and turning the volume up on the PA system yells at the students to shut up and sit down. His thundering commands, electronically amplified to the point of audial pain, eventually overpower the crowd. Red-faced, he tells that students that he is disgusted by their blatant disregard for school procedures. "That bell is the signal for you to quiet down and pass on to the next class!" he scolds. The students shuffle out, no doubt having learned a sad lesson about the meaning of school spirit and the need to respect school procedures.

            Teachers work hard at trying to develop industriousness in their students. They also try to get them to develop an interest in their studies that will motivate them through much of the drudgery of learning. But what happens all to often when they have a class humming along through a lesson? An announcement on the loudspeaker interrupts the class. Or, the bell rings signaling the end of the class period. Or, a suprise fire drill or visit from the principal stops the lesson. No doubt these all serve organizational purposes. But what lessons do the students learn about the relative importance of their studies to the importance of announcements, scheduling convenience, fire drills and principal observations? Is it any wonder that the most common complaint of high school teachers is that students show little, if any, interest in their studies? Perhaps they have been socialized out of it.

            To reiterate, it is important for school people to recognize that many school problems are generated by organizational structure rather than to mistake them for shortcomings in themselves or their students. They should also be careful of those who firmly deny this possibility. Anyone who insists that there are no organizational problems may have a hidden agenda to reinforce his or her authority through guilt and feelings of inadequacy. [2]

Basic Internal Conflicts

            The school is a complex organization. Complex organizations, by mere virtue of their complexity, run up against four basic internal conflicts. [3] These are

• following policy vs. sensitivity to individual differences • delegating authority vs. pursuing authorized goals. • process vs. product • power vs. morale.

Dealing with these school conflicts is not merely a matter of more dedication or self-discipline on the part of individuals. Nor is it a matter of patience or forbearance or charisma. What must be addressed is the structure of relationships that constitute the organization. We will examine each of these conflicts in that way.

Following policy vs. sensitivity to individual differences

            A basic organizational conflict is that of following policy vs. sensitivity to individual differences. Robert K. Merton [4] investigated how following policy reduces sensitivity to individual differences. This conflict, for example, is the basis of the persistent tension in trying to follow a school policy providing equal educational opportunity that also tries to address the individual needs of the child. This issue came up first in chapter two as a conflict in disciplinary goals between the Temple and the Factory. Is consistency more desirable than the effectiveness of individualized treatment? This tension between policy and sensitivity can be seen in a variety of school problems and practices. [5] For example,

• the conflict of teaching a class according to a standardized curriculum vs. making adjustments according to the readiness of individual students. • restrictions, for fear of legal liability, on outside-of-school activities to enhance the curriculum •the establishment of mathematical formulas for generating grades rather than relying on teacher judgment. •the use of standardized tests for college admissions to supplement, sometimes replace, secondary school records and recommendations.

Delegating authority vs. pursuing authorized goals

            Philip Selznick [6] finds that as authority is delegated to them, organization members pursue their personal goals more strongly. Teachers have moral and professional goals and these not infrequently come in conflict with school procedures and policies. For example, a teacher may be put in charge of discipline and ignore a policy that requires students who fight to be suspended automatically. He or she may take into consideration, for example, that students who are bullied ought not be punished along with the bullies.

            On the other hand, principals have neither time nor energy to check up on every detail of the school's functioning.. A well-running school necessarily involves teachers in much of what the public would consider administrative work, e.g. rostering, discipline, trip planning, admissions. This puts teachers in the position of exercising discretion on matters of policy. They often then make decision on the basis of what they see as the merits of the case rather than on the basis of policies and procedures.

            The basic conflict between delegation of authority and the pursuit of authorized goals is a matter of the extent to which resources allotted for the public goals of the schools, e.g. instruction, are diverted to other uses. This is not a matter of dishonesty but a difference in perception of what is needed to carry out a task. School boards and citizen's committees tend to underestimate the resources needed -- from an educator's point of view -- to accomplish the goals they profess to esteem. The organizational reality is that people on site have to have a good deal of discretion in determining how resources are used, or the job has no chance of getting done.

            Some common practices which negotiate the conflict between delegation of authority and the pursuit of authorized goals are the following:

•Teachers use instructional time to have students decorate the classroom or the halls. •Principals may call special assemblies to free staff for committee work. •Teachers change the curriculum at will to reflect their personal tastes and priorities.

Of course, every one of these practices is given an educational justification so that it appears to be serving the pursuit of the goals it is deviating from. In fact, these practices often serve worthy goals. But they are not ones for which there is wide consensus on funding.

Process vs. Product

            Luther Gulick [7] finds a conflict between a focus on product and a focus on process. The essential questions are how should we divide our attention between these two concerns? And, when they conflict, which should take precedence?

            Are people given projects which they follow out to completion? If so, this is product oriented activity. If they are given repetitive piecemeal things to do, this is process orientation. Teaching is a bit of both. Lessons can be planned with product orientation. Teachers usually get to see some development and completion over a span of time. On the other hand, they don't get to see really long range effects, say, from first through twelfth grade. Process orientation can be done more cheaply if common activities are pooled, but there is no one responsible to see to it that completion occurs. They can always blame someone in the previous stage of the process for failure. In this sense, schools are process-oriented. Kids are pooled for common treatment because it is less expensive to do so. Careerwise, there is no overall attention given to students. Economies of scale reduce the effectiveness with which goals are achieved.

            Situations which point to an underlying conflict between process and product orientation are these:

•School district consolidation vs. "small school" virtues such as school spirit, a feeling of sharing, a personal knowledge of all members of the school community. [8] •Subject-matter focus and departmentalization in high schools vs. learner-centered focus and concern with development. [9] •Standardized testing and curriculum vs. the concern for the "specialness" of students. •Class-size and teacher feelings of frustration in reaching kids. [10]

Power vs. Morale

             Coercion is as essential a component of command as prescription or kinship. Ideally it should remain implicit, and when made explicit should manifest itself as rarely as possible as physical force, except in extreme emergency never falling arbitrarily or threatening the majority. Once a commander becomes as much an enemy to his followers as the enemy himself -- and what else is a commander who breathes fire and sword against his own men? -- the mystification of his role is destroyed and his power, essentially an artificial construct, dissipated beyond hope of recall. -- John Keegan, The Mask of Command [11]

            So strong are the images of Temple and Factory that people are reluctant to admit to the use of power both in individual motivation and in school relationships. People tend to find issues of power discomforting. Focussing on policies, rules, procedures and the like offers an escape from dealing with the role of power in organizations. Abraham Zaleznick comments

...executives are reluctant to acknowledge the place of power both in individual motivation and in organizational relationships. Somehow, power and politics are dirty words. And in linking these words to the play of personalities in organizations, some managers withdraw into the safety of organizational logics. [12]

            Alvin Ward Gouldner [13] , studying highly monocratic organizations, found that the desire to hide power-relations conflicts with getting more than minimal cooperation from organization members. If you don't yell, they don't work! However, some theorists take this to be an indication of organizational pathology. Why should we expect people to perform only when intimidated? What is it about an organization that its goals can only be achieved through compulsion?

            The issue of power in schools goes right to the heart of the professionalization controversy that we presented in Chapter 4. Schools are in flux with respect to the power issue. Thus the power vs. morale conflict will vary depending upon the prerogatives accorded school people throughout the organization. Some situations that illustrate the power vs. morale conflict are these:

•Teachers are demoralized to discover that their textbooks have been selected for them by their local school board committee. •Classroom morale may be negatively affected by a teacher's unnecessary expressions of authority. [14] •School spirit sinks as bullying becomes widespread. This is why New Jersey principal, Joe Clark, with his baseball bat raises the morale of those student he protects from the illegitimate power of bullying as he lowers the morale of staff members who see him himself as a kind of bully.

Chart 8.1 summarizes the basic conflicts with examples.

BASIC ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICTS

Theory X, Theory Y and Theory Z

            We saw in the previous section that there is a basic conflict between power and morale. How much use of power is necessary in an organization? Is low morale a disadvantage? We will see that answers to these questions depend upon what one believes about human nature.

            Why do people join an organization, stay in it and work for its goals? Chester I. Barnard's classic response to this question is that the benefits outweigh the costs. [15] But how one conceives of human beings and their relationship to organizations has a lot to do with costs and benefits. An interesting and pertinent set of contrasts has been developed by Douglas McGregor [16] . McGregor calls these contrasts Theory X and Theory Y . William Ouchi [17] , examining successful Japanese corporations, expanded McGregor's distinctions with his own Theory Z . These theories are, of course, idealizations. They purport less to describe how organizations in fact function than to prescribe how organizations should be structured in order to function best. [18]

Human Nature and Commitment

            Theory X basically describes people as lazy and needing compulsion to work. Theory Y says that if people are committed to the organization, they show all sorts of leadership qualities. Theory Z recommends that the organization, rather than demand commitment from its people, be committed to its people. Chart 8.2 presents these contrasts with additional information about the theories.

            If we reconsider our basic organizational conflicts in light of theories X, Y and Z, it would seem that organizations that conformed to the different theories could avoid certain conflicts, particularly those having to do with internal relations. Theory X, expecting the worst of people, would find all four of the basic conflicts possible. Theory Y, on the other hand, by pursuing relationships that trust and empower organization members to act, would probably avoid the conflict of power with morale. Theory Z, by looking to organizational members for the goals to pursue, might uncut the possibility of the conflict between delegating authority and authorized goals. Chart 8.3 illustrates these points.

Whether people espouse Theory X or Y or Z is going to determine whether the conflict between morale and power will come up. But this goes both ways. There is evidence that whether they adopt an X or Y or Z type theory in their relationships with others depends upon the nature of that relationship.

            This jibes with our common experience in schools. Teachers who complain that administrators are "autocratic," often tend to be as autocratic when they become administrators. This consideration leads us to suspect that role has a lot to do with behavior and perceptions . In the next section we will examine how members of different groups tend to see others in an X or Y framework depending upon the roles they play in an organization and the power-relations among them.

Monocratic Power

Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.                                                                         -- Lord Acton

            Lord Acton's saying is famous. But is it true? How exactly does power corrupt? It does so by changing our perceptions of the people over whom we have power or who have power over us. This tempts us to deal with them in ways that may undermine both our personal and our common interests.

            An interesting set of studies by Kenwyn K. Smith [19] indicates that where organizations are monocratic, i.e. power is concentrated rather than distributed, certain ways of perceiving subordinate or superior groups develop. These fixed ways of perceiving others, which Smith calls "encasements", generate very difficult problems for each of the groups in an organization.

            If we consider a monocratic organization as comprised of three groups, powerholders, implementers and lowers, [20] we can map out the relationships between them. Powerholders control resources, money, influence, police power. Implementers attempt to adjust the directives of the powerholders to the realities of the situation to which their directives are addressed. "Lowers" are those left in the organization, subject to the will of the powerholders, and the administrations of the implementers, lacking power of their own. Smith found that these three groups had different ways of perceiving themselves and others. They also used handled conflicts in characteristically different ways.

            If we look at schools, we find that the monocratic relationships of powerholder-implementer-lower are relative. They depend upon whom we are focussing on. In the school building, a principal may be a powerholder, whereas at a board meeting he may be a "lower." In a small New England town Smith found that the relative position of different parties in a monocratic relationship depended upon the parties in question. The parties considered were:

• The Public • Local Politicians • The Board of Education • Superintendent • Principals • Teachers • Students

Smith focussed on the Board of Education, the Superintendent and the Principals and found that each filled the role of powerholder, implementer and lower with respect to someone else. Chart 8.4 shows the relationships.

If we focus on the principals we can see that they are powerholders in relation to the teachers, who are implementers, and the students, who are lowers. The principals are implementers in relation to the superintendent, who is a powerholder, and the teachers, who are implementers. The principal is a lower in relationship to the Board of Education, who are powerholders, and the superintendent, who is an implementer.

The Pathology of Domination

I don't want her to work, and I don't want her to go to school. What for? She doesn't have to. She's got plenty to keep her busy right here.                                     -- husband speaking of his wife in Worlds of Pain [21]

            The warning in Smith's research is that when monocratic relationships stabilize, they "encase", that is, imprison, the perceptions of particular groups in a pathological manner. Powerholders tend to have little insight into the consequences of their own behavior on other people. They are pessimistic about the competency of other groups and tend to delegate responsibility but not sufficient resources. They also tend to withhold information to create dependencies in other groups upon them, the powerholders. They react to conflict with other groups by being punitive, assertive and withholding resources. Within their own group, however, they tend to ignore conflict and tolerate dissidence. Those most charismatic among them dominate.

            In contrast, implementers find themselves caught up in the need to relate to both powerholders and lowers. They tend to be optimistic and systemic thinkers who base their decisions in moral and ethical frameworks. They are information sharers and brokers. But faced with conflict from other groups they become disoriented, indecisive and impotent. Within their own ranks they handle conflict by seeking common understandings, employing what they believe are effective techniques of conflict resolution. (The irony in Smith's research came with his realization that as a researcher he was not someone external to these encasements. He was, willy-nilly, by virtue of his interests and pursuits, an implementer. [22] )

            Lacking power, lowers suffer from yet another encasement. They are caught up in behavior that maintains group protection and unity. They may give the appearance to others that they "just don't care." They are suspicious of implementers and power-holders and adopt a reactive attitude toward them. Like power-holders they withhold information, but being unable to create dependency, they do it to preserve group unity. They handle conflict from without by increasing cohesion and commiting to group unity and from within by suppression of dissent.

            Chart 8.5 summarizes and compares the particulars of monocratic power relationships.

            Depending upon the extent to which schools fit different models of organization, the possibilities of domination can be reduced. [23] By relating the theory of encasements to theories X, Y and Z, we can begin to understand how the power relationships among people work their way into the structure of schools. Both Temple and Factory tend to be monocratic. The flow of power is top down and sets the stage for encasement problems. A benefit of the Town Meeting image of the school is that it does not have the unidirectional flow of power that can produce the encasement pathologies. Power flows in many directions. People within the Town Meeting are exposed to various power roles. This variation undermines perceptual encasements.. We might well worry that any attempt to strengthen the Temple or Factory aspects of schooling risk producing encasement pathologies.

Models of Organizations

            An organization is social structure which allocates costs and benefits, both symbolic and substantial. Because Organization Theory is an independent discipline with its own history, it treats organizations in a different way from what we have done with our images of the school as temple, factory and town meeting. (The reader is encouraged to further study of this important discipline. [24] ) But there are other ways of looking at the school. Important research has been done on how programs have succeeded or failed that explain their results in terms of implementation models . We will examine a set of organizational models that derives from such a concern with the implementation of reform legislation. The contrasts with our original images, expectation models of the school, will be examined.

Expectation vs. Implementation: a new set of organizational models.

            In chapter 2 we proposed three models of the school. Each model had associated with it an image. The basis for the distinction among the models was a sorting out of different kinds of expectations , respectively, for propriety, community and nurturance, for effectiveness and for negotiability. [25] Chart 8.6 shows these relationships.

            There are many kinds of moral community and many kinds of productive organization. Because it simplifies the discussion, we have let the images from Chapter 2 associated with each model represent the model. This will suffice for this chapter, although we will also have reason in later chapters to distinguish between different images of different models. We will see, for example, that there are different kinds of productive organization and that the Factory is only one image of it. We will suggest that a different kind of productive organization might be able to handle the difficulties in present school organization. But for this chapter, Temple, Factory and Town Meeting serve as our expectation models of the school as an organization.

            Who exactly carries out the tasks in an organization can substantially affect its success. In a school, implementation power affects student achievement. Richard F. Elmore, focussing on problems of the implementation of social programs, presents four models of the organization. [26] . Chart 8.7 contrasts and compares our expectation models of the school with Elmore's implementation models.

We can see that the boundaries are somewhat different. Where we find Temple and Factory in the expectation models, Elmore has broken them up into the Organizational Development model, the Systems Management model and the Bureaucratic model. These new implementation models share characteristics of the expectation models they overlap. Elmore's Conflict and Bargaining Model corresponds to our Town Meeting. The importance of distinguishing among these models is that program implementation can fail in different ways, depending upon the model used to examine the organization.

            If we wish to ask of a proposed reform, "What can go wrong?", we have to consider which model of the school we are using for our analysis. The Systems management model conceives the school to be something like a large computer that the proper programming controls. Its failures are primarily failures in planning. The Bureaucratic model recognizes that in complex organizations implementation power is spread throughout the organization. Most actions taken are routine and derived from policy. Success in this model is a matter of adapting routines to reflect policy and making sure that power centers deliver the goods. The Organizational Development model sees effective organizations as reflecting the consensus and commitment of its members. Where such consensus is lacking, failure follows. Finally, the Conflict and Bargaining model sees success as a matter of one group's having sufficient power to impose its conceptions of policy on others. Chart 8.8 illustrates these differences.:

            Why must we complicate things with an additional set of models? Because the research that has been done with them is important. And because they give us another perspective to examine that very complex reality that is the school. In fact, there are other models we could use but they don't serve our purposes as well. This is as complicated as it needs to get. We need only distinguish between our original expectation models of the school, Temple, Factory and Town Meeting, and these four new implementation models. Clearly, however, it is important that we understand more about these new models and how they illuminate that organization we call the school.

Task Analysis: How can things go wrong?

            It's a simple task to row your friend across a stream in a canoe. But it's not a simple thing, even if it's possible, for the U.S. navy to transport 2000 sailors across that same stream in an aircraft carrier. Simple tasks may not be simple for a complex organization.

            It's not unusual for a parent to drop into school and ask that his or her child's fotgotten gym shorts be brought to them by a certain period. The bigger the school, the less likely this simple task will be accomplished. Why is this? For the same reason it is difficult to get an error corrected on a utility bill. Or to find someone who can do something about a fixing a defect in your brand new car. Individuals can perform simple and amazingly varied tasks. Organizations function best with complex and routine ones.

            Organizations are composed of individual persons. Organizational tasks and products are developed from the tasks and products of individual persons, too. We saw in previous chapters that our expectations about schools affect what we believe the structure of the school to be and how people in the school should relate to one another. In this chapter we will see how an individual performs a simple task and then see how this simple task changes in different organizational structures. In order to understand better the charts below illustrating different organizational models, let's begin with a chart that represents the performance of simple tasks performed by an individual , e.g. building a bird house or baking a cake.

            At the end of chapter 4, we developed a general slogan, a basic model for achieving educational goals: School goals are achievable when adequate resources are provided for effective, feasible tasks of implementation . To keep things simple, we will try to restrict ourselves to items introduced by this slogan, goals, tasks and resources.Figure 8.9 captures the Basic Model of Chapter 4:

            How should we understand this chart. Let's go through it bit by bit to make sure we understand what this flowchart means. We will use this basic chart, making it more and more complex, to illustrate what is involved in getting something done in different models of the school. Also, by seeing how different organizational models affect the complexity of a task, we gain insight into how simple tasks might go awry.

            To begin: Goals control Tasks. What this means is that the goals we choose determine what the appropriate tasks will be. For example, if we decide to build a bird house, selecting wood and nails, and cutting, etc. would be tasks appropriate to that goal. If we chose to bake a cake, we would select edible ingredients, rather than wood and nails.

            Secondly, Tasks control Resources. What this means is that once we decide how to pursue our goal, i.e. what our tasks are, this decision determines what resources we will look for.

            Next, Resources support Tasks. Without resources, tasks cannot be accomplished. Finally, Tasks support Goals. Goals without tasks through which they are implemented remain only plans.

            There is a certain artificiality about this task analysis because as individuals we do not often perceive tasks to be composed of separate parts: goals, tasks and resources. We tend to blend these distinctions together into a harmonious whole. But only so long as we succeed. When we fail, an analysis such as this become indispensible to intelligent troubleshooting.

            The point of developing this flowchart of a simple task is to help us understand how different organizational structures affect how tasks are done. Tasks are done differently in small schools than they are in big schools. Different people may share different parts of the task. This requires reconceptualizing what one person may think of as a unified action into coordinated subtasks.

            The advantage of this basic model is that it is simple. Its drawbacks are that it doesn't account for error. People seldom just do something and have it satisfy what they set out to do. There is a lot of trial and error involved, especially as the tasks become complex and require coordination. Let's complicate our step 1 model with the addition of a new item: Benefits and Costs , which are organizational outcomes to be evaluated to see if goals have been met. (See figure 8.10)

Figure 8.10

Figure 8.10 is not very different from our flowchart of a simple task. What we see here is a slight change in the relationship of the items. Tasks are not assumed to automatically support goals. Rather, they generate (support) outcomes which are Benefits and Costs. These outcomes must be evaluated to determine to what extent they support goals. And they are often evaluated by people other than those who produced them. How far the outcomes are from the goals will determine how tasks need to be adjusted. If many people are involved in this process, a complex communication system will have to be established. And it is a widely recognized "maxim" of systems theory that as complexity increases, potential for failure does, too..This is hedged against in military and business systems by building in redundancy, that is, systems that duplicate one another's functions. School budgets are generally too tight for this kind of safeguard.

            By "Benefits and Costs" in figure 8.10 we mean all outcomes of the Tasks, not only what is created or transformed, but also what is used up. People tend to think of outcomes as only those new valued things produced by an activity. Costs tend to be overlooked or put into a special category. But someone's costs are another person's benefits. The trash produced by a school which it pays to dispose of is what provides benefits to the trash haulers and new resources to factories that recycle paper and cans. Whatever they may be, Benefits and Costs must be evaluated to see if they support Goals.

            The task-analysis model shown in figure 8.10 is the model underlying the vast majority of reform proposals directed at the schools. It is the simplest form of what we will call below the systems management model. In the difference between figures 8.9 and 8.10 we see the first difference between tasks undertaken by individual persons and those undertaken by organizations: the outcomes of tasks do not easily related back to goals. As we have seen in chapter 2, organizational goals are often sloganistic and relating outcomes to them may involve a complicated process of evaluation.

            In the last chapter we saw that the Coleman Report asserted that merely putting more money into the schools had no effect upon student achievement, whereas student achievement was seen to correlate with parent SES. (We can consider parent SES to be a kind of resource.) Adding in Resources of any kind and expecting a corresponding increase in Benefits (and Costs) is called a production model (see figure 8.11) and assumes the use of the simple systems management model.

Figure 8.11

            The production model tends to make people look for a direct relationship between increasing resources ($$$ + $) and increasing outputs (888+8) to meet goals. Researchers [27] have argued that the school is not organized in a way that makes the production model appropriate. We will see below some ways of conceptualizing the school organization that explain why simply increasing Resources will not increase the output of Benefits and Costs supporting Goals.

            We should understand that our basic model is simplistic. More resources don't necessarily lead to more benefits. In a complex organization, tasks have to be coordinated. Coordination is a kind of task and uses time, energy and money. The resources used for coordination purposes are part of what is called overhead costs. Figure 8.12 shows the relationship, ignoring Benefits and Costs, and Goals, for simplicity's sake.

Figure 8.12

It is possible to use up new resources as overhead. This sometimes happens when new programs are started because a large part of start-up costs are for administration, staff training and liaison, i.e. coordination tasks. For example, a teacher may get several sets of new textbooks with the expectation that his or her teaching will be improved. But it may take so much time and energy just to develop lessons that use the text material that the instruction itself suffers. Another example is this: simply admitting more new students at a university brings new resources in the form of tuitions. Against these must be weighed the costs of additional staff and facility use. When budgets expand and production doesn't, check to see if overhead has gone up.

            As practically important as they are, let's leave these complexities and build upon our simple model. We will examine the differences between models of systems management, bureaucracy, organizational development and bargaining and conflict.

The Implementation Models

            Most people think of reform as a top-down process. Without necessarily intending to, they adapt the viewpoint of the powerholders in a monocratic relationship. Thus, when reforms fail, they blame the implementers (school personnel) or the lowers (students).

            Knowledge of organization theory, however, opens up a new perspective. We will see how and why effective school reforms have come about despite severe limits on resources, because teachers and principals were given the discretion to determine organizational changes at the local level. Let's begin our review of Elmore's implementation models.

The systems management model

            Let's first look at the systems management model. Here the school is conceived as a sort of computer aimed at maximizing goals. Historically, this conception precedes the others in organization theory. It is the ultimately rational factory. To reiterate an earlier point, it is the model of the school most reform proposals assume. It is monocratic, programmed at the top, and executes directives unquestioningly. The lower levels, being parts of the computer, have no special needs of their own, and certainly no independent goals which could conflict with the basic computer program. In a school system, the basic program is policy, translated instructionally into curriculum. (The quote from John Franklin Bobbitt in Chapter Two alludes to this model.) If the computer has undesirable outputs, the program is at fault -- or maybe there is a hardware malfunction. Policy must be changed or parts replaced.

            Our simple systems management model has been introduced above in figure 8.10.. We make one change in it, however. In concession to the complexities of the school organization, Goals becomes Goals & Related Policy , (see figure 8.13) since the day-to-day functioning of an organization is normally done in terms of policies rather than by reference to the Goals themselves.

Figure 8.13

What we see in figure 8.13 is our simple task flowchart complicated in a second way. At first, we broke the easy connection between tasks and goals, placing outcomes in between. Now, goals become complicated with policies. And policies invariably need interpreters. As individuals, we have no need of policies for the sake of performing simple tasks. But, for reasons we look at in the next chapter, organizations develop policies to coordinate the actions of the different individuals in them.

            As the flowcharts get more complicated, try to trace out the elements of the basic task flowchart and to relate them back to figure 8.9.

The Bureaucratic Model

            The second model developed by Elmore is the bureaucratic model . Like a bureau for clothes, a bureaucratic model sees the organization as compartmentalized; more complex than a simple input-out systems model. It has departments to which different tasks are assigned. These departments may work independently, in that the master program, the policy, need not govern the day-to-day work.

            School systems are bureaucracies. So are departmentalized schools or any organization where different tasks are given, by rule or by tradition, to different people. Thus, most large religious organizations are bureaucracies, too. But with this important difference. Their ultimate focus is not on effectiveness or efficiency, but upon propriety or morality.

            In all but the smallest schools, the new teacher's first task on the job is to learn how to function in a bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not meant here as a term of condemnation. It represents instead what some consider to be the most humane, equitable and rational form for a large, complex organization. [28] Bureaucracy tends to limit favoritism, despotism and inconsistency in organizations. In also imposes controls which less complex organizations cannot [29] and is subject to its own kind of organizational politics: department vs. department. The reforms of political Progressivism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought about the bureaucratization of the schools. The costs of this are reflected in the four standard conflict situations of complex organizations.

            The bureaucratic model is still monocratic so far as basic goals are concerned. But whereas in the systems management model discretion resides only at the top, in a bureaucracy there is discretion at the departmental level. Routines are established which are supposed to support the goals and their related policies. But discretion as to whether and how a routine is followed rests with the department. The major problem of control in a bureaucracy from the point of view of the policy-makers is how to control departmental discretion and how to assure that routines support rather than undermine goals.

            Personal goals are not recognized although conflict among departments is. [30] Range of departmental control becomes a concern. Responsibilities rest with the top administration to "optimize" coordination. Optimize is an important word here. It means to do as best as considerations of cost and benefit allow. This contrasts with the systems management model in which maximization of goal values is pursued. Costs are usually not considered to be important unless they are suffered by the powerholders.

            Because a major difference between the systems management model and the bureaucratic model is the way in which discretion is distributed, let's digress for a moment to look at discretion more closely.

The Locus and Span of Discretion

            People tend to underestimate the amount of discretion they have even when given a direct order. Any teacher, however, who has had to quiet down a large group has learned how differently students can respond to the directive, "Be quiet!" Even in the military, a paradigm of systems management in the minds of many, discretion is hard to control. [31] Between your superior's evaluation of your response to a directive as adequate or as inadequate lies an often very considerable span of discretion . Telling someone to do something still leaves the choice to them as to how.

            We saw in Chapter two that goals statements with broad consensus generally lacked specificity. The vaguer the directive, the more discretion you have in deciding what is an adequate response to it. This risks the possibility that some people will judge that your response was less than adequate. There is a tension here which traps educators to their disadvantage. The broader, the more sloganistic, the goal they pursue, the greater the span of discretion they enjoy. But the greater the likelihood their response will be seen to be inadequate. In the discussion in the article on Institutionalization , we will look at this more closely to see what the schools have done to extricate themselves from this dilemma.

            We will introduce one more new item into our analysis: the discretionary unit . A discretionary unit, D.U. , is a person or group of people that controls, goals, tasks or resources in the organization . We can use the discretionary unit to compare and contrast the notions of stakeholder and powerholder in an organization. For example, a stakeholder is a person or group supported by the products of an organization. A powerholder is a discretionary unit that controls resources in an organization, even if indirectly. (Recall from Chapter 3 that stakeholders may not be a powerholder, i.e. D.U.) Figure 8.14 illustrates these relationships.

Figure 8.14

Why is it important to spell out a conception of discretionary unit? Not only because it helps strengthen the distinction between stakeholders and powerholders. But also because it helps us understand how it is that school people can exercise great discretion in a school and still remain relatively powerless. School reformers often concede that principals and teachers must be given more responsibility, that is, discretion. But if having discretion means little more than letting schoolpeople decide how to make the best of a bad situation, then giving them more will not bring about school improvement. Judging results is only fair if those responsible for decisions control the resources to support them.

NOTE WELL: DU's need not be formally recognized as members of an organization. External actors, e.g. pressure groups, political organizations, affluent individuals, governmental agencies and the like, often influence (especially) public schools as DU's. [31b]

            In monocratic organizations, the discretionary unit is found at the top. In bureaucracies, discretionary units are distributed throughout. For example, many large schools not only have principals, but also deans and department heads all of whom can exercise discretion. If we include the discretionary unit in our simple diagram of the systems management model we get figure 8.15:

Figure 8.15

This chart brings up an interesting point. Discretionary Units require resources. There may be Benefits and Costs that support the goals and policies of the organization but do not support the discretionary unit, and vice versa. As we will see in a later section, policies can constrain the powerholders to the benefit of others in an organization. But powerholders can use the organization to pursue their own goals rather than the stated public goals of the organization.

Comparing the Two Models

            For the sake of a simple diagram, let's compare the systems management model and the bureaucratic model, ignoring the resources, which we will remove from the illustration. In comparing the bureaucratic model, with the systems management model in figure 8.16, note not only the division of tasks into routines in a bureaucracy, but the introduction of new centers of discretion.

Figure 8.16

            How can we relate the bureaucratic model back to the original flowchart for simple tasks (figure 8.9)? To begin, we deleted resources to simplify the diagram. (We can imagine them attached on the right.) What is new about the bureaucratic model is that the task is broken up into routines and each routine is controlled by its own DU. For example, a principal may be charged with promoting the education, generally speaking, of the students in his or her school. But the foreign language department head is certainly going to have more to say specifically than the principal about what is to be done in the foreign language department. And in most cases, particularly where the school is large, the department head will have far more influence on what is actually learned in foreign language classrooms than will the principal.

            The top level DU of a bureaucracy tries to maintain control via Goals and Related Policies, not only because there may be coordination problems, but also because of the tendency of each DU to pursue other than goals authorized by the top level DU on the far left. As discretionary units develop to control ever more complex subroutines, the control and coordination problem increases.

            We can see in figure 8.16 that bureaucracies have various centers of discretion and that they use up resources. The outputs, i.e. costs and benefits, may support any of DU or the goals and related policies each in different ways. For example, it is not unusual for a school to attract students for its strengths in a particular department, say, mathematics. But the high enrollment helps support even the weakest department of the school. (For the sake of future simplification, note the group of elements enclosed within the border marked "The Bureaucratic Complex". Our next flowchart will treat this as a simple block.)

            It is important to note that in a bureaucracy simple tasks can only be accomplished as part of a departmental routine. If some specific department is not given the responsibility for a task, then it will be done, at best, haphazardly. Or the task may be redefined as a complex, organizational task requiring interdepartmental coordination. For getting certain things done, bigger may not do it better.

            How is discretion in a bureaucracy controlled? By several means. The first is that people are socialized to subordinating their personal goals to those of the organization. A second means of controlling discretion is through policy governing routine in the bureaucracy. But the most important control is by establishing goals and related policy that control resources. (See figure 8.17)

            Whether this works, of course is another matter. The School Laws of the State of New Jersey, for example, mandate a "thorough and efficient education". But, more impressive is the ability of the State to take over a school district found to be inefficiently run. This has been threatened in Newark. What this shows is that resource control is by far the greater source of power.

Figure 8.17

            The control of discretion by controlling resources has particular interests for schoolpeople trying to professionalize teaching. [i]Both lawyers and doctors, in comparison to schoolteachers and administrators, exercise great discretion in the performance of their jobs. But lawyers and doctors also control their most important resources: access to their profession and monopoly on the performances characteristic of their field (therefore, funding). Teachers control neither of these.

            But schoolpeople are far from being mere pawns in the hands of school boards and state officials They can often exercise discretion in the face of apparently strong directives. (Recall comments made earlier about span of discretion.) For example, attempts at control of school bureaucracies by state legislatures sometimes result in lack of sufficient resources to carry out a mandate. Weatherly and Lipsky tell how schoolpeople authorized to implement Chapter 766, a special education law in Massachusetts, coped with the tensions of a comprehensive mandate and limited resources:

•they rationed the number of assessments performed; •they placed limits on children held for the program; •they took behavior problems first; •they favored group over individual treatment; •they used trainees, rather than experienced teachers; •they short-circuited time-consuming procedures aimed at securing the rights of parents. [32]

This demonstrates how the authority conferred by law can be substantially transformed by those who have the power of implementation. Each DU not only consumes resources but may also transform the goals and policies of an organization (i.e. of the powerholders in an organization) from something quite different from what was originally intended.

Organizational Development

            An attempt to restore moral community to the systems management and bureaucratic models comes in the form of another model: the organizational development model. This model starts off with its fundamental goals set at the top but ends up inviting participation in the very process of policy-making. Elmore comments that the effect of this model is to "turn the policy--making process on its head." The major concern here is that members "buy into" the goals of the organization. This kind of model underlies many of the current proposals to professionalize teaching, e.g. sharing of policy-making authority with teachers, or the determination of budget by building staff rather than central administration.

            The general appeal made for this model is that the organization will be most effective in reaching its goals when the personal needs of the individuals in it are recognized and provided for. We have here a sort of democratic moral community in which commitment is shared.. This corresponds somewhat with our image of the school as Temple, but a Temple democratically controlled. What we have in the organizational development model is the organization conceived of as a single discretionary unit. (See figure 8.18). So far as getting work done, however, this model seems to offer no improvement over a monocratically controlled bureaucracy.

Figure 8.18

            We have stripped down the flowchart here to the bare essentials of the Organizational Development model. We have left out not only resources, but tasks and outcomes. This model may strike us as either utopian or as running against the grain of our intuitive images of the school as Temple or Factory. What this model does is reconceive the school to be a democratic moral community, giving much more weight to school personnel in the determination of goals and related policies than our actual school systems are structured to do. Is the Organizational Development model just wishful thinking? Or is there evidence it is workable?

            A Rand Corporation study [33] of four federally funded educational programs aimed at innovation in the public schools turned up the following results:

•Project success depended primarily upon the existence and mobilization of local resources, over which federal administrators had no control. •Among the important factors in determining that success were the use of voluntary, highly motivated participants and the development and use of local resources.

We see attempts along these lines in the Dade County, Florida experiments and the Buffalo, New York reorganization mentioned elsewhere in this book.

The Conflict and Bargaining Model

            The final model, the conflict and bargaining model , corresponds to our Town Meeting image. A major difference between this model and the previous three is that it assumes no consensus about goals . For the systems management model and the bureaucratic model, goals are provided by a discretionary unit (D.U.) at the top of the organizational hierarchy. The organizational development model develops consensus on goals among all the members of the organization. But the conflict and bargaining model only requires that participants in the organization agree that maintaining the bargaining relationship, i.e. staying in the organization, is worth more than leaving the organization. [34]

            We can picture a conflict and bargaining model of the organization to be a group of D.U.'s (discretionary units) controlling resources coming together to form and maintain an organization. They may pool their resources but are unlikely to relinquish control over them entirely. All D.U.'s are stakeholders and powerholders but the public goals and policies of the organization will tend to express most clearly the expectations of the most dominant D.U.'s. (See figure 8.19)

Figure 8.19

            What we have here is a kind of "chemical reaction." Before organization, only individual DU's controlling their own resources exist. But the bargaining process brings them together to form an organization whose structure we can recognize in the way it relates Goals and Related Policies to Tasks, Resources and Costs and Benefits (outcomes.) The Conflict and Bargaining model is the first model to concede that something occurs between DU's to bring about goals and related policies, i.e. bargaining. Goals and related policies do not just come into being mysteriously as they seem to for the other models.

            We can see why this model is unattractive compared to the systems management model, or even the more involved bureaucratic model: it is complicated. One has to consider a whole range of variables to predict the possible outcome of some new policy or reform. The Conflict and Bargaining model is a complex model even in its simplified form. But reality, too, is often not simple.

            Can you discern the components of our original simple task and the flow of control and support within this new model? Whether simple tasks can be defined will mostly depend upon the number of people involved with them. If we imagine that only two people are involved, this model gives a good analysis of what goes on when one person enlists the aid of another to complete a task. What happens is that. one person negotiates for the resources of the other, e.g. time, money, effort, in such a manner that both can look forward to outcomes which support their mutually recognized goals.

            Important things to note:

•the bargaining process requires support from resources. In the bureaucratic complex this is called "overhead." •evaluation tends to be focussed on those Benefits and Costs that are intended to support goals. •the potential exists for resources to be diverted away from supporting goals and policies to other uses. We will deal with this in detail in the article on Institutionalization .

            Chart 8.20 compares and contrasts information given by Elmore about the four models. These implementation models enhance and inform our own intuitive expectation models of the school, temple, factory, town meeting but do not necessarily supercede them. [35]

            Elmore distinguishes his four models in terms of

•a central principle, operating as an organizational rationale •a theory of power, i.e. how power is distributed throughout the organization •a theory of decision, i.e. how decisions are best thought to be made in the organization •the implementation process, i.e. how decisions are thought to be best put into practice.

Figure 8.20

Which of these models best describes schools in a large system in a pluralistic society? To some extent, they all provide some insight into the process of schooling. Clearly, however, in our pluralistic society the conflict and bargaining model deserves much more attention by educators than it tends to get. We will see elsewhere that the conflict and bargaining model lends itself more readily than the others to explaining the process of institutionalization .

Decision in Organizations

            Models of organizations can help us see connections that would be otherwise hard to discern in the daily hustle and bustle of schooling. Models can clarify. But they can also create expectations of tidiness that do not match reality. Our most complex model so far has been the bargaining and conflict model. But even within that model, the discretionary units, though they may be in conflict, stand out as little islands of rationality. There, it seems, things are thought out. Means pursue ends, even if ends vary from unit to unit.

            The model we introduced in Chapter four was, in effect, a paradigm of rational decision making: goals were pursued by effective, feasible tasks. The analysis questions of Chapter Three also contained a model of decision making embedded in them. The questions suggested that problems were to be approached with a procedure similar to the following:

a. Analyze the problem situation to determine present allocations of costs and benefits b. Examine goal proposals for feasibility; c. Determine the likelihood of implementation; d. Determine post-implementation allocations of costs and benefits.

The question we must ask is whether, even in the most monocratic or technically developed organizations, such a procedure is actually followed.

How Problems Are Dealt With

            March and Simon [36] in their classic work, Organizations , suggest that problem solving behavior takes a different form:

In a search for programs of activity to achieve goals, the focus of attention will tend to move from one class of variables to another in the following general sequence. (1) Those variables that are largely within the control of the problem-solving individual or organizational unit will be considered first. There will be a serious attempt to elaborate a program of activity based on control of these variables. (2) If a satisfactory program is not discovered by these means, attention will be directed to changing other variables that are not under the direct control of the problem solvers,... (3) If a satisfactory program is still not evolved, attention will be turned to the criteria that the program must satisfy, and an effort will be made to relax these criteria so that a satisfactory program can be found. [37]

What people do with problems in organizations is what some people tend to do when their cars don't run well. At first they kick the bumper and flip all the switches on the dashboard, to see if that has any effect. If that doesn't work, they may let their car warm up longer when it's cold, or start using high-test gas regularly or put additives in their oil. Finally, they may just give up trying to drive at high speeds or for long distances.

            Schools do similar things. If a cross-racial fight occurs in school, an assembly on Brotherhood may be held. Then, if the conflict continues, the parents of kids from the different racial groups may be contacted. If this brings no improvement, all fighting may be treated as a suspension offense. What happens in each step along the way is that the goal, the breadth of expectations, is diminished. We go from enhancing Brotherhood, to enlisting parental control to squelching fighting of any kind. The underlying animosities which the fighting was a symptom of may remain untouched.

The Costs of Analysis

            Why is problem-solving in organizations so haphazard? Are people basically irrational? Don't they really care?

            The answer is that careful analysis costs time and effort, ultimately, money. A detailed cost-benefit analysis can have political costs, also. Unless people perceived the situation to involve their own interests, they don't look for the "best" answer. They don't even look for the most cost-efficient answer. They generally accept what will do to answer the concern, if only for the moment. A tight budget or a tradition of making do aggravates this. [38] March and Simon put it that as problem solvers people are neither goal-maximizers, nor goal-optimizers but goal-satisficers . They do what works for them, and that is good enough.

            Unless participants individually feel the stakes are high, they don't personally want to bear the costs of careful analysis; particularly since prediction involved in feasibility studies is so uncertain. So they act so as to make whatever it is that is "the problem" not their problem.

Garbage Can Decision Processes

            In another important work, March and Olsen [39] characterize the organization as a bunch of solutions looking for a problem. The routines and the skills of individuals in an organization are the tools available to attack problems, i.e. someone's concern about a situation. If a concern arises, these routines and skills are applied to it, willy-nilly, for those are the tools at hand. If a man only has a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.

            This process of problem solving March and Olsen call the garbage can decision process . In a garbage can decision process a decision within an organization is an outcome of the following randomly related factors:

•problems, i.e. someone's concerns; •solutions, someone's product, often waiting to be applied to something. •participants, often whoever happens to be available. •choice opportunities, occasions when a decision is expected.

Figure 8.21 depicts this mix.

Figure 8.21

An organizational choice is, according to March, "a somewhat fortuitous confluence." [40] Within a garbage can process, decisions are made either by oversight, by flight (running away) or by resolution, the only method recognized within the classical perspective. Resolution, is basically, the kind of careful analysis we have provided an example of in earlier chapters.

            The garbage can decision theory says that resources brought to bear on a problem will be, primarily, what happens to be available. A problem is solved when it ceases to be a concern. But when do people decide to really look at a problem or treat it lightly? March and Olsen suggest that both big problems and small problems are given the same short shrift. In general, only middlingly important problems will be resolved through any structured procedure. This gives us an important clue. If we consider what a "big problem" might be, we may see why thorough analyses are avoided.

            As we learned in Chapter 3, a problem is a perception by a someone that a situation concerns them or other people. March and Olsen say much the same thing. A "big problem" let us postulate is one or both of the following:

a ) a situation uniformly perceived by powerholders to be a concern because solutions would involve substantial reallocations of costs and benefits or b ) a situation perceived generally to be a concern but for which there is no broad consensus for solution.

In a situation like a we should not expect any more care to be taken with a decision than seems necessary to protect the interests of the powerholders; unless, of course such decision is made within a moral community where broad concern for all stakeholders is acted upon. Decisions will not be made public and will be dealt will summarily.

            In situation b , where consensus is likely not forthcoming, we should expect the powerholders to make the decision according to their own lights for the following reasons: 1) any decision will be criticized; and 2) widespread perception of lack of consensus and the leadership's inability to deal with it undercuts the legitimacy of that leadership. (We will look at this more closely in the next chapter.) For such reasons we can expect that powerholders in a school system will not invite careful analysis of either school budget allocations or the implementation of controversial programs such as sex education. So we can expect a participative, analytic decision-process to be used only where either the powerholders are neither uniformly in agreement that their concerns are at stake, or where a great consensus exists among all stakeholders as to what costs should be borne to address the problem.

            Figure 8.22 maps out areas of decision processes. The dimensions defining the problem space are: reallocation prospects, the amount of reallocation of costs and benefits threatened by the decision; and breadth of consensus.

Figure 8.22

            March's and Olsen's analysis seems to indicate the the very possibility of developing reasoned approaches to solving problems requires the kind of "buying into" the process envisioned by theorists of the Organizational Development model. Without this shared commitment, the very costs of analysis will cause the process to collapse into a perfunctory, garbage can decision process.

Reform Proposals from an Organizational Perspective

            Naive reformers, including educators, work at the level of expectations. There is public outcry for, among many other things, increased literacy, higher mathematical skills, reduction in teen-age sexual activity and greater concern for the elderly. Naive reformers seem to think it is sufficient to inaugurate a policy, a rule, or a procedure to have done with their problem. "Encased" in the images of Temple and Factory, often ignoring the complexities of Bureaucracy or the Political Arena, they fail to address concerns about implementation. But as Elmore and many others point out, structures of implementation in organizations are absolutely crucial to the fulfillment of expectations.

            Many who see the complexities tend to believe that monocratic power is needed to address the problem. The factory model in its traditional forms tends to stress the centralization of power. Recall Bobbitt's quote from chapter two to the effect that managers alone should decide "the order and sequence of all of the various processes through which the raw material or the partially developed product shall pass" and "must see that the raw material or partially finished product is actually passed on from process to process." To Winston Churchill the comment is attributed that democracy is a very troublesome form of government; but all other forms are worse. The risk of monocratic leadership, even in schools, is that it ignores costs to others that it does not itself suffer.

            Our awareness of organizational issues enables us a more sophisticated view of who the stakeholders and powerholders are and what the costs and benefits to them might be. For a given reform proposal, stakeholders and powerholders are found both within and without the school. They are found at the policy-making level, at the implementation level and elsewhere. A careful mapping of the benefits and costs of change implementation becomes essential. [41]

            "There oughta be a law..." is the naive response to a problem. Organization theory helps us develop a more sophisticated view of command, control and policy. This should bring about a reconsideration of what can be commanded, controlled and affected through policy. In "Controlling the School: Institutionalization" we will look at how authority, control and policy differ according to the image of the school under consideration. Sometimes policy is announced that serves merely as a ritual expression of concern rather than a commitment to focussing the resources of the school on a problem. Such policy requires the wisdom not to worry too much about its implementation. If what we expect to see at any given level of an organization is change of behavior, we will have to look beyond policy and formal control to effect that.

            Finally, organization theory reinforces our increasing sensitivity to the language of reform proposals, to the important distinctions set out in the first section of this book between formal and technical change proposals. It helps us determine with greater accuracy where slogans may or may not be useful in the schooling process.

1. Organization theory is useful in helping us understand how the structure of schools can undermine professed goals and individual efforts to achieve them. Our expectation models of the school, Temple, Factory and Town Meeting, have been supplemented with implementation models, Systems Analysis, Bureaucratic, Organizational Development and Conflict and Bargaining.

2 . Complex organizations tend to have four basic conflicts, following policy vs. sensitivity, delegating authority vs. authorized goals, process vs. product and power vs. morale. Theories X, Y and Z rest on different conceptions of human nature and the relationship of commitment in organizations. Organizations structured according to the different theories may avoid certain of the basic conflicts.

3. Monocratic power relationships can produce "encasements", perceptual fixes that can lock persons into pathologies of domination. In our pluralistic society, however, relationships are flexible and the roles of Powerholder, Implementer and Lower are played by different people in different circumstances. It is important, however, to understand to what extent behavior may be determined by such roles.

4 . A major concern was the span and locus of discretion in the organization. Indications are that enhancing teacher and principal discretion is a major factor in making significant school reforms. A consideration of the garbage can decision process also indicates that without commitment to support the possible costs of analysis, we can expect perfunctory participation to degenerate into a hit-or-miss problem solving approach.

1. How might organization theory affect our ideas of responsibility and blame in assessing how an organization functions? If a school does not live up to expectations, how can you respond to someone who feels that either the administration, the teachers or the students must be at fault?

2. Can you give other examples from your own experience of situations involving the basic internal conflicts of an organization? What was your reaction at the time (assuming you did not know anything about organization theory)?

3. Different kinds of organizations tend to operate under theory X and theory Y. Make two lists of organizations which in your experience seemed to be run on the basis of one theory rather than the other.

4. What are the possible costs and benefits of running an organization on theory X rather than theory Y (or Z)? Chart these costs and benefits in terms of the risks run in case the situation does not fit with the theory used. When is theory Y risky? Theory X?

5. Give an example each of domination behavior that is part of the formal, the technical and the informal culture of some group. What is the response of those dominated at each level of culture? Example: you might recall a topic from chapter 3, "Denying concerns and interests" and examine how domination is reflected in the language people use to deal with one another: who calls whom by their first name? Who is talked about, even in their absence, using their title?

6. Analyze the task of preparing for a party in terms of a simple systems management model. Do it also in terms of the bureaucratic model (divide the tasks up among your friends.) How does discretion vary in each case? On what items does it vary?

7. What additional insights do we get from the conflict and bargaining model? What does it explain about organizations you are familiar with, e.g. you family, your school, etc.?

8. When the costs of planning become burdensome, the garbage-can decision process takes over. At what point did you stop planning your party in detail (see question 6) and just "play it by ear?" (For example, did you consider whether you would have several kinds of refreshment and where the best prices were available? Or did you just delegate it to someone with the directions, "Get the Brewski"?)

9. What kinds of organizational models do different reform proposals presume? Is there a relationship between who sponsors a reform proposal, what organizational model they presume is operating, and a perceptual encasement due to a relationship of domination?

10. What is the relationship between different organizational models and the nature of the consensus needed to run an organization? Do you think there may be a relationship between the model people prefer and their willingness to take other peoples' concerns into consideration?

[1] Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: a general theory. ( New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1963) p. 145.

[2] See Richard Sennett, Authority , (New York: Vintage, 1981) pp.97--99 for an example of the use of indifference to create guilt and assert authority. The organizational issue of how compensation gets negotiated is obscured in this exchange.

[3] James J. March and Herbert A. Simon Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958)

[4] Robert K. Merton in March and Simon, 41. See also Robert K. Merton Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Harcourt, 1976) or Robert K. Merton Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays (New York: Free Press, 1976)

[5] See Joseph Berger, "New York's Principals Tell Why They 'Break the Rules'" The New York Times . Feb. 21, 1989, Sec. B, p.1.

[6] Philip Selznick in March and Simon ,43. See also Philip Selznick "Foundations of the Theory of Organization" in Jay M. Shafritz and Philip Whitbeck Classics of Organization Theory (Oak Park, IL: Moore, 1978) 84 - 95

[7] Luther Gulick's work is summarized in March and Simon, p.41. Also see Luther Gulick "Notes on the Theory of Organization" in Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde (eds.) Classics of Public Administration (Oak Park, IL: Moore, 1978) 38 - 47.

[8] Cf. Roger G. Barker and Paul V. Gump, Big School, Small School: High School Size and Student Behavior . (Stanford, CA: Stanford U. Press, 1964)

[9] See procedures developed by the Coalition for Essential Schools aimed at recapturing the "small community" environment and the focus on learner development. Contact Coalition of Essential Schools, Brown University, Education Department, Box 1938, Providence RI 02912 for their newsletter, Horace .

[10] See Seymour B. Sarason The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971) pp. 152 -- 154

[11] Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987) p.324.

[12] Abraham Zaleznik "Power and Politics in Organizational Life" in Harvard Business Review. On Human Relations. (New York: Harper & Row, 1979) pp. 375--396

[13] Alvin Ward Gouldner in March and Simon , 45. See especially Alvin Ward Gouldner Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (Glencoe,IL: Free Press of Glencoe, 1954)

[14] See "war games" in Alfred S. Alschuler, School Discipline. A Socially Literate Solution . (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980) pp. 27--38.

[15] Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Harvard U. Press, 1938) p.44.

[16] Douglas M. McGregor, The Human Side of the Enterprise , (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960)

[17] William Ouchi, Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981)          But see also, B. Bruce Biggs, "The Dangerous Folly Called Theory Z". Fortune . May 17, 1982. pp. 41 - 46.

[18] McGregor is ambivalent as to whether Theory X management elicits Theory X behavior or vice versa. See Michael A. Oliker, "Douglas McGregor's Theory Y and the Structure of Educational Institutions", Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (10):6158A--59A.

[19] Kenwyn K. Smith, Groups in Conflict. Prisons in Disguise . (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1982)

[20] Smith uses the terms "uppers" , "middles" and "lowers", respectively for what we are calling here "powerholders", "implementers" and "lowers". An analysis of his terminology shows the identity of the two sets of terms.

[21] Cf. Lillian Breslow Rubin, Worlds of Pain. Life in the Working Class Family. (New York: Basic Books, 1976) p.180

[22] Kenwyn K. Smith, op.cit . pp.248--249.

[23] See Sennett on making authority visible and legible, pp.168--190.

[24] An introduction to the field might begin with the highly readable Charles Perrow Complex Organizations (Glenville, IL: Scott Foresman, 1979) Further study would be well-pursued with Jeffrey Pfeffer, Organizations and Organization Theory. (Boston; Pitman, 1982) See, also, other citations throughout this book.

[25] See Frank W. Lutz and Aaron Gresson III, "Local School Boards as Political Councils" in Educational Studies . Vol.11, 1980. pp. 125--144.

[26] Richard F. Elmore "Organizational Models of Social Program Implementation" Public Policy Vol 26, no. 2 (Spring 1978) pp. 185 - 228

[27] See Rebecca Barr and Robert Dreeben How Schools Work (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1983)

[28] Perrow, pp. 5--16.

[29] Cf. Randall Collins "Some Comparative Principles of Educational Stratification" Harvard Educational Review Vol.47, No. 1. February 1977. pp 1--27.

[30] Cf. Richard Weatherley and Michael Lipsky, "Street-Level Bureaucrats and Institutional Innovation: Implementing Special Education Reform" Harvard Educational Review . Vol.47, No.2. May 1977.

[31] See James F. Dunnigan, "Leadership", Chapter 14 in How to Make War (New York: Quill, 1983). pp. 216--222. [31b] This footnote was entered 2/13/20. I only recently read James Q. Wilson's insightful and informative book, Bureaucracy. What government agencies do and why they do it , which deals with  organizational environments,how they interact with organizational structures and how such interaction supports or stultifies productivity. -- EGR

[32] Weatherley and Lipsky, p.194.

[33] See Paul Berman and Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin, Federal Programs Supporting Educational Change Vol.VIII: Implementing and Sustaining Innovations . R-1589/8-HEW (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp.: May 1978)

[34] Cf. Barnard, p. 44, "The total motivation of a cooperative system...is determined by the marginal contributor." Barnard would reject the bargaining and conflict model since he preferred to believe that organizations could have goals apart from the goals of its members.

[35] Graham Allison in, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis . (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) presents three models of organization that correspond more tightly to the images of the school. His focus, however, is on strategic decision.

[36] James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations , New York:Wiley,1958

[37] March and Simon, p.179.

[38] Cf. Bob Cole, "Teaching in a Time Machine: the 'Make-Do' Mentality in Small-Town Schools" Phi Delta Kappan . October 1988. pp.139--144.

[39] James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice , Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1976

[40] March and Olsen,p.27,

[41] See John P. Kotter and Leonard A. Schlesinger, "Choosing Strategies for Change" Harvard Business Review March-April 1979 for a simple cost-benefit analysis of change methods.

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What makes a school a learning organisation.

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Organizational Culture & Motivation in Schools, Essay Example

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An examination of Organizational learning in the context of school administration.  School leaders need to take a holistic view of organizational culture,  in order to understand the climatic conditions that surround the school, together with the ability to take remedial action.  An important part from the reading of Robbins … how easy it is for organizations to become institutionalised and thus take on a separate identity that becomes distinct from its’ members.  This can be seen in our own school setting whereby a change in the teaching or administrative staff impacts a cultural shift  and potential change in relationships between students and faculty.

We also examined ‘Effective Instruction’  and how practices become embedded  within the organizations educational culture.  The need for Administrators to become more closely involved with the Teachers instructional strategies to ensure that they adhere to adequate standards and meet school objectives.

Of particular importance was the theoretical learning component of the varying motivational theories i.e. Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland and McGregor.  The motivation hygiene theory of Herzberg being particularly useful in pulling these strands together.  Motivation essentially comprising of two types: ” constructive” or “restrictive”  (Frederick Herzberg, 1959).

Task 2 :  School Culture Analysis

In the article examined, the author believes the following items to be paramount in developing a school culture:

Are you striving for a positive school climate supported by a spirited staff?

It is important to generate both enthusiasm and support for a “positive school environment”. The support needs to be of a holistic nature taking in a wide range of people.

Is your school focused on teamwork and collegiality?

The concept of group dynamics, team spirit, joint collaborative ventures, mutual co-operation are all important synergistic factors.

Are all stakeholders involved in the process?

Stakeholders are vital in the support mechanism.  By adopting a policy of inclusivity the machine runs smoother with less negativity.  In particular the Stakeholders need to fully support the Mission, Goals and Objectives of the school

Do you struggle to attain higher levels of student achievement year after year?

This means are you pushing the envelope in order to achieve a high level of quality output from the schools objectives.  Measurement criteria are by improved performance standards of students in their grades and examination results. (Wagner, 2002)

Steps Administrators need to take in adoption of a positive culture

The following points are important to Administrators in the adoption of school culture:

• The School culture is linked to the classroom culture. Administrators will want to be assured that the philosophies, mission, goals and objectives of the school are reflected in the students curriculum and that these values are reflected in the classroom teaching environment;
• That the values of the school are properly projected. For example if the school has an elitist image it will need to be seen to excel in student performance, high quality of teaching, overall quality of education in both teacher and student terms;
•  Administrators will need to see that the stakeholders are fully involved and participating in all key decisions;

Stakeholders in the school will have very differing values.  For example :  Parents will be primarily focused on the quality of teaching to their children.  Teachers will be focused on having the best resources and quality of materials to support their teaching efforts.  Heads will be more strategic focused and concerned that the philosophy, mission statements and requests of the Governing bodies are being upheld by the school.  All of these values have to be brought together in an holistic framework that addresses the combined stakeholder values.

Conflict resolution between stakeholders is best accomplished by inclusivity of a wide range of views and seeking consensus decisions.  Effective communications is a vital part in reducing the amount of internal / external disagreements.

Items that interfere with a positive culture

Source:  http://meerasinha.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/800px-maslows_hierarchy_of_needssvg.png

In the framework of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs it is possible to identify a number of areas that will influence whether we have a positive culture or not.  Examining each of these in turn :

Self-Actualization:  If we have an open and honest organizational framework that is seen to be self-actualising or has a high level of innovation and creativity, then we have a very positive influence. Barriers to this would be where the organization is in denial of information that requires remedial action,  the inability to resolve problems, a lacking of moral values or no code of ethics,  prejudicial views that stifle innovation or creativity

Esteem :  Self esteem within the organization is important to motivate and gain the respect of others.  Those with low confidence or self-esteem may quickly infect others and thereby reduce the morale creating a negative organizational culture.

Love and Belonging :  Staff and pupils alike need a sense of belonging. The School needs to value the contribution of both Teachers and administrative support staff.  They need to have purpose and a feeling of inclusion in the Schools goals and belief system.  Pupils equally need to feel that the School respects them and that they are an incremental part of the culture.  Lack of ownership can result in disenfranchisement and move towards a negative culture

Safety:  Teachers and Students need to feel that they work in a safe and secure environment. A School that is crumbling, making continued budget cuts,  has a shortage of resources etc is a school in decline.  A decline in the welfare of the school is felt by both teachers and students alike and quickly fosters a negative culture.

Physiological: All members of the school have basic needs i.e. food, drink, heat, light etc. Should such basic rights be denied then you will see a rapid decline in both teacher and student output.  Other than the obvious base conditions this could be items such as poor lighting conditions in which to work, no vending or drinks machines,  no place to exercise, lack of lunchtime catering facilities – such items promote negative culture.

Conflict can be another bad means of creating negative cultures in Schools. Consider ” Organizations like schools feel the pain of an unresolved conflict not just in the attitude and performance of those primarily involved but in others who become involved by taking sides in the conflict.”  (TF, 1987)

” Charged with developing teams and professional learning communities, principals find themselves often facing the debilitating obstacle of resolving conflicts that threaten the culture needed to make this happen. Teachers are passionate about what they do. They developed their own style and approach. They are accustomed to working alone.”  (TF, 1987)

Task 3  The value of stakeholders ands management of conflict in Schools

Introduction

Organizational culture is impacted by the different perspectives and values of a wide range of stakeholders.  It is important to identify these stakeholders and develop a holistic framework that encompasses their respective needs.  Such needs need to be placed into a managed environment such that any conflicts that arise can receive immediate remedial action.  In order to resolve such conflicts it is necessary to understand the differences in values represented by the different stakeholders.  Conflict resolution is not an easy task and as such you require a clear definitive plan of action covering both approach and tactics.

Identifying Stakeholders and their values

Initially the Stakeholders are generally thought of as 4 main interested parties, this being the Parents, Students, Staff and the School Board of Governors.  The value sets of each of these might look something like the following table:

So in the above example we have identified four main stakeholders each with a different value set expected from the school.  Now consider a more expanded model:

The addition of 4 additional stakeholders and in this case we can expand the value sets in order to cover each of these additional views.  As we expand the stakeholders and add different value statements, so we increase the risk of potential conflict arising.  As such the School requires a strategy for both managing the conflict situations and maintaining a harmonic balance in the schools affairs.

Managing conflict situations

Case Study 1 :  Parents v. Administration

Conflicts that arise between the School Administration and Parents are often a result of some form of grievance from the parents.  A problem or issue that they have not been able to resolve with the student.  In order to reduce the tension and find a way of reducing conflict, the following strategy should be adopted:

• Both sides need to communicate and carefully listen to one another.  Many issues arise because of poor communications or a point that has not been clearly understood by one or both parties.  The need for a calm rationale debate creates dialogue and lowers the temperature of the grievance;
• The School Administration should be a sympathetic listener and empathise with the parents – be a guiding body not an officious one.  It is rare for people not to accept constructive help or criticism.
• Try to bond – look at the issues from both sides and try to adopt a joint problem solving strategy that ultimately meets and settles the needs of both parties. Try not to be defensive or become entrenched in specific points.  The issues should be seen as a joint challenge with both parties searching for a mutually agreeable solution

Case Study 2  School Board v.  School Administration

The School Boards are often dealing with points of Policy, Specific Regulations or rulings that need to be enforced.  Conflict often occurs when such rulings have been breached and the Board has an official duty to address such matters.

• Understand the issues, examine the evidence, deal with the point of policy and remain within bounds of the issue being addressed. Be specific to the nature of the problem, how it occurred and the means by which it is being rectified
• Avoid being defensive or taking entrenched positions
• Maintain honest and open communications at all times, do not be afraid to admit responsibility as it shows honesty and maturity. The Board will approach all such matters in a fairly clinical manner

Developing an Action plan for remedial treatment

There are 6 key steps the School may wish to adopt for development of an action plan:

• Conduct a Needs Assessment amongst the varying stakeholders in order to obtain uniform and comprehensive view of requirements;
• Obtain necessary Administrative support to carry out the implementation of the plan;
• Obtain all required funding and appropriate resources in order to implement the plan;
• Obtain any training support that may be required;
• Define the appropriate leadership team

This then needs developing into a suitable framework.  For example { Extract only }

Pro’s of Action Plan

• Is Holistic and fully inclusive of stakeholders
• Facilitates both qualitative and quantitative assessment ( measurement)
• Is structured and logical
• Facilitates communication planning
• Considers both tangible and intangible needs
• Facilitates conflict resolution by having a clear roadmap of events

Cons of Action Plan

• Relatively rigid by nature
• Subject to change control procedures
• Highlights significant areas of weakness

Works Cited

Frederick Herzberg, B. M. (1959). The Motivation to work. In B. M. Frederick Herzberg, The Motiovation to work . London / New York: Wiley.

TF, C. (1987). The magic of conflict: Turning a life of work into a work of art. In C. TF, The magic of conflict: Turning a life of work into a work of art. New York: Touchstone.

Wagner, C. D. (2002). What is the School Culture Triage? Retrieved 11 2, 2009, from Centre for Improving School Culture: http://www.schoolculture.net/triage.html

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School Organization Essay Sample

The school organisation is the agreement of the school in a group of people that work together to carry through group ends. The organisation refers to the signifier of the endeavor or establishment and the agreement of the human and material resources working in a mode to accomplish the aims of the endeavor. It represents two or more than two people severally specialising in maps of each perform. working together towards a common end as governed by formal regulations of behavior. The disposal is concerned with the finding of corporate policy and the overall coordination of production. distribution and finance. The direction is mentioning to the executing of policy within the bounds which are established by disposal and the employment of the organisation. Harmonizing to Sheldon. “Organization is the formation of an effectual machine; direction. of an effectual executive; disposal of an effectual way. Administration defines the end; direction strives towards it. Organization is the machine of direction in its accomplishment of the terminals determined by disposal. ”

The school organisation is really of import to show the issue that affect the school as a whole such as the pulling up course of study for the instructors. the locations of the suites and the organized agenda. How a school is organized is a affair for the staff to stipulate. and a school’s organisation should reflect the teacher’s committedness to the success of all pupils. Every facet of the instructional plan will convey the ends and values of the instructors towards pupils and their acquisition. A school taking to better the pupil public presentation must develop a sound attack. The high larning degree of pupils is determined by the manner of survey of the pupils. They can take which styles they want conditions by squads or houses. If they comfortable by squads. the instructor will split them into several groups and they will hold their ain equal. For those who prefer the house’s manner. the instructor will collaborate with the parents to do certain that the student’s achievement addition. but the house’s manner is more ambitious due to the parents need to pass more clip with their kids. The wise deployment of the infinite for the pupils is really important that lead to a safe and positive environment. For illustration. an art category should be wider as the pupils need their ain infinite to make a originative undertaking.

Furthermore. it is easy for the pupils to walk and if it is safe. the pupils will experience secure to walk entirely. Based on the research done. little schools yield better consequence than the large 1. This suggests that. the instructors at the big school can better their instruction manner by spliting their pupils in fractional monetary unit. The Numberss of the category should be addition as it helps pupil to understand more about the subjects and the instructors can concentrate on their pupils within the group. The agenda should be more organized as it is the chief factors that lead to the student’s accomplishment. As for me. the long hr acquisition is non really good as the pupils

and the instructors need to hold remainder. The long hr larning session will take to less concentrating of the pupils. Then. as a consequence. they can non reply the inquiry trial. The chief feature of these attacks is that they organize instructional clip into longer blocks than the traditional form. therefore leting instructors and pupils greater flexibleness in how they use their clip. With longer blocks of clip. pupils can ship on undertakings that would be hard to finish in merely several hours. Teachers accustomed to trusting on talking find that they need to change their attack under block programming. enabling pupils to prosecute in deeper and more sustained geographic expedition of content.

There are several deductions of different degrees of school. The degrees of school can be classified into three which are the simple school. in-between school and high school. The simple school is an establishment where kids receive the first phase of academic larning known as simple or primary instruction. At this point. the pupils are really guiltless and merely accept all the cognition that has been given by the instructors. They did non believe critically and merely on the surface of the chapter. This organisation is really important so that the pupils will non be shocked to larn and they can understand easy. Elementary school-age childs benefit from on a regular basis hearing about continuity. So. learn them different ways to speak about job work outing such as. “I won’t quit. ” and “I can make it. ” and “It is ever the hardest at the first. but it will acquire easier. ” Borba besides suggest that we need to keep the households overall attitude by ever back up each other. That will non merely construct a positive thought in the student’s head but besides tighten the bond of household relationship. Finally. we can state the narratives either from our ain life or we can inquire the school librarian to urge books about the characters who manage to win despite the obstructions. The 2nd degree is in-between school.

The in-between school is defines as the period in student’s life that take topographic point after simple school and earlier high school. The school organisation takes topographic points in order to determine the pupils attitude so that they are non easy influenced by any bad things. Students at this period in their lives see rapid physical. emotion and rational growing. matched in range merely by the first three old ages of life; they are sing fast and sometimes confusing alterations. Middle schools hence. must supply both stableness and stimulation. esteeming the pupil age-related concerns. The pupils tend to seek new things in their life. So. possibly with the extra category for the some debatable pupils would be better so that they will utilize their clip sagely. Furthermore. the school besides can organize a athletics twenty-four hours one time a month. so that the pupils will hold a healthy life manner.

Their encephalon can hold a good procedure thought and the bosom beat fast to pump the blood. The 3rd degree is high school is an establishment that provides a

secondary instruction. Scheduling is the chief facet of school organisation at the high school degree. The pupils need to pull off their clip sagely so that they can hold a successful consequence as the high school is more ambitious. Many high schools have by now use the signifier of block programming. in which pupils need to go to three to four categories instead than seven to nine. Block programming is advantageous because it provides longer instructional clip and more chances for occupied acquisition. Block scheduling tends to better the school clime with fewer subject jobs and greater pupils committedness to the work. In a nutshell. a school organisation is really important as it enhances the pupils larning. The school organisational form improves the efficiency and making of work of the pupils and instructors.

hypertext transfer protocol: /tweenparenting. about. com/od/educationissues/f/DefofMiddleSchool. htm (jennifer o’donnel hypertext transfer protocol: /www. greatschools. org/improvement/volunteering/19-easy-ways-to-help. gs hypertext transfer protocol: /www. greatschools. org/students/academic-skills/2430-teaching-persistence-3rd-through-5th-grade. gs hypertext transfer protocol: /www. ascd. org/publications/books/102109/chapters/School-Organization. aspx hypertext transfer protocol: /edchat. blogspot. com/2011/01/scope-and-importance-of-school. html hypertext transfer protocol: /www. scribd. com/doc/30705481/School-Organization-and-Classroom-Mamagement

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The Educational Organization’s Culture Essay

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Introduction

The educational organization’s culture, an evaluation of three educational trends.

The contemporary managerial environment in any given sector is highly shaped by the culture of management. The culture in the education sector has changed tremendously due to external factors of change. This necessitates the restructuring of educational organizations in order to meet the demands and changes.

It becomes quite difficult for educational institutions to stick to a culture that has been upheld for a long time, owing to the demands and factors of change that play out in the education sector. The change in culture in educational organizations often necessitates a change in the way the institutions ought to be managed.

Any change that occurs in the educational environment; therefore, often requires the educational managers to develop structures that can result in the adoption of changes that signify a change in the culture of management. In this paper, it is argued that educational leadership is a critical part of the culture in educational organizations since it helps in the incorporation of new attributes to change that comes from the change in the external environment.

This paper explores the link between culture and leadership in educational organizations. The paper identifies three crucial trends that are critical in building relationships in educational organizations in the course of review of the literature. These trends are also capable of shaping contemporary culture in educational organizations.

Scope (2006) observes that the contemporary environment in educational organizations is quite complex. The complexity is enhanced by the emerging issues in the wider development environment that requires educational institutions to capture and implement the changes in order to release out graduates who can deal with the issues.

The other aspect of complexity in molding a given culture in educational organizations comes from the different dimensions of culture. Niemann and Kotzé (2006) observe that culture is founded on three attributes of the school environment. These include the students, the employees, and the community.

While this understanding necessitates changes in the culture of educational organizations, it is vital to mention that most education organizations have been molded on a given culture. The nature of leadership in educational organizations is, therefore, quite critical in meeting the attributes of change in the organization.

Educational organizations have been deemed to have a conservative way of managing for quite some time. This model of management was based on the culture of educational organizations. It is critical to note that there is a difference in the attributes of leadership in educational organizations (Scope, 2006).

Research shows that almost all educational institutions are molded on like goals that are steered by similar policies (Niemann & Kotzé, 2006). However, the variation in the policies and the nature of leadership depends on the level of a given education organization. The question that ought to be asked at this juncture concerns the role that is played by educational managers in shaping the culture of a given educational organization.

Just like it is in other organizations, educational leaders are charged with the responsibility of setting and molding the attributes of management that go a long way in shaping the behavior of both the employees and students (Niemann & Kotzé, 2006).

According to Scope (2006), culture in the educational environment is the sum of all the rules and policies that guide the performance of educational organizations. The leadership of educational institutions has to pay attention to the environment in which the educational organizations operate since it is these environments that dictate what should be incorporated in the education system.

Failure to incorporate the emerging issues, for instance, the demand for technology used in educational management, is a factor that can result in limiting the value of education in the society. Educational management entails a deeper look into the issues that emerge in the political, social and economic environments and the subsequent tailoring of the education system so that it can capture these issues (Mozaffari, 2008).

Leadership in educational organizations is a hard quality to measure since it is reflected in not only one aspect of education, but also in diverse sets of practices that include curriculum, co-curriculum and extra-curriculum activities. A given school or educational institution may attain praiseworthy performance in one aspect of leadership but perform poorly in another activity.

In such a case, leadership is only applauded in one area, while the other areas lose out. The most desirable quality of leadership in educational leadership is the ability of educational leaders to foster a culture that enhances the performance of educational organizations in the three core areas (Dimmock & Walker, 2005).

One of the main reasons for linking leadership to the culture of an organization is that both influence the performance of organizations. Research shows that the fragmentation of leadership in educational organizations, for instance, the division of higher education into faculties, makes it difficult for overall leaders in education to foster a single culture (Mozaffari, 2008).

This implies that there are fragmented cultures that come from each level of policy development and enforcement in education organizations. According to Niemann and Kotzé (2006), there exists an established relationship between the leadership practices of school leaders and the culture of schools. Each leadership practice in schools is a foundation on which the culture of the school as an organization is molded.

Dimmock and Walker (2005) ascertain that desirable school cultures can only be built by school leaders who are familiar with the dynamics in both the internal and external environments of schools, thereby easily shaping the leadership practices to match the dynamics. This is a precursor to the development of a desirable culture.

A desirable education culture is a culture in which all the foundations of performance are installed, resulting in the proper discharge of organizational practices in educational institutions. This is reflected in either the quality of graduates in higher education organizations or the quality of school performance for primary and secondary schools and middle-level institutions of education.

However, measuring the quality of graduates in the case of higher education institutions is a challenge since most of the qualities of performance of the students in higher institutions of learning are founded on individual student efforts and initiatives and not the culture of the institutions (Niemann & Kotzé, 2006).

According to Scope (2006), the field of education is quite dynamic. This implies a change in the culture of educational organizations. One of the factors that result in cultural shifts in educational organizations is the increased incorporation of societal development attributes that emerge from the wider environment. Education is considered to be the main tool for development in society.

Therefore, education ought to reach all individuals in society to attain its broad goals in society. In this case, the question of inclusion in education has become vital, thereby resulting in the fostering of inclusive education in the world. Education in contemporary society is seen as a right for every individual, according to the United Nations Charter that stipulates the basic universal rights for all people in the world (Meijer, n.d.).

The quest for inclusive education and the subsequent setup of structures by educational leaders to facilitate inclusive education emanated from the growth in the number of disabled individuals and the lack of incorporation of proper structures to accommodate such individuals in education.

The modern educational leaders have an added task of ensuring that they do not only focus on the mentally and physically sound individuals, but also on ensuring that they cultivate an educational environment that accommodates people with disabilities. This means that educational leaders must build a culture that is receptive to people with mental and physical challenges (Rayner, 2007).

The rate of accommodation of students with physical challenges in educational organizations is quite low, in spite of the efforts that are being spearheaded by a number of stakeholders in the education sector (Meijer, n.d.).

The second trend that is taking root in educational management across the world is the deployment of technology in discharging education. Just like in other sectors, technology is also considered to be a critical factor in enhancing delivery in education. There are a number of practices that have already been implemented by a number of education organizations as part of digitizing education.

These include online academic programs that are run by a substantial number of institutions of learning across the world (Wankel & DeFillippi, 2002). This eases the rate at which organizations offer education to a wide section of students across the world. The question that is often posed concerning the use of technology in discharging education concerns the quality of education under the digital platform.

However, most indicators denote that quality can still be maintained depending on the level of technology adoption in a given country. Countries or institutions that have a high rate of adoption of technology are found to be efficient when it comes to the development and implementation of technology in educational management (DeFillippi & Wankel, 2003).

The contemporary educational environment portrays schools as smaller entities that focus on the neighborhoods. Smaller educational units are being promoted in a substantial number of regions in the world. It is common to note the efforts to reduce and establish a balanced ratio between the number of students and the number of teachers in most educational organizations around the world.

This is one of the trends that are geared towards increasing quality of education and its impact on changing society. However, attaining such a balance is a hefty activity that depends on the readiness of a given organization.

Congestion in educational environments is considered to be a traditional and an undesirable factor in modern education since it limits relational aspects in the discharge of educational activities and the subsequent attainment of all educational goals. Inclination towards the development of smaller schools or academic institutions depends on the quality of students.

This is enhanced by the space that is created between the students and the instructors. However, the survival of this trend in education is highly dependent on resource availability, as well as demographic patterns (Ornstein, Levine & Gutek, 2011).

From the discussion, it can be concluded that the culture of educational organizations is highly molded around the leadership of the organizations.

Organizational leaders monitor the factors of change in the external and internal environments and incorporate the changes in educational organizations, thereby shaping the culture of the organizations. Educational trends that affect educational management include the deployment of technology in educational management, the embrace of inclusive environments in education, and reduction of the size of educational institutions.

DeFillippi, R., & Wankel, C. (2003). Educating managers with tomorrow’s technologies . Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishers.

Dimmock, C. A. J., & Walker, A. (2005). Educational leadership: Culture and diversity . London: SAGE Publications.

Meijer, J. W. (n.d.). Inclusive education: Facts and trends . Web.

Mozaffari, F. A. (2008). A study of relationship between organizational culture and leadership. International Conference on Applied Economics – ICOAE 2008 . Web.

Niemann, R., & Kotzé, T. (2006). The relationship between leadership practices and organizational culture: an education management perspective . South African Journal of Education , 26(4): 609-624.

Ornstein, A. C., Levine, D. U., & Gutek, G. L. (2011). Foundations of education . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Rayner, S. (2007). Managing special and inclusive education . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Scope, P. S. (2006). Relationship between leadership styles of middle school principals and school culture. New York, NY: Proquest Information and Learning Company.

Wankel, C., & DeFillippi, B. (2002). Rethinking management education for the 21st century: Edited by Charles Wankel and Robert DeFillippi . Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishers.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Organization and Structure

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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There is no single organizational pattern that works well for all writing across all disciplines; rather, organization depends on what you’re writing, who you’re writing it for, and where your writing will be read. In order to communicate your ideas, you’ll need to use a logical and consistent organizational structure in all of your writing. We can think about organization at the global level (your entire paper or project) as well as at the local level (a chapter, section, or paragraph). For an American academic situation, this means that at all times, the goal of revising for organization and structure is to consciously design your writing projects to make them easy for readers to understand. In this context, you as the writer are always responsible for the reader's ability to understand your work; in other words, American academic writing is writer-responsible. A good goal is to make your writing accessible and comprehensible to someone who just reads sections of your writing rather than the entire piece. This handout provides strategies for revising your writing to help meet this goal.

Note that this resource focuses on writing for an American academic setting, specifically for graduate students. American academic writing is of course not the only standard for academic writing, and researchers around the globe will have different expectations for organization and structure. The OWL has some more resources about writing for American and international audiences here .

Whole-Essay Structure

While organization varies across and within disciplines, usually based on the genre, publication venue, and other rhetorical considerations of the writing, a great deal of academic writing can be described by the acronym IMRAD (or IMRaD): Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This structure is common across most of the sciences and is often used in the humanities for empirical research. This structure doesn't serve every purpose (for instance, it may be difficult to follow IMRAD in a proposal for a future study or in more exploratory writing in the humanities), and it is often tweaked or changed to fit a particular situation. Still, its wide use as a base for a great deal of scholarly writing makes it worthwhile to break down here.

• Introduction : What is the purpose of the study? What were the research questions? What necessary background information should the reader understand to help contextualize the study? (Some disciplines include their literature review section as part of the introduction; some give the literature review its own heading on the same level as the other sections, i.e., ILMRAD.) Some writers use the CARS model to help craft their introductions more effectively.
• Methods: What methods did the researchers use? How was the study conducted? If the study included participants, who were they, and how were they selected?
• Results : This section lists the data. What did the researchers find as a result of their experiments (or, if the research is not experimental, what did the researchers learn from the study)? How were the research questions answered?
• Discussion : This section places the data within the larger conversation of the field. What might the results mean? Do these results agree or disagree with other literature cited? What should researchers do in the future?

Depending on your discipline, this may be exactly the structure you should use in your writing; or, it may be a base that you can see under the surface of published pieces in your field, which then diverge from the IMRAD structure to meet the expectations of other scholars in the field. However, you should always check to see what's expected of you in a given situation; this might mean talking to the professor for your class, looking at a journal's submission guidelines, reading your field's style manual, examining published examples, or asking a trusted mentor. Every field is a little different.

Outlining & Reverse Outlining

One of the most effective ways to get your ideas organized is to write an outline. A traditional outline comes as the pre-writing or drafting stage of the writing process. As you make your outline, think about all of the concepts, topics, and ideas you will need to include in order to accomplish your goal for the piece of writing. This may also include important citations and key terms. Write down each of these, and then consider what information readers will need to know in order for each point to make sense. Try to arrange your ideas in a way that logically progresses, building from one key idea or point to the next.

Questions for Writing Outlines

• What are the main points I am trying to make in this piece of writing?
• What background information will my readers need to understand each point? What will novice readers vs. experienced readers need to know?
• In what order do I want to present my ideas? Most important to least important, or least important to most important? Chronologically? Most complex to least complex? According to categories? Another order?

Reverse outlining comes at the drafting or revision stage of the writing process. After you have a complete draft of your project (or a section of your project), work alone or with a partner to read your project with the goal of understanding the main points you have made and the relationship of these points to one another. The OWL has another resource about reverse outlining here.

Questions for Writing Reverse Outlines

• What topics are covered in this piece of writing?
• In what order are the ideas presented? Is this order logical for both novice and experienced readers?
• Is adequate background information provided for each point, making it easy to understand how one idea leads to the next?
• What other points might the author include to further develop the writing project?

Organizing at the sentence and paragraph level

Signposting.

Signposting is the practice of using language specifically designed to help orient readers of your text. We call it signposting because this practice is like leaving road signs for a driver — it tells your reader where to go and what to expect up ahead. Signposting includes the use of transitional words and phrasing, and they may be explicit or more subtle. For example, an explicit signpost might say:

This section will cover Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

A more subtle signpost might look like this:

It's important to consider the impact of Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

The style of signpost you use will depend on the genre of your paper, the discipline in which you are writing, and your or your readers’ personal preferences. Regardless of the style of signpost you select, it’s important to include signposts regularly. They occur most frequently at the beginnings and endings of sections of your paper. It is often helpful to include signposts at mid-points in your project in order to remind readers of where you are in your argument.

Questions for Identifying and Evaluating Signposts

• How and where does the author include a phrase, sentence, or short group of sentences that explains the purpose and contents of the paper?
• How does each section of the paper provide a brief summary of what was covered earlier in the paper?
• How does each section of the paper explain what will be covered in that section?
• How does the author use transitional words and phrases to guide readers through ideas (e.g. however, in addition, similarly, nevertheless, another, while, because, first, second, next, then etc.)?

WORKS CONSULTED

Clark, I. (2006). Writing the successful thesis and dissertation: Entering the conversation . Prentice Hall Press.

Davis, M., Davis, K. J., & Dunagan, M. (2012). Scientific papers and presentations . Academic press.

Community Essay Examples

When crafting your college applications, writing strong essays is essential. Through your essays, you demonstrate who you are–from your values and passions to your lived experiences. Indeed the personal statement is the most common college essay. However, you will also likely have to write some supplemental essays as part of your college application requirements. One of the most common supplemental essay types is the community essay. This essay type is also known as a describe the community you live in essay, cultural diversity essay, or community service essay.

In this article, we will introduce several community essay examples. Most importantly, we’ll describe why they are considered college essays that worked. Specifically, we will share community essay examples from the two schools:

• Princeton University
• Columbia University

By studying these admissions essay samples, you can see what makes these college community essay examples strong and apply those same principles to your writing.

Reviewing Types of College Essays

Each school has different supplemental essay prompts for their college application requirements. However, there are a few types of essays that are most common. By becoming familiar with these essay types, you can begin to brainstorm and strategize what you will write about early on. You might start as early as sophomore or junior year in high school. 

Now, let’s take a look at the most common supplementary essay questions.

Common Supplementary Essay Questions

1. why school.

A Why School essay is, as it sounds, about why you wish to attend a specific institution. The key to answering this prompt well is to be specific. You should identify examples of what you like about a school. Avoid general comments such as “it is a top school” or “it is diverse.” Share specific programs, professors, teaching approaches, cultural elements, or unique opportunities such as research or study abroad.

2. Why Major

The Why Major essay asks you to share specific reasons behind your choice of major and how it relates to your future goals. A strong response to a Why Major essay will highlight your specific motivations. But it will also connect those motivations to a school’s unique opportunities. For example, perhaps you wish to be a pre-law history major, and the school you are applying to offers law-related internships. By highlighting these specific connections, you draw a compelling connection between yourself and the school.

3. Extracurricular Activity

Many schools ask you to describe an extracurricular activity that is particularly meaningful for you. When responding to this question, do not feel limited to only talk about the most popular extracurricular activities for college applications, like clubs or sports. Consider all of the activities you do outside of school. Then choose the one that is most meaningful to you. Also, give specific examples of how you grew or made an impact within your extracurricular activities for college.

4. Community Essay

The Community Essay can have slightly different angles to it. But, the uniting factor is that the school wants to know how you engage with others around you. Some types of community essays are a describe the community you live in essay or a cultural diversity essay. In recent years, the cultural diversity essay has been a more common college application requirement.

Coming up, we will share a bit more about how to break down community essay prompts. We’ll also take a look at college essays that worked. By reading these examples, you’ll know how to approach these common prompts.

How to identify a community essay?

While community essays can have slightly different focuses, they all share the goal of learning about where you come from. A supplemental essay prompt might ask you to share more about your background via a group you are part of. This is likely a community essay. Indeed, a community essay can also be called a describe the community you live in essay, or a cultural diversity essay. Other college community essay examples focus on how you will contribute to a college campus. Finally, in a describe a community you belong to essay example, you will see that students highlight any community that is meaningful to them.

You may be wondering why so many colleges have community essays as a college application requirement. For one, many colleges use a holistic admissions process. This means they care about all aspects of who you are, not simply your grades and test scores. How you engage with your communities shows them your character and values. For example, a describe the community you live in essay example about visiting church every Sunday demonstrates your commitment to religion. Similarly, a cultural diversity essay helps colleges learn more about your cultural background. 

Additionally, colleges want to learn more about how you will engage with their on-campus community. You’ll notice this important factor in the college community essay examples we will share. To some degree, how you have engaged with previous communities can be an indicator of how you will show up on their campus.

How is a community essay different?

As we mentioned, community essays can have slightly different focuses. Some prompts ask you to write a describe the community you live in essay. These types of community essays are more like cultural diversity essays. 

Keep in mind that the word “community” can have many different meanings. A community can be your school, church, or neighborhood. It could also stem from your interests. For example, your dance or robotics team can form your community.

Some community essay prompts want to know specifically how you help strengthen your communities. These types of essays are considered a community service essay. Another term for community service is “civic engagement.” An example of civic engagement might be getting people in your cultural community to sign up to vote. Or, another could be helping with church fundraisers to ensure that your local community has the resources it needs to thrive. 

In sum, the keywords you might see in a community essay prompt are “civic engagement,” “community service,” “serve your community,” “contribute to your community,” or “diversity.” No matter how it’s phrased, your essay should demonstrate the impact you’ve had on your community–whichever one you choose to highlight. 

What are some examples of community essays?

In this article, we will share several community essay examples. Specifically, we will highlight Princeton essay examples and Columbia essays examples. Let’s look at these two colleges’ essay prompts. 

The first Princeton supplemental essay prompt is a part of our college community essay examples and our cultural diversity essay examples. Here is the prompt:

Princeton Community Essay Prompt #1: Cultural Diversity Essay and College Community Essay Examples

Princeton values community and encourages students, faculty, staff and leadership to engage in respectful conversations that can expand their perspectives and challenge their ideas and beliefs. as a prospective member of this community, reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces. what lessons have you learned in life thus far what will your classmates learn from you in short, how has your lived experience shaped you  (please respond in 500 words or fewer.).

In this cultural diversity essay prompt, Princeton wants to know about your lived experiences. By this, they refer to any experiences that have shaped you profoundly. A lived experience can be a specific event, such as experiencing a car crash or winning an award. Or, it could be a set of experiences that resulted from life circumstances, such as being a first-generation college student or having taken a gap year .

This essay prompt will also lead to college community essay examples. Indeed Princeton wants to read about your lived experiences and how they impacted you. But, they also want to know how you will bring those lessons to the Princeton community, should you enroll . Also, note that this prompt mentions challenging ideas and beliefs via conversation. As you respond, look for ways to highlight how you have engaged in fruitful dialogue and how you would do so at Princeton.

To answer this prompt effectively, share specific examples. Additionally, be sure to answer all parts of the prompt. 

Princeton has a second supplemental essay prompt that focuses on how you engage with your community outside of the classroom. The prompt is as follows: 

Princeton Community Essay Prompt #2: Civic Engagement

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. how does your own story intersect with these ideals (250 words or fewer) .

To answer this prompt well, you must highlight specific examples of how you have positively impacted your community. As a starting point, consider which of your communities you have most engaged with. How have you done so and what results did you have?

The Columbia Community Essay Prompt is another of our college community essay examples. It is a cultural diversity essay, as well. Here is the prompt: 

Columbia Community Essay Prompt: A Cultural Diversity Essay

A hallmark of the columbia experience is being able to learn and thrive in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives. tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint or lived experience that is important to you, and describe how it has shaped the way you would learn from and contribute to columbia’s diverse and collaborative community. (150 words or fewer).

While this prompt is similar to Princeton’s, it also references perspectives and viewpoints. In doing so, the prompt opens you up to share opinions or values that are important to you. You might consider highlighting values in your family or community that you either hold close or disagree with. 

Note that Columbia also highlights the word “collaborative” in this prompt. This indicates that your cultural diversity essay should also show how you collaborate with others.

Which schools require a community essay?

In addition to Princeton and Columbia, many other schools have community essays as part of their college application requirements. Here are some other examples of community essay prompts:

In this UNC-Chapel Hill prompt , you must describe a specific example of how you made an impact on a community. The prompt reads:

The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill: A Community Service Essay Prompt

Discuss one of your personal qualities and share a story, anecdote, or memory of how it helped you make a positive impact on a community. this could be your current community or another community you have engaged. (250-word limit).

In responding, be sure to highlight what community you are referencing, the specific impact you made, and what personal quality helped you do so.

This prompt from UMichigan is a describe a community you belong to essay example, as well as a cultural diversity essay:

The University of Michigan: Describe a Community You Belong to Essay Example

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (required for all applicants. 1,500 character limit.).

In addition to describing the community, make sure to share how you engage with it and what it has taught you. Remember that community is a broad term. So, for this prompt you can respond with any type of community in mind, whether physical or cultural. In contrast to the describe the community you live in essay, you do not have to be geographically close to the community you describe here.

Duke University: Cultural Diversity Essay Prompts

Duke offers students five supplemental prompts to choose from, of which they can reply to two. Of these supplemental prompts, four are examples of cultural diversity essays:

1. We believe a wide range of viewpoints, beliefs, and lived experiences are essential to maintaining Duke as a vibrant and meaningful living and learning community. Feel free to share with us anything in this context that might help us better understand you and what you might bring to our community.

2. we believe there is benefit in sharing or questioning our beliefs or values; who do you agree with on the big important things, or who do you have your most interesting disagreements with what are you agreeing or disagreeing about, 3. duke’s commitment to inclusion and belonging includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. feel free to share with us more about how your identity in this context has meaning for you as an individual or as a member of a community., 4. we recognize that not fully “fitting in” a community or place can sometimes be difficult. duke values the effort, resilience, and independence that may require. feel free to share with us circumstances where something about you is different and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity..

Each of these prompts is a slightly different type of cultural diversity essay, from sharing a range of opinions to not fitting in within a community. Choose the essay prompts that most resonate with you. And share specific examples that bring your cultural diversity essay to life.

In this Yale University supplemental prompt , you must choose a community that you feel connected to and describe why it is meaningful. Here’s the prompt:

Yale University: Describe a Community You Belong to Essay Example

Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected. why is this community meaningful to you you may define community however you like. (400-word limit).

When responding, be sure to highlight what you have learned or how you have grown from this community. In contrast to a describe the community you live in essay, this essay can be about any community, near or far, that resonates with you. Indeed, the prompt gives you plenty of leeway in what you consider community. 

When responding to the UC system prompts , you must choose four of the eight available personal insight questions. One of the PIQs is a community service essay prompt:

The University of California Personal Insight Question: A Community Service Prompt

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place, things to consider: think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place like your high school, hometown or home. you can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community, why were you inspired to act what did you learn from your effort how did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community.

Similar to many of the other prompts, when answering this question, be sure to identify the specific impact you made on your community.

Now that we have looked at various examples of community essay prompts, we can explore community essay examples. Reading essay examples is a great way to get inspired to write your own college essays. 

In each of the highlighted college essays that worked, note what the author did expertly. Rather than trying to copy their responses, topics, or ideas, consider how you can apply those same skills to your writing. 

Princeton Community Essay Examples

In this section, we will highlight Princeton essay examples that respond to their two community essay prompts: a cultural diversity essay and a community service essay. 

The first of our Princeton essay examples responds to the following Princeton prompt: 

Princeton Essay Examples #1: Cultural Diversity Essay

Now, let’s take a look at a student’s response to this prompt focusing on lived experiences. 

Princeton Essay Examples #1 Student Response

I have spent most of my life living in a 41% minority town of 1.8 square miles called Highland Park, NJ. This typically overlooked town has introduced me to a diverse array of people, and it has been the main influence on my life experiences and core values.

In the face of distinct cultures and customs, we forge a single identity as Highland Parkers and come together to organize large community events. The most prevalent example is our highly touted annual Memorial Day parade, where we join together with neighboring New Brunswick to invite military service members, family members of our fallen war heroes, our legislative and congressional representatives, and our townspeople. Moreover, as our high school band’s vice president, I help organize and lead our ensemble into these performances with a positive and uplifting spirit. We communicate with the town government and arrange the performances every year to perform at the parade. The parade is an example of many of our large community events that serve as a unifying force for our diverse community, reminding us that we are fundamentally connected as one cohesive group, despite our differences. 

As someone deeply interested in historical and political matters, I am well aware of the consequences that arise from dictatorial protocols that limit the freedom of speech and diversity of voices. From my experiences debating in Model UN conferences, I have grown accustomed to being able to present viewpoints from both sides of the argument, and I have learned to incorporate and respect the viewpoints of all sides of an issue before making up my own mind. For example, in a Model Congress debate, I found myself advocating for the interests of a state heavily reliant on traditional fossil fuels. While researching and articulating that perspective, I gained insights into the economic challenges faced by the states that are reliant on these resources. This experience not only broadened my understanding of the complexities surrounding environmental policies but also highlighted the necessity of considering diverse viewpoints for comprehensive decision-making. 

My background and experiences have fostered in me a profound appreciation for the value of diversity, inclusivity, and the pursuit of knowledge. At Princeton University, I will seek to contribute as an active participant in the community, actively provide unique perspectives and insights, and respect and learn from others’ perspectives even if there are disagreements. I wish to partake in student government, which has like-minded peers who want to make a substantive impact, and also participate in service programs like the Civic Leadership Council. Also, I hope to increase my impact from the leadership positions I currently hold on the Red Cross club and teen mayoral advisory council using the platforms in Princeton. I look forward to making a positive impact on both the campus and the broader community. 

Why This Cultural Diversity Essay Worked

In the first of our Princeton essay examples, the student successfully responds to all parts of the Princeton prompt. They begin by describing their community and sharing some details about its makeup. Indeed, the first sentence hooks the reader–it is unique and compelling. 

Then, the student illustrates how they specifically contribute to their community each year by leading the high school band in the Memorial Day parade. They also highlight how their experience in Model UN shaped their appreciation for diverse perspectives. In sharing these two examples, the student demonstrates their leadership and open-minded thinking. Finally, the student ends by highlighting how they would use these values to contribute to Princeton’s community– by partaking in student government and Civic Leadership Council, among other activities.

In the second of our Princeton essay examples, the student responds to the second Princeton prompt which is: 

Princeton Essay Examples #2: A Community Service Essay

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. how does your own story intersect with these ideals (250 words or fewer).

And, here is a student’s response:

Princeton Essay Examples #2 Student Response

My first experience with the Red Cross was when my older sister was desperately trying to recruit people to join the club during the harsh COVID year. Things were so bad for the club that I, as a freshman, ran for the position of treasurer unopposed. My first blood drive experience was marked by masks, social distancing, and low turnout among blood donors. Even many donors who showed up ended up being turned away due to health-related issues. Needless to say, it was not the greatest first high school service experience, and I admittedly started to doubt if the time I spent on this front was worth it. 

However, as we returned in person, things quickly turned around. As the vice president of the club, I helped recruit more than twice the club membership compared to the previous year, and our blood drives started to regain momentum; our blood targets have been exceeded every time since. Organizing and participating in blood drives has become a passion. It’s fulfilling, especially when I personally donate, to know that I’m actively serving the community and saving lives. I have realized that, despite my relatively young age, I am capable of making an impact through public service. I plan to continue my commitment to the Red Cross’s adult program and participate in service programs like Community Action at Princeton to serve the Princeton community and abroad.

Why This Essay Worked

In this admissions essay sample, we learn about a student’s volunteerism with the Red Cross as an example of civic engagement. This essay works for several reasons. First, it provides a specific example of the student’s civic engagement and demonstrates their impact by becoming vice president and increasing membership. Secondly, the essay provides an honest take on the struggles of this service experience, which lends credibility and authenticity to the story. 

The student also demonstrates an important lesson learned. This aligns with Princeton’s values– that students can have a positive impact on society. 

Columbia University Essay Examples

In this section, we will highlight Columbia essays examples that landed students admission to the prestigious Ivy League university. The first of our Columbia essays examples is written by the same student who responded to the first Princeton prompt above. Here’s a reminder of the Columbia prompt: 

As you read the example below, notice how the student edited their Princeton cultural diversity essay to meet the prompt and lower word count for Columbia:

I have spent most of my life living in a 41% minority town called Highland Park, NJ. This typically overlooked town has introduced me to a diverse array of people, and it has been the main influence on my life experiences and core values. 

HP has convinced me that we can build institutions that are strong and united while embracing a wide variety of voices and perspectives. It has shaped my core values of diversity and inclusion. An English teacher used to encourage me to talk in front of the class by saying even if I believed my thoughts were “dumb,” I could only enrich the conversation.

At Columbia University, I will seek to continue my contributions as an active participant in the community and look to actively provide unique perspectives and insights. Actively engaging in student groups such as ColumbiaVotes will be a big part of my experience. 

The Columbia essay prompt only allows for a 150-word response. This could pose a challenge for many students. What makes this essay among the Columbia essays examples that worked is how succinctly it completely answers the prompt. 

The response begins by hooking the reader with a relevant detail of the student’s community. Then, the student shares how this community shaped them by influencing their values of diversity and inclusion. Finally, the student shares how they would engage with a Columbia organization that also supports diverse viewpoints. Though short and sweet, this response clearly answers all parts of the Columbia prompt. 

More Community Essay Examples

The final of our community essay examples is a community service essay. Let’s look at how student framed their service experience:

“I don’t believe that’s the best way to do this.” 

The moment I thought this the first time I volunteered at my local soup kitchen was one that resulted in a drastic change. When I was informed of the way the food was being served to the public, the initial excitement that I had felt diminished. We were told that the plates would be served before anyone arrived and would remain in an area where people could pick it up and seat themselves. I felt that this method was impersonal and inconsiderate, and disappointment washed over me. 

I turned to the people that were around me and discovered that they shared the same disapproval I felt. When we agreed that a change must be made, we exchanged ideas on how to present this to the woman in charge of the program. I suggested that we should serve each person one-by-one, and only give them the food if they wanted to/could eat it. They suggested multiple ideas, including that we should offer to seat them, hold their plates for them, continue to check in on them, and dispose of their plates once they finish their meal. We believed that this way would genuinely make them feel better and would allow us to get to know some of them personally. A simple smile and conversation could be enough to improve their day. 

From this day on, the way in which the local soup kitchen serves our community has changed dramatically. This experience taught me the importance of speaking up for what you believe in. In a group setting, it is likely that there will be others who share the same end goal and are willing to contribute different ideas to achieve the goal. These different perspectives can allow you to see situations in ways that you previously hadn’t, and can result in better outcomes. It also showed me the importance of leadership.

If I had never spoken up about the way the food was being served, a change might have never happened. When you work in the group, the end goal may not be for the benefit of anyone in the group, but for others who are in need. This experience also showed me the beauty in doing good for others and making others happy, even through small things such as serving them food to their liking.

In this community service essay, the student shares their experience volunteering at a soup kitchen. Volunteering at a soup kitchen is not necessarily unique in the list of extracurricular activities for college applications. However, the student highlights several aspects of the experience that make it meaningful to them. 

To start, the student shares their experience challenging the way that food was served. The student suggested that food be served directly to attendees in order to better connect with community members. Through this experience, the student learns about leadership and working with others to achieve a common goal. This specific example demonstrates the student’s collaborative values and compassionate way of thinking, both of which are great attributes to highlight in college applications.

How To Write A Community Essay

As we saw in the community essay examples, there are several hallmarks of college essays that worked. To write a good community essay, whether it be a community service essay, a cultural diversity essay, or a describe the community you live in essay, you must start by understanding the prompt. Once you have carefully read through the prompt, brainstorm examples from your own life that relate to it. Sharing specific details and examples will make your response stronger and more unique. 

Additionally, showcase how you grew throughout your response. In each of the community essay examples we shared, the student discussed a skill or perspective they developed through their experiences. Finally, connect your response to the school you are applying to. If you are writing a cultural diversity essay, for example, demonstrate how you would contribute to the cultural diversity at that school, both inside the classroom and in your extracurricular activities for college.  

Topics To Avoid In Your Community Essay

When writing community essays, there is technically no topic that you cannot discuss. However, how you discuss certain topics is important. 

For example, in a community service essay, it is important to not come off as a savior of a community with less privilege than yourself. Similarly, if you are writing a describe the community you live in essay or a cultural diversity essay, you will want to avoid stereotyping any community. Speaking from your own personal experience as a member of a community is fine. However, generalizing your experience to the community at large can come across as insensitive to that community’s diversity. To avoid these pitfalls, have a variety of people read your community essay examples and look for these dynamics.

Additional Tips for Community Essays

We’ve highlighted the strengths in the community essay examples above. Now we will now share some more tips for making your community essays a strong part of your college applications:

Tips for Writing Community Essays

1. research the college.

When reviewing our college community essay examples, you will notice that students highlight specific clubs, programs, or groups on campus to which they will contribute. If you are specific, you demonstrate real interest in the school which adds strength to your college applications.

2. Tell a story

In each of the college essays that worked, students gave details that told a full story . This story incorporated where they come from and what they learned through their experiences. Rather than telling us who they were, the students used this particular story to show us.

As the college admissions landscape gets ever more competitive, students are sometimes tempted to read other students’ essays and copy ideas. Or, more recently, they may even want to use artificial intelligence to write their essays. However, AI and other students’ experiences won’t show admissions who you really are. Don’t worry about whether you have the best extracurricular activities for college or the most unique cultural diversity essay. Instead, talk about the experiences that truly matter to you. By being honest, you are more likely to come across as convincing and interesting. In each of our college community essay examples, students presented a true and well-thought-out response to the prompts.

Other CollegeAdvisor Essay Resources to Explore 

As you work on your college applications, you might be in search of additional resources. CollegeAdvisor has a wealth of webinars and articles that can help you navigate writing your essays. Here are a few:

More CollegeAdvisor Resources for Essays

1. short essay examples.

Some of the cultural diversity essays you may write will be short, meaning that they are 150 words or less. This article with short essay examples can help you understand how to write short and sweet cultural diversity essays.

2. Cultural Diversity Essay Examples

In this article , you will find additional examples of cultural diversity essays. Many community essays are also cultural diversity essays. As such, becoming familiar with how students write about their cultures is useful.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Supplemental Essays

In this webinar , CollegeAdvisor experts provide a rundown of how to write strong supplemental essays for your college applications. In particular, this webinar will help you decode essay prompts and make sure you answer each prompt fully.

4. Editing Your Supplemental Essays

Once you have read up on college community essay examples and written your cultural diversity essays, you might need help editing them. This webinar will provide tips for how to edit your supplemental essays effectively.

Community Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Completing your college applications can be a daunting task, especially when you must write multiple essays. For some students, writing cultural diversity essays is challenging. These prompts ask you to dig deep and reflect upon your life influences.

In this guide to community essays, we provided an overview of what a community essay is and how to respond to the different types of community essay prompts. We shared cultural diversity essay examples and describe the community you live in essay examples. We also described what makes these essays strong and how they meet college application requirements. 

In short, the key to writing stand-out essays is to be authentic and thorough in your responses. If you need additional help writing your cultural diversity essay, seek out the support of a trusted resource like CollegeAdvisor. We are here to help you craft the best college applications that could gain you admissions to the school of your dreams!

This article was written by Courtney Ng. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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9.3 Organizing Your Writing

Learning objectives.

• Understand how and why organizational techniques help writers and readers stay focused.
• Assess how and when to use chronological order to organize an essay.
• Recognize how and when to use order of importance to organize an essay.
• Determine how and when to use spatial order to organize an essay.

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content. Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest. The way you structure your essay helps your readers draw connections between the body and the thesis, and the structure also keeps you focused as you plan and write the essay. Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

This section covers three ways to organize body paragraphs:

• Chronological order
• Order of importance
• Spatial order

When you begin to draft your essay, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner. Your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas in order to help process and accept them.

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

Chronological Order

In Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , you learned that chronological arrangement has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing , which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process. When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first , second , then , after that , later , and finally . These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first , then , next , and so on.

Writing at Work

At some point in your career you may have to file a complaint with your human resources department. Using chronological order is a useful tool in describing the events that led up to your filing the grievance. You would logically lay out the events in the order that they occurred using the key transition words. The more logical your complaint, the more likely you will be well received and helped.

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and in what order, and the introduction should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure. Remember to use the chronological key words, such as first , second , then , and finally .

Order of Importance

Recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to begin with your most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable. When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly , almost as importantly , just as importantly , and finally .

During your career, you may be required to work on a team that devises a strategy for a specific goal of your company, such as increasing profits. When planning your strategy you should organize your steps in order of importance. This demonstrates the ability to prioritize and plan. Using the order of importance technique also shows that you can create a resolution with logical steps for accomplishing a common goal.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

Spatial Order

As stated in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot.

Attached to my bedroom wall is a small wooden rack dangling with red and turquoise necklaces that shimmer as you enter. Just to the right of the rack is my window, framed by billowy white curtains. The peace of such an image is a stark contrast to my desk, which sits to the right of the window, layered in textbooks, crumpled papers, coffee cups, and an overflowing ashtray. Turning my head to the right, I see a set of two bare windows that frame the trees outside the glass like a 3D painting. Below the windows is an oak chest from which blankets and scarves are protruding. Against the wall opposite the billowy curtains is an antique dresser, on top of which sits a jewelry box and a few picture frames. A tall mirror attached to the dresser takes up most of the wall, which is the color of lavender.

The paragraph incorporates two objectives you have learned in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph using spatial order that describes your commute to work, school, or another location you visit often.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

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The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Module 1: An Overview of the Writing Process

Organizing an essay.

There are many elements that must come together to create a good essay. The topic should be clear and interesting. The author’s voice should come through, but not be a distraction. There should be no errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, or capitalization. Organization is one of the most important elements of an essay that is often overlooked. An organized essay is clear, focused, logical and effective.

Organization makes it easier to understand the thesis. To illustrate, imagine putting together a bike. Having all of the necessary tools, parts, and directions will make the job easier to complete than if the parts are spread across the room and the tools are located all over the house. The same logic applies to writing an essay. When all the parts of an essay are in some sort of order, it is both easier for the writer to put the essay together and for the reader to understand the main ideas presented in the essay.

Strategy 1. Reverse Outlining

If your paper is about Huckleberry Finn, a working thesis might be: “In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.” However, you might feel uncertain if your paper really follows through on the thesis as promised.

This paper may benefit from reverse outlining. Your aim is to create an outline of what you’ve already written, as opposed to the kind of outline that you make before you begin to write. The reverse outline will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both your organization and your argument.

Read the draft and take notes Read your draft over, and as you do so, make very brief notes in the margin about what each paragraph is trying to accomplish.

Outline the Draft After you’ve read through the entire draft, transfer the brief notes to a fresh sheet of paper, listing them in the order in which they appear. The outline might look like this:

• Paragraph 1: Intro
• Paragraph 2: Background on Huck Finn
• Paragraph 3: River for Huck and Jim
• Paragraph 4: Shore and laws for Huck and Jim
• Paragraph 5: Shore and family, school
• Paragraph 6: River and freedom, democracy
• Paragraph 7: River and shore similarities
• Paragraph 8: Conclusion

Examine the Outline Look for repetition and other organizational problems. In the reverse outline above, there’s a problem somewhere in Paragraphs 3-7, where the potential for repetition is high because you keep moving back and forth between river and shore.

Re-examine the Thesis, the Outline, and the Draft Together Look closely at the outline and see how well it supports the argument in your thesis statement. You should be able to see which paragraphs need rewriting, reordering or rejecting. You may find some paragraphs are tangential or irrelevant or that some paragraphs have more than one idea and need to be separated.

Strategy 2. Talk It Out

Find a Friend, your T.A., your Professor, a relative, a Writing Center tutor, or any sympathetic and intelligent listener. People are more accustomed to talking than writing, so it might be beneficial to explain your thinking out loud to someone before organizing the essay. Talking to someone about your ideas may also relieve pressure and anxiety about your topic.

Explain What Your Paper Is About Pay attention to how you explain your argument verbally. It is likely that the order in which you present your ideas and evidence to your listener is a logical way to arrange them in your paper. Let’s say that you begin (as you did above) with the working thesis. As you continue to explain, you realize that even though your draft doesn’t mention “private enterprise” until the last two paragraphs, you begin to talk about it right away. This fact should tell you that you probably need to discuss private enterprise near the beginning.

Take Notes You and your listener should keep track of the way you explain your paper. If you don’t, you probably won’t remember what you’ve talked about. Compare the structure of the argument in the notes to the structure of the draft you’ve written.

Get Your Listener to Ask Questions As the writer, it is in your interest to receive constructive criticism so that your draft will become stronger. You want your listener to say things like, “Would you mind explaining that point about being both conservative and liberal again? I wasn’t sure I followed” or “What kind of economic principle is government relief? Do you consider it a good or bad thing?” Questions you can’t answer may signal an unnecessary tangent or an area needing further development in the draft. Questions you need to think about will probably make you realize that you need to explain more your paper. In short, you want to know if your listener fully understands you; if not, chances are your readers won’t, either. [2]

Strategy 3. Paragraphs

Readers need paragraph breaks in order to organize their reading. Writers need paragraph breaks to organize their writing. A paragraph break indicates a change in focus, topic, specificity, point of view, or rhetorical strategy. The paragraph should have one main idea; the topic sentence expresses this idea. The paragraph should be organized either spatially, chronologically, or logically. The movement may be from general to specific, specific to general, or general to specific to general. All paragraphs must contain developed ideas: comparisons, examples, explanations, definitions, causes, effects, processes, or descriptions. There are several concluding strategies which may be combined or used singly, depending on the assignment’s length and purpose:

• a summary of the main points
• a hook and return to the introductory “attention-getter” to frame the essay
• a web conclusion which relates the topic to a larger context of a greater significance
• a proposal calling for action or further examination of the topic
• a question which provokes the reader
• a vivid image or compelling narrative [3]

Put Paragraphs into Sections You should be able to group your paragraphs so that they make a particular point or argument that supports your thesis.  If any paragraph, besides the introduction or conclusion, cannot fit into any section, you may have to ask yourself whether it belongs in the essay.

Re-examine each Section Assuming you have more than one paragraph under each section, try to distinguish between them. Perhaps you have two arguments in favor of that can be distinguished from each other by author, logic, ethical principles invoked, etc. Write down the distinctions — they will help you formulate clear topic sentences.

Re-examine the Entire Argument Which section do you want to appear first? Why? Which Second? Why? In what order should the paragraphs appear in each section? Look for an order that makes the strongest possible argument. [4]

• Organizing an Essay ↵
• Reorganizing Your Draft ↵
• Parts of an Essay ↵
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How to Organize an Essay

Last Updated: March 27, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 17 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 286,703 times.

Essay Template and Sample Essay

Laying the Groundwork

• For example, a high-school AP essay should have a very clear structure, with your introduction and thesis statement first, 3-4 body paragraphs that further your argument, and a conclusion that ties everything together.
• On the other hand, a creative nonfiction essay might wait to present the thesis till the very end of the essay and build up to it.
• A compare-and-contrast essay can be organized so that you compare two things in a single paragraph and then have a contrasting paragraph, or you can organize it so that you compare and contrast a single thing in the same paragraph.
• You can also choose to organize your essay chronologically, starting at the beginning of the work or historical period you're discussing and going through to the end. This can be helpful for essays where chronology is important to your argument (like a history paper or lab report), or if you're telling a story in your essay.
• The “support” structure begins with your thesis laid out clearly in the beginning and supports it through the rest of the essay.
• The “discovery” structure builds to the thesis by moving through points of discussion until the thesis seems the inevitable, correct view.
• The “exploratory” structure looks at the pros and cons of your chosen topic. It presents the various sides and usually concludes with your thesis.

• If you haven't been given an assignment, you can always run ideas by your instructor or advisor to see if they're on track.
• Ask questions about anything you don't understand. It's much better to ask questions before you put hours of work into your essay than it is to have to start over because you didn't clarify something. As long as you're polite, almost all instructors will be happy to answer your questions.

• For example, are you writing an opinion essay for your school newspaper? Your fellow students are probably your audience in this case. However, if you're writing an opinion essay for the local newspaper, your audience could be people who live in your town, people who agree with you, people who don't agree with you, people who are affected by your topic, or any other group you want to focus on.

Getting the Basics Down

• A thesis statement acts as the “road map” for your paper. It tells your audience what to expect from the rest of your essay.
• Include the most salient points within your thesis statement. For example, your thesis may be about the similarity between two literary works. Describe the similarities in general terms within your thesis statement.
• Consider the “So what?” question. A good thesis will explain why your idea or argument is important. Ask yourself: if a friend asked you “So what?” about your thesis, would you have an answer?
• The “3-prong thesis” is common in high school essays, but is often frowned upon in college and advanced writing. Don't feel like you have to restrict yourself to this limited form.
• Revise your thesis statement. If in the course of writing your essay you discover important points that were not touched upon in your thesis, edit your thesis.

• If you have a librarian available, don't be afraid to consult with him or her! Librarians are trained in helping you identify credible sources for research and can get you started in the right direction.

• Try freewriting. With freewriting, you don't edit or stop yourself. You just write (say, for 15 minutes at a time) about anything that comes into your head about your topic.
• Try a mind map. Start by writing down your central topic or idea, and then draw a box around it. Write down other ideas and connect them to see how they relate. [14] X Research source
• Try cubing. With cubing, you consider your chosen topic from 6 different perspectives: 1) Describe it, 2) Compare it, 3) Associate it, 4) Analyze it, 5) Apply it, 6) Argue for and against it.

• If your original thesis was very broad, you can also use this chance to narrow it down. For example, a thesis about “slavery and the Civil War” is way too big to manage, even for a doctoral dissertation. Focus on more specific terms, which will help you when you start you organize your outline. [16] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source

Organizing the Essay

• Determine the order in which you will discuss the points. If you're planning to discuss 3 challenges of a particular management strategy, you might capture your reader's attention by discussing them in the order of most problematic to least. Or you might choose to build the intensity of your essay by starting with the smallest problem first.

• For example, a solid paragraph about Hamlet's insanity could draw from several different scenes in which he appears to act insane. Even though these scenes don't all cluster together in the original play, discussing them together will make a lot more sense than trying to discuss the whole play from start to finish.

• Ensure that your topic sentence is directly related to your main argument. Avoid statements that may be on the general topic, but not directly relevant to your thesis.
• Make sure that your topic sentence offers a “preview” of your paragraph's argument or discussion. Many beginning writers forget to use the first sentence this way, and end up with sentences that don't give a clear direction for the paragraph.
• For example, compare these two first sentences: “Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743” and “Thomas Jefferson, who was born in 1743, became one of the most important people in America by the end of the 18th century.”
• The first sentence doesn't give a good direction for the paragraph. It states a fact but leaves the reader clueless about the fact's relevance. The second sentence contextualizes the fact and lets the reader know what the rest of the paragraph will discuss.

• Transitions help underline your essay's overall organizational logic. For example, beginning a paragraph with something like “Despite the many points in its favor, Mystic Pizza also has several elements that keep it from being the best pizza in town” allows your reader to understand how this paragraph connects to what has come before.
• Transitions can also be used inside paragraphs. They can help connect the ideas within a paragraph smoothly so your reader can follow them.
• If you're having a lot of trouble connecting your paragraphs, your organization may be off. Try the revision strategies elsewhere in this article to determine whether your paragraphs are in the best order.
• The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison has a handy list of transitional words and phrases, along with the type of transition they indicate. [22] X Research source

• You can try returning to your original idea or theme and adding another layer of sophistication to it. Your conclusion can show how necessary your essay is to understanding something about the topic that readers would not have been prepared to understand before.
• For some types of essays, a call to action or appeal to emotions can be quite helpful in a conclusion. Persuasive essays often use this technique.
• Avoid hackneyed phrases like “In sum” or “In conclusion.” They come across as stiff and cliched on paper.

Revising the Plan

• You can reverse-outline on the computer or on a printed draft, whichever you find easier.
• As you read through your essay, summarize the main idea (or ideas) of each paragraph in a few key words. You can write these on a separate sheet, on your printed draft, or as a comment in a word processing document.
• Look at your key words. Do the ideas progress in a logical fashion? Or does your argument jump around?
• If you're having trouble summarizing the main idea of each paragraph, it's a good sign that your paragraphs have too much going on. Try splitting your paragraphs up.

• You may also find with this technique that your topic sentences and transitions aren't as strong as they could be. Ideally, your paragraphs should have only one way they could be organized for maximum effectiveness. If you can put your paragraphs in any order and the essay still kind of makes sense, you may not be building your argument effectively.

• For example, you might find that placing your least important argument at the beginning drains your essay of vitality. Experiment with the order of the sentences and paragraphs for heightened effect.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/organizing
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/understanding-assignments/
• ↑ https://open.lib.umn.edu/writingforsuccess/chapter/6-1-purpose-audience-tone-and-content/
• ↑ https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/writing-your-essay
• ↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/writing/writing-resources/persuasive-essays
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/brainstorming/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/2/53/
• ↑ https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/scholarlywriting/chapter/revising-a-thesis-statement/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/reorganizing-drafts/
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/essay-outline/
• ↑ https://wts.indiana.edu/writing-guides/paragraphs-and-topic-sentences.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/transitions/
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Transitions.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/conclusions/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-aloud/

About This Article

To organize an essay, start by writing a thesis statement that makes a unique observation about your topic. Then, write down each of the points you want to make that support your thesis statement. Once you have all of your main points, expand them into paragraphs using the information you found during your research. Finally, close your essay with a conclusion that reiterates your thesis statement and offers additional insight into why it’s important. For tips from our English reviewer on how to use transitional sentences to help your essay flow better, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Ryazan Oblast, Russia

The capital city of Ryazan oblast: Ryazan .

Ryazan Oblast - Overview

Ryazan Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in the center of the European part of the country, in the Central Federal District. Ryazan is the capital city of the region.

The population of Ryazan Oblast is about 1,085,100 (2022), the area - 39,605 sq. km.

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Ryazan oblast map, Russia

Ryazan oblast latest news and posts from our blog:.

8 August, 2017 / Ryazan Kremlin - one of the oldest museums in Russia .

27 February, 2017 / Vvedensky Church in Pet - the gem of the Ryazan region .

15 July, 2010 / The architectural monuments of Ryazan oblast photos .

24 May, 2010 / Ryazan oblast beautiful abandoned cathedral photos .

History of Ryazan Oblast

According to archaeological excavations, the first people settled in what is now the Ryazan region in the Upper Paleolithic (15 - 25 thousand years ago). The first known inhabitants of this area were the tribes of Finno-Ugric group: Mer, Ves, Muroma, Meshchera, Mordvinians and others, who gave a lot of preserved to this day geographical names.

The Slavic tribes moved to the east at the end of the 1st millennium AD. The tribes of Vyatichi and Radimichi settled in the upper and middle reaches of the Oka River. Over time, these lands came under the control of the Kiev principality. Further expansion of the Slavs to the east was stopped by the Kama Bulgars.

According to the latest archaeological data, the town of Staraya (Old) Ryazan was founded in the 10th century (about 50 km south-east of the present Ryazan). The town of Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky was first mentioned in 1095.

In the 13th century, the Ryazan Principality, with its core in the middle reaches of the Oka, extended south to the Voronezh and Don rivers.

Despite the vast territory of the region and mixed composition of the population, it was gradually exposed to the Christianization, a lot of churches and monasteries were built. In the 12th century, Olgovsky Assumption Monastery was founded (the present village of Lgovo) - one of the oldest monasteries in the North-Eastern Russia.

More Historical Facts…

In 1237, Staraya Ryazan, the capital of the principality, was destroyed during the Mongol invasion. After that, its place in the principality was gradually taken by Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, which, later, inherited the name of the former capital.

The rise of the Ryazan Principality is usually associated with Prince Oleg Ivanovich (1350-1402), who, with varying degrees of success, competed with the Moscow princes. His descendants were not so successful in opposing Moscow and the Ryazan principality ceased to exist in 1521 and became part of the Moscow Principality.

In the 16th-17th centuries, the Ryazan region, being the southern boundary of the Russian state, suffered from frequent devastating raids of nomads. Ryazan guberniya (province) of the Russian Empire was established by the decree of Catherine II in 1778. The town of Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, the administrative center of the province, received a new name - Ryazan.

In the 18th century, metallurgy (iron foundries, needle factories), textile (cloth, rope, linen factories) and leather industries appeared in the region. In the 19th century, coal mines, cement, brick, tile, match factories were opened. In the north of the province, there were several glass factories.

In the southern districts of the province, agricultural processing industry was developed. Construction of railways, along with the traditional and already well-developed river navigation, was essential for the development of the regional economy.

In 1929, almost the entire territory of the Ryazan region became part of Moscow Oblast. In 1937, a separate Ryazan Oblast was formed. During the Second World War, only the south-western districts of the region (Mikhailov, Skopin) were occupied by the German troops.

In the post-Soviet period, an outflow of population from Ryazan Oblast has begun (due to the proximity to Moscow). In 1991-2015, the population of the region decreased by more than 200 thousand people.

Beautiful nature of Ryazan Oblast

Lake in Ryazan Oblast

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Forest stream in Ryazan Oblast

Ryazan Oblast scenery

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Ryazan Oblast - Features

Ryazan Oblast is located in the depression between the Central and Volga Uplands, in the central part of the Russian Plain. The region stretches for 220 km from north to south and 259 km from west to east.

The Oka River divides the territory of Ryazan oblast in two parts: the northern with coniferous forests, and the southern with deciduous forests and forest-steppes. In total, forests cover about one third of the territory.

The climate is temperate continental. The average temperature in January is minus 10.6 degrees Celsius, in July - plus 19.7 degrees Celsius. The region has such natural resources as cement limestone, marl, refractory clay, glass and quartz sand, high-quality peat, phosphorite, lignite.

The most developed industries are engineering and metalworking, oil refining, power engineering, and food industry. Production of construction materials, leather are also developed as well as non-ferrous metallurgy. The main industrial centers are Ryazan, Skopin, Kasimov. Ryazan refinery is one of the largest enterprises in the region. The largest in Europe underground reservoir of natural gas “Kasimovskoye” (8,500 million cubic m) is located in Ryazan oblast.

Agriculture is specialized on cattle-, pig-, sheep-breeding, poultry farming. Barley, wheat, rye, oats, forage crops, sugar beets, fruits, and berries are cultivated in the region.

Two important railways pass through the territory of the Ryazan region: the “historical” branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway and two main lines in the direction of the Caucasus railway. The express “Sergei Yesenin”, a special train of Ryazan Oblast, runs daily between Ryazan and Moscow. Two federal highways cross the territory of the region: M5 “Ural” and M6 “Kaspiy”. The Oka River is navigable with ports in Ryazan and Kasimov.

The radioactive fallout, which spread as a result of the Chernobyl accident, fell on the south-western territories of the region.

Attractions of Ryazan Oblast

Ryazan Oblast is a real reserve of Russian folk culture with its unique music, song and choreography, poetic traditions, multicolor palette of folk costumes, arts and crafts. Eight settlements are included in the list of historic settlements of Russia: Ryazan, Kasimov, Mikhailov, Ryazhsk, Skopin, Spas-Klepiki, Spassk-Ryazansky, Shatsk.

Architectural monuments of the region include monuments of church architecture, manor complexes, industrial buildings, merchants’ mansions. Altogether there are about 1,200 architectural monuments and more than 2,200 archaeological sites. There are more than 100 thousand hectares of protected areas on the territory of the Ryazan region (47 nature reserves and 57 natural monuments).

The main attractions of Ryazan Oblast:

• Ryazan Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve “Ryazan Kremlin”,
• Ryazan Art Museum named after I.P. Pozhalostin,
• Museum-Estate of the Academician I.P. Pavlov in Ryazan,
• Solotcha resort village in the suburbs of Ryazan,
• Museum-Reserve of S.A. Esenin in the village of Konstantinovo,
• Historical-Landscape Reserve “Staraya Ryazan”,
• Historical-Landscape Reserve “Glebovo-Gorodishche”,
• Manor of fon Derviz in Kiritsy (1889) - an amazing beautiful architectural ensemble located 60 km from Ryazan,
• Historical-Cultural and Natural-Landscape Reserve “Manor of S.N. Khudekov”,
• Stud farm in Starozhilovo,
• Museum of the History of Cosmonautics and the Memorial House-Museum of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Izhevskoye,
• Museum of Wooden Architecture in the village of Lunkino in Klepikovsky district,
• Khan’s mosque with a minaret, museum “Russian Samovar” and museum of bells in Kasimov,
• Svyato-Ioanno-Bogoslovsky Monastery in the village of Poshupovo in Rybnovsky district, on the right bank of the Oka, about 25 km north of Ryazan,
• Nativity of the Virgin Convent in Solotcha,
• The first park of S.N.Khudekov in the village of Yerlino in Korablinsky district; later, he created a similar park in Sochi,
• Oka State Biosphere Reserve with a nature museum and zoo,
• Meshchyora National Park.

Ryazan oblast of Russia photos

Pictures of the ryazan region.

Ryazan Oblast landscape

Author: Mikhail Maksimov

Monastery in Solotcha in the Ryazan region

Abandoned church in Ryazan Oblast

Churches in Ryazan Oblast

Wooden church in Ryazan Oblast

Winter in the Ryazan region

Abandoned cathedral in Ryazan Oblast

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