Tamam school-based improvement: A model to disrupt, transform and sustain equity and excellence

• In Event: Towards a transformation in teaching and schooling: Movements from the Middle East

Proposal

TAMAM School-Based Improvement:
A Model to Disrupt, Transform and Sustain Equity and Excellence

This presentation aims to describe TAMAM’s experience in building and implementing a scalable model for school-based reform grounded in the sociocultural context yet aligned with research-based best practices. The model aims to transform schools serving marginalized communities in Lebanon into self-renewing community schools. The presentation will illustrate success stories of improvement of six Lebanese public schools, that adopted the TAMAM reform model, in acquiring the needed capacity to lead improvement, adapt to emerging disruptions, and in building the capacity of teachers to be better prepared to lead innovation and educate students in various contexts and conditions offering them the needed learning environments and opportunities they deserve. The presentation will also highlight the role community partners played in supporting and advocating for school reform.
TAMAM: A School-Based Reform Movement
TAMAM (www.tamamproject.org) is an educator-led movement that started as a grant-funded research and development project in 2007 in the Department of Education at the American University of Beirut (AUB). TAMAM was initiated in response to the shortcomings of the education reform efforts in the Arab region, that have failed to achieve both excellence and equity. Research has shown that the root causes of such failure are embedded in the system itself, its norms, and organizational structure, mainly in the professional beliefs and readiness of those currently in charge of initiating and implementing reform (Jurdak & BouJaoude, 2011). What is needed is a paradigm shift to reimagine the educational system, and to reinvent how we do educational reform (UNESCO, 2022). This requires rethinking the purpose of schools and their role in social transformation, as well as redefining the profile of the student graduate and the professional identity and role of educators. Ultimately, reformers need to reconsider how to build around educators and schools a holding equitable and inclusive environment to enact their agency, to keep learning, problem-solving, and most importantly innovating.
TAMAM theory of change is centered around a reform model conceiving of sustainable change as a movement that initiates and supports school-based improvement to trigger reform with ripple effects to transform the whole educational system. In this model, sustainable improvement is supported through concurrent capacity building and adjustments to the organizational structure and policies, to enable educators to successfully initiate, implement and institutionalize innovative interventions and creative solutions to remove impediments students, especially from marginalized communities are facing while on their learning journey.
The TAMAM Lebanon Hub Project
In 2015, TAMAM’s Lebanon Hub project was launched in partnership with 6 public schools in Lebanon serving low socioeconomic and refugee students to improve schools to 1) develop students holistically, preparing them to be productive and responsible citizens; 2) improve teachers’ performance and involvement in school improvement to become agents of change capable of facing the challenges of public schools while sustaining their momentum; and 3) engage parents, students and community members in the shared responsibility of this improvement process. The project was carried out with six public schools located in various geographical areas.
The project was led by a Steering Team (HST) consisting of action researchers, designers, consultants, and coaches who engaged in emancipatory collaborative action research. Through ongoing research and experimentation, HST collected data to monitor their work continuously and that of the school teams making the necessary refinement to the implemented designs and coaching approach and documenting emerging impact. During the 5 years of the project (2015-2020), a range of capacity-building activities including workshops, training sessions, school visits, and daily interactions for support and guidance was completed.
The project started with collecting data to understand the schools’ assets and challenges, their structure, and community. Then, a team of teachers from each school was coached on a set of competencies and skills essential to lead sustainable school-based improvement. During the project initiation stage, school teams diagnosed their key problems, identified their improvement need, described their vision of the ideal school, designed a solution with goals and strategies, and planned for implementation and monitoring. Throughout, the team received ongoing support from leadership and pedagogical expert coaches to expand their capacity especially to build partnerships with parents and their local community, and to enhance student voice and leadership capacity. Throughout the project, special attention was given to maintaining the members' motivation and boosting their well-being through various strategies while offering them platforms to network with other schools.
Impact
Monitoring and evaluation of the teams’ improvement journeys showed a positive impact on the school, students, teachers, and parents (Karami et al., 2022). The teams were able to put building blocks towards their ideal schools by renovating the school facilities, expanding their inclusion practices, strengthening their partnership with parents and the community, and increasing students’ voices and active engagement in school improvement. They developed new bylaws for key organizational functions and offered policy recommendations for the sustainability and scalability of their improvement projects.
Evaluation of the capacity-building activities showed transformation in the team members' professional habits. They showed an increased motivation to be agents of change at their educational institution and enhanced their commitment to lead sustainable school-based improvement, scrutinize mandated projects and services, prepare proposals to request the needed support to achieve more equitable and inclusive services for their students, and adapt to emerging disruptions. The latter was evident in how schools responded during the COVID pandemic.
A Model for Inclusive Schools of Excellence
While each school focused on improving a specific area they identified as an urgent need, combined, these needs reflected critical issues impeding improvement and the achievement of equity within the public school system in Lebanon. Consequently, a grounded model with concurrent interventions for the effective transformation of Lebanese public schools emerged. The model can be scaled through concerted efforts from school practitioners, university researchers, funders, community members, and policymakers.

Authors

• Rima Karami, American University of Beirut

• Yusra Khattab, American University of Beirut