Journal of K-12 Educational Research 65 School Transformation Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA, n.d.) emphasizes the importance of school transformation with its project, Mission: School Transformation. TASA (2008) stresses that educators know students will not be prepared for the future if educators hold to instructional methods and ideals of the past. TASA (2008) argues that educational leaders must transform school philosophies and practices to provide students with an education that is relevant for the demands of the 21st century. School transformation is the systematic process of challenging current educational bureaucracy, “characterized by rules and sanctions, punitive accountability systems, routines, and standardization of everything, to learning organizations where only the mundane is standardized and standards are used to nurture aspirations and accommodate human variables” (TASA, n.d., para. 1) School transformation challenges traditional school reform movements that have focused heavily on testing and accountability (Professional Educators of Tennessee, 2015). School transformation seeks to establish new norms for learning that correlate with the needs of today’s learners. Schoolishness Blum (2024) coined the term “schoolishness” to reference educational practices marked by traditional school methodology and structure. These educational practices include teaching out of real-world contexts, uniformity, seat time, artificial boundaries, inflexible class schedules, and lecture-driven learning (Blum, 2024). According to Blum (2024), the consequences of schoolishness include continual boredom, a dread of learning, and educational alienation. Blum (2024) passionately argues that teaching content out of context erodes the purpose and motivation for connecting to lessons. Packaging learning into artificial sets of standards removes the history, value, and relevance to students. Such methodology is creating a “damaging erosion of the culture of learning” (Robinson, p. 51, 2015). The resulting effect is students suffer boredom and ultimately rebel against the system of instruction. Blum (2024) contends that all schools communicate social values and influence social values, whether actively or passively. The values of achievement, assessment, ranking, and grades affectively influence school culture and the priorities of school participants. These values influence the goals and priorities of schools, that often conform to the schoolish expectations to perform efficiently. Other values, such as creativity, collaboration, and character education, are diminished in favor of schoolish priorities. Blum (2024) argues that schoolish institutions prioritize direct instruction because it is a quick and efficient method of top-down delivery. As a result, schoolishness frequently minimizes inhibitions to efficiency, such as time for questions, natural curiosity, and creativity. Schoolishness takes exciting, engaging, curious wonders of the world, rips them from context, and attempts to cram them into a bite-sized, consumable product that can be measured and evaluated (Blum, 2024). Creativity, Collaboration, and Character Education Robinson and Robinson (2022) wrote in Sir Ken Robinson’s manifesto that eight core competencies have the power to equip learners to engage in personal, cultural, financial, and social challenges that everyone eventually experiences in life. Sir Ken argues that “These four purposes and eight competencies are essential aspects of being human” (Robinson & Robinson, 2022, p. 49). Robinson and Robinson (2022) urge readers to understand that school systems need transformation to help students thrive in society today. The core competencies in Imagine If…Creating a Future for Us All are creativity, curiosity, criticism, collaboration, communication, compassion, composure, and citizenship (Robinson & Robinson, 2022). The current study combined these eight competencies into three significant categories. The three significant categories are creativity, collaboration, and character education. Creativity includes the core competencies of creativity, curiosity, and criticism. Collaboration includes the core competencies of collaboration and communication. Character education includes the core competencies of compassion, composure, and citizenship.
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