Upstream thinking

This week’s reading discusses Upstream Thinking, which I consider one of the most important ideas in education.

This summary is from Peps McCrae of Edusnacks and is best told through a quick parable:

‘You and a friend are relaxing by a river. Suddenly, there’s a shout from the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to safety.

BUT… before you can recover, you hear another cry for help. You and your friend jump back into the river to rescue the next struggling child. Then another drifts into sight…

and another…

and another…

The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, your friend wades out of the water, seemingly giving up. ‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING?’, you yell. Your friend turns: ‘I’m going upstream to stop these kids falling in.’

Key points

• Often we spend time and energy in this kind of ‘downstream’ thinking.
• Schools often deal with behavioural problems as they arise, rather than looking upstream to the cause of the problem.
• When schools invest in upstream interventions—such as culture, motivation, and systems—they are less likely to see undesirable behaviours manifest.
• Improving teacher quality through effective staff development programs is a great, upstream way to improve student behaviour.
• The most effective schools are those that take steps to influence behaviour before it happens, as well as putting in place strategies for addressing it after it has occurred.

Read the full article.

What you can do

• Identify common behavioural challenges through data (or teacher surveys).
• Scale up the success of your most effective teachers.
• Clarify effective behaviour management practices.
• Share your school’s preferred behaviour management practices with all staff.
• Provide time for teachers to discuss and rehearse behavioural routines.