I’ve sensed a disconnect in the way culture in education is treated like a project to be managed. We launch initiatives, create new positions of responsibility for ‘culture,’ bring in professional development to fix the culture, even putting up posters with our values. But this is a fundamental misalignment. Culture is not a program you implement; it is the output of the systems you design. It’s the remnant of how education organizations actually work, day in and day out.
I was reflecting on a response to a recent post that framed similar concerns around documentation and review through a culturally responsive lens. It’s a useful reminder that school culture is never abstract; it is lived, relational, and situated.
I don’t see culture as a program or a position. It’s organic. It forms over time through relationships, expectations, and the everyday conditions people work within. For me, culture is inseparable from systems. It shows up in how time is used, whether thinking is protected or constantly interrupted, and whether trust is assumed or rationed. These things are not neutral. They quietly shape what is possible.
In this post, I’m not dismissing culture; I want to go deeper into the idea that the culture of schools is organic. Culturally responsive education often focuses on whose knowledge is valued, whose identities are centered, and whose voices shape decision-making. What becomes visible is that systems write culture with people, not posters.
So it is written, so it shall be done…
I think it’s challenging to ‘build’ a culture of collaboration by telling people to collaborate or just making round tables with sticky notes and butchers paper. You build it by designing a system that protects time for collective thinking- often, organizations do this in communities of practice. But I think it’s more than that. Culture is not a program or a framework; it’s emergent, relational, and enacted through everyday practices, power relations, and systems. Culture is not just values and beliefs; it is structurally encoded in how time, space, labor, trust, togetherness, and shared epistemic values are organized.
So, I find that when we review documentation, we need to consider the culture and its systems; otherwise, it is a perfunctory task that doesn’t get to the heart of teaching and learning authentically. In this sense, leaders need to decide on the paradigm of organizational learning and the value culture and systems play (i.e., schools reproduce what they structurally reward). If they don’t, there is a risk of short-circuiting the system.
" I don’t see culture as a program or a position. It’s organic. It forms over time through relationships, expectations, and the everyday conditions people work within."
Dr Ingrid H Lee
The Short Circuit
Over the years, I have seen curriculum systems short-circuit when the layers of coordination are not supported. I see coordinators as the circuit, carrying the current of trust and collaboration between leadership and teachers. However, when coordinators are bypassed in an attempt to manage everything, the system short-circuits, and trust and togetherness evaporate. While leaders get a spark of compliance, they fry the relational circuitry. By overloading staff and prioritizing outputs over meaning-making, the culture becomes performative rather than generative. While there are moments for top-down directives, a leader’s primary role is to design and protect the structure that allows others to lead and grow. This is about wiring for resilience, not creating fragility.
Time, Space, and Trust Are Not “Soft”
My research and lived experiences across schools and higher education systems have revealed that sometimes leaders create shifts in the culture of the system to privilege speed over sense-making and reward compliance over discourse and collaboration. When the system fragments time with back-to-back meetings, the culture feels frantic and reactive. It doesn’t feel like there’s space to think deeply. When the system prioritizes constant ‘doing’ over collective thinking, the culture feels shallow and transactional. It doesn’t feel like your expertise is truly valued. When the system rations trust and requires multiple approvals for every small decision, the culture feels bureaucratic and disempowering. It doesn’t feel like you’re a trusted professional. The culture just doesn’t feel great.
Designing for time, space, and trust are not “soft” approaches; they are cultural infrastructure. If the system values time and space to create and think, not just do, they build togetherness and trust. Then the system is restructured, resulting in improved outputs, such as better classroom experiences for students, more creativity and innovation, and a better place to work. These findings also align with ideas around professional capital, collective efficacy, design-based school improvement, and Indigenous and relational epistemologies, where knowledge is co-constructed, not extracted.
What If We Designed for Togetherness?
I know that education systems face pressures from stakeholders, various ideological camps, and competing frameworks. However, I am asking us to consider the possibility of design and collective responsibility…a sense of togetherness.
What might change if schools were designed to value thinking as much as productivity, and togetherness as much as efficiency?
I’m asking leaders to consider:
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What would our meeting structures look like if our goal was togetherness?
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What would our review cycles look like if our goal was deep thinking?
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What would our decision-making frameworks look like if our goal was to enact care, not just demand it?
Can we reimagine the systems that shape culture, not just name the culture we hope for?
Maybe a starting point is to review your calendar for the term. That is your primary values statement. Conduct a ‘Culture Review’: For one week, track how your time is actually spent. Does it reflect a culture of thinking and togetherness, or a culture of frantic productivity and scheduled efficiency? If there’s a gap, don’t launch a new culture initiative. Redesign the system… and see how a new culture follows.
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Author: Dr Ingrid H Lee. Making space for possibility in education. I write about curriculum, learning, governance, and leadership in education - examining accountability, systems, and what holds up when pressure hits.
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