whether they voluntarily decide to

whether they voluntarily decide to do something new. Basic to this process
is the reality that learning a new skill and entertaining new conceptions
create doubts and feelings of awkwardness or incompetence, especially
when we first try something (see, for example, Joyce & Showers, 1988).
O[ course, in saying that change occurs at the individual level, it should
be recognized that organizationalchanges are often necessary to provide
supportive or stimulating conditions to foster change in practice.
Finally, while this rnay seem obvious, to say that meaning matters is
to say that people matter-change works or doesn't work on the basis of
individual and collective responses to it. Shared meaning, "shared cognition,"
or "interactive professionalism," as I have called it, goes a long way
in making significant change a reality (Joyce & Showers, 1988; Rosenholtz,
1989).
So far I have dwelt on the problem of meaning in relation to the
content of innovations. I have suggested that individuals and groups
'.^,'orking together have to becorne clear about new educational practices
that they wlsh (andlor someone else wishes them) to innplement. This is
meaning, if you will, about the content and theory of educational prac'
tice. Affecting the likelihtiod of obtaining meaning about the desirability
and rvorkability of specific educational practices is the question of how
new practices are introduced. The latter concerns the theory of changea
complex social process in which people have just as man/v problems
understanding rvhat is happeningand why. I mentioned in Chapter I that
educational change invcives two main aspects: what changes to implement
(theones of education) and how to implement thern (theories of
change). There are dangers in separating these two aspects, because they
interact and shape each other. But it is helpful to realize this distinction
in planning or analyzing specific reform e$orts. In short, we have to
understandboth the change and the change process.
I start in Chapter 4 near the beginning of the process, with how educational
changes get decided on or initiated in the first place.