A few months ago I wrote a post marking thirty years in education, 30 Things I Believe About Education After 30 Years. In the comments, longtime educator Paul Bogush asked me a question that I have continued to think about.

With one year left before his retirement, Paul was thinking about the gap between building the culture you want in your own classroom and shaping the culture of a whole school. He asked what I had learned, after thirty years, about passing beliefs on to colleagues. Then he asked me to give him some homework for his final year, something that might let him leave a dent in his school’s culture.

I answered fairly quickly at the time. My answer has not changed.

Culture moves toward what we notice.

For all the strategic plans, mission statements and professional learning that go into shaping a school, I am more and more convinced that the real work of culture happens in much smaller moments. A teacher handles a hard interaction with a student with unusual patience. An educational assistant finds a way to include a kid who normally sits on the edge of things. A coach keeps a student on the team who may never play much, because they understand that belonging matters more than the score.

These things happen every day. And most of them happen when nobody is watching. Except, of course, for the student who is watching. For that student, it may be the moment that makes it easier to come back tomorrow.

So much of the best work in education is invisible by design. Teachers spend their careers in rooms with students, away from other adults. People do thoughtful, generous, creative things all across a school without expecting anyone else to notice. Often they do not want the attention anyway.

But there is a difference between recognition and noticing. Recognition is about the person. Noticing is about what they did.

Recognition can become a program. Certificates, staff member of the month, a nice lunch in June. Those things are fine, but that is not what I mean.

Noticing is more specific. It is walking up to a colleague and saying, “I saw how you handled that. That is exactly how we want kids to be treated here.” It is telling someone in the office, “You were so patient with that family this morning. They walked out feeling different than they came in.”

The specificity is the whole thing. “Great job” is nice. “This is what we are about” builds culture. Every time we name something, we send a signal about what matters here.

And this is where Paul’s question gets interesting, because he asked it as a teacher, not a principal.

We tend to assume culture gets moved from the front of the room. The staff meeting. The newsletter. What the principal stops to ask about on a classroom visit. All of that is real. But a teacher noticing another teacher in the hallway carries something a memo never will. It comes from a peer. It costs nothing. And it says, quietly, this is who we are, from someone standing right beside you. On a hard day, it can also say, “What you are doing matters.”

There is a lesson here for those of us in formal leadership roles too. Often, leading means standing behind the people doing the work, noticing their care and helping others see it. We do not always need to be the ones setting the example; sometimes our job is to support the people who already are.

People notice what gets named, and they notice what never does. If we say relationships matter but only ask about test scores, people notice. If we say wellbeing matters but only celebrate the ones who work themselves into the ground, people notice that too. Our calendars and our conversations probably reveal more about our values than our plans do.

I used to think moving culture meant winning an argument. Find the research. Book the speaker. Make the case. Convince enough people. Some of that helps. But culture is rarely moved by one big argument. It accumulates through hundreds of small signals about what matters and what does not.

That was the homework I gave Paul. Once a week, find one moment worth naming, and name it. Not on a form. Not because it is part of an initiative. Not a compliment tossed over your shoulder on the way past. Actually notice.

There are roughly thirty-six weeks in a school year. One moment a week. Thirty-six moments. Thirty-six times a colleague hears that something they did mattered.

It does not sound transformational. That is probably why I like it.

Education has no shortage of transformational plans, and we are very good at launching things. Real culture change tends to be quieter. One person sees another doing the kind of thing the school wants to be. They name it. It happens again. Over time, people begin to understand: this is what matters here.

Maybe that is how you leave a dent.

Not only in what happens while you are there, but in what people keep doing after you have gone.

Culture moves toward what we notice.

Note: The image at the top of this post was generated using AI. I also used AI tools for editorial feedback while refining the piece. The arguments and conclusions are my own.