In the school management system, we often discuss what we can do to improve the reputation of the school, but rarely discuss what we can do to completely destroy the social reputation of a school. The crisis has brought visible and invisible damage to the school, often pushing the school's situation to a situation that is difficult to understand and control. For sudden school crisis, if it is not handled properly or in time, the person directly responsible may be expelled, students may drop out of school, and schools may close down. In order to avoid this disastrous situation, people pay more and more attention to the understanding and management of school crisis. However, the sense of crisis in school management in China is still very weak, and the problem of school crisis management is rarely discussed in school management theory. We can only get some scattered management experience from our own practice. The lack of crisis awareness in school management has become a very common phenomenon, which often leads to panic when we face emergencies because we have no countermeasures. As a new proposition, crisis management plays an increasingly important role in school development. This paper briefly discusses the connotation of crisis, crisis management and school crisis management, the causes of school crisis, the classification of school crisis results, and the principles and steps of school crisis management.

First, the connotation of crisis, crisis management and school crisis management

As early as ancient times, people began to discuss the crisis phenomenon and its countermeasures; Since the emergence of modern capitalist system, cyclical economic crisis has attracted the attention and research of many economists (including Marx and Engels). As for the case analysis of various crisis phenomena, it is even more numerous since ancient times. However, as a science, the theory of "crisis management" was founded in the early 1960s after the Second World War.

The world-famous "Cuban Missile Crisis" made the world realize for the first time that there was a danger of "nuclear confrontation" between the two superpowers, which directly threatened the whole human society for the first time in human history. In this context, the theory of crisis management came into being. When American scholars put forward this theory in the early 1960s, they were immediately attached great importance by American diplomatic and decision-making authorities. But the research at that time was limited to the fields of diplomacy and international politics; With the deepening of research, crisis management theory has now penetrated into all fields of society, including our school level.

1, the definition of crisis

According to Modern Chinese Dictionary, "Crisis: 1 refers to the source of danger; A critical moment. " Webster University Dictionary (version 10) explains that crisis means two different states, one is an unstable or critical period, or a decisive change, especially a change that may produce extremely bad results. The other is "a critical situation." This is consistent with the interpretation of Modern Chinese Dictionary, which includes two meanings: "the root of the problem" and "what is happening".

Crisis management defines "crisis" as "an event that seriously affects the normal operation of enterprises and organizations and must be dealt with immediately". Herman, a pioneer in the study of crisis countermeasures, defines crisis as a situation that threatens the priority goals of decision-making groups. In this case, the response time of the decision-making group is very limited, and this situation often surprises the decision-making group. Steven Fink's explanation of this definition is: "Crisis is an unstable state in things. When the crisis comes, it is imperative to implement decisive changes. " Rosenger and Pinheirg outlined a broader concept of crisis: "Crisis refers to an emotion with serious threat, uncertainty and sense of crisis".

The research of domestic scholars shows that "in any organizational system and its subsystems, the sudden changes of its external environment and internal conditions pose a threat to the overall goals and interests of the organization, thus leading to tension."

2, the characteristics of the crisis

No matter how the definition of crisis is defined, there are usually three common elements: (1) A crisis is an accident caused by an unexpected and hasty outbreak; (2) Threatening the value or goal of an organization or decision-making unit; (3) Before the situation changes dramatically, the reaction time is limited. Generally speaking, the crisis has the following characteristics:

(1) The formation of crisis has stages: it can usually be divided into crisis warning period, crisis prevention and preparation period, crisis containment period, recovery period and learning period.

(2) The crisis is threatening: the crisis seriously threatens the main objectives of the organization. Improper handling may cause loss of life and property, damage to reputation and credit, damage to image and credit, and even lead to organizational disintegration.

(3) The crisis has sudden uncertainty, including the uncertainty of state, the uncertainty of influence and the uncertainty of response.

(4) The crisis is urgent in time: when the crisis suddenly occurs, the decision-makers must be able to respond appropriately and correctly to the situation immediately, otherwise the situation will expand and the damage will be aggravated.

The above four characteristics are very challenging tests for managers' ability and organizational contingency measures.

3. Definition of crisis management

From the definition and characteristics of the above crisis, we can define crisis management:

The so-called crisis management is a dynamic process of long-term planning, continuous learning and adaptation for organizations to avoid or mitigate the serious threats brought by crisis situations. It can also be said to be management measures and coping strategies in crisis situations. Some scholars in China believe that crisis management means that organizations or individuals avoid, reduce or even turn crises into opportunities through crisis monitoring, crisis prediction, crisis handling plans, crisis decision-making and crisis handling.

4. Definition of school crisis and school crisis management.

From the point of view of school management, school crisis mainly refers to an event that suddenly breaks out inside and outside the school without warning, which may seriously threaten the normal education and teaching order of the school and may bring other adverse consequences. This situation forces school leaders to make decisions in a short time and take action quickly to minimize the disaster. Generally speaking, school crisis includes casualties of students and teachers. It also includes events that have a destructive threat to all students, all teachers, students and staff, and school facilities, such as natural disasters, fire campus sexual assault, sexual violence, etc. Of course, it also includes the development crisis of the school, such as financial crisis, personnel crisis and student crisis.

According to the above conclusions, the author thinks that school crisis management refers to the strategic coping process of school administrators to prevent, deal with and recover school crisis according to the school crisis management system and plan. It emphasizes three aspects of the crisis:

(1) Personal crisis events: life-threatening or life-threatening events, such as injuries caused by earthquake, flood, typhoon, fire, building collapse, social unrest, poisoning, school violence, and outbreak of infectious diseases.

(2) Credibility crisis: events that have a negative impact on the image and reputation of teachers, students or schools, such as teachers' corporal punishment and corporal punishment in disguised form, serious personality insult, decline in the quality of running schools, and teachers' extraordinary paid tutoring for students and parents;

(3) School development crisis: such as funds, teachers, students, etc.

Some of these crises are sudden, but others are gradual. From the perspective of school management, these incidents all belong to the category of school crisis management.

Second, the causes of school crisis and the classification of the consequences of the crisis

(A) the causes of the school crisis

Changes in the internal environment, such as accidents related to management, teaching or learning, including student suicide, sudden changes in administrative personnel and drastic changes in management mode, will directly affect the operation of the school; On the other hand, external factors such as political, economic and social changes, changes in national and local education policies and systems will directly or indirectly threaten the success or failure of school development. Faced with these factors from the external and internal environment, if the members of the school organization can classify and explore the causes of the crisis, it should help to control and manage the crisis. After synthesizing the literature of scholars at home and abroad, the author divides the sources of school crisis into the following five categories:

1. Physical causes: crises caused by changes in the physical nature, situation and state of school facilities or the nearby environment. For example, the aging of gas pipelines, the failure of ventilation facilities, the cracking of school walls and the collapse of basketball courts will all lead to accidents or personal injuries. Whether it is natural disasters or human negligence, some dangerous factors in the physical environment can be controlled and some can be avoided.

2. Physical and mental reasons: Some members of the school have potential physical or psychological reasons, such as congenital heart disease, AIDS, mental illness, various infectious diseases or other emotional distress. Once they get sick at school, they may cause personal or collective casualties, and even attract misunderstandings and accusations from the outside world, causing damage to the school as a whole.

3. Situational reasons: the crisis caused by realistic situational factors. For example, the population of the school district to which the school belongs is aging, and the number of school-age children is decreasing. If you don't make preparations early, the school may shrink classes because of the low enrollment rate, which may eventually lead to the closure of the school. For another example, the public security environment in the community where the school is located is not good, and students and teachers are more vulnerable to harassment and threats, and even casualties; Students and teachers are also more likely to break the law and affect the reputation of the school.

4. Moral reasons: the behavior of school members involves events that violate moral norms, resulting in damage to the school. Generally speaking, public opinion will think that education is a sacred job with a long way to go, and teachers are "the most glorious profession under the sun", so teachers will be required to have higher professional ethics. Teachers who violate their duties, lack morality, and are suspected of cheating or harming the interests of others will cause emotional or psychological harm to school members, and then lose respect and trust in the school, and even lead to a crisis of credibility or confidence. If the incident involves legal responsibility, the school and individual members must pay civil or criminal legal fees.

5. Causes of management confusion: teachers' lax awareness of observing school discipline and rules, or low morale in stages, are prone to negligence and procrastination, which may easily lead to various accidents in schools. For example, when teachers lead students' activities (such as organizing students' spring (autumn) tours), they only care about talking to each other or playing by themselves, but forget to take care of students' safety, resulting in students' accidental injuries; Another example is that after an accidental injury accident happened to a student in physical education class, the physical education teacher and the school doctor shirked each other, which led to the loss of the best treatment opportunity for the student, thus affecting the reputation of the school.

(B) the classification of the consequences of school crisis

The possible consequences of the school crisis. Whether the school's physical condition changes adversely, members have potential physical and mental reasons, and their situation is getting worse and worse, or members neglect their duties, or even violate morality and ethics, involving legal responsibilities, which will bring various forms of school crisis and cause different degrees of crisis consequences, which can be divided into the following categories:

1, personal injury: including physical injury, harm to health, even lifelong disability, loss of life and other possible situations.

2. Material loss: direct loss of members' property, or damage to the substantial interests or facilities of the school. If the school reduces classes, it may affect the promotion and salary increase opportunities of some teachers, or even lose their original posts; Another example is the collapse of school buildings and the loss of facilities and instruments, which leads to the damage of the material interests of the school; The school was sued for compensation, so it lost its assets.

3. Liability: including responsibility for personal injury or property loss. The responsibility mentioned here includes direct or indirect legal responsibility, economic responsibility and moral responsibility. For example, if students are injured in school activities, the school may have to bear multiple responsibilities.

4. Reputation damage: This includes group reputation damage, personal reputation damage, school image damage and members' self-image damage.

5. Damage to education: After the school crisis, the relationship between school members may deteriorate, such as the lack of mutual trust between principals and teachers, teachers' inability to cooperate, students' anxiety, teachers' and students' anxiety, and parents' doubts about the school, which will more or less affect the school's education and cause damage to education.

Property loss, personal injury and liability for compensation can be divided into "objective damage" or "explicit damage", that is, the probability of occurrence and possible losses can be generally calculated. The "subjective damage" or "hidden damage" caused by school crisis, such as mental shock, loss of rights, damage to school reputation or deterioration of educational environment, is difficult to estimate and the most worrying part. Usually, the damage in this respect is caused by the imbalance of mental and psychological state of members in the face of crisis, and the unfortunate shadow is over-amplified. Mental or spiritual injury is difficult to prevent and remedy. In the event of an accident in a school, "loss of objectivity" is inevitable; After being exaggerated by different people or media at home and abroad, putting pressure on the parties will have the effect of expanding "subjective damage". And "objective damage" and "subjective damage" often have the effect of addition or multiplication, pushing the crisis to a more difficult situation to understand and control.

Third, the management of school crisis.

1, school crisis management focuses on prevention.

Michael Regster, a famous American crisis management expert, once said: "Prevention is the best way to solve the crisis." This profoundly reveals the most basic principle of crisis management: "prevention first".

The broken glass window of a residential building, if not repaired in time, is a signal: that is, no one cares whether the glass is intact, so more glass will be broken-this is the famous "broken window" theory. Linking it with the development of the school, for a school, how to keep a high degree of vigilance against the first broken or possibly broken glass window, from "a leaf falling, knowing that the years will pass", to "detect a series of crisis events that may adversely affect the development of the school before they sprout and stop at the hair".

Crisis prevention plays an important role in the whole school crisis management, such as cultivating and strengthening the sense of urgency of school members, reducing the probability of crisis, eliminating the crisis as soon as possible and improving the level of crisis handling.

China has attached importance to crisis prevention since ancient times. In the profound ancient culture of China, he discussed crisis management with dialectical thoughts. For example, "survive without forgetting death, be safe without forgetting danger, and rule without forgetting chaos"; "If you want to be dangerous, you will be safe; If you want to mess up, you will be cured; Thinking of death is survival ",which emphasizes the idea of" being prepared for danger in times of peace ". Another example is "think about the sun for a long time, don't wait to think about it all the time", emphasizing the idea of "being ready at all times and getting everything ready". For another example, "all major events start with small things", "listen to the invisible", and emphasize the idea of taking precautions, putting prevention first, and "preventing major crises from minor crises". Sun Tzu's art of war pays special attention to crisis prevention. "The Art of War" points out that "the temple is the winner before the war, which is excessive; If the temple did not win before the war, it would be too little. " In fact, the success of the temple is to "be in an invincible position first" and "be in an invincible position", and make all preparations first. According to the modern crisis management theory, the plan comes first, and the school should have a set of crisis handling plan, which can run automatically in an emergency to avoid the spread of the crisis.

Under the guidance of his aides and sinologists, former US President Kennedy gave a philosophical explanation to the concept of "crisis". He said that the word "crisis" in Chinese has two meanings: the former word means "danger" and the latter word means "opportunity". Crisis and opportunity are worlds apart. This shows that the essence of the crisis is dual. Crisis is organic, and danger always coexists with opportunity. Moreover, crisis and crisis can be transformed into each other, and crisis is the watershed of deterioration and transformation. In other words, the crisis can be prevented and controlled, and school crisis management is a series of proactive actions to prevent and transform the crisis, maintain the normal operation of the school, get rid of adversity, avoid or reduce losses, and turn the crisis into a turning point.

We have always advocated making the school a garden for students to study happily and providing them with comprehensive quality education. However, what is more basic than students' happiness and quality is "health" and what is more basic than health is "safety". SARS makes us clearly realize the importance of health, and reminds us that our school is not a completely safe place. Not to mention serious social disasters such as major epidemics, earthquakes, fires and chaos will threaten the health and life of schools. As far as the school's daily education and teaching activities are concerned, there are also many unsafe factors: students may be injured when they go to physical education class; When students eat lunch, large-scale food poisoning may occur; Organizing students to travel in spring (autumn) may lead to slipping and casualties; Damage or collapse of campus building facilities may cause school personnel casualties; Accidents such as electric leakage and running water can also cause school personnel casualties. Therefore, the establishment of school crisis management mechanism is by no means a timely and timely measure, but an indispensable basic link in school management mechanism.

2. The basic principles of school crisis management

The author believes that the following basic principles should be followed in school crisis management.

(1) The first principle of life safety. The core idea of school crisis management is to protect and ensure the safety of students' lives, which is the embodiment of "people-oriented" educational concept in disaster prevention affairs and the basic idea of dealing with school emergencies in all countries of the world. Putting life safety in the first place in crisis management actually shows the basic goal of school crisis management-protecting the life safety of teachers and students. This principle requires the elimination of the customary concepts and practices of encouraging students to "forget themselves" into dangerous situations in times of crisis, so as to ensure that students are in a safe position as much as possible in the crisis.

(2) The principle of quick response. After the crisis, we must respond quickly, take effective and positive measures immediately, and never hide or delay the opportunity.

(3) the principle of coordination. After the crisis, it is necessary for superiors and subordinates to communicate in time, support and encourage each other, work together with one heart and one mind, help each other in the same boat and maintain coordination.

(4) the principle of interest. The handling of crisis events must follow the decision-making principle of "maximizing the benefits and minimizing the disadvantages", and strive to reduce all kinds of losses and even turn harm into benefit.

(5) the principle of transparency. First of all, leaders should have honest moral cultivation and treat each other with sincerity. Let all members know the truth of the incident, avoid hiding the truth and shirk their responsibilities.

3. The basic steps of school crisis management

In the process of managing a series of major events, crisis management is often divided into four main stages: crisis prevention and control, crisis handling, crisis summary and crisis recovery management.

(1) Crisis prevention and control stage

In ancient times, someone wrote a pair, "Moving the chimney is the worst policy, and it is the guest of honor", which means that there is a family in the countryside who cooks with a big stove. They often put firewood next to the stove, thinking it is more convenient, but sparks often spill from the chimney and burn the firewood next to the stove, so they often have to ask their neighbors to help put out the fire. A man suggested to the host that if the chimney could bend and the firewood moved away, Mars would not light the firewood. However, the owner of this family not only refused to accept this suggestion, but also felt that others were meddling, so he invited people to put out the fire every time and entertained the firefighters with good wine and food every time. The moral of this story is that people often care about how to deal with problems after they happen, but are indifferent to the prevention in the early stage.

Therefore, the focus of crisis prevention and crisis management should be pre-crisis prevention, not post-crisis treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a standardized and comprehensive crisis management early warning system.

A. Establish an internal crisis management team. The crisis management team is mainly responsible for formulating crisis management and handling plans and procedures. Its members should include the principal's office, the guidance office, the political and educational office, the general affairs office and other school functional departments, teachers of various professions, parents of students, and preferably professionals in law, crime prevention and public relations. When making crisis handling procedures, we must pay attention to the notice of crisis appointment system, immediately call relevant personnel to understand the whole story of the crisis, determine the public relations target of the crisis, analyze the impact of the crisis, decide the crisis handling method, agree on the content, timing and method of speaking to the outside world, assign the work that crisis handlers are responsible for, and implement the crisis handling feedback system. And pay close attention to the dynamics of crisis management, so that everything in crisis management can be handled in a stable process until it is properly handled.

B, strengthen the sense of crisis, observe and find the precursors of crisis, and analyze and predict the crisis situation. The precursors of the crisis are mainly manifested in the following aspects: management behavior, distrust of subordinates, strong doubts and stubborn opinions, which make employees unable to exert their abilities, refuse to listen to their suggestions and go their own way; In terms of business strategy, the plan is not thorough, and there is no ability to cope with environmental changes or policy adjustments. Internal management, such as employees' nervous mood, work plan adjustment, employees' depressed mood, non-compliance with rules and regulations, etc. In terms of finance, such as the rapid increase in expenditure or the slow update of technical equipment, the teaching staff are dissatisfied with their salaries for a long time.

C, the school should see through the crisis in the school from the crisis symptoms, and attach great importance to it, and make a scientific and thorough crisis emergency plan in advance.

Crisis management education and training. It is also necessary to carry out the study of coping knowledge and the training of teachers and students' protective skills in daily educational activities. Regular simulation training can not only improve the quick response ability of the crisis management team and strengthen the crisis management consciousness, but also test whether the formulated crisis emergency plan is substantial and feasible.

(2) Crisis management stage

After the crisis, all parties concerned should calm down and take effective measures to deal with the crisis. Don't let the situation continue to spread, quickly find out the cause of the crisis and resolve it.

A. Start the crisis emergency plan as soon as possible. If the initial response lags behind, it will cause the spread and expansion of the crisis.

B, in order to obtain long-term benefits, schools should pay more attention to the interests of victims rather than just the short-term interests of schools when controlling the crisis. We should put the interests of the victims first, be kind to the victims and try our best to make up for the losses of the victims affected by the crisis, which is conducive to maintaining the image of the school.

C, improvise. Due to the sudden change and urgency of the crisis situation, although the emergency plan for the crisis has been formulated in advance, due to the unpredictability of the crisis, any preventive measures cannot be foolproof. When dealing with the crisis, we should modify and enrich the crisis handling countermeasures at any time according to specific problems.

(3) the summary stage of the crisis

Crisis summary is an important part of the whole crisis management, and the huge losses caused by the crisis will bring necessary lessons to the organization. Therefore, a serious and systematic summary of crisis management can not be ignored. Crisis summary can generally be divided into three steps:

A. investigation. Conduct a systematic investigation on the causes of the crisis and all relevant prevention and treatment measures.

B. evaluation. Comprehensive evaluation of crisis management, including the organization and work content of early warning system, crisis emergency plan, crisis decision-making and handling methods, and detailed listing of various problems existing in crisis management.

C. rectification. Comprehensively classify the problems existing in crisis management, put forward rectification measures respectively, and instruct relevant departments to implement them item by item, and at the same time be good at absorbing the experiences and lessons of other schools.

(4) Crisis recovery management stage

In fact, the crisis recovery work has already started as early as the crisis comes, but in the initial stage of crisis management, it is urgent to end the crisis directly, and the crisis recovery management is not the focus of the work. However, with the deepening of crisis management and the end of the crisis, the importance of crisis recovery has gradually emerged. First of all, crisis recovery is a necessary condition to maintain the existence of schools and individuals and move towards convention. Crises always bring some damage. Although the crisis can be overcome, it is also an urgent problem for schools or individuals who have experienced the impact of the crisis to transfer to the pre-crisis state. The main purpose of crisis recovery management is to restore the crisis subject to the pre-crisis state. Secondly, crisis recovery management is the premise for schools or individuals to gain new development.

Crisis recovery is an important part of school crisis management, and crisis events can always bring certain tangible or intangible damage and harm to schools. Crisis recovery plays a role in cleaning up the aftermath. Performing your duties well can not only minimize the possible damaging consequences of the crisis, but also provide an opportunity for the new round of development of the school.

Conclusion:

In addition to negative consequences, the school crisis may also have positive consequences. The so-called "fortunes depend on each other", "danger is organic" and "life is sorrow; The old saying "die in peace" is a positive situation to describe the crisis. The significance includes: because of the crisis, school members may be more United than before; Therefore, members have cultivated a sense of hardship; Opportunities for members to accept challenges and exercise; Self-confidence is built by overcoming the crisis; Through the crisis, other potential long-standing problems have been solved, and so on. From this perspective, if we can grasp the development of the crisis and manage it properly, it will also play a positive role in the growth and development of the school.

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