Dear Alex: As a faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership
(a MS program preparing school administrators for liscensure) I have done
some work with school administrators and teachers on this topic. The work
takes the form of consulting, workshops, and deprtmental seminars. Had fun
last summer using the Fieldbook. Had 50 teachers in a seminar on the topic
and had each develop a staff development activity in each of the four core
disciplines ( didn't do systems thinking). Used a common format and then
duplicated the results for each teacher. Thus they left the seminar with
and understanding of the core disciplines and about 200 staff development
activities to consider for use in their paricular buildings or districts.
Have also used the beer game with some administrators as a training tool.
Need to be really be up on the debrief. Going tdo Taiwan in March to work
with some educators on this topic as well. kWill be real curiuos regarding
their reactions and thoughts.
Couple of reactions - Personal aspiration is a topic rarely addressed in
schools. They "don't have time" for such stuff. Shared vision is not
addressed enough for the same reasons. Most schools are looking for a
quick fix to some event or crisis that has arisen and are less concerned
about long term organizational growth and learning. I put together a six
module staff devlopment program and find that the organizational change
and transition module and the team learning module are the most in demand.
Systems thinking mod and aspiration mods are less in demand. I suppose
from an optimistic viewpoint, one might suggest that most school staffs
function fairly well at what they doing even though the structure inhibits
them from engaging in some fundamental change.
Well, enough of this rambling. Any thoughts you have in return would be
appreciated!! Have a great holiday season!!
--"Vander Wilt, Bob" <bob_vander_wilt@ms1.mankato.msus.edu>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>