Open Space in a private school and schools in general

Thu Oct 2 10:34:03 PDT 2008

Dear Eddie, Harrison, Michael, Gerard and Michael!

Thank you so much for your support and resourceful letters!
I will look at the archives and might ask more specific questions when I get to that point!

Have a great autumn!

Nataly Marchuk

Independent Associate

Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.

Home office: (408) 749-0936

Mobile phone: (408) 420-0095

www.femida-network.com

--- On Thu, 10/2/08, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org> wrote:
From: Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org>
Subject: Open Space in a private school and schools in general
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008, 1:20 AM

Hi, all of you interested in os in schools,
since 1997, I have been involved with 32 open space events in education, 
20 of them in schools (after-school-day care, elementary school, all 
varieties of the various highschools in the German system, special 
schools)and, as everyone seems to be reporting, they always worked just 
fine.
Especially when the kids or students were involved, and even more so 
when there were planning groups with kids or students (defining the 
title, exchanging on the expectations for the event and discussing who 
all needs to be invited) and very much so, when there were next meetings 
in the schools keeping track of the projects started in the action 
planning of the open space event.
You can see all these events at
> http://www.openspaceworldscape.org/

(click on my name, "Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg" in the
"select Open 
Space facilitator" search window and combine it with the field 
"education" in the "select field/sector" search
window...that gives you 
32 events, when you chose "schools" in the "select
field/sector" window, 
it narrows it down to 20...there is quite a bit of detail on title, 
sponsor, length of event, number of participants, venue, team, etc....)
(if you search the data base just by field/sector regardless of who 
facilitated the event you get about double the entries...this, of 
course, is only a tiny fraction of events that have taken place 
worldwide over the last 20+ years...and if you have any, you are invited 
to include them in the data base so we all and the world can see the 
vast variety of what has been happening with open space all over)

What I have not seen in my practice is the introduction of ost into the 
classroom itself. This has loads of reasons in "traditional" schools 
(who is the facilitator? who is the sponsor? what about voluntary 
selfselection? etc.)...there are, however, many other schools (a very 
small percentage of all schools in Germany) that look very much like 
"open space schools" and those kinds of schools have been around for
a 
long time (two days ago there was a documentary on German TV on a school 
in Weimar that has weekly gatherings in a circle (morning circle) to 
plan the weekly program (bulletin board) and then the students decide 
what they want to do at what time (market)...there is a plan, however, 
what needs to be covered in that week, but how it is covered seems to be 
selforganized and the teachers call themselves facilitators and there 
are no "traditional" class rooms but many spaces (break out places) 
where differently large groups of students meet, mixed age.

The os way of operating, however, has entered a number of aspects of 
some of the schools I have worked in. The student representatives in one 
highschool convened their weekly 2-hour gatherings in open space. The 
work on the future of schools or the quality of "living and learning"

including not only parents, students and teachers but also neighbors, 
teachers from schools the students came from (in Germany kids in the 
public school system typically attend elementary school for 4 or 6 years 
depending in which state they live in and then continue into highschools 
of which there are up to 4 varieties again according to the state you 
live in)and schools, universities or training situations (companies)and 
people involved in other aspects of the school landscape (teacher 
training, officials from the school administration, etc.)...getting 
pretty much the whole system into the room.

I was wondering who the initial contacts for an event in schools are, 
teachers? (sometimes in my experience) parents? (a couple of times), 
students (several times), principles (twice), people working in schools 
but not part of the school (several times)...and how they heard about 
it...this might give us some pointers on how to spread the word about os 
in schools and schoolsystems...after all, everyone passes through some 
kind of school so schools are a great place to get acquainted with open 
space.

Greetings from Berlin
mmp

Michael Wood wrote:
> Hi Nataly et al
>  
> 1. We ran an Open Space with a large Anglican boys school (100 year
> history) earlier in the year - about 90 people attended comprised
> roughly one third parents, one third students and one third staff
> (whoever comes are the right people and it just happened that this was
> the way it panned out). I don't have the exact wording of the theme to
> hand, but it was about building a diverse culture within the school. One
> day event. Very good feedback. One 12 year old (Year 6) student stepped
> right into the middle of the circle to convene a conversation on the
> school becoming co-ed!!
>  
> 2. I like your idea of an ongoing bulletin board for convening
> conversations and would suggest that this be done AFTER a major launch
> event, so that people have been introduced to an experience of OS
> principles and self organisation. The bulletin board system would be a
> way of experimenting with how to begin to embed OS principles in the
> daily life of the school. However, I think you also need to make a
> decision about whether you are using World Cafe or Open Space as they
> are rather different systems.
>  
> 3. I would certainly encourage you do the training with Lisa and maybe
> get an experienced person in for your launch events as schools
> (particularly staff) have, in my experience, lots of tradition of
> command and control thinking and OS is often quite challanging for them
> (however, it always works!)
>  
> Good luck - I reckon there are terrific possibilities for OS in schools
> - children respond to it particularly well.
>  
> Regards
> Michael Wood
> Perth, Western Australia
>  
>  
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of nata
> marchuk
> Sent: Wednesday, 1 October 2008 4:18 AM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Open Space in a private school
> 
> 
> Dear All!
> 
> I am in the process of thinking through a project of using OST in
> private school, my children go to. I was so inspired by the OS on OS
> conference in San Francisco this summer, so I could not stop thinking
> about this wonderful approach. Our school is small and relatively
> flexible, and we are looking for ways to  effectively communicate ideas,
> thoughts and concerns that any part of PTA may have. 
> 
> I see it happening in two formats: on-going bulletin board with topics
> that are interesting for people, providing available rooms for
> discussion and possible solutions generating on the weekly basis with a
> "World Cafe" rules. And a big school-wide OS conference 1 or 2
times a
> year with the help of the outside facilitators. Ideally (in future) I
> want our children to be able to use this tool for their ideas and
> concerns! 
> 
> Do any of you know or have an experience of OST working at schools? Can
> you please share any insights, warnings, ideas and/or support?
> 
> I am not a OST consultant/facilitator yet, although I am thinking of
> taking a class with Lisa Heft in SF, and I know that people without
> proper understanding/skill set can ruin not only one event but
> appreciation for the OST as a whole for that group. So any critiques is
> constructive for me, my goal is to learn, learn, learn!
> 
> Thank you in advance!
> 
> Warmly yours,
> 
> Nataly Marchuk
> Independent Associate
> Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
> Home office: (408) 749-0936
> Mobile phone: (408) 420-0095
> www.femida-network.com
> 
> 
> 	
> 
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