[OSList] FW: ost in school change?

[Michael Herman]

a bit more here, raffi... cuz it seems that there are so many different
angles to this, the school org type, the turnaround situation, the dimension
of involving the students.  it's easy to get caught in a sort of shell
game.  bring the school stories and they say 'yes, but what about in
turnarounds.'  and you bring the other stories, and they say 'yes, but what
about...'  and then some well-intentioned body says something about
including students and it goes all 'round again.

and i only mention it because in the document i'd pointed to earlier, you'll
find the rankings of the 70 issues raised in a 3-evening meeting.  and to
everyone's surprise, the #1 issue/priority in the voting and action planning
was parental responsibility.  i guess the other bit in that report are the
news reports, which were not gushing, but most importantly were not bashing,
either.

there may be other stories out there that work better, but i think you might
avoid the shell game altogether if you were able to go in and say "there are
hundreds and hundreds of school, turnover, students-involved,
students-non-involved in open space stories out there.  and none of them is
going to be exactly like this one nor prove that it will work here.  but
here is one story where a whole community was invited and nobody died... in
fact the parents said "we must do more, before we ask any more of the
schools."  and the media looked at the whole processs and said "not bad!"

as i say, you can do that with the one story that's i pointed to, cuz it has
all the details of sessions and notes and voting and such.  there certainly
are others out there.  i'm not recommending my story as much as a one-story
approach.  i'd want to go in with one really good story, let them roll
around in the details of what happened, try to show that it's possible for
the thing to work out quite well, basically shifting from the detail of
imagined dangers to the detail of the one event, so you don't get hung up in
'what if this and what if that...' and 'show us a story where this monster
was slayed... ' and 'how about one where this impossible danger was
avoided...' and so on.

the context, btw, was early 2002 when everybody ran out of money after 911
and the peoria school system was failing by the state's measures... and this
is home to caterpillar inc headquarters.  people were saying out loud that
if we don't save the schools, cat will leave, and then they'll close the
factories here... and our town of 100K people will disappear.  so it was a
pretty big moment.

good luck!

m


--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://ManorNeighbors.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org





On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

>
>
> Raffi – You might check out the Haitian experience. It isn’t a school turn
> around – more like a system wide effort. However for examples of OS in Hairy
> situations, educational and otherwise – those folks go to the top of my
> list. Also, our friend Michael Pannwitz (where are you Michael?) should have
> basket full. As I recall most of his early Open Spaces were with schools. He
> did all of that so long ago that some of his (elementary) school
> participants are now doing lots of Open Space. What goes around comes
> around.
>
>
>
> Harrison
>
>
>
> Harrison Owen
>
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
>
> Potomac, MD 20854
>
> USA
>
> Phone 301-365-2093
>
> www.openspaceworld.com
>
> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
>
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>
> *From:* oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:
> oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Raffi Aftandelian
> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 26, 2011 12:39 PM
> *To:* OSlist
> *Subject:* [OSList] ost in school change?
>
>
>
> friends,
>
> can you point me to any examples of OST being used to turn a school around,
> a schoolwide OST?
>
> I'm sure there are examples in the archives, and will be sure to sift
> through them.
>
> (if the names of particular places, facilitators who held the space for
> those events that may be in the archives come to mind, do point those out if
> you can, it'd make the task of searching the archives easier.
>
> I have a meeting with a principal tomorrow of a large inner-city school
> here in San Diego, and it would be great to cite some examples of ost being
> used for school "change," if he should ask.
>
> Of course, I know that one can cite examples until one is blue in the face,
> but i think offering those examples- if they are requested- does offer some
> level of reassurance (whatever that means!).
>
> thanks much!
> appreciatively,
> raffi
> san diego
>
>
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