[OSList] Current Success with OST in K-12?

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Jake,

I do not have experience with open space being employed in classrooms.

I do have a lot of memories of open space events that I facilitated in 
after school Kindergarten (6 to 11 year old kids), elementary school (in 
Berlin thats grade 1 through 6), high school (grade 7 to 13), vocational 
training schools (16 through 18 years old)... and in subsystems of these 
organisations (such as student representatives in highschool) and larger 
systems (project exchanges between schools from throughout Germany that 
attempted to have "Democratic Schools" (these were os events for 
professionals from schools and government departments) or "Schools 
without Racism"(this was for 50 elementary schools with 3 students from 
each school... a very joyous event with 150 kids that none of the 
educators watching it could believe).

Among those taking part in these various os events there was recurring 
interest of somehow working with os in the classroom. But I have no 
stories on what actually happend.
It seemed to me  that it would require some twisted ost approach (see 
the current discussion on this list).
However, I remember that the student body representatives in one 
highschool (Beethoven Oberschule in Berlin-Steglitz) decided to use ost 
for their weekly meetings. They selforganised  it and were overwhelmed 
by the productive fun they had.
Anna Carolina Türk (see World Map) was a student at Beethoven at that 
time and active in the student body... she could tell you a lot more on 
this story from her own experience. I will cc to her.

Checking on Chris Weaver of Evergreen Community Charter School in 
Asheville, NC (Birgitt pointed to his work) I also ran into a Book 
"Redesigning America's Schools, a systems approach to improvement" with 
a number of references to OST in schools, but not in classrooms. It 
seemed to me that Chris also wrote on this topic, could not find a 
reference, though.

I have heard of schools employing ost as a basic approach in their 
schools (in Israel) but have no sources. Maybe Tova would know about 
this (see Tova Averbuch in the World Map). I cc this to her.

I have also heard of using ost in graduate programmes where students and 
everyone else involved designed and implemented and ran graduate 
programmes (one University in Seattle if I remember correctly, Ann 
Stadler and Peggy Holman are likely to know more).

Even though I no longer work as a facilitator, I would love to hear of 
ost in the classroom with its challenges (non-voluntary attendance, 
teacher as facilitator, fairly homogeneous groups...).

Oh yes, there are a number of facilitator  colleagues in Germany with 
experience in school settings... for instance Christian Kemper in Bonn.

On reading through our email exchange (Chris and I) I found these notes 
from December 2015:

"I am on a writing retreat, close to publishing a book of a new school 
design, in which OST figures prominently.  Back to work!k"

and a little bit later, in January 2016, after I asked him to be put on 
the list of buyers:

" I'd be honored to share my work with you as soon as it is in a 
finished-ENOUGH form, which is maybe only a few short weeks away.  I am 
most interested to hear if the school design I propose, and the 
philosophy underlying it, makes sense to you, is useful, and suggests a 
potential German-language audience."

And a few days after that:

" the book deals some with the physical space, but that is only a very 
small part.  the word "design" in the title connotes the design of 
process and structures of interaction.  a lot of the book is devoted to 
more than 50 principles and the educational philosophy behind them....i 
need to keep in mind harrison's mantra about "one less thing"!

I wonder what happened to this project.

In "About the author" of his book "The Heart of the Canoe..."
it says: "Chris is the author of "Living School Design & Practice" (to 
be published early in 2017, which shares a comprehensive design for a 
new kind of school."

Anybody seen this book?

Greetings from Berlin
mmp


Checking for Books by Chris I found
Am 12.06.2019 um 01:12 schrieb Jake Yeager via OSList:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> My wife is a journalist who writes about education, and she is curious 
> if anyone is currently having success employing Open Space in K-12 
> classrooms.
> 
> Please let me know if you are and would be willing to speak with her.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> All the best,
> Jake
> ________________
> 
> When the mind is quiet, the sun of your heart will shine once again, and 
> you will be free of problems.
>   - Robert Adams <http://www.robert-adams.info/>
> 
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000
mmpannwitz at gmail.com


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