Gary Steele has gathered some interesting readings on the essential components of strong schools, which are posted on our Ideas and Documents page. Here's his summary and explanation of what you'll find there:
In the 70’s books like Future Shock and Mega Trends told us that in the future our culture – and indeed our world – would become less centrally organized. That local organization and decision making would become the focus, rather than large centralized bureaucracies. Well, the future is here, and you can read Dee Hock, Founder and President of Visa International talk about how his company did just that, and about how to manage from mission and purpose rather than top-down, command and control structures.
Then you might ask yourself : If we are to live into the Stelle(a)r mission of “…creating independent, courageous people capable of dealing with the shifting complexities of the modern world,” What kind of structures do we need to be modeling?
You may have heard Margaret Wheatley speak when the Foraker Group brought her to Anchorage a couple of years ago. Her article “Bringing Schools Back to Life” talks about the importance of shared mission and purpose in creating “living systems.” Most of our educational structures, she observes, are artificial systems because – like out district and neighborhood schools – they are based on geography rather than shared mission and values. Steller was founded on shared values. So read this and see if you don’t agree with our concern that if Steller is to continues as a “living” system – where people “weave together mutually sustaining relationships” rather than an “artificial” system, reaffirming the mission and core values is essential.
The excerpt from the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community discusses the important role schools play in building community and how they are essential to developing “social capital.” Anyone who lived through both the ’64 earthquake and the pipeline boom here in Anchorage will resonant with what these researchers are saying about the the importance of social capital and what happens when it is lost.
They also report on the research that indicates that the best schools are ones in which parents take an active role in both the classroom and school governance. This is corroborated by the report release in 1996 by the National Association of Secondary School Principals: Breaking Ranks: Changing and American Institution. This report identifies collaborative decision making, including a school council, as a cornerstone of strong schools - also a cornerstone of the founding of Steller. You can find the updated Breaking Ranks II report at: http://www.principals.org/
We hope you’ll find these thoughts about the “bigger picture” issues of a strong school, informative and thought provoking.
--Gary Steele
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3 comments:
I have been here at this school we call steller. The name it deserves, and this is all i have known from the first moment i walked in. And now for the sake of matching the other schools, we go on hearing that a certain group of people want to change all that? And for what, For old times sake? In my opinion, this is what i would call, "My way of thinking". The good old times (As they call them) are gone, changing something that i know and respect hits me where it hurts. I am a 7th grader, been here for only a semester! but i like it, almost like it was built on the grounds of freedom (Not to sound patriotic). Here is the steller i know, A flexible and respectable school that runs off the student body (In most cases anyway), signing up for your own classes, a wide variety of them also! and now this group of steller students who graduated here years ago (And some of the current students) Want to change all that? No, not today.
I think if you read our position paper, you'll find that the group that wants to renew Steller is in favor of MORE freedom, MORE flexibility, and LESS matching other schools. This isn't about bringing back the past, it is about living up to our own principles. For example, the Steller philosophy talks about students designing their own education. That's much more than choosing what classes to take. I'm glad you like Steller, but I believe it could be so much more if, for example, students actually helped design the classes rather than just choosing them. Don't be afraid of change. It's what education is all about.
I just commented for April (it's almost May now) but then I came back to read these PAST postings, and just had to comment about the Putnam reference.
His findings are FAR from controversial, Pippa Norris' work is a good place to start if one wants to read a little more about social capital... she's also a Harvard Professor.
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