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You
are here: Breathing Life Into Our Schools
by Jason Kerber
Creating sustainable, self-renewing change in our schools and school systems will require a fundamental shift in our current ways of thinking. The most common routine in our efforts at transforming organizational culture is to simply "download" new programs and new "ways of doing things" into an existing structure. Systemic change will require a fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about the work we do in our schools. In this paper, I describe one potential area of fundamental shift that largely has been overlooked. My guiding question is: How would our schools be different for children, and the adults who work in them, if our school structures reflected a better balance between "masculine" and "feminine" forms of organization? While women have increasingly participated in leadership roles in the organizational life of schools and school districts over the past several decades, the original structures were established before women played a role in leadership. My argument is that a better balance between these two aspects would create more collaborative and creative work environments, healthier organizational structures, and better learning environments for boys and girls in our schools.
A group associated with the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Women Leading Sustainability comprised primarily of women business executives, posed a simple question to inform their work: Is it possible that those who were excluded from the original design of organizational structures could offer input for the redesign of more sustainable organizational forms for future generations? Hilary Bradbury (2003), Professor of Business at Case Western Reserve University, describes how the conversations of the Women Leading Sustainability group generated seven statements that articulated recurring themes:
1. My work to promote sustainable development is service, a calling (not ordinary work).
2. My children, my own childhood, and family in general are the most potent points of connection in motivating me to engage with this work.
3. Generating a community of co-contributors is crucial to making sustainability a reality (in organizations or institutions).
4. It is crucial that I bring, and allow others to bring, mind and heart to work on those issues.
5. I seek to consciously integrate the "techno-knowledge," "business knowledge," and "people knowledge" in this work.
6. I am particularly open to and informed by non-traditional, interdisciplinary, more intuitive "ways of knowing" when I approach this work, especially in efforts to understand interdependence. Whole systems thinking, shamanism, and tribal patterns are examples of useful approaches.
7. I place a great deal of importance on generating productive encounters to enhance this work, for example, listening deeply or asking transformational questions. (p. 68)The women of this group organize their conversations around the question of creating sustainable culture in business organizations; however, I believe they describe an excellent orientation for how we could think about our work together in improving our schools. Through their emphasis on the importance of co-contribution, interdependence, intuition, family, the heart and community, I would describe their summary as a feminine approach to organizational culture. The prevailing model of organizational structure in our schools, in contrast, fosters an environment that externalizes problems, over emphasizes regulation and standardization, creates disconnected "islands of solutions," forces decision-making and approaches transformation as a "mission to be conquered." All of these approaches are more masculine forms of approaching organizational culture that have come to dominate and, so long as they are not balanced by the feminine, will continue to perpetuate themselves in unhealthy ways in our systems.
Balancing Masculine and Feminine
Men and women embody elements of both masculine and feminine, although most men operate more from a place of agency and independence while most women tend to begin from a place of relatedness, responsiveness, and connection. A healthy man or a woman would embody a good balance between both elements of masculine and feminine; even if one's primary orientation is from one or the other. My argument centers not on individuals, but rather the way in which the organizational cultures in most schools and school systems primarily reflect a masculine orientation, with an emphasis on rules, competition, scarcity, agency, and individualism. I believe that this form is unhealthy, not because the masculine is inherently pathological or because any one of these elements is in and of itself wrong, but because any system that reflects only one aspect of expression is by nature going to be unbalanced. It is not that individual men or women need to become more or less masculine or feminine in how they relate in their organizations (although people would evolve with more balance), but rather that we need to organize our work environments and how we relate to each other to better reflect an integration of masculine and feminine elements. By breathing more feminine into the cultures of our organizations, in addition, I believe we will see healthier masculine forms of influence emerge. What, then, would a more balanced system of organizational life look and feel like?
The masculine, agency-oriented way to approach problems, relationships, and work as "challenges to overcome," needs to be balanced with a more feminine emphasis on connectedness and relationship. "That there is a specific 'gendered' way of approaching issues of sustainability [organizational structure], is, of course, an oversimplification. We believe the issue is not so much about men's or women's approach to organizational life as much as it is about different aspirations for using executive power. There is power over others or relationships of interdependence. Women have traditionally chosen the latter." (Bradbury, p. 69) Ethical modes of inquiry and the normative structures that inform how institutions are formed, draw largely from a masculine emphasis on rights, justice, and rules. Nel Noddings writes how women, "when faced with a hypothetical moral dilemma, ask for more information. Ideally, we need to talk to the participants, to see their eyes and facial expressions, to receive what they are feeling. Moral decisions are, after all, made in real situations; they are qualitatively different from the solution of geometry problem." (Noddings, 1984, p. 2-3) As I will suggest later, we need to shift our meetings, retreats, and organizational planning time to include the faces and lives of the children we are serving, especially during those times that we are making decisions about their futures.
Most school cultures and school systems reflect an imbalance toward rules and regulations. While Noddings suggests we need to adopt caring as our central metaphor for how we relate in our schools, I believe that we need an equal portion of rights and responsibility. For example, one critique of the staff at many elementary schools is that the culture is too "touchy-feely" and that decisions come slowly because of endless discussions. This reflects an unhealthy (or imbalanced) emphasis on feminine qualities at the expense of purpose, vision and direction (more masculine qualities). In this context, a healthy expression of masculine and feminine in a school would be a work environment that is collaborative, co-creating, and connection building while following a clear mission and purpose. Similarly, the school culture would be caring and responsible with clear expectations and consequences for students.
Simply bringing women into positions of leadership does not ensure that we cultivate a culture that is reflective of feminine aspects of caring and compassion with an emphasis on interconnected relationships. It will take both women and men working together to cultivate and nurture a more balanced system. Parker Palmer's (2004) work with teachers and leaders is one path to restoring balance and wholeness to the work we do together in our schools. In A Hidden Wholeness, he describes how "a small circle [of people] of limited duration that is intentional about it's process will have a deeper, more life-giving impact than a large on-going community that is shaped by the norms of conventional culture" (p. 75). One way to understand "conventional culture" is in terms of balance (or a lack of balance) between individualism and community. Our organizational structures, when they are organized around control and solutions, are not an expression of a balance (or of a healthy masculine.) We know how, as men and women in our work environments (and as boys and girls when in school), we have all spent much of our lives in institutions that force us to be someone we are not. When we have to continually manage appearances, we are not able to make ourselves vulnerable, relate to each other honestly, and open to each other in genuine dialogue. Restoring wholeness to our institutions will require us to open ourselves, speak about the unspeakables, and listen to what arises in the context of our collaborative, group interactions.
Deep Listening, Learning Communities and Children
The masculine emphasis on decision-making is important; however, every time we get together does not need to be an occasion to make a decision. Learning together should be as important an element when leaders get together as decision-making. Cultivating the practice of suspending judgment is difficult because our organizational "DNA" has hard-wired decision-making into the very function of meetings. Even if a formal decision is not made, most often everyone has staked out their territory and already made up their mind. Instead of always moving toward certainty, Palmer encourages us to rest in a "place of uncertainty." He calls this "standing in the tragic gap," requiring us to hold "the tension between the reality of the moment and the possibility that something better might emerge" (p.175). Sometimes when we are deadlocked about what to do, it may mean that we are at the point that something else (besides what is on the table) is seeking to emerge. If we rush to make a decision and are not listening, we may be missing the more successful solution. Our certainty and confidence in making a decision is not necessarily an indication of our correctness, but may be an indication of our premature excitement to get to a "solution." Increasingly, schools and school districts are seeing the need for creating "schools that learn" by fostering learning communities among teachers, school leaders, parents, and students. Margaret Wheatley's (1998) work with creating stronger communities extends the metaphor of nature into how we relate in human society by emphasizing the necessary, healthy balance between individualism (agency and masculine) and community (relationship and feminine):
"Life takes form as individual beings that immediately reach out to create systems of relationships. These individuals and systems arise from two seemingly conflicting forces: the absolute need for individual freedom and the unequivocal need for relationships. In human society, we struggle with the tension between these two forces. But in nature, successful examples of this paradox abound and reveal surprising treasures of insight. It is possible to create resilient and adaptive communities that welcome our diversity as well as our membership" (p. 8-9).
Wheatley emphasizes the importance of sustaining the paradox between autonomy and relationship as we seek to transform our systems. Co-created processes and systems arising from organizational community collaboration provide "a level of stability and protection that was not available when individuals were isolated. And new capacities emerge in individuals and the system overall" (p. 12) "Schools that learn" will transform only if they are relating in web-like structures and staff are co-creating knowledge, building patterns of recognition, and making connections that they could not have made alone. Correlatively, new knowledge gained through collaboration needs time to percolate and maturate in the life of the teacher as an individual. Our organizations, our schools, and our communities are healthier both for individuals and for the whole when we balance the variety of ways we relate to each other. Another suggestion that arose in the Women Leading Sustainability group concerns involving children into organizational design work. One participant commented:
Who better to be the stakeholders in our effort to design organizations for our children's children? Wouldn't it be terrific to let leaders meet with the children of all their stakeholders - the older kids or teens, children of customers, suppliers and neighbors? They could talk with the business leaders about the company so they could develop an understanding. The leaders would get some input to their strategy and visioning process. There would be tremendous learning all around. (Bradbury, 2003, p. 67)
We need to creatively build ways into our system for children to participate. There are many possibilities, including children's forums for decision-making, children participating in professional development (although not simply as "research subjects"), and children's presence at school board meetings as participants and observers. If children are not able to be present, large visual posters of children could be placed around the room creating an environment that provides a visual connection to our work. Also, music featuring children or a multimedia presentation with a child-focus theme at the beginning of a meeting, would all be ways to bring children's voices into contexts that have traditionally been forums more reflective of "adult needs." Making decisions or beginning critical dialogue disconnected from the very source and purpose of our work creates a culture of separation not connectedness. I think much of our inability to overcome the achievement gap between whites and students of color centers less on a lack of resources but more on the depth and character of our shared will. I believe that a blind spot in educational leadership is reflected in our use of rhetoric like "attack the gap" and other ways to refer to our urgent efforts to close the achievement gap. Furthermore, language such as "driving change" and "re-engineering" all connotate an intention to do something to people rather than to do something with people. This rhetoric is an indication of our shared resolve, however, real change will not come through our words and our programs alone, but through our ability to engage our "deeper will" for change. While much of this rhetoric is a product of our mechanistic, industrial-era model of school organization and education "delivery" (which is itself an over-masculinized way to organize experience), it is more an expression of a lack of balance between masculine and feminine. So long as we see our problems as "challenges out there" to be overcome, and "conquered," as opposed to a reality that we are all co-creators in shaping, we will continue to move the playing pieces around on the board instead of fundamentally changing the rules of the game.
Seeing With "New Eyes"
Peter Senge describes how "opening our minds ultimately means opening our hearts. The heart has come to be associated with muddled thinking and personal weakness, hardly attributes of effective decision makers. But this was not always so.The path forward is about becoming more human, not just more clever. It is about transcending our fears of vulnerability, not finding new ways of protecting ourselves.it is about rediscovering our courage - literally cuer age [French root], the rending of the heart" (Kahane, 2004, p. viii) I think the more we (both men and women) embrace feminine qualities of communion, relationship, heart, and connection in our school organizations, the more will we see a restoration of wholeness necessary to better serve all children. The energy and vitality of the feminine should not need permission to flow in the life of our organizations. We know that in the context of our larger society, if we do not address the gap between our technology (intellect) and our wisdom (our heart and head connected), we may reach an unbridgeable chasm. The gap between the haves and have-nots is growing, our natural environment is suffering, and political unrest is increasing. New advances in new technology alone will not save the ever-widening gap in these life-sustaining areas. A wonderful Native American saying expresses the long, necessary struggle we embark on as we seek to connect our intellect with our wisdom: The longest road you will ever walk is the sacred journey between your head and your heart. Taking the first step with our children is the most powerful way we can begin this journey to our shared future.
References
Bradbury, H. (2003). Webs not Kevlar: Designing sustainable organizations. Reflections: The Society for Organizational Learning Journal, 68.
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving tough problems. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education, 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
Palmer, P. (2003). A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wheatley, M. (1998). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Jason Kerber is currently a student in the Danforth Educational Leadership Program at the University of Washington. He received his B. A. and M. A. in Comparative Religion and Ethics, and served as a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology, and the Arts at The University of Glasgow in Scotland. He worked as a social worker in Chicago and, most recently, as a 5th grade teacher in the Seattle Public Schools.
Contact Jason at jkerber@u.washington.edu
©January 2006 New Horizons for Learning
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