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Reframing the Dialogue aboutCommitted TeachingRichard F. BowmanPublished online: 30 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: Richard F. Bowman (2004) Reframing the Dialogue about CommittedTeaching, The Educational Forum, 68:1, 52-61, DOI: 10.1080/00131720308984603

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Reframing the Dialogueabout Committed Teaching

by Richard F. Bowman

Today, there is an undercurrent of un­ease regarding the growing number of newteachers who are exiting the profession inthe years immediately following their ini­tial licensure. Recent data suggested that"as many as 40 percent of beginning teach­ers resign during their first two years ofteaching" (Marlow, Inman, and Betancourt­Smith 1997, 211.) What is especially trouble­some, moreover, is that many of these sameteachers graduated from accreditedteacher-training institutions, essentially bydemonstrating the research-based "bundlesof attributes" and competencies chronicledin the Interstate New Teacher Assessmentand Support Consortium (INTASC) and theNational Council for Accredi ta tion ofTeacher Education (NCATE) standards.Presumably, these graduates exited theircollege and university teacher training pro­grams with a "wish list" of the attributesshared by successful teachers: innerstrengths (character), content expertise, andtechnical know-how. However, given thedisturbing attrition of young talent in theteaching profession, it seems both impor­tant and obvious that something has beeneither neglected or ignored in prevailingcommitted-teacher equations. In a word,it may be time to reframe the dialogue aboutcommi tted , effective teaching in ournation's P-12 schools.

The challenge that confronts anyoneentering into such a dialogue is how to bal-

ance the genuine respect that many practi­tioners have for the extensive scholarlywork on the standards of effective practicewith the gnawing sense that perhaps thatbody of work is neither sufficient nor com­plete in accounting for the growing loss ofnew teachers. At issue, then, is how toreframe the dialogue on committed teach­ing without denigrating the respected cor­pus of work chronicling the attributes ofeffective teaching.

My own review of that considerableliterature, coupled with my extensive dailywork with student teachers, leads me tobelieve that while there is no need for a newtheory of committed, effective teaching,there is a pressing need to refocus both pre­service and in-service faculty developmenton five professional mind-sets, which areconnected to and reflective of teachers ' on­going work experiences. In his recent workdedicated to retooling management educa­tion, Henry Mintzberg (in Reingold 2000,292), an internationally acclaimed profes­sor of management and strategy atINSEAD-just outside Paris- foreshad­owed those mind-sets:

• self-the reflective mind-set;• relationships-the collaborative

mind-set;• organizations-the analytic mind-set;• context-the worldly mind-set; and• change-the action mind-set.Reframing the dialogue about commit-

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ted teach ing requires and meri ts thought­ful commentary fro m facul ty across theteach ing spec trum. Understandabl y, th atcollegial co nversa tion migh t well rangebeyond the m ind-sets of self, rela tions hips,organizatio ns, contex t, and change . Yet,those particu lar mind-sets appear to rep­resen t a promising departure p oint. Thedi sco urse th at follows, then, is in tended to(a) cat alyze deep d ialogue regard ing com­mitted classroom teaching and (b) createcon tainers for cap turing thoughtful , reso­nant contribu tions to that ongoing dialogue.

SELF-THE REFLECTIVE MIND-SET

H ow does one d iscover work that isin tri ns ica lly sa tisfying, deeply fu lfilling,and full y reflective of one 's core values? Isthere a p rocess for uncovering the joyful,commi tte d work that one wa s born to do?Does heeding and hearing one 's ca llingbegin wi th a sim ple conscious choice to beone' s self? The word vocation comes fromthe Lat in word uocare, w hich means " tosummon." At issue is how we choose tohear that which summons us. In their bookWhistle While You Work, Leider and Shapiro(2001, 5) observe d that " the inne r urge togive our gifts away" reveals one's innatesense of ca lling. Predictabl y, tha t initial in­nat e sense of calling evokes a companionquestion: What life' s work w ill allow meto consisten tly give my gifts away as I seekto connect who I am wi th what I do? (Leiderand Sha piro 2001).

Richard F. Bowman is Professor ofEducational Foundations in the College ofEducation at Winona State University inMinnesota. His scholarly interests includecommunity as the organizing principle,communities of moral discourse,leadership without power, generativecoaching, dialogic processes, role ofdepartment chair, and change based onli ving-systems principles.

The challenge of uncovering one's lifework begins wi th a commitment to "openourselves to that inner urge to share ourgifts wi th the world in a meaningful way"(Leider and Shapiro, 2001, 6). Discoveringone's ca lling, moreo ver, is characteris ti ­ca lly a p rocess wi th di screte stages . Ju stas a bab y learns to wa lk by se rially mov­ing th rough the familiar s tages of ro llingover, craw ling, stand ing, and stridi ng ten ­tat ively, individuals of ten m ove fro m jobs ,to careers, to "ca ll ings w hich give u smeaning" (Leider and Shapiro, 6). Open­ing ourselves to the inner urge to share ourgi fts w ith th e world in volves p robing andsens ing environmen ts in w hich we arelike ly to th rive. Occasionally th at requiresconsciously removing ourselves fro m thed ist ractions and numbin g ro u tine of ev ­eryday life. During the p ast decade, forexamp le , I direc ted a sophomoremulticultural in ternshi p for Mi n nesotapreservice teach ers in K- 12 classrooms inthe Rio Gran de Valley. The sophomoreTexas experie nce was designed to create aframework for exami ni ng what one cons is­tently has the urge to give away, a struc­ture for recogni zing one 's gifts in ac tio n,and a context for morall y and publicly af­firming a com mitmen t to one 's life work.

In truth, one's se nse of ca lling oftenevo lves th rough a process of elimination,involving a series of false starts and deadends. However, the cost temporall y, ps y­chically, and financially can be staggering.A recen t s tu d en t teach er, for examp le ,chronicled how he tortuousl y "d ecid edupon teaching as his fourth major." Inter­es ting ly, his acknowledged success in stu­dent teaching reflected a deep inner kn ow­ing that he had at las t been truly summonedto share his uniqueness w ith students in amiddle-school science classroom . A secondstuden t teacher, MBA in hand, con fid edrecently th at " the words in business jour­nals no longer come off th e page for me."

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Because he sensed th at w ha t he was as kedto do in the workplace di d not permit hi mto express his essence, he concl uded th athe was "no t living authentically in th e co r­pora te world." Fina lly, a third, ve ry suc ­cessful, studen t teacher recently exi ted herstuden t teach in g experie nce by exclaim ingth eatricall y, "I'm off to be an investmen tbanker !" Teaching was seemi ngly not herlife 's calling. It was not the work she wasborn to do. Unfortuna tely, it requ ired fiveyears of higher ed uca tion for her to craftth at life-shaping d ecision.

In co n tras t, another studen t teacherobserved, in her au tobiograph ica l essay,that "looking back at m y life's experiences,I am able to id entify strengths th at I see inmyself as a res u lt of a series of even ts th athave occurred th roughout m y life. I seemyself as an open, su pportive, and deter­mined person. I believe that these attribu teshave become part of m y personal ity andwill help me in my future career as a teacherof socia l studies." Her essay subsequen tlychronicled a litany of life-shaping experi­ences that " taught me a lot abo u t being self­less, caring, and stro ng." Finall y, she con­clu ded her essay by contending th at "onecannot serve others w ell in a ca reer liketeach ing unless one first senses se lf."

In th e ir b ook Now, Discover YourStrengths, Buckingham and Cli fton (2001)arg ue d th at m ost individ uals have littlesense of their gifts, talents, and strengths,much less th e abi lity to build th eir work­pl ace lives aroun d th em. The au tho rs con­tended th at , ironica lly, b ec ause ofpsychology' s fasc ina tio n w ith pathology,many of us become experts in our w eak­nesses and spend our lives attemp ting torepair sus pecte d flaws, w hile ou r strengthslie dormant and neglected.

Th e Gallup International Research andEd uca tion Center conducted a systematicstudy of excellence in d iverse p rofessionsand occupations involv ing over tw o mil-

lion subjects across 30 years. Fro m thism osaic of knowledge, skills , an d talent, 34of the m ost prev alent th emes of human tal­en t emerge d . The Ga llup organ ization sub­seque n tly developed a Web-based p ro filecalled Strengths Finder, w hich "will imme­d iat ely reveal yo ur five dominant th emesof talent" (Buckingham and Cli fton, 2001,12). For an aspiring teacher, a timely senseof one's signa ture th emes cou ld p rove tobe another key part of th e reflective p rocessof finding one's life work. In fact, in an ear­lier book, Firs t, Break A ll the Rilles,Buckingham and Coffman (1999, 3) pro­posed th at to excel in one's chosen field,and to find a deep and lasting fu lfillmen tin doing so, one "will need to become anexpert a t fin d ing and describing and ap­pl ying and practicing and refini ng [one's]strengths."

RELATIONSHIPS-

THE COLLABORATIVE MIND-SET

Human socia l syste ms refl ect threetypes of relat ionships: relat ionship s basedupon th e power of command; relati onship sbased on vo lunta ry exc ha nge (buying andtrading); and relati onships based upon gen­erosity and giv ing. Gifford Pinchot (1998a,46) arg ued th at "no organization can full yengage th e ene rgy, creativ ity, an d comm it­ment of knowledge worke rs unless it firs tsucceeds as a comm uni ty."

In academia, the defining princ ipl e ofco m m unity is gene rosi ty. Profe ssorsachieve th eir highest sta tus only by shar­ing their gifts of kn owledge wi th colleagu esand society. Scien tis ts in both academic andp rivat e-sector se ttings honor th e rules ofth e g ift economy b y sharing knowledgeco llegia lly and publicly. In response togrowing concerns w ithi n the academy re­garding the privati zat ion of knowledge, theMassachusetts Inst itute of Technology re­cently announced a ten-year in itiative toprov ide free course m aterial s o n the

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Iam with what I do?

What life's work will

allow me to consistently

givemy gifts away as

I seek to connect who

Internet. This public viewing and caringabo u t the consequences of ano ther 's workfunctions as a " foundation of community"(Pinchot 1998a, 44).

Pinchot (1998b ) con tended that crea t­ing community in an infor matio n-age or­ga niza tion mirrors d iscrete stages:

Creating co m m onpurpose. Shared purposege ne ra tes organiza tionalidentity and focu ses indi­vid ual and collec tive en­ergy. A t Wi n ona Sta teUni versity (WSU ), th einstitution's "reason forexistence" is chronicled inbanners flyin g high abovethe cam pus : "A commu­nity of learners dedicatedto improving our world ."

Supporting th e g if teconomy. The basic logicof comm unity is mod eled in WSU's activepartnership with Win ona School District#861, in w h ich co lleagues regularl y ex ­change kn owl edge-based gifts and se r­vices. Moreover, WSU faculty reg ularly useDistrict 861's classrooms and facilities forthe professional prep arati on of preserviceteach er s, in- service faculty development,and collaborative inqui ry d irected at theimprovement of ins tru ctiona l practi ce andstuden t learning.

Establishing a shared env ironment. AtWSU's annua l retrea t for cross-campus fac­ulty and area public-sch ool teacher s, par­ticipants crea te an env iro nmen t in w hichcolleagues experie nce the conseque nces ofea ch other's actions, includ ing sharing in­sigh ts abou t the renewal and red esign ofteacher prep a rat ion a n d cli nica lexperiences.

Providing safety, security, and love. Anessen tia l part of the ethic of community isca ring for all members of the comm uni ty.Marines, for exa m ple, risk death to recover

the bodies of slain comrades.Aca demic free dom, tenure, and con­

tr actual agreements betw een th e fac ultyand the admi nis tra tio n, however, of ten ap­pear to cons trai n colleague s from thinkingge nerous ly abou t th e comm unity. Mo re­over, familiar st ruc tu res like academ ic

departments often make itdiffi cult to sense a n da ppreci a te th e " co n se -quences of each ot her'swork" (Pincho t 1998a, 44).Whea tley a n d Kellne r­Roger s (1998, 11) framedthe p a rad ox of facultymembers ' need fo r bothau tonomy and connec ted ­n ess : "Li fe is sys te msseeking . Only in relat ion-ships can individuals befull y themselves. The in­s t inc t o f co m m u n ity is

everywhe re in life."Sus taining healthy and heal ing orga­

ni zati on al relati onships presents a for mi ­dabl e cha llenge. Altho ugh the p ractice ofdialogue is as old as humankind , the ri tua lof di alogue has renewed reson ance in or ­ga niza tiona l life tod ay. Dialogue is a ritualthat invi tes colleague s in di verse se ttingsto remember w ho th ey are, w here th eycame from, and why it is worthwhile towork together. Moreover, d ial ogue is astru cture for what matters most to us in lifeand wo rk (Ellino r and Ge ra rd 1998) . Co l­lective conversa tions like foru ms, re trea ts,and team-based projects invite colleague sto red iscover the promise of the di alogicprocess in recapturing the lost sense of com­munity for w hich colleag ues lon g.

In the context of an evolving re lation­ship-based organiza tional cultu re, a deeper,more nuanced view of d ynamics of th eclassroom has emerge d . At th e conclusionof a recen t stu de n t teaching observa tion, aclin ical s tu den t as ke d, " H ow well did I

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manage stud en ts' interactions d uring classtoday?" His inquiry functioned as an effec­tive surprise on three levels. First, th is stu ­dent teacher had in ternalized the notionth at relationships are th e key to classro omand organizatio nal success. Second ly, hehad transitioned from theor y into p ractice.H is chalk-side demeanor focused on man­agi ng relat ionsh ip s, not individ ual studen tbehavior. Third ly, he had rediscovered thatsocial con tex t adds meaning to informat ionand th at " today's work world favors a cer­tain kind of independent actor: the one wi thth e best re la tio nships" (We tla ufe r 2001,127).

Ironicall y, w hile teach ers and stu den tsin today's w ired classrooms are more con­nected than ever before, connection is notthe same as collab or ation. Sp licing p rom­ising technologies into the classroom hasproven to be not sim p ly a technical conce rnbut ra th er an organizatio nal one in w hic hstuden ts and teachers must rein vent work­ing relat ionship s. The challenge intomorrow 's classroom, therefore, is to movefro m sim p le connectivity to crea tive col­lab orati on in w hich studen ts and teachersfind new ways of working together produc­tively wi tho u t regard to time, space, an dpositional power.

Finally, because engaging, producti vecommunica tion turns on understandingothers' per spect ives and biases, techniqueslike role-p laying have a ren ewed resonancein today 's relations hi p-based classrooms.Role-playing succeeds essen tially becauseit "s hows, ra ther than merely tell s" (Bierc k,Kling, and Kra tte nmaker 2000, 1). Th at is,"when yo u see somethi ng ac te d ou t, itbrings in to pl ay other part s of th e brain .You not only hear it in words, but see andexperience it" (Bierck et al. 2000, 1).

ORGANIZATIONS-

THE ANALYTIC MIND-SET

Every organiza tion is p erf ectl y d e-

signed for the res u lts th at it ge ts. When or­ga niza tional resources are misallocated , op­portunities missed, and creative ac tivi tiess tifle d, leadership p racti ces, governancestructu res, systems, and stra teg ies are un­d erstandabl y challenged . Curren tly, BoozAllen and Hamilton publishing com panyis creating a globa l da tabase of effective andineffec tive leadership p ract ices (O'Toole,Pasternack , and Ben nett 2001). Tha t re ­search p inpoints an emergen t pa ttern ofbehavior: a worldwide effort to mak e "lead­ersh ip institu tional"- as opposed to indi­vid ual- by cascad ing p ower down th e or­ga niza tional hierarch y" (O'Toole et al. 2001,37). Th e implicati ons for preservice and in­service teachers are as di verse as they areinstru ctive. In performance appraisal, forexam p le, th e foc us w ill likely sh ift fro miden tifying individ ual strengths and weak­nesses to iden tifying and unblocking im ­pediments to grou p performance (O 'Toolee t al. 2001). Lea dersh ip w ill be red ef inedand refocused toward th e crea tion of in for ­mation and incentive syste ms th at all owothe rs to make decisions th at cum u la tivelyadvan ce organ iza tio na l goals an d objec­tives (O'Too le e t a l. 2001). Organiza tio nsw ill be redefined as "bund les of capabi li­ties," as opposed to being viewed as h ie r­a rchies, s truc tures, an d syste ms. Assess­ment of org aniza tional capabilities w ill, forexam p le, reflect an en terprise's overall ca­pacity to adapt, learn, se lf-govern, and se lf­renew. In this new opera ting enviro nment,learning conversati ons w ill ge nera te a se lf­crea ting coherence by enabling co lleaguesto be in relationship , as th ey inven t andreinvent themsel ves and their organiza­tions . Dial ogue w ill funct ion as th e lan­guage of list ening as colleagues reid entifythe importa nce of w hat they are d oing to­ge ther. Deep d ialogue w ill underscore the"importance of building collective in te lli­ge nce in the organizatio n, as its key to sur­vival" (Ellinor and Ge rard 1999, xxv ). Im-

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portantly, colleagues will aspire to be in in­flu ence, as opposed to being in con tro l.

Rel at ionsh ip-based enterprises flaresta rting to emerge as one of the major or ­ga niza tional forms of the 21s t century"(McKenzie 2001, 5). The core ac tivity in arelati onship-based en terp rise is one of cre­a ting and sustaining productive rela tion­shi ps through th oughtful co nve rsa tio nsand deep di alogue. At the Center for Stra­tegic Leadership, "a relations hi p is definedfo rma lly as a ser ies of co nversa tio ns"(McKenzie 2001, viii). Moreover, relation­sh ips ar e not viewed as a thing but ratheras a process of human interaction. Specifi­cally, a re lations hip-based organiza tion isstruc tured to ens ure that conversations areactually taking place. It is in those conver­sa tio ns th at we di scover w ha t we kn ow.And it is in th ose conversa tions th at weexperie nce the ripening of new organiza­tional kn owl edge. At th e p reservice andin- service level, one 's in iti a l foc us, for ex­am p le, would be d ire cted at underst and­ing th e kind s of conversa tio ns students,parents, teachers, ad mi nis tra tors, and citi­zens d esir e. Subsequent co nversa tionswould focu s on th e discovery of sta kehold ­ers' needs, so that th e organiza tion can" ma ke d ec isions concerning how it w illo rganize itself to se rve those n eed s "(Mc Kenzie 2001, 5).

Recently, it ha s been argued that " in then ew eco nomy, all work is teamwork"(Ma ruca 2000, 109). Just as there may notbe a "new eco nomy," but rather new toolsfor the econo my, one could argue that whilethere m ay not be "new organ iza tio ns, "there are new tools for ed uca tors to renewand rei nven t th eir organiza tions . Whenp reservice and in-service teachers confrontthe quest ion "Wha t kind of conversa tio nsand in teractions do we see k to crea te?" theyare im plicitly as king, "What kinds of spaceslet people seriously pl ay?" (Schrage 2000,126). Workp lace teams, for exa m ple, reflect

spaces that accen tuate colleagues' strengthsrather than stigmatizing their weaknesses(Ionath 2000). Team structures, moreover,underscore Peter Drucker's (1996, 17) as ­sertion that " the job of management is tomake human stre ngth effective and humanweaknesses irrelevan t. That' s the purposeof any organization, the one th ing tha t anorganiza tion does that individ uals can ' t dobetter." Teams also crea te space for talentedindividual s to em brace wor thy projectscollectively in se rvi ce of the common good.Moreo ver, teams may well force the redefi­nition of courses "nd academic departmentsas a set of agreements regarding how tomanage one' s p roject s.

When team activities are sp liced into amiddle-school science cla ssroom, for ex­am ple, the ro les of both teacher and stu­dent are redefined. For teachers, leadinghi gh-functionin g teams and gro u ps notonly d emands tactical insigh ts in groupdynamics but also a clear sense of th e in­he ren t instructional leadership trade-offs.The tension between indirectly se tting theoverall direction of a project, includ ing pro­vidi ng instructional resources and guide­lines, and d irectl y managing the work of ateam to keep studen ts focused constitutesa delicate balancing act grounded in orga­nizational psychology and leadershiptheory. Contemporary research on leadingsuccessful teams, for example, suggests thatteams need a compelling direction, clearboundaries, substan tial power, and theav ailabili ty of competent coaching. Ulti­mately, team success dep ends upon howwe ll a teacher designs and supports a teamso th at studen ts can manage themselves(Hackman 2002).

CONTEXT-THE WORLDLY M IND-SET

Life in con tem porary classrooms mi r­rors both truth and mystery. Effective teach­ing reflects a m ysterious alchemy of art,science, craft, and character. Effective learn-

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ing reflects a jou rney marked by wonder,inquiry, in tention, and serious play. In theultimate sense, relati onship s educa te; in anorganiza tional sens e, kn owl edge creationis a social process. For first-grader s on afield trip to Lake Winona, learning is d is­covery th rough play. For preservice teach­ers in a Sou th Texas practicum, learning isge nera ting and general izing ideas w it himpact (Ulrich 1997). We learn in order tose nse obligation to se lf and society. Welearn in orde r to live out our ethics. We learnin order to wrestle with life's m ysteries.

The most valuable resource in the con­temporary classroom is human attention.The most sophisticated tool in the contem­porary classroom is concentration. Captur­ing, sus tain ing, and molding the atten tionof studen ts is the primary task of teachersas lead ers. Concentrating "everywhere" isthe primary res ponsibi lity of learners asleader s. Information becomes kn owl edge,w hen it is ei ther interesting or u seful.Knowled ge becomes wisdom when it flow sin a slow accumulation of collective learning.

Alan Kay once remarked that "we havea nat ion of musically illiterate adults be­cause people are taught scales before theyh ave d evel oped an im p u lse to music"(Senge 1998, x). The questions that confrontteacher and student in today's classroomare, "What is the impulse here?" What isthe impulse to physics? What is the impulseto geometry ? What is the impulse to lan­guage arts? How did we ed ucate that im­pulse out of so many of our studen ts? Andwhy d o so many of us insist on teachingw itho u t that palpable presence of impulse?T. S. Eliot (1968, 17) reminded us:

There is only thefigh t to recover whathas been lost

And found and lost again and again,and now under conditions

That seem unpropitious. But perhapsneither gain nor loss.

For us, there is only the trying. Therest is not our business.

As anothe r d ay d awns, we feel the im­pulse of conversation; we feel the imp ulseof dialogue. It is the am plifica tion of thoseimp ulses that we rightly ins ist upon ca ll­ing teaching and learning.

It is also in the amp lifica tion of thoseimpulses, however, that educators confrontthe unique com m unica tio n and orga niza ­tional challenges of w or king in con tempo­rary interacti ve, multiracial, multiethnicenvironments. Until recently, many educa­tors labored productively in relative isola­tion, with little interaction or coll ab or ati onwith adults eithe r within or beyond th ewalls of their classrooms. Today, the softskills of effective listening, giving feedback,receiving criticism, resolving di sputes, andw orking in teractively in culturall y di versesettings are emergen tly critical componentsin professional education .

Contemporary research suggests thatleaders in diver se se tt ings possess four es­se ntia l skills. First, the teacher as leaderne eds to be able to engage studen ts andcoll eagues in sha red meaning . Second, theteacher as leader needs to possess a distinc­tive and compelling voice in order to, forinstance, in spire studen ts or defuse a po­tentially violen t classroom confron tationwith only words . Third, the teacher asleader needs an overarching sens e of integ­rity. Lastl y, research sug ges ts that by far themost critical skill of the four is adap tivecapacity" (Bennis and Thomas 2002, 45).That capacity draws upon two qualities:hardiness and the ability to grasp context.Hardiness ena bles teachers to emerge fromdeva stating circumstances like September11 withou t losing hope. The ability to gras pcontext "implies an ability to weigh a wel­ter of factors, ra nging from how ve ry dif­ferent groups interpret a gestu re to bein gable to put a situa tion in perspective"

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Classrooms and

schools are essentially

complex adaptive

systems.

(Bennis and Tho mas, 45). The inability ofmany beginning teachers to grasp contex tis deadly, because they will be unabl e toconnect with their studen ts as meaningmakers.

C HANGE- T HE ACTION MIND-SET

In the ir evoca tivebook, Surfing the Edge ofChaos: The Laws of Natureand the New Laws of Busi-ness, Pascale, Millemann,and Gioja (2000) assertedthat organizations are liv­ing systems, not merelymetaphors for living sys­tems. Moreover, they ar­gue compellingly th at thefo ur corne rstone p ri n-ciples of the life sciencesare as true for organiza-tions as th ey are for spe-cies. Th ose principles sta ted that equilib­rium is a precursor to death, innovationusually takes place on th e edge of chaos,se lf-o rgan iza tion and emergence occu rnaturally, and organiza tions can only bedisturbed, not directed (Pascale et al. 2000).Specifica lly, the authors proposed th at or­ga nizations, like species, either react tocha nge and evolve or ge t left behind andbecome extinc t.

Not surprisingly, today's deep-seatedbeliefs about change are being challengedby the "cu rrent flow of interest in livin g sys­tems" (Pascale 2000, 2). How we think aboutthe living-systems principles, however, maywell alter how we view and manage orga­nizations in an era of d iscontinuous change.By stu dying the twelve-foot-high moundsof the African termites, entomologists havediscovered striking examples of complexadaptive system s at work-systems inwhich models are built and refined throughlearning and adaptation. Cla ssrooms andschools are essen tia lly complex adap tive

systems. Each fun ctions as a "system of in­dep endent agents that can act in parallel,develop 'models' as to how things work intheir env ironment, and, mo st importantly,refine those models through learning andadaptation " (Pascale et al. 2000, 5).

Li v ing sys te ms princ iples "a ll owen terprises to th rive andrev i ta l ize themselv es "(Pascale et al. 2000, 6). Inrecruiting new faculty, forexa mple, school d istrictshave th e opportunity todisturb the organ ism'sequ ilibr iu m by sp licin gnew genetic material intothe en te rprise to evokefresh idea s an d creativeresponses . In co m p lexada p tive sys tems likeclassrooms, adaptive lead­ership is viewed as a func-

tion of distributed in telligence. Thus, teach­ers are viewed as leaders, not as cogs in awheel. The new United States Army is anexample of a complex adap tive system thatis organized around infor mation technol­ogy, so that soldi ers, as leaders, can impro­vise on the battlef ield . Collective w orkamong faculty, moreover, turns on the prin­ciples of reciprocity found in nature. Spe­cifically, "reciprocity ensures that fav ors getreturned and social obligations are repaid"(Pascale et al. 2000, 7). This sustains the liv­ing syste m in the midst of co m pe ti n gtensions.

Living systems principles contes t themach ine-a ge notion th at when one "de­signs a change effort, there 's a reasonabledegree of predictability and control "(Webber 2001, 132 ). In living systems,events occur that one simply cannot pre­dict. That is, once events happen, th ey of­ten trigger unanticipated second, third, andfourth order effects . The living system sprinciple "Disturb, don't d irect" (Webber

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2001,136) frames the adaptive challenge foreducators: Learn to disturb, not di rect one'sorganizatio n . In h is essay Circles, RalphWaldo Emerson ap tly captured the natureof di sturbance: "I unsettle all th in gs. Nofacts to me are sa cred; none are p rofane. Isimply experiment, an endless seeker w ithno path at my back" (Emerson 1950, 288).One disturbs, for ins tance, by imagining aconstellation of consequences for any givenpolicy initiative, as opposed to at temptingto d rive and direct an organization along alinear path toward a p redictable ou tcome.

"Discover, don't d ictate" (Webbe r 2001,136) is a second living systems principle.Th e adaptive leadership challe nge is tolearn as even ts unfold, including from sec­ond - and third-ord er effects that likelycould not ha ve been predicted. The in tentof that learning is not one of finding the"right answer" so much as seeking a deeperunderstanding of the consequences of our ac­tions. It is at precisely that moment that one"begins to real ize th at yo u can ' t di ctate anou tcome" (Webbe r 2001, 136).

"Decipher, don't presuppose" (Webber2001, 136) is a th ird living systems prin­ciple. That guideline reminds us that thereis wisdom in community. For educators, thebeckoning task is one of creating organiza­tional designs and structures th at invitecolleagues to learn from each other in spacesthat permit one 's id eas to play ou t in fron tof one's peers. In th ose se ttings, the adap­tive leadership challenge is one of manag­ing the interactions betw een and amongcolleagues engaged in serious play.

In the Winona State University Depart­ment of Education, colleagues have beenexploring and experimen ting with a seriesof transforma tive organizationa l structuresin tended to ignite conver sati on, d ialogue,and community in sea rch of enhanced ef­fect iv eness , innov ation, an d p os it ivechange. One of those experime n tal struc­tu res has been ch ristened "The Faculty Fo-

rum ." The bimonthly forum is clearly dis­tin ct fro m regularly sc hed u led fac u ltymeetings. Tradi tio nal facu lty meet ings, forexam ple, refle ct a conce rn w ith coordinat­ing policies and actions . In faculty forums,the overa rching conce rns cen ter on redis­covering a sense of se lf and other, fra minga guiding set of va lues, crafting a commonvision, and facili tating the co llaborativenat ure of faculty and studen t work. In aword, experimental struc tures like the fac­ulty forum mi rro r the department' s evolv­ing com mitmen t to com m unity as the or­ganizing principle of faculty work.

MOVING TOWARD RESTLESS SELF-RENEWAL

Whe n the National Center for Ed uca­tional Statistics (NCES) rece ntly asked d is­satisfied teach e r s wha t specifica ll yprompted them to leave the profession, thefactors cited in order of im portance were"studen t d iscipline p robl ems, poor studentmotivation to lea rn, inadequate su pportfrom ad ministra tion, poor salary, and lackof influence over school policies and prac­tices" (Hardy 1999, 14). A fine- gra in edana lysis of the research literature on teacherattrition reveals a cons tella tion of d eeperconcerns includi ng va ria bles like teacherefficacy, au tonomy, collegial in te rac tions,ro le conflict, stres s, and the complexi ty ofteach ing studen ts wi th di sabilit ies.

How d o we attract, d evelop, and retaineffective, comm itte d teachers to the profes­sion? In the spirit of advanci ng that di a­logue, I submit that we have produced ateacher attrition rate that we clearly di d no tin tend, because we have enacted systemsthat we di d not fore see . Specifically, teachered ucation 's recent laser-like focus on the"a ttribu tes of effective teaching" has frac ­tured ou r focus on the five mind-set s thatare so central to all p rofessional life: Self­the reflective mind-set ; Relationshi ps-thecollaborative mind-set ; Organiza tions-theanalytic mind -set; Con text-the worldly

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mind-set; and Change-the action mind-set.Those mind-se ts affirm lyrically that effec­tive, commi tted teaching requi res an inte­gration of con tent ex pertise with well­honed organizational and re la tio ns hi psk ills . Ad di tionally, building trust-based ,sa tisfying professional rela tions hips withstudents and colleagues begins wi th one 'ssens ing and trusting self. The creation of

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~F,© Kappa Delta Pi

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