{"id":478,"date":"2009-07-08T16:01:04","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T20:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?p=478"},"modified":"2009-07-08T22:54:13","modified_gmt":"2009-07-09T02:54:13","slug":"part-iii-sharing-the-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?p=478","title":{"rendered":"Part III: Sharing the Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2nd Root Cause: The X-Factor<\/strong><\/p>\n

(see Making Sense Through a Systemic Leadership and Management Lens<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Paradoxes \u00a0— those puzzling, seemingly illogical, conundrums have become a regular part of today\u2019s educational environment. (For a full discussion see Paradoxes in the Present Paradigm) Two things we know about these puzzles:<\/div>\n
[1] They appear when we can\u2019t make sense of what we experience in our lives. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t fit the beliefs that shape our mental models\/paradigms\/worldviews. \u00a0By labeling it a \u201cparadox\u201d we can work around it as a \u201cjust-the-way-it-is\u201d part of the work.<\/div>\n
[2] Their solutions usually involve finding something within the situation that isn\u2019t being accounted for — an unknown logical X-factor. \u00a0And according to Marilyn Furguson, this can become the organizing principle for a new sense-making paradigm.<\/div>\n
\u201cA new paradigm involves a principle that was present all along but unknown to us. \u00a0It includes the old as a partial truth, one aspect of How Things Work, while allowing for things to work in other ways as well.\u201d<\/div>\n
Can this be our problem? \u00a0Can there be \u201ca principle \u2026present all along\u201d that we\u2019ve been missing, and which could serve as the center point of a \u201cparadigm\u201d\/ a way-of-thinking that could resolve the paradoxes?<\/div>\n
This site is predicated on the belief that there is\u2026 (see Making Sense Through a Systemic Leadership and Management Lens)<\/div>\n
It\u2019s based on a \u201csimple\u201d principle from cognitive biology. \u00a0Stated metaphorically:<\/div>\n
\u2022 <\/span>Everyone comes pre-wired for trial and error learning with a brain-embedded \u201cOS\u201d (Operating System) that initially manages information-seeking and -gathering interactions with the environment, and then sends the products off for \u201cprocessing\u201d in the \u201csoftware\u201d of the mind.<\/div>\n
\u2022 <\/span>This is the driving core of an individual child\u2019s or adult\u2019s difference-making, meaning-seeking continual exchanges with the surrounding world.<\/div>\n
\u2022 <\/span>Moreover, it is the asset that teachers and schools have struggled for centuries to engage (through concepts such as \u201cmotivation\u201d) and develop as a sustained capacity so that students would leave their care in charge of their own learning for life.<\/div>\n
For me, I\u2019ve found that understanding this X-factor can be a paradox- and paradigm-buster because it explains the perceptual learning disability that has limited the understanding of intelligent, well-meaning educators, policymakers, foundation officials, and business persons who, over the past 40 years, have failed to make sustainable improvements in the common work of schools.<\/div>\n
And that\u2019s another paradox. They deeply believe they know the scope and nature of that \u201cWork\u201d from life-long personal experiences. But apparently they don\u2019t\u2026 or else why would we hear words like these from those who try to make sense of that work?<\/div>\n
\u2022 \u00a0 (from Seymour Sarason) “When you read the myriad of recommendations these commission reports contain, it becomes clear that they are not informed by any conception of a system. \u00a0That is a charitable assessment. . . . those outside the system with responsibility for articulating a program for reform have nothing resembling a holistic conception of the system they seek to influence.” \u2013<\/div>\n
How can that be?<\/div>\n
\u2022 \u00a0 (from Kenneth G. Wilson, Nobel Prize winner in physics, and later co-author of Redesigning Education [1994,] who was asked by the State of Ohio to study its educational problems.)<\/div>\n
\u201cThe research that I studied paints a far grimmer picture of United States education than I was aware of. \u00a0Firstly, it showed that money alone cannot solve our problems. \u00a0\u2026some of the deep problems which afflict financially-strapped inner city schools are also found in Ivy League science departments, as well as in private schools educating the sons and daughters of billionaires. \u2026<\/div>\n
But the real shock, for me, was to learn that the problems of educational reform have no known solution, for any price, despite centuries of thought.<\/div>\n
\u2026Fortunately, I find the situation in current education can be characterized not as a hopeless mess, but rather as an outdated paradigm of schooling and school reform, just as Copernicus found that the earth-centered Ptolemaic model of the solar system was inadequate.\u201d<\/div>\n
How can that be?<\/div>\n
\u2022 \u00a0 (Or from Peter Senge) \u201c\u2026 Many confronting the deeper nature of our problems cry out that the solution lies in \u201cfixing education.\u201d \u00a0But you cannot \u201cfix\u201d a structure that was never designed for learning in the first place.\u201d<\/div>\n
Never designed for learning in the first place\u2026how can that be?<\/div>\n
As counter-intuitive as that may seem, Senge\u2019s right. \u00a0Viewing these structures through Alice\u2019s Looking Glass reveals their actual nature as ways to manage the work of teaching, not the work of learning.<\/div>\n
What we\u2019ve been creating over the years — from the one-room school house to the \u201cfactory model\u201d schools of today — have been work settings to efficiently and effectively manage the human, time, and material instructional resources that we believed could produce the \u201cresults\u201d or \u201cproducts\u201d society expected. \u00a0And we\u2019ve labeled that resulting mix of information, skills, and feelings — \u201clearning.\u201d<\/div>\n
This seems to be the model reformers continually try to fix by developing ways to quantify and measure that \u201clearning\u201d as a \u201cproduct,\u201d and then to hold the managers of the workplace accountable for producing it. \u00a0Yet they still haven\u2019t been able to find ways to make that model work for all children.<\/div>\n
So what if Senge\u2019s right\u2026.<\/div>\n
\u2026.and the work structures in this model weren\u2019t designed for \u201clearning in the first place?\u201d<\/div>\n
What might be different if the work of a school system was designed to support \u201clearning?\u201d \u00a0The school district story on this site offers clues.<\/div>\n
First, we would notice that there has been another manageable and measurable product there all along that seems to meet the X-Factor criterion — \u00a0\u201c\u2026present all along but unknown to us. \u00a0It includes the old as a partial truth, one aspect of \u2018How Things Work\u2019, while allowing for things to work in other ways as well.\u201d<\/div>\n
This is the Learning Process. \u00a0As viewed through Alice\u2019s Looking Glass it can be understood as a developable individual capacity \u2013 a process — not just the products of that process alone.<\/div>\n
Moreover, it\u2019s an information-using and information-creating process fed by manageable interchanges created by the adults accountable for its development as a sustainable individual capacity.<\/div>\n
The key values of a paradigm with the Learning Process as its center point seem to be:<\/div>\n
1) It is an individual process in which the student plays a primary management role. \u00a0 This \u00a0can be seen when the same lens was used to view MCPS\u2019 10-year systemic journey. Many of their successes have at their core the tapping of students\u2019 intrinsic nature as learners, and then engaging and supporting them as co-managers of that learning with teachers and others. \u00a0(You\u2019ll find examples of this by linking to the site\u2019s Catch Them Doing Something Right.)<\/div>\n
This understanding of a usually untapped role for the learner makes available, in a manageable way, one of schooling\u2019s most scarce resources \u2013 time. \u00a0Not the teacher\u2019s time for teaching, but the time for learning that the student controls. \u00a0As can be observed in these classrooms, it offers an organizational Way that can be driven by individual Will.<\/div>\n
(See Monte Roberts and Natural Learning and New Understanding: The X-factor at work)<\/div>\n
2) School systems are the primary sustainable work setting that can be, and must be, held accountable for the development of that capacity, not just its products. \u00a0As can be seen in aspects of the school system\u2019s journey presented on this site, district processes and practices that support that individual growth in each classroom can be developed, aligned and supported.<\/div>\n
3) Most significantly, with this X-Factor at it\u2019s center, this way-of-thinking offers a coherent model for understanding a school system\u2019s work as the development of an Integrated Learning Management System — A system \u201cdesigned for learning in the first place.\u2019<\/div>\n
But first, there\u2019s another \u201cpainful\u201d mind-stretching problem\u2026<\/div>\n
The clue to unraveling these two core roots was concealed between them.<\/div>\n
But there was \u201cgain\u201d in the \u201cpain.\u201d \u00a0The good news was that it turned out to be a third factor that potentially offered a hands-on way to untwist and free up the natural power inherent in each \u201croot.\u201d<\/div>\n

Paradoxes<\/em> — those puzzling, seemingly illogical, conundrums have become a regular part of today\u2019s educational environment. (For a full discussion see Paradoxes in the Present Paradigm<\/a> (pdf)) Two things we know about these puzzles:<\/p>\n

[1] They appear when we can\u2019t make sense<\/em> of what we experience in our lives. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t fit the beliefs that shape our mental models\/paradigms\/worldviews. \u00a0By labeling it a \u201cparadox\u201d we can work around it as a \u201cjust-the-way-it-is<\/em>\u201d part of the work.<\/p>\n

[2] Their solutions usually involve finding something within<\/strong> the situation that isn\u2019t being accounted for — an unknown logical X-factor<\/em>. \u00a0And according to Marilyn Furguson, this can become the organizing principle for a new sense-making paradigm.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new paradigm involves a principle that was present all along but unknown to us. \u00a0It includes the old as a partial truth, one aspect of How Things Work<\/em>, while allowing for things to work in other ways as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can this be our problem? \u00a0Can there be \u201ca principle \u2026present all along<\/em>\u201d that we\u2019ve been missing, and which could serve as the center point of a \u201cparadigm\u201d\/ a way-of-thinking<\/em> that could resolve the paradoxes?<\/p>\n

This site is predicated on the belief that there is\u2026 (see Making Sense Through a Systemic Leadership and Management Lens<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s based on a \u201csimple\u201d principle from cognitive biology<\/em>. \u00a0Stated metaphorically:<\/p>\n