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| MY READERS BLOG POSTS: |
How old do you have to be to have grown up with the internet, cell phones, text-messaging, social community sites, collaborative sites (wikis), and interactive games? As more and more of you, who have been so reared, enter the work world, the harder and harder it will be for organizations to attempt to manage you by command and control methods. That lesson came clear to the USA Army, according to Steven Mains and Laura W. Geller in their article "Freeing Ideas from Their Silos," in strategy&business' current on-line magazine (http://www.strategy-business.com/li/leadingideas/li00062) Read more...
Joyce Lemke, a Positive Change Core member and a long time international consultant in Appreciative Inquiry sent out the following email announcement and a request:
"Sally Smith, a pioneer in strengths based learning for children, died early this month. Founder of the Lab School in Washington D.C. in 1967, Sally Smith developed curriculum which has had uncommon success with those who learn differently. Smith gave respect, hope and the tools to succeed to children beginning over 40 years ago. Smith asserted that " A child's failure to learn means that the teaching staff has not yet found a way to help him. It is up to the adults to seek out the routes by which each child learns, to discover his strengths and interests and to experiment until effective techniques are found."
Sally Smith created a learning environment that used the arts to shape the school, and believed that the arts could and should be used to teach all manner of things. I remember when I was doing my graduate thesis in the early 70's, looking for positive approaches to teaching and learning, how strikingly different Smith's pioneering approach seemed from other models at the time.
Jeff Fifield, Curriculum Facilitator at Colegio Maya American International School of Guatemal, sent the following request to members of the Positive Change Core (Appreciative Inquiry):
"Every year at our elementary school during the month of February we promote a reading incentive month where our students begin with a school-wide read of one book that set
Do you know a company that operates democratically? If so, nominate them for the WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces 2008 award!
Any organization -- profit, non-profit, NGO, small, midsize, or large can apply for the honor. Each applying organization must submit a survey to its employees. Then, each is given a rating score that determines whether they make the 2008 list. Such a list helps to honor the organization and to show other organizations the incredible positive value of transforming their organizations out of the negative command and control style into the collaborative democratic style. Read more...
An inscribed stone above the grave where R. Buckmister (Bucky) Fuller and his wife are buried reads "Call Me Trim Tab, Bucky." Fuller, the inventor and visionary, noticed as a small child that a big ship has a small rudder within its larger rudder. It's called a trim tab, and its job is to turn the large rudder so that the large one can turn the huge ship. Bucky dedicated his life to being a trim tab - someone who would do small things that in turn could help improve society. Read more...
From what I have heard, Syb Roell, Vice President of Business Development for Ode, is hoping to create an ODE for kids. That
Fellow Reader Blogger, Laura Portalupi, writes that she was introduced to Appreciative Inquiry in her U.S. Peace Corps training prior to going to South Africa to work primarily in education. It
For several years, I presented training programs in problem solving at various corporations. I taught the classical four step problem solving process that has long served the industrial revolution: 1) identify the problem, 2) search for root causes, 3) explore and evaluate possible solutions, and 4) put an action plan in place. My classes always went well and people appreciated learning the process.
Then came an experience that eventually brought me to a whole new mind set on problem solving. I had been doing some manuscript reviews for Berrett-Koehler Publishing, and one of the manuscripts was about Appreciative Inquiry, a change process that approaches problems from a positive perspective rather than from a negative one. At first I felt that AI was ignoring the long history and success of the classic model for problem solving, but slowly I came to see the incredible value in AI. Read more...
I've just sent out an email recommending Ode to all of the members of an international group known as Positive Change Corps (www.positivechangecorps.com). Most of the members are organizational development consultants who have additionally made a commitment to bringing Appreciative Inquiry to schools.
As as retired educator and consultant, my mission is to write, blog, and post resources to help people transform our schools into democratic organizations that work for everyone. I'm doing something similar to what Charlie Leadbeater is doing. I'm writing a book on line -- CRISIS IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT: MAKING OUR SCHOOLS WORK FOR EVERYONE (www.squidoo.com/makingourschoolswork) -- where people can critique, contribute, and freely copy. Would welcome reactions/review from you folks at Ode. Read more...
