Excerpted from Bringing Schools Back to Life: Schools as
Living Systems by Margaret J. Wheatley (emphasis added):
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/lifetoschools.html
At the human
level, with
our great need for relationships and meaningful lives, systems are
similarly
created. We seek to connect with and work with those whose
self-interest seems
to include our self-interest. We affiliate with those who share a
similar sense
of what is important. When you apply this dynamic to public education,
it instantly
reveals a major dilemma. Is a school system
really a system?
Systems are never just a result of geography, and it isn't district
lines drawn
on paper that creates a school system. Systems
arise, they take form because people
choose to affiliate together, because they realize that in order to get
what is
important to them, they must extend themselves and work with others.
But in public education, how many members of a geographically-determined school district share a core of beliefs about the purposes of education? Most districts contain a wide spectrum of beliefs about the role of education. There are those who believe that education should support the talented elite, which includes their child. Those who view education as the foundation of a pluralistic society where education should open doors for all. Those who believe in a rich life of the mind. Those who want their children taught only the values of their parents or church.
The startling conclusion is that most school systems aren't systems. They are only boundary lines drawn by somebody, somewhere. They are not systems because they do not arise from a core of shared beliefs about the purpose of public education. In the absence of shared beliefs and desires, people are not motivated to seek out one another and develop relationships. Instead, they co-inhabit the same organizational and community space without weaving together mutually sustaining relationships. They co-exist by defining clear boundaries, creating respectful and disrespectful distances, developing self-protective behaviors, and using power politics to get what they want.
Yet everyone who
participates in a school district is a living being, responding to the
same
dynamics that characterize all other life. Within
the artificial boundary lines and
well-defended territories, people are self-organizing into real
systems,
reaching out to network with those who share similar beliefs or
aspirations.
(This dynamic is clearly evident in the Charter school movement.) Many
small systems are created within the artificial system of a district.
It is
these real systems that become instantly visible when we try to change
the
artificial one. They often startle us with the ferocity by which they
confront
and impede our efforts. But it is these real systems we must work with,
and the
dynamics that give them birth, if we want to affect change.