Blog #4 - Schools That Learn: Orientation

‘The classroom, school, and community are all interrelated. Any success you have on one level can be blocked by inadequate capabilities, resources, or understanding on another.’ (Senge p. 25). I found Senge’s orientation informative and insightful on the relationship between the three key elements that create a school that learns: the classroom, school, and community. In order to produce organizational learning, all three levels must work together. The complexity of the community level made me realize just how many roles the community plays in the overall educational experience. The members of this community who should have the biggest impact on students are the parents. As facilitators, I think we all recognize parents as the primary educator to their children. Senge suggests that teachers, students, and parents must work together in a continuous cycle in order to produce a successful learning classroom. While I agree with this idea of mutual influence, I find it hard to conceptualize because I’m not sure it’s possible to form that relationship with every single student and parent. As I read and came to understand the bigger picture of the other two elements, a learning school and learning community, I realized that Senge is absolutely right when he says to focus on one or two new priorities for change, not twelve.

As I read through the five learning disciplines, I think the discipline of Team Learning is probably one of the most important. I recently experienced just how effective collective thinking can be within a classroom. Our 7th graders have been working on developing complex sentences for their Language Arts class. We gave each student a different Kindergarten reading book. The books contain sentences with three to four words. We had the students rewrite the book using complex sentences. The class completed the activity individually and then in groups. The creativity, energy, and effort put forth in their group work far exceeded our expectations. They were all so excited about their final product; they were begging to present their ‘books’ in class!