Questions for Education Cafes

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Permalink Reply by Beth Alexander on September 22, 2009 at 2:41pm

Originally posted by Karen McCarthy Casey - Aug 29, 2007 in the Old Community Space:

Education, values and schools

Dear Dan and all This last winter I facilitated 2 community wide cafés for Catholic school districts. The initial one was part of a parish planning process which included the decision to spend 10 to 15 million to build a new k-8 school on their campus. They invited everyone from their parish and community, including the public school system as well as representatives from surrounding Catholic schools. The question they began with was similar to yours except with their particular layer - what is the value of a Roman Catholic education today. As the general population in this area is growing and close to 60% Catholic (whatever that means today) the question went very broad before it came back to the specific. It was a very rich conversation and has been continued on an irregular basis with other cafés that they now facilitate on their own. The information gathered is being used by both the public and Catholic districts in the yearly planning.

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Permalink Reply by Beth Alexander on September 22, 2009 at 2:43pm

Originally posted by kenoli - Aug 29, 2007 in the Old Community Space:

Karen -- What a great story. Thanks for sharing it. Has this begun to change the public's sense of ownership in the school districts or a more general understanding of the role the public plays in formal decision making? For example is the are the school boards beginning to see this kind of more thoughtful input from the public, growing out of effective process, as critical to their decision making process? I'm interested in how this kind of work can begin to change systems and the way people perceive the decision making process.

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Permalink Reply by Beth Alexander on September 22, 2009 at 2:42pm

Originally posted by kenoli - Aug 28, 2007 in the Old Community Space:


If you want to talk sometime about your situation and possibilities for addressing it, I'd be happy to. World Cafe sounds like a great place to start. We can also talk about how to carry this further to some real common ground.

There is a book you might be interested in called "Future Search in School District Change," edited by two friends of mine, Rita Schweitz and Kim Martens. I have a chapter in the book about an experience with a community in California thrown into turmoil over developments in a local school district. It focuses on future search, another large group process very coherent with World Cafe and might give you some food for thought.

Future search is the process we used in Talkeetna and Ketchikan.

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Permalink Reply by Beth Alexander on September 22, 2009 at 2:44pm

Originally posted by Nancy Margulies - Aug 29, 2007 in the Old Community Space:

Hi Dan:

In addition to Kenoli's suggestions, I can offer some insights from the education cafes I have hosted or helped plan. I am currently involved in a series of cafes for faculty of a school in LAUSD (Los Angeles, CA) and we have found that, for this particular group the following was useful:

"What are the strengths of our school and what strengths do you personally bring"? "What would make our school and exciting and rewarding place for faculty and students?"

and the next cafe:

"Tell us something about yourself that most colleagues in school don't know (for example special interests, past experiences, etc)" "Share with your table one strategy that you use in the classroom that has worked well." "If we, the faculty, could design our own on-going learning, topics, workshops, speakers might we select?"

Extrapolating from the above, what was helpful was people getting to know one another, sharing strengths and experiencing being of mutual support )sharing strategies that work), taking a more pro-active role (in this case, in their own professional development)

In your case, as with all cafe planning, the group who make the plans will know best what fits for them. In general, questions that focus on how a future they would like is showing up NOW and what is possible in the broadest sense if their district were to be one of the best anywhere. Then you might narrow the focus to what is possible now, soon, eventually...

When possible, I like to have a circle of students talk to one another, addressing an important question, while adults listen for 45 minutes or so, then begin a cafe that builds on what people just heard. That can break the habitual form of single issue debate.

Nancy

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Permalink Reply by Beth Alexander on September 22, 2009 at 2:45pm

Originally posted by kenoli - Aug 29, 2007 in the Old Community Space:

Nancy -- I like your phrase "how a future they would like is showing up NOW." I combines two important dynamics: 1) Focusing on the future gives people a chance to focus on their higher aspirations, a perspective that generally produces much more common ground that focusing on what they want now, 2) the Appreciative Inquiry framework of drawing attention to what the system is already doing well, a much more generative tactic than focusing on what needs to change.

The one thing the group may need to do first is to dream a bit about the future and get a chance to see what they share in terms of long range aspirations.

--Kenoli

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