ashley cooper wrote:
Hi Pat,
I was a teacher at a school which claimed to use the Reggio approach.
A major problem that I found was that it was difficult for many
teachers and administrators to adopt this approach at a core level.
They liked how it sounded on paper, but did not know (and were not
appropriately trained) how to follow the flow of attention, adding
upon what was emerging, inviting depth from that which was present.
I now wonder if training in OS principles would help to facilitate the
degree of awareness that is also necessary in the Reggio approach.
While I believe the explicit incorporation of dialogue and OST
principles helps, in our case in Columbus it does not mean that it is
always easy. We had the advantage of starting a new school with no
building history, and that helped. A conscious decision was made to
provide a relatively minimalist framework to staff at the beginning so
that people working directly with the kids in the new settings could
co-create their own local version of Regio, which was a good idea but
created other levels of complexity and chaos. This is one reason I
proposed OST early in my relationship with them.
On the other hand, the staff came to Regio from at least 4 different
"teaching" cultures: Head Start, developmental disabilities, traditional
public schools and social work. In addition, in this partnership the
staff people are actually employed (paid) by their "home" agencies and
are technically accountable to different administrative entities
(although there are on site people who are empowered to act on behalf of
"corporate"...most of the time), multiple licensing and accreditation
groups, public jurisdictions, training requirements, etc. Each of the
"home agencies has a right and responsibility to determine what they can
be flexible about and what they cannot be flexible about. Fortunately,
each agency views the project as an experiment to learn from and worth
finding ways to be flexible for. Finally, all of this has been
occurring in the context of federal budget cuts and changes in regulations.
A very strong, visionary leader/champion of the project (one of my
sheroes), has done a number of things to help create and hold a
container (crucible) for this alchemy. She works directly with the
other system executives to do boundary management. She chairs the
leadership group but does not "run" it. She holds town meetings in the
building. She shares leadership by finding people who have strengths to
enrich the system. For example, one of the partnership leaders convenes
regular local and statewide Regio practitioner groups. Another with a
university affiliation is actively involved in action research, learning
and coaching in the building during the year and creates a summer
institute for people who work with the kids. Other people who have a
piece of the action help maintain the container in their own ways. My
role is to be a third eye and sheep dog dancing around the perimeter,
knowing they are generally on the right track and occasionally barking
when they lose track of the pasture they are headed toward or fail to
see a storm on the horizon.
Paradoxically, the level of complexity and chaos in the early days
created conditions that helped create a culture that challenges teachers
and administrators to adapt to Regio. Inside the building they are
committed to kids, to community and to partnership. All the
"leadership" messages in the building encourage people to find ways to
work within the vision. While they get flustered with what they see as
gaps in their own expectations and performance with respect to the
"ideal" image of Regio, all they have to do is look at their peers in
other buildings to realize what a special place they are creating.
It is by no means a utopia and I probably oversell it at times. Stuff
happens. But as each year passes their ability to be self organizing in
how they adapt in classrooms, "neighborhoods", the building and beyond
is deepening. But principles of dialogue and OST definitely help and
are congruent with Regio. Every so often when I stop by and wander
around the building I get to chuckle as I notice a group of people
getting together in the hall or in a room and overhear someone saying,
"Look! Whoever is here is the right people." or "Come on now, whenever
it starts IS the right time!" :-)
Chris Kloth
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