My child has been bullied, what do I say to her?

A mother of a kindergarten student (aged 4).

I don't know what to say to my daughter, Angie. 

Angie's close friend left the school and she would like to play with another group of girls. They say they don't want to play with her, "your lunch is smelly". They are the cool girls, the ones with bows in their hair, the girly girls, the ones everyone wants to be with, the ones who are mean to others to feel special and exclusive. Yes, even in kindergarten there are cliques!

Do I say to Angie, "it's Ok you will find other friends" and help her be more accepting that she is likely to be on the fringes of groups, like me, because she doesn't quite fit the mould? Or do I help her to change the situation? And how?

When I talked to my mothers group they shared similar dilemmas they have with their kids, but we didn't get to thinking about solutions. It brought up for all of us our own school histories of bullying or exclusion. All of us had a story to tell. It seemed to me our own experiences were shaping how we were interpreting what was happening for our kids. 

Was I projecting on my daughter my own experience at school of not quite belonging? Was the "explanation" I was giving Angie  in dealing with difficult relationships - resign yourself, avoid them - coming from my mature wise self or rather the hurt excluded child of my own school years? Was I about to perpetuate a strategy that might help to survive, but perhaps not to thrive? 

The mothers of the "cool" girls are lovely - not "cool" themselves.  I arranged a play date for Angie with one of the girls and they seemed like fast friends. but as soon as it is in the school situation the group dynamic comes into play and they are still excluding her and using put-downs. Although I would like Angie to be included, I would not like to see her using put-downs to others as part of her membership of a group. 

I realise now that this issue is bigger than me and what I can do. How could the school community assist in helping these children build positive healthy relationships and group culture? Can we break cycles of bullying and exclusion?

As she grows up I would like my daughter to feel accepted, a sense of belonging and confidence. I would also like her to develop skills to navigate complex relationship and group dynamics with mindfulness and integrity. And then I wonder, to what extent should I be trying to intervene and make things right versus supporting her to learn from the dilemmas that she faces? What does that look like in a whole school community context?

What do you think are the issues here?
What might be an approach that takes into account the values expressed here?

x

Is it about getting the right strategy?

Plan A - Have goal in sight

I met Sam, the Primary School Principal, during the last week of the school year in 2014 to discuss how the school might engage parents in developing a whole community approach to bullying.

We came up with a strategy that involved running a 1.5hr workshop for a group of about 20 people consisting of parents (with the core being Parents and Friends members), teachers and students.  The workshop would be designed to enable the group to:

• consider what they would want to happen if their child was bullied (to help orient into a non-punitive ethos);
• look at definitions of bullying;
• explore different approaches to dealing with bullying (through a world café),  including ones that we might not want;
• suggest approaches/ethos for the school;
• suggest ways to engage the whole community in a conversation.  

A key to this was to work with the Grade 4/5 class prior to the workshop to create some inputs to the workshop to provoke thinking (eg. Examples of bullying/not bullying. The conversation I would like to have with my parents. What I would like my parents to do.)  

Sam thought we would have no problem getting parents and that the School Newsletter would be the way to advertise. The timeline was to run the workshop within the third week of term 1 (Feb 20). Following the workshop the Grade 4/5 class would work on a way of stimulating conversation with the whole school community, creating a video that we could launch on the National Day of Action against bullying on March 20. It was a tight time-frame and we were wary that the focus point of the national day might be making us too goal oriented.

Listening to the dissonance

I could tell Sam was still concerned over the emphasis on bullying and whether this would drive approaches that wouldn’t necessarily fit into the whole school philosophy.  He was still juggling how bullying fit in terms of a respectful framework. Why the emphasis on bullying when it was just one of a number of disrespectful behaviours?

Our intention was to meet the week before school started and fill in the details.  After a months’ break I looked at my notes and experienced what can only be described as cognitive dissonance over this same issue. Intuitively something felt wrong, and I know to trust my unease about issues. I knew we had to think bigger than this. I then did lots of thinking, pacing, stewing and had little sleep. The only way to resolve it was to capture and map out the dilemmas.

What helped me was Sam’s statement that the benefit to him of being involved in this project was coming up with a generic process that could help him with any controversial issue. Too often controversy is solved by one person or a small group in power – the diverse perspectives are collapsed into an easy time saving message. Without seeing the alternatives people find it difficult to understand the ethos or principles behind what they do – so they follow rules or procedures, rather than empowered to make their own processes.  

So what is a generic tool kit that enables mapping of controversial issues? In mine are Integral Theory, 7 ways of Inquiry (Henderson and Kesson) and the use of hypotheticals – these can help to bring a rigor and clarity to the complex soundtrack in your brain.  In the next few posts I use each of these to tease out some of the competing perspectives and the different angles that might need to be considered when engaging others on controversial issues.

What excites me is that when I shared these with Sam something flowered in his thinking that took us to a whole new level.

How do schools engage parents in conversations about bullying? Is this what we really want to talk about?

At the end of last year I was asked if I would like to manage a project funded from the Safe School Framework to promote not just awareness around bullying but also to develop approaches that link into the Tasmanian Respectful Schools Framework. 

A key awareness event is the 20th March National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence. Schools are encouraged to register and consider some of the activities.  The website has tips for teachers, parents and students, "bully blocking" apps for students, videos and lesson plans. Last year a number of Tasmanian schools created "Bystander" videos to get across the message of how bystanders can radically change bullying situations.

But this funding is slightly different. It is about creating a process that might engage parents in conversations and be part of processes to help develop school policy. There are three schools - A primary school (K-6), a High School (7-10) and a Senior Secondary School  (11-12). Each is doing something different and has a slightly different challenge. 

The primary school is a no rules school - rather students act from a strong values base to work out what is respectful behaviour in different situations. The High School is one year into developing a School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) model, and the Senior Secondary School uses restorative approaches, method of shared concern and ACT mindfully.  All of them were interested in finding ways to engage parents more.

Sam (pseudonym) is the principal of the primary school and was keen to be part of the project:

The issue we have here is that parents will come in all upset saying their child has been bullied. They want to see action - some sort of punishment for "The Bully". "Bullying" is such an evocative term - we have all sorts of associations in our head about how bad it is and how people can be affected. That is true, but often what has happened is not actually bullying - it may be a one-off or it may not involve power.  And punishment is not the answer - it can make it worse. It doesn't address the underlying causes and it discourages reporting of bullying behaviours. Students may not even tell their parents that they are bullied, afraid of their parents taking action. 

I would like any process that we develop for our school to be restorative and an opportunity for social learning. I would not want to see any kid leaving the school or being expelled. That's the problem if you use a ladder of consequences with increasing repercussions for behaviour - they can end up getting expelled - and that doesn't help the long term future of the student. They don't have to be friends, or to like each other, but I would like to see them find a respectful way of relating.

I would like to say to parents that it takes a village to raise a child and how can all parents be responsible for all children. I would like to ask them what sort of processes they would like in place if their child was "The Bully." 

Then Sam reflected:

My first thought is we need to help parents develop a definition of bullying - to know when it is and isn't bullying, and then we can work out what to do. But now I wonder about the whole approach of saying NO to something. Wouldn't we be a lot better off saying YES to something? What are we valuing here?

I asked Sam in that case does the focus of the project on bullying actually fit his ethos for the school. He thought about it.

Yes, I think so. It is a difficult issue. The word "bullying" is still out there, parents use it.  We need to address it  - but we need to frame it more in the context of the respectful schools framework. If we can develop a process for working with parents through such a difficult issue then we can use it for other issues. 

We decided we needed to sleep on it and I knew that I needed to capture his competing dilemmas, because these no doubt will be the drivers that shape the way the process unfolds. 

When I visited the team at the High School responsible for the Positive Behaviour Support program at the school they were initially interested in the project. After further discussion they were unsure how it would sit within an SWPBS framework. They were particularly concerned that the emphasis on negative behaviour - Bullying. NO WAY! - did not fit their positive behaviour model. Their decision in the end was to engage a parent committee to review their old Bullying Policy and look at what it would now mean under their new framework. Their key concern in engaging parents was that most were busy working people who had little time to consider more than their particular child's issues. Their offerings of visiting speakers to talk about adolescent issues had poor attendance.

What is interesting is that although the campaign brand is Bullying. No Way! and parts of the website  focusses on tips for parents, students and teachers on how to respond if there is a bullying situation, the National Day of Action lesson plans actually do focus on positive behaviour. The 2014 lesson plans ask what is needed for a safe school and invites students to come up with their own ideas that can support this and prevent bullying. The 2015 lesson plans focus on what makes good friendship to help students develop a code of ethics for online practice, helping to prevent cyberbullying. 


How do we engage parents in conversations reflecting a positive behaviour approach? 

• What are their concerns? 
• What dilemmas are they facing? 
• What are their values, and what do they hope for? 
• What parental wisdom can they bring?
• How can they feel part of a bigger whole?

Re-imagining learning design

So here's the challenge. I am heading off to Singapore in a month's time for a project in their continuing education sector (vocational training). It involves working with trainers, curriculum designers, trainers of trainers and curriculum designers, managers and hopefully the quality assurance people. This group represent the key people in the process of learning. Each level experiences constraints from other levels.

This project gives us the opportunity to make these dynamics visible. Through a shared process of exploring and visioning about education we hope to create new imaginaries about learning design not just within the existing constraints but to challenge those that are counter-productive. Such visioning will be grounded by inquiry and development of new practices.

Constraints

Many trainers are part of a quality assurance program. They are quality assured on whether students have gained the required industry standard of the set learning competencies. Some trainers are also assessed on whether they have followed the curriculum design to the letter - did they conduct a role play and a case study, and do each activity at the designated time? In Australia the competencies are set, but the way to get there through curriculum design is up to the teacher. In Singapore curriculum designers are not necessarily the same people as the trainers; they therefore need to create something which not only provides a learning journey for the students, but is also achievable by trainers with a variety of background experiences and skills.

Curriculum designers may feel constrained by the structuring of the courses, for example, the heavy use of modularisation into "flexible" bits. The use of reductionistic competencies reduces learning into more behavorist concerns, rather than humanist which is concerned with developing adult learners. (See Taylor, Marienau, Fiddler, 2000.)

So where is the creativity, humanity in this? Is there another way while still ensuring standards are met in terms of the professions?

The project is Tools for Learning design. What do you think of when you see this? Perhaps a nice model or heuristic device to help create that effective learning experience, whether in designing curriculum or an activity? Yes, there will be those, but there is a bigger tool - our own minds and how that shapes our view of the world. In particular we are interested in our conceptions about what teaching and learning is and what it can be, what it means to be human and what our "subject" is. Can a wider view help us see into other possibilities?

Widening our view to open up for innovation

What might it mean to re-imagine our conceptions of teaching and learning?
In the project we first aim to move into an explorative space to surface our own beliefs and assumptions and to see how these might be on different spectrums - curriculum metaphors, teaching metaphors, and learning theories.

Vocational training relies heavily on teaching as instructing (cognitivist) and teaching as training (behavorist). Curriculum metaphors include curriculum as set tasks, as learning outcomes, as learning activities and as social reproduction. There is a movement to more constructivist ideas and more student-centred learning but the scope of these, particularly into student-directed learning are restricted by the constraints. I am hoping that exploring other possibilities (e.g. curriculum as currere, as connectivism, as complexity, or as conversation) may generate creative ideas for thinking about curriculum enabling and / both solutions at all levels of the system. It is important to recognize that we need many different ways of thinking about learning - the key is making the choices visible rather than promoting one as better over another.

What might it mean to re-imagine one's subject?

I teach science. Or do I? Perhaps I teach students to inquire into the universe with wonder in their eyes? Perhaps I am inducting them into different lenses of science, and encouraging them to use them critically to understand how our tools and thinking shape the way we see and interpret our world. How does my reconceptualising my "content" change who I am as a teacher? How might we reconceptualise the teaching of massage, cooking, game design, curriculum design?

How do we reconceptualise our view of humans?

People are more than just learners. How might our view of people effect how we choose to listen, for example. Perhaps as teachers we find ourselves listening out for whether our students are learning what we are intending (Evaluative Listening). Or maybe we are curious to understand our students thinking and processes (Interpretative Listening) - by understanding this we can help them learn more effectively. Or perhaps we are really listening to what our students are saying, and allowing it to change us, to inquire into who we are, who they are, and become imaginatively engaged in participation into something greater than us (Hermeneutic Listening).

How might we use such ideas in the thinking of curriculum design?

The project

The structure of the project is over a 15 week period starting in early August with 3 workshops and inquiry in between which will involve trailing innovations and collecting data. Participants will frame their own questions after considering system contraints and dynamics and wider views of education. I am hoping to team Singapore participants up with Tasmanian Polytechnic people who are working at similar levels of the system. By enabling a thoughtful cross-cultural conversation I am hoping that assumptions might become more visible as well as the development of ongoing partnerships. There are a lot of commonalities but enough difference to make things interesting!

If you want to participate contact me susan.stack@utas.edu.au

Photo: CC - Fever Avenue

Taylor, K., Marienau, C., Fiddler, M. (2000) Developing Adult Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Transforming education .... through ICT ...yewk???

What is your big vision for education?

15 years ago I would have talked about a holistic vision for education, seeing its values, philosophies and pedagogies as helping to stretch humanity into a place I thought we needed to be for the survival of the planet and humanity. 10 years ago I realised for many teachers it is too big a shift, and worked with people where they were to help expand their seeing, thinking and actions, mainly through action research. I also began to recognise that"holistic"philosophies were based on a particular value system which I was priviliging and to be open to emergent possibilities. Since then I have been squirming around in my head thinking through integral framing of the issues and wondering whether some of this thinking may be useful for others.

In the last year I have been involved in a project where we asked educational leaders what are their issues and visions around ICT and e-learning in education, inorder to help us better understand the implications of the new promised high speed broadband to education.

ICT... yuk. Technology. Yuk. Useful... but what has this got to do with the soul, with passion, with ethical living in the world, with beauty, mindfulness, generosity, with nature?

Well quite a lot actually. When asked about what high speed broadband can do, it is very easy to talk about the actual technology - high streaming video conferencing, schools being able to upload and download multiple media files, visualisation of data sets into 3D worlds...

When you talk about it that way it can fail to excite many educators. When I started asking these leaders to tell me why these things would be valuable to education suddenly their voices were filled with passion and excitement.... the opportunity to break down the walls of the classroom, ignite creativity in students and teachers, enable global participation and contribution, to find new places to belong, to transform education...etc...

In listening to the leaders I began ot realise that much of what they valued could be mapped onto a spiral dynamic framework. The following diagram gives a spectrum of values which underpin some of the affordances of ICT for student development and learning. Such a diagram can help make explicit the range of things which we value, and help us to realise that they can be from very different value systems. As a whole these provide a very powerful narrative for education. We can use it to see how we are contributing to the whole and value those who are contributing to a different part of it. Part of the challenge is to give examples of what teachers and students doing, making these affordances evident. (Note - this diagram is by no means complete - just tries to give a flavour of the differences and has the danger of caging our thinking in.)

I used this framework to develop "stories" of what students were doing or could do with high speed broadband. I presented these stories with some colleagues at the Broadband for Society Summit and also at a cross-sector e-learning educational forum which was part of the NBN in education research project (see powerpoint). For both audiences the stories acted very powerfully. I believe that was because they spoke to people heart to heart - about what we value. Leaders also liked the framework as a tool for helping us to put what we value upfront.

Subsequent to the forum event I have been reading the work of Schieffer and Lessem on transforming organizations - Part 1, Part 2. One of their suggestions is that transformation is often done without actually understanding the cultural ground of being of where people are at - what they value. We need to start at the "ground" and then go through a process of emerging (holistic world), navigating (rational world) and effecting (pragmatic world).

It is timely to discover such a model to help reflect on what actually happened in the forum and whether we could have facilitated it better. I realise how much the work I did on values actually helped people to connect to the ground of their being - to their heart and their culture. The stories with different layers of affordances cut across differences to speak to people in different ways.

But did we move from our ground?

I also realised that the work I had done on synthesing the interviews - not just around the issues - but also around different perspectives and mental models that people were bringing, helped to create a greater holistic narrative. I developed a framework which indicated the key perspectives we needed to have to look at the issues - pedagogy, educational vision, professioanl learning, student pathways, inclusion, policy and supporting technologies - far more than usually considered in ICT debates. I also used a simple quadrant integral framework to explose some of the mental frameworks that people were bringing to thinking about the issues - cultural, systems, things and experiences, individual innner aspects. A key aim of using these frameworks was to show how the diverse and often conflicting views and lenses actually together made an important whole. We need to be agile in our thinking across all these different ways of seeing and framing the issues.

I think what we observed on the day was the willingness of participants to come to know the differences of each other... to listen out for the interesting questions and to explore them rather than just dismiss them for their lack of pragmatism. Sheiffer and Lessem talk about the importance of opening to the "other" to break down habitual limiting cultural patterns. (Your culture is still the ground of your being but where you transform to is a hybrid space where you have reframed your culture, rather than leaving it behind.)

Towards the end of the day we went into the more rational and pragmatic stages to see where to next. But I felt that something was missing from the day... we needed to also move into a more spacious visioning space - perhaps consider global and local scenarios... and then come back to asking Are we seeing "holistic"enough? Are we asking the big questions... not just some interesting ones.

I approached the research using a causal layered approach... what are the issues and barriers (the litany layer), what are the emerging themes or perspectives (the social analysis layer), what are the worldviews and values, and the next layer is about collective visioning. One day is not enough...

It is fabulous that the theories have now been freed from rattling around in my head.... I now can let go of the need for them to be accurate or sufficient - seeing them as temporary scaffolding that has a timely usefulness to help a particular group have a conversation in new ways....

And so the conversation continues...

And my head is now more spacious for other things to squirm around...

Creating a philosophy for education

I have finished teaching a semester of Professional Studies for pre-service teachers where the culminating performance was to write a beginning philosophy of education. I marked over 50 essays and was incredibly impressed and humbled by the collective wisdom, vision and creativity of these people who have barely dipped their toes in the water of teaching.

Many of my students committed to a path of being and becoming 'awake teachers', teaching 'who they are' with integrity, and engaging in reflective practice.

In discussing their beginning philosophy it seemed that my students tended towards taking one of three approaches. It occurred to me that each approach was a piece of the puzzle and that as educators these key three aspects could help inform us and keep our philosophy and our practice alive. It is interesting that these approaches emerged from the task and were not dictated by it.

What sort of teacher do I want to be?

A number of students pulled together a range of different teaching and learning strategies. They painted a picture of the environment they wanted to create, the relationships they want to have with the students, the experiences they would like the students to have and their teacher identity that they would like to develop.

I believe that imagining ourselves into our classrooms is a very important aspect in working out our philosophy – it uses our intuition and sense of identity to attract to us what we believe is good, true and beautiful. It is a great starting point for going deeper and looking for foundational values and what we think is the purpose of education.

Key values and ideals

Some students took a key value, like respect and dignity as the core of their teaching philosophy. They teased out the deeper meaning and potentials of these values and imagined a classroom where these values infused their own teaching presence/identity and the environment of the students. Exploring just one of these key values could be a lifetime’s work – to ask what does it mean to truly embody such a value as deeply and richly as possible.

There are many educational authors who have won fame through focussing on one thing and through that developing rich and complex philosophies that speak to many dimensions of teaching. (Eg. Nel Noddings using the idea of “care”.) Articulating a core value (or some values) and keeping them fore fronted means as we design activities or work on relationships we can ask “What does it mean if I bring in a conscious awareness of respect and dignity here?”

I tend to ask myself “What is good, true, beautiful and whole here?”

What is the purpose of education?

Some students went to the very heart of what education is for and looked for a philosophy that said something about humanity, society and education. They moved outside of the classroom into wanting to understand the bigger picture of education and its role. Students who wrote from such a perspective were able to create a coherent rationale of what they might be becoming an educator for. This question is a very important one to ask ourselves as it sets a vision. So why are you an educator? Some students were coming with a clear vision of transforming society, developing humanity etc.

Locus of awareness

When asking what our philosophy of education is, we can focus on ourselves and our identity, our classrooms, the school system, society, a sense of an evolving world… our locus of awareness at any stage can narrow or broaden. It is useful to be aware of where we are locating ourselves and to realise where else we can look and have the choice to do that.

The teachers we value

One specific part of the assignment was asking students to reflect on their past teachers who were significant to them in some way (negative or positive) and through reflecting on this to pull out key aspects that they might think are important for their own teacher selves.

Teachers that students valued listened to them, saw them, supported and encouraged them, spent extra time with them, shared a passion with them, were human and real, allowed them freedom if they needed it, gave something to them that sparked an interest, made them feel valued, enabled them to make mistakes and feel comfortable with that. Teachers they hated diminished them, used throw away comments, put them up for ridicule, misunderstood them, told them that they would never be good at XXXX.

So while many of students discussed teaching strategies of their teachers, an overwhelming conclusion was that strategies that their good teachers used are all over the spectrum – it is not the strategy that makes the teacher – the teacher makes the strategy. What students valued was not technique as much as identity – the quality of their teacher and in particular the quality of relationship that their teacher had with them.

So what is the essence of a good teacher that needs to be bottled? Quality of relationships?

So how do we keep alive our thinking about what it is we value in education? How do we consciously embody our vision? How important is it to read something inspiring, talk inspiring dialogue with a collegial community, and to record those moments with our students who have inspired us?


PHOTO: CC Pink Sherbet

Telling a new story of the Essential Learnings through paradigm lenses

I have been in mapping mode lately. It happens to me in cycles... but I am beginning to pay attention to my need to systemise because often it creates a pressure cooker for surprising insights to occur.

My big emergent insight at the moment is that we need to tell a new story about the Tasmanian Essential Learnings (the K-10 curriculum in Tasmania which was dismantled two years ago). Over the last two years many Tasmanians have heard that:

ELS = failure

But that is not the way that is seen nationally, overseas or even locally. I feel that the ELS holds hard-won "collective wisdom" about visionary change in education for the 21stC. Every person who took part in the journey - educational leaders, teachers, parents, business people, students, grandparents, community groups - each have gained important learnings. All different, all which might give insight into something that could be of great service to the rest of the world. The global challenges which informed aspects of the ELS are still with us.

How might the ELS be re-framed today? Could we re-frame the metaphors we use about what we value - from being "leaders" or the "best" of something in the world - to "What can we contribute to the world?"

Can Tasmanians have something to contribute to the world through telling our stories of this epic learning journey? Perhaps we need a time to reflect over the sudden dismantling of the ELS, a time to heal, and then a time to tell. What could we learn from each other if we were invited to give our unique perspectives, to use perhaps different lenses to tell our stories and then do some "appreciative inquiry"? What have we learnt, who have we become, what do we now value, what are emerging intuitions, interesting positives, where are our metaphors now, and how might we vision the next step? How can we crochet new conversations and what might they create?

What might enable such conversations - virtual or face-to-face? Who might want to listen?

Why might our collective experiences be significant? Can they be generalisable to other countries who are looking for new educational visions and transformation processes?

Looking at generic paradigms

Spiral Dynamics suggests that there are generic paradigms in which societies move through. We can map key patterns of society - key underpinning values, ways of thinking and ways of being. People might tune into different paradigms whether at work, play or with family. There is an evolutionary movement of the paradigms with entry points (letting go of the old and practicing new things), mature stage (combining learnings from previous paradigms with new ways of thinking and practice) and exit points (where disillusionment happens.)

Perhaps our education reforms can be mapped on such a paradigm map. Based on my own experiences I have made a possible map which might tell part of the story for the evolution of teaching of science - from blue to orange to green to yellow. This is "my" story of our journey which may resonate with others and may not.

Each colour represents a way of thinking and being represented by different aspects of society:

The key metaphor for Blue is the traditional librarian - the holder and keeper of knowledge - the worlds' collective wisdom - which is structured in ways so we can access it and make sense of it. But how do we cope with increasing knowledge?

Orange is about being part of an entrepreneurial and technological society - initiative, making thinking and processes visible (meta-cognition), problem solvers, investigators, empowered to live in a complex world. We have habits of mind for successful people but do we need qualities of being for soulful people?

Green brings together criticality, caring and community - looking at ways of building human capacity and contribution in an emancipated postmodern society. But in its anxiousness to be inclusive it can often marginalise the more traditional ways of knowing, being and learning.

Yellow tries to find what is valuable in all, and to find ways of enabling conversations between disconnected voices.

Perhaps the ELS curriculum represents a "mature" expression of the green paradigm for educational transformation. The journey and "lived experience" of those who participated in the implementation of the ELS are as important as the artifacts of that experience - the curriculum documents. How might we be capturing those experiences for others to incorporate into their own journeys? Can we have a sense of where our individual journeys and tensions sit when we use a model such as this? Were we trying to move too quickly between the different paradigm spaces?

And is this mapping of the ELS onto a paradigm model like this too simplistic? Absolutely! However, in trying to name it and see the patterns enables me to "let go" of many of my agendas and perhaps look back with greater perspective. Thus enabling me to wonder in new ways. Is it useful for you?

So come and play the Snakes and Ladders game with me...

1. Start at the bottom and develop hard-won knowledge
2. Choose to be on the leading edge OR wait to see how things are going before deciding to join
3. Choose whether you stop for a while and integrate, or push on
4. See who you are bringing with you and who you might be alienating
5. Become aware of how cultural paradigms shape you. Be aware of how your own journey is a symptom of society - its needs, dreams, concerns - and everyone is an important part of the system's message
6. If you have fallen behind, beware of jumping too far ahead without some of the mediating experiences which can help you master essential new skills, ways of thinking or being
7. Master the whole so you can move wherever you want.
8. If you fall down a snake - don't panic - it happens to everyone. Look for others who might help you re-frame your experiences so you can use your hard-won wisdom.
9. Be part of continuing conversations
   

The new ELS story = we can contribute our collective wisdom to the world????

Photo: Margaret Wertheim - Institute For Figuring hyperbolic crochet corals and anemones