What do we need to consider when engaging parents in a difficult issue such as bullying?

Often when pressured with deadlines and outcomes it is easy to get right down into strategy - What we will do? Sometimes that is OK, but when there is complexity and conflict of views I have found the 'Seven ways of inquiry' process by Henderson and Kesson to be very helpful. These seven unique lenses represent different ways of thinking/feeling/relating with issues. They also work holistically together. Please do not be put off by the Greek names, rather use the questions as prompts for reflection.

Below is my map of  trying to capture the thinking and dilemmas of Sam, the Primary School Principal as well as my own. As Sam and I discussed it together we also added thoughts. The question behind the map is:

What do we need to consider when engaging parents in a difficult issue such as bullying?

Techne? 

How do we do it?

• What is the process we will use to engage parents?
• What is the form of the outcome of this? (Policy, protocol, awareness, champions?)
• How do we communicate it in a way that engages and empowers other parents? 

Phronesis 

Drawing on everyone's practical wisdom. Asking why. Going into deeper understandings of what is happening.

• How can we tap into parent's wisdom about positive parenting and social and emotional development? (e.g. building relationship with their child, skill building, praise.) What processes do parents already use when their children face dilemmas? 
• How do we enable time for parents to explore/discuss the reason behind bullying dynamics in order to understand why? (eg. power issues, identity, fear, role, home issues, peer culture.)
• How do we encourage different parents to build an expertise and bring information to the group?
• How do we help parents to build a bigger picture of where bullying sits in their own words and narratives? (For example, our narrative might be: Bullying is just one of several unhealthy relationship dynamics, that students can become trapped in, feeling powerless to change.)

Praxis

Critical Inquiry.  Challenge assumptions. Question how this process itself might set up power inequities between participants.

• How does this process help participants feel empowered?
• What assumptions or worldviews are we bringing through focussing on the issue this way - eg. stop bullying approach versus positive behaviour approach.
• What processes can we use to surface everyone's assumptions in a caring and respectful way?
• What assumptions do we think parents might bring? (My child is not a bully. Bullies need to be punished. It doesn't happen here. Tackle the issue when it happens. The school is responsible to fix it. The school isn't taking this incident seriously enough. Bullying is bad. I have taught my child to stand up for herself.)

Dialogos

Enabling different perspectives to converse. 

• How can we collect diverse positions and value them, and put them in conversation?
• Whose voices? (students, teachers, parents/carers)
• Whose roles? (Bully, victim, bystander, carer, teacher, counsellor, siblings, friends, principal)
• How can we help participants walk in another's shoes? (bringing mind, heart and soul)

Poesis

Soulful attunement, integrity, wholeness, creativity

• How in this process can we be mindful of participant's feelings and work with integrity?
• In whatever policy/approach that is created, how do we ensure that all players can come out whole, feel a senses of growth and integrity, and not feel diminished/blamed/shamed.
• How can we keep in mind the larger wholes here? This is not just about fixing a problem for individuals, it is something that contributes positively to the fabric of society. 

Theoria

Contemplative Wisdom. Linking to purpose and vision of what education is about.

• How can an issue like this link into a purposeful curriculum of life? (For example, each incident is an opportunity for social/emotional learning. It is welcomed as being part of our core business of learning and child development. It is not seen as a distraction.)
• How might thinking about what we need to do in terms of PREVENT, PREPARE, RESPOND, RECOVER enable us to see how this fits more strategically within our curriculum? For example, thinking about PREVENT might encourage us to develop pedagogies for more collaborative learning, with greater student agency.

Polis

Public Moral Inquiry. Making visible underpinning and possibly conflicting values. Moral responsibility.

• What responsibility does each stakeholder have? Eg. Each parent has a responsibility for every child.
• What values do we want to underpin the school's policy? Eg. Restorative (no child should leave the school) vs punishment. What happens if Restorative doesn't work?
• How can we tease out the various merits of different positions? What do we agree on?

Sam and I spent 30 minutes exploring and discussing the elements of the map, testing whether we had captured his concerns and thinking, and also what it opened up in terms of possibility. A key "break through" was the framing of bullying as part of a spectrum of relationship dynamics, enabling it to be linked to the school's core business in a positive way.

Sam said once he got over the Greek names he found the 7 lenses very logical and useful - and it was helpful to see the whole picture and how they interacted. He found one section - phronesis, considering the wisdom of the parents  - an important perspective that he had missed. He said if we were to take into account all of it, there is no way we could do this with a parent group in 1.5 hours. So we framed this as a touch-stone - something to help our thinking - and inform the design of the parent workshop.

We both had homework  for our next meeting - Sam to design the parent workshop, and me to consider how to engage the Grade 4/5 students in a transforming leadership role.

Why is it important to define bullying? What can we learn from using an integral lens?

There are many resources on the web about bullying and all have slightly different definitions.  The Safe Schools Support Framework has developed definitions for each age group. (eg. Grades 5 - 9). Most definitions that you might see include the following aspects. 
Bullying is:

·         repetitive

·         intentioned

·         physical, emotional or social behaviour (including on-line)

·         causes harm to another

·         in situations where there is a power differential

·         the “victim” feels powerless

·         can be overt or covert

Bullying does not include one-off events or aggression/conflict between those of equal power. 

Not all definitions specify that the bullying has to be intentioned to cause harm.   However, in some states in the USA this is part of the definition in order to link in with legal processes which rely on demonstrating intent.  These states have passed laws to mandate specific actions that schools must take.

For example, New Jersey law requires principals to investigate every incident of bullying within one school day, and complete a formal report within 10 days that must be submitted to the superintendent within 2 days of completion. Results of the investigation must be presented to the school board at the next regularly scheduled meeting. Students in Georgia who are found to have bullied others for a third time are sent to an alternative school.

Posted by Justin W. Patchin on September 3, 2013, http://cyberbullying.us/unintentional_bully/

There is also specific language around bullying that is used in some approaches but not others – “the bully”, “the victim”, “the target”, “bullying behaviour.”  I wonder, does the way we define or think about the issue lead us into particular ways of dealing with it?

When dealing with complex issues where there seem to be conflicting positions I like to bring different theoretical lenses to help articulate the different mental models and approaches people might be bringing. The following is one of the lenses of Integral Theory where each quadrant represents a different way of considering experience.

IT Quadrant

When we consider bullying as an unwanted behaviour (IT quadrant) then a response approach might be on naming it up, ensuring everyone knows it is not OK and stopping it. The school may have a set process for reporting and intervening, with a hierarchy of consequences or punishments for “the bully”. Bystanders can play a powerful role in naming the behaviour and stopping it. A preventative approach could be how to make the school's physical environment safer – consider isolated zones, remove crowding around lockers, teachers on duty. How to make on-line environments safer - code of ethics, parental supervision, student training in cyber-bullying.

I quadrant

If we consider what motivates “the bully” (I) and why they might need to control others, put people down, or exclude others we might see a range of issues such as boredom, low self-esteem, identity issues, not realise their impact, reacting to stressful life circumstances, betrayal or suppression, repeating patterns that are done to them, psychological trauma, or developmental roadblocks.  Response approaches include working with the person who is bullying and their family to help them to address causes, as well as working with the person who has been harmed to help build up their resilience.  Whole school  preventative  approaches  can include delivering emotional literacy programs for all students to build up self-esteem, self-awareness,  and empathy.

ITS Quadrant

When we see bullying as an unhealthy relational dynamic or power/energy drama (ITS) between two or more people then we might ask what starts and sustains the dynamic. What assists the development of more healthy dynamics? For example, one response approach is “Bully Blocking” which helps  “the target” understand the game and remove the “wins” for “the bully” through adopting certain behaviour.  The method of shared concern does not name the dynamic as bullying, but rather enables the participants and others to find ways to restore a more healthy dynamic. A psychodrama approach sees the person doing the bullying and the the person being bullied both as "victims" in a drama that has captured them both.

If we see bullying as part of spectrum of relational dynamics, then prevention measures may focus on helping children build better relationships and greater social literacy.  This might include developing everyday processes for dealing with dilemmas, unhealthy dynamics or conflict, such as using conflict resolution skills.  Such dilemmas would be seen as learning opportunities for social and ethical development. Parents could engage in everyday non-blame conversations where children can admit to dilemmas/mistakes, take accountability, apologise to those impacted, restore if needed, take learnings and then move on. Given that bullying is about power, the school could also look at their pedagogy and see how they might be giving opportunity for student choice, agency and control.

WE quadrant

If we consider the culture (WE) in which the bullying takes place, then we may see that the normative behaviour – “how we do things around here,”  “everyone does it” - such as teasing, put downs, physicality, cliques,  jokes on mates, blame and shame  - may support more intentional and malicious bullying incidents.  The line between everyday behaviour and bullying is blurred. Schools may have clear values such as safe, respectful, friendly, caring schools. However, there may be a gap between what is happening and what is espoused. Further, in an effort to stop bullying, schools may set up a culture of “blame and shame” which can act to reduce reportings of incidents  as it becomes too onerous for those who have negative experiences.

Preventative approaches often include awareness-raising that seeks student commitment to cultivating positive school cultures through explicit actions (such as smile to others, include people in your groups), with positive reinforcement by students and teachers.  For example, an approach to challenge discrimination and harassment behaviours might create opportunities for students to experience and value diversity, understand the construction of identity and stereotypes that can lead to exclusion and recognise their power in creating the environments they want. Mindmatters is an example of a whole school approach to cultivating a friendly school culture. 

Active bystanders become very important in modelling the preferred behaviour, helping to shift the existing culture and providing safe intervention if needed.

An integral approach?

An integral approach would draw on all four quadrant lenses.  Many of the approaches articulated above are complimentary.  Some of the preventative measures address different aspects of Maslow’s human needs – need for safety (no fear), for belonging (inclusion, friendship and love), for self-esteem (respect and mastery), for self-actualisation (agency, self-awareness, meaning). However, some approaches are coming from different philosophical stances which can be counter-productive if used together. In developing a whole school approach perhaps there needs to be careful testing of the alignment of various approaches and paradigms with the school ethos. 

• What processes need to be in place when an incident occurs, and what preventative approaches are needed? 
• How are the approaches evaluated for effectiveness, and how can continual learning happen? 
• How are parents engaged?

Professor Donna Cross, in a workshop to Tasmanian Principals, said that many anti-bullying strategies have been in place over the years and now evidence is coming in about what does and doesn't work. Where efforts are made to build up resilience of those likely to be bullied, what has been found is that while many of these children are now better equipped to avoid bullying situations, there are a group of children who do not avoid it, and are targeted even more. She says that this strategy is not enough and recommends a whole school approach, including transforming culture, training students to be active bystanders, considering the physical environment, using method of shared concern and reflective listening, and engaging students in the issues and coming up solutions.

We are focussing here on bullying. Should bullying be the driver of developing a whole school approach? Are there other ways of looking at it?

• The  National Safe School Framework is a whole school approach to help create safe schools with 9 steps for leaders to consider.
• The Tasmanian Respectful Schools Framework provides schools with a range of models, processes and check lists that promote respectful schools.
• The Friendly Schools initiative, developed by Professor Donna Cross to address bullying, provides a whole school approach that enables schools to identify gaps and put in place preventative emotional and social literacy programs as well as adaptive response processes with the aim to develop a friendly and safe school culture.

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...