Living strategy for learning in Oakley

Whole School Planning sounds dreary, but I had a slightly transcendent experience of how it can be done in a really well led school when I went to Oakley last week, an ancient but scattered village best known to 20th century history as the place the Great Train Robbers hid their takings. Children at the Oakley C of E Combined School were brilliant, bubbly and tremendous fun. Questions included “Who made God?” and “how did Jesus come to life again?” as well as the usual ones about Max the Cat and our children.

This school is, humanly speaking, an ideal size of about 100. Everybody really knows everybody else and it feels as though people really do muck in together here to get the best out of each other. The school is wonderfully well in with the village, both historically, and in creative contemporary ways. I noticed the school had arranged with builders of some new houses locally for small groups of children to go and visit regularly and see how houses are built — brilliant! I’d love to have done that when I was 8/9/10!

I was impressed by the Christian learning going on. Year 5 children had been working on Chagall images of the Crucifixion, producing their own, countering the tendency in lesser schools to telescope holy week into an Easter Bunny thang.

The School Council has also been working and consulting on a school prayer for everyone, and there has been really good sustained work to build children’s environmental awarenss in an Eco-school. David Kaboleh, local Vicar, is a frequent and friendly visitor. I liked the kindness tree where various good deeds were recorded, shared and celebrated as leaves on a tree.

I did see something I’ve not seen before, however, behind the Staff room door, with its elegant Simian theme. Jo Garlick and colleagues work closely together, to deliver their school improvement plan. There’s nothing crypto about learning strategy — it's there for everyone to see in the hall. But the staff have a mini version of the School Improvement Plan on the staff room wall. People, including children, use post-its when they undertake work, different colours for different groups (children, staff, governors, parents) and stick them into the whole scheme of what’s going on.

By doing this everybody can relate what they’re doing in the here and now to the broader strategy.

• Everybody can see that they’re part of the whole work of the school, and how.
  
  
• Everybody can see where the gaps are, in any given term.
  

This may sound like some boring bureaucratic thing, but it’s a brilliantly simple idea, that might be effective in all sorts of places (Churches?), and it really seems to work. It shows you can tie everything together strategically without being heavy handed, to keep things moving forward in a really deightful but also highly effective small school.

The Learning from Lambeth

OK — now I'm back at work, what is clearer to me as a result of Lambeth?

1. The sheer scale of our communion in global terms. It was immensely moving to meet colleagues from around the world — Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Darfur — and learn directly about the human and gospel dimensions of their lives. Most moving was the experience of being in a huge congregation saying the Lords prayer together in over a hundred languages. Quoting a Tanzanian brother, God’s Word speaks to each of us in our own language as the people we are, where we are. I was often reminded of Max Warren’s saying “It takes a whole world to know Christ.”
   So? Get to know and prioritize time for the world Church
2. The experience of African led Bible studies in community was fantastic. Some of the more academic English felt it wasn’t quite their cup of tea. It was mine. I am ashamed at the comaratively modest amount of time I have spent down the years in teams and groups studying the scriptures personally together. Business always seemed more important. If only I had seen that corporate study of the scriptures was our business, I might have prioritised things rather differently!
   So? Direct, personal, corporate Bible study could be given a greater place in the engine room of our decision making processes.
3. Indaba is a considerable discipline that takes a while to master, but it’s worth it. We are so inculturated into parliamentary methods and tactics, with winners and losers, as the way to make decisions. Indaba is slower, and requires a higher order of listening skills. Imagine, say, the last General Synod, without all the locker room intrigue, hysterics and theatricals. I am still haunted by a Japanese colleague, who had needed continuous translation, thanking the group in broken English for “the beauty of being listened to.” It brings no glory to God that the same would be very improbable feedback from many of our church meetings.
   So? Be more aware about the negative effects of parliamentary processes on people, and work for more patient, open, mutual, emotionally inteligent ways of deciding things together.
4. Rowan’s big Lambeth strategy seemed to be about committing to personal and corporate holiness, and alowing our plans to grow out of that. I have no grand overarching command and control strategy for Bucks. Here’s my strategy: Grace through Faith — strive to become the kind of people God needs us to be, and he will show us, on the ground, what needs doing and, more importantly, how to do it. As we step out, with authenticity, in faith we grow; as we shrink back, our visions get bogged down in fear and trivial pursuits. Therefore, as well as looking outward, centering our team processes in Scripture and being rigorously self-critical of our methods, we will be richly rewarded by God as we prioritise faith over fear, realism over fantasy, personal and spiritual excellence over mediocrity.
   So? We need more Faith, more realism, more holiness!

How can we learn to Think Different?

Thanks to Steve Whitmore for reminding me about the talk that alerted him to TED, which I looked up after he told me about it at Willow Creek.

In it Sir Ken Robinson talks about the effect of schooling systems around the world on Creativity, Do Schools kill Creativity? Sir Ken draws attention to the inherently multidisciplinary way the learning brain works, thriving on Diversity, Dynamically interactive and aware of acute Distinctions between sometimes incompatible things. He defines Creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value, and, boy, do we need some if we are to survive, let alone flourish in future.

An uncertain and increasingly complex world demands real liberation for the mind, possibility thinking and creativity, embracing paradox. We need to grow out of the kind of wooden Eagle Comic scientism of the modern age we're being peddled by some of today's secularists and the battened down cramming of the National Curiculum, or all we will end up doing is "strip-mining the earth" to destruction.

Whether you're a teacher, a thinker, a leader, or, actually a theologian, If you have an interest in survival you have an interest in Education and you need to drop what you're doing for the next 20 minutes and watch this!

How do we do well at doing good?

Great session with Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School. His background is n the auto industry, and he's one of the world's leading experts on strategy and competitiveness. He's also worked on urban poverty projects and healthcare.

Michael drew our attention to some classic misunderstandings churches have about strategy:

1. Strategy is not Aspiration —
   e.g. "serve 1000 families" — but how?
   
   
2. Strategy is not Action —
   "build new building," — an action that might be part of a strategy, but not a strategy that says why and how?
   
   
3. Strategy is not a Vision or mission statement —
   "serve our community" — just good intentions/ waffle

He showed us some classic blocks to strategic thinking in non-profits

1. Multiple, Conflicting, or unclear Goals
2. Services driven by donors or staff passions and preferences, not value or effectiveness
   
3. No attempt to measure performance
4. Little attention to costs, so that value becomes unmeasurable
5. Inability to make tradeoffs; trying to be all things to all people, or do it all ourselves
   
6. Inability to sunset a program, leading to program proliferation — why can't we give dead programs a decent Christian funeral?

We've got some great intentions. So if we want to get real about community service, what is this saying to us, and how can we apply it?