Missin' Culver City March 2011

Attempting to learn via Skype, when I should be in LA, has helped me internalize the meaning of the saying "You had to be there" as a stark reality of the benefits of physical presence.

As my colleagues vigorously investigate the research characteristics of the Posner/Brown article, I just hear all that I cannot participate in which produces a really crappy feeling!

Here is what I have managed to get from today's session:
John: wants us to be research connoisseurs
Elliot W. Eisner concept
We need to be able to identify the key characteristics of good research
Good evaluation needs the ability to criticize

Carolyn:
Knowledge is art
How do you but this into verbal discussion

Connoisseurs: private
Art of appreciation

Criticism is
The reeducation of perception
Criticism: Help us to see

QUESTION: where is Carolyn’s Eisner quote from?

You cannot blindly follow this algorithm you will not become a connoisseur of research
QUESTION: John what is the “This” is the not above?

Bingo, I am Sold!

According to John, Carolyn will tell us Question/Method/Person are the 3 key components in research. If there is no clear method – you need to consider who you are as a person. We must learn the numbers, so do not sit through Carolyn’s sessions and blow them off because you are intimidated. (That is exactly what I did yesterday)

Learning to understand the quantitative approach now will put you in a better position to criticize it later – BINGO! I am sold.

John Wergin: The Pragmatist

Kirk: Is there a place for both Construtivist and Positivist research methods?

*John: I believe there is a place for both – I am a pragmatist. I can see situations that call for either approach.

*Note: Dr. Wergin has the learning and life experience to stand behind the previous words, but don't take my word for it - read McMillan, J. H., & Wergin, J. F. (2010). Understanding and evaluating educational research (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Merrill. Chapter 1: Introduction pp. 1-13

Antioch Seattle 2011: Thursday ProseSem.

Check in – everyone gave an update
o Two babies expected

o Become a different, better, stronger, more intelligent person only when you’re with us!

o We have an insider with World Vision

o Scotland, Kilts, oh my – and learning from your colleague who is deaf

o Fundraising - learning how to ask

o Participation in a great artistic program the empowers those from marginalized groups

o David got to check Istanbul off his bucket list

o Living with your 19 year old step child – so fun!

o What is the easy way to schedule dialysis for your 81 year old mom who is visiting for the holidays?

o A child graduated and now works in Darth Vader’s building right here in Seattle

o “Ed”

o We are happy to see each other, plain and simple says the Rev.

o My wife and I got married

Authenticity In the end...

What I have learned about leaders:
1. Sometimes leaders need to be lead by their followers.
2. Sometimes leaders need to be followers but cannot see that they should be following and thus they become horrible leaders who lead a bunch of people astray.
3. Sometimes leaders want to be leaders who are being lead for some specific purpose and it pretty depressing when they cannot find a leader:(
4. Sometimes leaders want to be followers but are afraid of the peer pressure that says they are supposed to be leaders.

The solution for 1 - 4 above?
Be authentic with an ethical chaser.

That's all for day two in Keene...

Situating Research & Practice

When you bring your issues to others for discussion, like we did in the second half of our Research & Practice time with Jon Wergin, things happen...

You get more books to read like The World Cafe. And more theories to investigate like Reginald "Reg" Revans' Action Learning Process. Beautiful...

Revans, according to the all knowing Wikipedia "strongly held that the key to improving performance lay not with 'experts' but with practitioners themselves. Hence he devised Action Learning as a process whereby the participant studies his own actions and experience in conjunction with others in small groups called action learning sets
Click here for the all knowing Wiki, and Click here for a bit more on Reg.

Sounds like fun, eh?

What really is the point of learning in a paradigm challenging program on Leadership & Change if you don't have any fun or expereince a little happiness at the end of discussion about research & practice?

I am quite happy with the results of participating in the small group discussion. Jon's observation recording the following four aspect of our discussion group:

Information seeking
Probing
General discussion of the issue
Problem solving - (suggestions / solutions)
He thought our groups moved from information seeking to problem solving rather quickly.

My group disagreed and Jon conceded that with three groups, he may not have been present long enough to observe our interactions as discussions criss-crossed various modes of inquiry.

End session one in Keene, NH.

Day Two w/ Jon Wergin

Greetings:

Kolb's theory provides us a with an excellent example for how the practitioner-re searcher's mind might work. I am thrilled to see this theory because I love it. Kolb's ideas are very much part of my teaching philosophy. I am an action oriented person and I have come to realize that that action does not exclude reflection. As Jon pointed out in today's session - reflection and action can (should) happen in the partnership... is called problematizing.

Jon points out the that of the four steps Kolb provides - Action, reflection, theory, action (repeat the process) - most people's weakness is around

Quantitative research would do better to raise questions versus provide answers "Data DOES NOT speak for itself". Why do we put so much stock into the numbers? These numbers without story or a variety of contexts? Perhaps the frightening possibility of multiple answers or more questions.

I am excited about Jon's facilitation of this session on "Situating Research & Practice" because our discussion (so far - what I am getting) is challenging some mental models by introducing or reminding us that it is perfectly acceptable for research to lead to more research - more questions - as well as some answers along the way.

Well we have about an hour and forty-five minutes left in our session - I might have more to say later...

Day One, Here in Keene

So we, the individuals of Cohort 10 in Antioch University's Leadership & Change program, are continuing our leadership learning in Keene, New Hampshire (USA).

I am looking forward to having more of my cohort colleagues join the Blog as authors. I hope this Blog can become a premier source for Leadership practice and theory as generated by a cool, introspective group of people.

After our time together at the first residency and reconnecting here in Keene (even on just day 1), leads me to assert we have concepts and visions about leadership and change that are worth sharing.

So why keep the world waiting?

Elephants in the room

Greetings:

Being a leader means you have to do more than address the elephant(s) in the room. Sometimes you might have to lasso them with more stick than carrot. Other times you might only need to acknowledge their presence which could give you enough room to negotiate how they can come into the conversation.

Ah - how about that? Invite to them conversation!

Sometimes, you may have to find the elephant's owner. Come on, it is a bit naive to think so many elephants are just wondering around wild, unattached, and angry for no good contextualized reasons.

Perhaps it is not the elephant in the room that makes everyone uncomfortable, but their silent owners who are pushing us into discomfort land.

Revision: Being a leader means you can spot the elephant owners in the room AND bring them and their elephants into the conversation.

BRIGHT SPOT: Elephants don't really like too much conversation and once recognized many of them may leave forcing their owners into accountability.

Fast Forward....to Today:

So, I finally posted all my notes from our first week together (aka the honeymoon phase).

Here we are a month later all putting the final touches on those Reflective Leadership Essays! Getting them all nice an shiny for our Keene Residency, right?

RIGHT????

Darn Right!!!!!!!

We are chugging our way through cool new technology and our very own library pages. We are ordering items from "A-to-Z" and "We Deliver"; we are Refworksing ourselves like we were born into the process. Right?

RIGHT?????

Darn Right - I scheduled some 1-1 time with Deborah! Check it out...
Click Here

Saturday, August 7: Graduation

What you would expect: good music, speeches, food and people. Cohort 10 watched with gleams of "One day that will be me" in ours eyes.

Congratulations to all.

Friday, August 6: Essed Introduces W.E.B. DuBois

WED BuBois theory of Double Consciousness
• Whatever our critical perspective you use, if it is from a dominant point of view always you to ride on the waves of how society is made for you
• If you become conscious of your own position you begin to see factors previously invisible
• What critical culture means you look at self and others through NON-dominant perspective
• His theory is at the cradle and is fundamentally in our understanding for thinking critically about our society
o Du Bois explained: “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.” (The Souls of Black Folk. p. 5)

Friday, August 6: Dr. Essed's not so simple question...

Okay so we saved the best for last and did our conversation show it. Who woulda thunk it that a little question like "What is culture?" could get us talking about apes in some forest?

Luckily, we had the power to focus (sometimes) and this is what I got from Dr. Essed's presentation...

• Culture is not static, shared, no complete consensus. There is continuity and change
What’s a national culture?

• You must know a culture in order to be critical of it.
• Question groupings
• Use variety of perspectives: race, class, physical ability, resource access, what causes privilege

What do I do if I am not in a minority group?

Question:
Why would you challenge norms?

Humans have
1. Access to an imagination
imagination brings sense of HOPE: imagining a future or alternative
• Sense of community & belonging (it is always imagined it does not exist)
• Empathy: the ability to imagine yourself in the situation of another
• Common Humanity: realize you have more commonality than differences

2. The ability to change (be conscious about change, to understand that as humans we are incomplete. We can allow other to change.)

3. The opportunity for Continuous/life long learning

Friday, August 6: Burns...

Okay, way is there like SO much to learn - this was my initial stage of shock the moment Dr. Burns began speaking. Keeping up with the outline below was really challenging.

Here is what I got...
I. Intro:
a. Civil society (whatever the hell it means)
b. Public Sector
c. Private Sector

II. Why Exclusion or Marginalization?
a. Why is it not used in leadership studies? Or theory?
b. Who do you make the concrete into theory?
c. Little about servant leadership
i. First: revolutionary war?
ii. Second: Civil War
iii. Third: Civil rights movement

III. The Fundamentally Different Forms of Democracy
a. We live in somewhat of a democracy – it’s more of a national commitment to being democratic – our realities fall short
b. Grass Roots Democracy
i. Is not perfect. It has lots of problems & limitation
ii.
c. Electoral representative Democracy
i. Is fundamentally not working
1. As broken now as it was at point of slavery
2. Semblance of Plutocracy: Wealthy Mongrels & Wealthy Servants. The ratification that lets the wealthy use money any way they want to influence elections
IV. Declaration of Independence vs. U.S. Constitution
a. Declaration was only for small % of people at the table
i. Its aspirations included many more
ii. Gives right to take direct action to change ineffective government
b. The Constitution does not hold such
i. Key provisions endorsed slavery
ii. Designed to make grassroots democracy hard to achieve
1. The fear of monarchy and majority rule it frustrate the democratic will of large numbers of people
iii. Until civil rights amendments, exp. 13th, 14th , 15th used much in grassroots
1. The Civil rights movement was about enforcing the amendments
V. Black Freedom Struggle as Basis & Driver of Grassroots Democracy
a. David Walker’s Appeal
b. Find the woman who worked closely with him
VI. SNCC & Civil Rights Movement Leadership
a. The Book we were to read.
b. Ella Baker insisted students have their own organization & make their own mistakes
i. They will learn through mistakes
c. Robert P. Moses: Working to amend constitution for equal education
i. While it may never happen, it will raise the conversation about limitations and problems of public education.
ii. Still teaches in the Algebra project

d. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party 1964
i. Ella Baker cause their process “Outsider Within system”
ii. The party resulted from the inability to register voters in Mississippi
iii. This process did not follow suit and isolate itself but began interacting with civil, public, and private sectors AND the Electoral Representative system
e. Book recs: Blessed Unrest & Great Turning
f. Wyclef Jean’s candidacy for presidency of Haiti & Shawn Penn’s Presence for the long hall
i. The outsider within
g. If there is citizen action out there, how do we make it seen? Where doe it go? What are next steps for leadership?
VII. Conclusion: How does it Fit? Or Why not?

Friday, August 6

Getting a few things Stright...

We got our RLE Reviewers AND Dialogue Groups.

Glad that Antioch was doing all they could (and the continue) to make technology work for our colleague Kirk. We also took stock of our roles in being inclusive.

We met Elisabeth via Skype.