The role of conversation, contention, and commitment in a professional  (Page 3/6)

An integrated living-systems view of change is different from the commonly accepted Newtonian, or mechanistic,view of change. The mechanistic paradigm espouses that organizations run well if they operate like a machine, separatedinto narrow processes that are linked together. The mechanistic perspective posits that preservation of an organization ispreservation of its current form—therefore leaders manage the parts so that the machine continues to function predictably…From a living-systems view of change, organizations are systems thatself-organize, create, think, adapt, and seek meaning. If the organization violates any of these imperatives, the system willfail. The key then for change work is facilitating a process and building organizational capacity to honor these imperatives. Bydoing so, the organization is able to learn from itself and create appropriate and relevant change efforts based on new knowledge;hence, it is self-organizing and functions as a learning organization. (p.6-9)

According to Rick DuFour (2004), one of the leading professional learning community proponents, a functioningPLC exhibits three key features, which incorporate elements of the previously mentioned organizational models:

• Ensuring student learning—By agreeing to ensure student learning, a school staff creates a commitment to a commonunderstanding, common goals, and a common language.
• Developing professional collaboration—Through regularly scheduled, team-based professional collaboration, a school connectsindividual members in ways more likely to lead to innovation and to mutually agreed-upon and consistently implemented decisions, thusconnecting disparate parts of a dynamic organization.
• Focusing on results—The process of identifying, analyzing, and addressing agreed-upon student and school data reinforces acommon vision and vocabulary, connects curricula and instruction across classrooms, reinforces organizational norms, and alignsleadership and staff.

Within the PLC structure, conversation, contention, and commitment play critical roles. Conversationsbecome the medium of information exchange and the foundation of organizational learning. Contention, when handled productively,exposes differences of opinion and practice and creates space for growth. Finally, commitment ensures that organizational efforts aregrounded in a common understanding of purpose and values. The remainder of this article explores these three Cs in more detail,with specific recommendations on ways to use the three Cs within an organizational context.

The first c: conversation

Conversations happen all the time in schools. There are formal conversations, such as the ones that occurred inthe two stories at the beginning of the article, or the ones that occur in department or grade-level meetings. There are alsoinformal conversations: one teacher stopping by another teacher’s room after school, stories told and retold in the teachers lounge,even electronic conversations through e-mail or discussion board exchanges. In a PLC, conversations become the lifeblood oforganizational learning, and the nature of those conversations can differ markedly from the types of conversations typically found in“business as usual”schools. What distinguishes conversation in a professional learning community? Primarily two things: thepurposeful nature of the conversations and the underlying structure within which they occur.