0.2 Wells, c. (july 2009). leadership, quantum mechanics and the  (Page 4/9)

Organizations become learning communities when the workers interact collaboratively with each other to construct new meaning and create solutions to pressing problems (Hord, 2004; Hord&Sommers, 2008; McLaughlin&Talbert, 2001, 2006; Senge, 1990: Wheatley, 1994). To build ownership, all constituents must interact. Self-renewing systems need information, and they need to allow structures and cultures that cultivate learning. Data are helpful only inasmuch as it provides for understanding and application, and when it is assimilated by the people who can use it for growth and advancement.

Teachers share the wisdom of their practice, what does and does not work with students, and yet, collaboration in and of itself does not mean renewal. To be effective, collaboration needs specific goals for continuous learning, where best educational practice is studied, and teaching is transformed (Fullan, 2007; Hord, 2004; Hord&Sommers, 2008; Palmer, 2008). Participation involves community and community involves participation if it is to be effective . It sounds simple, but this concept is profoundly challenging to the formation of PLCs (Fullan, 2006; Hord, 2004; Hord&Sommers, 2008; McLaughlin&Talbert, 2001, 2006; Moller, 2004; Wells&Feun, 2007, 2008). Changing the culture of a school to reduce isolation and build community takes patience and skill. A deliberate focus is needed to bring together the people who have experienced isolation in their work. It means forging a new order of things, a way of doing business . The ‘it ’ is the language of relationships.

Relationships in schools have been isolating, not collegial (Fullan, 2001; McLaughlin&Yee, 1988; Lortie, 1975). In the past, teachers have not typically been part of the design of learning for the larger system; this has been private work, done in isolation of colleagues (Blankstein, 2004; Fullan, 2001; Lieberman, 1995; Lortie, 1975). Relationships become the important foundation for the work that is asked of the workers in any organization. Garmston and Wellman (1995) defined self-renewing schools as places that are governed by relationships (¶ 54). Schools should be envisioned as collaborative places where the adults come together to solve their pressing issues and work with passion to make them better.

New skills are needed to assist in creating workplaces that foster relationships. People in organizations need to spend less time on delineating tasks and dividing responsibilities, and more time on fostering process where listening, communicating and facilitating are center stage. Wheatley (1994) stated, “Now I look carefully at how a workplace organizes its relationships; not its tasks, functions, and hierarchies, but the patterns of relationship and the capacities available to form them” (p.39).

The relationships in an organization can produce positive or negative energy. As educators begin to develop new skills of collaborating in PLCs, problems surface (Hord&Sommers, 2008; McLaughlin&Talbert, 2006; Supovitz, 2006, Wells&Feun, 2007, 2008). Teachers are reluctant to deprivatize practice, which has not been the order of schools (Fullan, 2007). Teachers need help in learning how to collaborate. Building colleagueship is a complicated process that takes time, patience, and skills to develop. Lieberman, Saxl and Miles (1988) related the skills that leaders used to build collaboration in their staffs: