students making decisions

We just experienced a very interesting decision making process at school. Every 4 months or so, we shake up the ‘usual’ schedule at school and go through what is called “Reflection Week”. We put away the classes that are in progress and choose a theme for the week. All activities and classes are then centered around that theme for the week. The idea behind doing so is to shake up any routines/ruts that we have gotten into and to instead reflect on something completely else. The theme works as a medium to recognizing any patterns we are set in. Past reflection weeks have led to complete restructuring of the school by students because they identified some patterns that they didn’t want.

The fascinating decision making process that I got to witness had to do with picking the theme for Reflection Week. In keeping with the philosophy of PSCS, the theme is picked by students with feedback, as requested by them, from the staff. The process for this year started with a big group brainstorm. The brainstorm generated 5 topics (Media, Halloween, Low-Tech Week, Food and Music) that had sufficient interest. After that, the students called a meeting to try and decide which one they wanted. One topic (Halloween) emerged as the front runner, but, they couldn’t make a final decision in that 2nd meeting because not all the students attended. So, they brought the topic suggestion to the larger group the next day. Most of the students that didn’t attend, just didn’t want Halloween as the topic for Reflection Week. So, then, a 3rd meeting was called – this time, requesting staff participation since they realize that the staff needs to be excited about the topic too.

The 3rd meeting lasted 1 hour and was fascinating. One student voluntarily took charge of the meeting. At the very outset, they decided that they were not going to vote and decide based on majority but rather their approach was going to be to come up with a topic that most people wanted and then to tweak it so the ones that were not “so-excited” about it got drawn in too. So, they went through one round of voting to check who didn’t want one of the 5 topics. The topic that got the least number of negative votes was then discussed – in terms of what they could do with it. Then, those that didn’t want it, were asked to express why they didn’t and what changes would make them more excited about the topic. The process was fascinating! What was even more fascinating was how they communicated with each other – they remained very polite. At one point, they sort of cut someone off and realized it immediately. You could see their faces drag down with guilt at having cut off the one person. After that point, they were all ears to him. The discussions continued – on and on. The staff was silent unless asked to speak. Since they didn’t want to vote and they didn’t want to force anyone, they just needed to feel each other out. They couldn’t just walk away with a definite singular decision. They left the meeting with the conclusion that they would do Low-Tech Week because it could encompass “low-tech” versions of many of the other topics. Because of the interest in Halloween from the 2nd meeting, the last day of the week was to be a day-long Halloween party.

But, the decision process wasn’t done with. Many students left the 3rd meeting feeling like the spirit and excitement behind reflection week had been lost. All the discussions had felt like over-analysis and nobody really seemed to care what the theme was any longer. So, two of the students, called a “Super Meeting”. A Super-Meeting is the one single school meeting that is mandatory for all staff and students. The goal of the super meeting was stated as being to re-energize reflection week. The meeting started out with several students saying that they just didn’t want to talk about reflection week. They just wanted to get on and experience it. At that point, the students that called the meeting pointed out that, that kind of reaction indicated lack of interest in the theme and that is exactly what they wanted to change. The discussion continued with the students that didn’t want to discuss explaining that it wasn’t that they didn’t care about reflection week but that the topic was not what was important – any topic could get them jazzed! To verify that this was the case, a discussion followed on what the group wanted to do as part of a Low-Tech Week. At the end of the brainstorm, a vote was taken on how many people felt excited about reflection week now and it seemed like more people did. Then, a student-staff combined planning committee continued to plan the week.

I am not sure, that all the students walked away truly excited about Low-Tech Week. We'll find out next week which is when Reflection Week is. But, I think they all learnt some significant lessons in communication, feeling out each other and trying to make decisions. That is what I think matters!

Comments

[pradnya]

Your involvement with the new job seems absolutely total. some day you might like to write a book with your notes and diary, that ouwld make an inspiring doumentation of a process journey of a unique educational system.
i am sharing your writings with some of my friends who wish to bring about changes in school and education they impart.
take care
pradnya