Radical Rules for Schools: Adaptive Action for Complex Change

by Leslie Patterson, Royce Holladay (With), Glenda Eoyang (With)

School reform in the United States continues to disappoint, as evidenced by persistent gaps in performance, particularly among students who come to school from marginalized groups and communities in our society. The challenges are huge and highly diverse systems, uncertainty at every turn, and myriad perspectives and approaches to doing the "right" thing. In such systems it will never be enough to focus only on the most urgent challenges. Rampant uncertainty demands that we address dysfunctional dynamics of human interaction deep within the system. Radical Rules for Schools provides a path for seeing, understanding, and influencing the dynamics to shape patterns of generative teaching and learning. Using the principles of Human Systems Dynamics (HSD), this practical book is designed to help build adaptive capacity to help individuals and groups in education adapt to the challenges and changes they face. We recommend a short list of simple--yet radical--rules to guide decision making and action to set conditions for generative teaching and learning. We argue that, if educators consistently follow these radically simple rules, the underlying dynamics of teaching and learning will shift, and the system will become ever more sensitive, responsive, and robust. We realize that this may sound simplistic, almost like magical thinking. What we also know is that the potential of self-organization in complex systems is powerful. In as much as we can see, understand and influence the dynamics of interaction and decision making, we are able to shape the patterns required to ensure high levels of learning for each individual. We offer this book as one response to the failed school reforms of the last three decades, suggesting these simple rules as the framework for bringing about significant change. We believe the ideas we present in this book, building on the foundations of HSD, offer a path to solutions based in inquiry and adaptive action.

210 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2013

Reviews

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grounded in complexity theory, Patterson, Holladay, and Eoyang take Human Systems Dynamics principles and apply them to educational settings. This book provides an explanation of key terms that give a language to what many teachers feel occurring in schools. It is a roadmap for how to analyze patterns within the school system in order to have more clarity about the reality. When reality can be noticed and discussed, action can be taken for the purpose of enacting change.

[Julia McBride · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this along with a school leadership team as a book study. Provided natural opportunities to make connections between the book and their work of improving teaching and learning in their building.