Organizational and Educational Change : The Life and Role of a Change Agent Group 9781410606204, 9780805834093

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O rg a n iz a tio n a l a n d E d u c a tio n a l C h a n g e The Life and Role of a Change Agent Group

LEA’s Organization and Management Series A rth u r P. B rie f a n d Ja m es P. Walsh , Series Editors Ashforth • Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An IdentityBased Perspective Beach • Image Theory: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations Bartunek • Organizational and Educational Change: The Life and Role of a Change Agent Group Brett/Drasgow • The Psychology of Work: Theoretically Based Empirical Research Darley/Messick/iyier • Social Influences on Ethical Behavior in Organizations Denison • Managing Organizational Change in Transition Economies Earley/Gibson • Multinational Work Teams: A New Perspective Garud/Karnoe • Path Dependence and Creation Lant/Shapira • Organizational Cognition: Computation and Interpretation Margolis/Walsh • People and Profits? The Search for a Link Between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance Pearce • Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government Riggio/Murphy/Pirozzolo • Multiple Intelligences and Leadership Thompson/Levine/lVfessick • Shared Cognition in Organizations: The Management of Knowledge

O rg a n iz a tio n a l an d E d u c a tio n a l C h a n g e The Life and Role of a Change Agent Group

Jean M. Bartunek Boston College

XFf> Psychology Press A

Taylor &. Francis Group NEW YORK AND HOVE

Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. First published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 This edition published 2013 by Psychology Press Psychology Press Psychology Press Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 711 Third Avenue 27 Church Road New York Hove NY 10017 East Sussex, BN3 2FA

Psychology Press is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business First issued in paperback 2013

Cover design by Michael Saito, Renton, WA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bartunek, Jean. Organizational and educational change : the life and role of a change agent group / Jean M. Bartunek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-3409-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Teacher participation in administration. 2. School improvement programs. 3- Educational change. I. Tide. II. Series. LB2822.8 .B37 2002 371.1’06 —dc21 2001051086 CIP ISBN 978-0-8058-3409-3 hardcover ISBN 978-0-415-65055-7 paperback

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C on ten ts

About the Author

vii

Series Editors’ Foreword

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Preface

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List of Tables

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List of Figures 1 The Foundations for the Work

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2 The Founders’ Vision and Design for the NFDC

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3 An Exciting and Sometimes Difficult Beginning

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4 The NFDC Begins to Implement Its Initiatives

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5 A Year of Challenges

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C o n te n ts

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Trembling on the Edge

104

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Dispersing Energies

131

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A Role for the NFDC?

159

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The Vision Dims

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The Triangle Model o f Change Agent Group Dynamics: 206 Evolving Identity, Actions, and Stakeholder Relationships in a Change Agent Group Setting

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Implications o f the NFDC’s Work for Educational Policy by D iane R. W ood

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The Story Ends

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References

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Author Index

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Subject Index

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A bout the A u th or

Jean M. Bartunek is a professor in the Organization Studies Department at Boston College. Her PhD in social and organizational psychology is from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and prior to coming to Boston College, she was a visiting assistant professor in the Organizational Behavior group at the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign. Dr. Bartunek has published more than 60 journal articles and book chap­ ters, and co-authored Creating Alternative Realities at Work with Michael Moch (Harper Business, 1990), co-edited Hidden Conflict in Organiza­ tions with Deborah Kolb (Sage, 1992), and co-authored Insider/Outsider Team Research with Meryl Louis (Sage, 1996). Her primary substantive re­ search interests concern intersections of social cognition, conflict, organi­ zational change and transformation, and practitioner—academic interfaces. Her primary methodological research interests concern ways practitioners and outside researchers can collaborate in studying a setting. She is also on several editorial boards, including Administrative Science Quarterly , the Journal o f Applied Behavioral Science, Academy o f Management Learning and Education, theJournal o f Management Education, the Journal o f Organizational Change Management, and the Journal o f

Organizational Behavior. During 2001 and 2002, Dr. Bartunek is president ofthe Academy of Man­ agement. She has previously served as a representative-at-large to the Board of Governors of the Academy, chairperson of the Academy’s Organization

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Development and Change Division, a member of the executive committee of the Women in Management Division, and a member of the Board of Di­ rectors of the Eastern Academy of Management. She is also a fellow of the Academy of Management.

Series E d ito rs’ Forew ord

This book is a rarity in the organizational sciences. At least three attributes mark its importance. First, clearly situated in our understanding of identity theory and change management, Jean Bartunek examines both how a group’s identity evolves over time and then how this identity subsequently affects its actions. Second, written at a time when we demand more and more from our educational system, Jean Bartunek brings an organizational scholar’s eye to the question of how to improve the quality of K-12 educa­ tion in the United States. And third, this richly textured, insider-outsider in­ vestigation of change was conducted over a seven year time period. This is a very ambitious research project. Jean Bartunek has scored a hat trick here. She contributes to theory, informs educational practice, and offers up a stunning methodological benchmark for us all to emulate. We hope you en­ joy reading this book as much as we did. —Arthur P. Brief Tulane University —James P. Walsh University o f Michigan

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Preface

In the fall of 1987, Catherine Lacey told me about a group that she and Di­ ane Wood were planning to start in the Network of Schools of which they had both been a part for several years. The group was aimed at fostering the empowerment of teachers in the Network. Catherine, who was a doctoral student at the time, thought she would like to study what happened to the group as her dissertation. However, her faculty were not enthused with the idea of Catherine using her dissertation to study something she was helping to create. I was familiar with work by Roger Evered and Meryl Louis that described how insiders to a setting and outside researchers typically inquired in dif­ ferent ways about the setting. In addition, my primary research focus was and is organizational change. I suggested that maybe it would be fun for Catherine, Diane, and me to study what happened during the first year of the group together, in a joint insider/outsider fashion. We could gain in­ sights that would be pertinent to both organizational change and education literature, and Catherine could do her dissertation on something accept­ able to her committee. After some conversations with Diane this idea took root in a way that went well beyond my imagination. I ended up sitting in for seven years as a nonparticipant observer of the Network Faculty Devel­ opment Committee (NFDC), outlasting both Diane and Catherine. This vol­ ume is the outcome of that idea for one year’s worth of fun. The volume has two intertwined aims. First, it seeks to increase under­ standing of the experiences and evolution of change agent groups in orga­ x i

P re fa ce

nizations. How, over an extended period of time, does a change agent group understand its identity, who it is, and what it is about? How does such a group carry out action related to its identity? How does it relate with its stakeholders, and how do identity, actions, and stakeholder relationships all affect each other? These are all issues that are central to the understand­ ing of organizational change, but that have been largely unexplored by prior research. Second, the volume seeks to understand some of the important dynam­ ics associated with an attempt to empower teachers that starts with the teachers’ classroom-based knowledge and assumes this knowledge should inform important decisions about schools. What innovative means might be chosen to accomplish this aim? What dynamics are evoked when em­ powerment efforts are implemented? How can—and should—such an em­ powerment initiative inform educational policy? These are also questions that have not been adequately addressed. In the process of accomplishing its major aims, the volume shows how schools and teachers can provide fascinating sources of knowledge about organizational behavior and organizational change. It also shows a way that studies of organizational change can contribute to the understanding of dy­ namics in educational settings. Thus, it links these two areas of inquiry in a way that can benefit both. This volume could not have been completed without the work and assis­ tance of a large number of people and groups. The first is Catherine Collins, without whose creativity, dedication, initiative, and hard work none of the events described here could have occurred. Several organizations and groups provided necessary financial support. Outside funding agencies included the Marian and Jasper Whiting Founda­ tion, the Society for Organizational Learning, and the Network of Schools. In addition, several binding sources at Boston College provided financial support. These included the Carroll School of Management Summer Re­ search Grant Fund, the Andersen Consulting Fund under the direction of Jim Gips, and several research expense grants funds. The research here ab­ solutely relied on each of these sources, and I am grateful to all of them. The department of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University, and especially Paul Hirsch, Keith Murnighan, and Linda Piotrowski, provided a very hospitable and stimulating setting as I was be­ ginning work on this volume. As I was getting closer to its end, Jane Dutton convened a memorable dinner meeting of the relational practice group at the University of Michigan to give me very helpful feedback. I am very grate­ ful to Jane, and to Janice Barnes, Matthew Bietz, Jane Hassinger, Jennifer Lewis, Laura Morgan, Tatania Suspitsina, Michele Williams, and Monica Worline for their very thoughtful suggestions at that dinner meeting and be­ yond it. I am also grateful to Jodie Galosy and Deb Cannella, two former members of the NFDC, who came from out of town to meet with the rela­

P r e fa c e

tional practice group and who reminded me again why the NFDC was so in­ spiring to me. At Boston College and in the greater Boston area a number of people have helped in developing the volume, through serving as research assis­ tants, giving me many helpful suggestions, facilitating the work in other ways, or all the above. These include Kristin Schulze, Gerard Chartrand, Carol Navon, Margaret Humphries, Danna Greenberg, Ivan Manev, Barbara Davidson, Kate Walsh, John Meyer, Myeong-Gu Seo, Meryl Louis, Jean Passavant, Linda Ducharme, Maggie Kilduff, Raul Necochea, and Mirjam Wit. Both Jane Dutton and Myeong-Gu Seo contributed substantially to the theorizing developed here. Wendy Angus did a superb job transcribing tapes of NFDC reflection sessions. My local community and other members of my religious order were also very supportive. I am also very grateful to Anne Duffy, my editor from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (LEA), and Art Brief (Tulane University), and Jim Walsh (University of Michigan), the editors for LEA’s Organization and Management Series. They provided prompt feedback, helpful assistance, and continuing encour­ agement and support. Jim in particular read several drafts of individual chap­ ters and of the entire manuscript. His suggestions improved the manuscript considerably on multiple occasions. The groups I most want to thank are the NFDC and its founders, Catherine Lacey and Diane Wood, and the Network of Schools of which the NFDC was a part. I am grateful for what they showed me about the skill and caring involved in teaching and for their willingness to share their insights and to contribute substantially to writing this volume. I am grateful to the Network for enabling the NFDC’s work to take place and to support writing about it. I hope that this volume will convey at least a little of the Network and its teachers’ vision, spirit, and courage.

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships as Catherine Lacey and Diane Wood Envisioned the NFDC Table 3.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the First Year of the NFDC Table 4.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Second Year of the NFDC Table 5.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Third Year of the NFDC Table 6.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Fourth Year Of the NFDC Table 7.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Fifth Year of the NFDC Table 8.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Sixth Year of the NFDC Table 9.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Seventh Year of the NFDC Table 12.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships during the Last Two years of the NFDC

XV

List of Figures

Figure 1.1 Proposal to the Network School Committee for a Network Faculty De­ velopment Committee Figure 1.2 Initial Triangle Model of Change Agent Group Dynamics Figure 4.1 Excerpts From Jodie and Betty’s Working Model for Their Leadership of the NFDC Figure 4.2 Poem Written by Betty Lies about Diane and Catherine, April, 1990 Figure 6.1 The Network Faculty Development Committee Mission Statement Figure 8.1 Article From Network News, June 1994 Figure 10.1 The Triangle Model of Change Agent Group Dynamics: Evolving Identity, Interactions, and Stakeholder Relationships in a Change Agent Group Figure 12.1 Letter From the NFDC Coordinator to the Network Director An­ nouncing the NFDC’s Decision to End the Committee and the Network Direc­ tor’s Response

1 T h e Foundations for the W o rk

Organizational change initiatives are frequently led by small groups of orga­ nization members. In Quality of Work Life and similar organizational in­ volvement initiatives, for example, task forces composed of managers and hourly employees have typically led the change initiative (Moch & Bartunek, 1990). In schools, small leadership teams help create profes­ sional communities and school improvement initiatives (Scribner, Cockrell, Cockrell, & Valentine, 1999). Organizational transformation ef­ forts are typically led by groups of top managers (Nutt & Backoff, 1997). Or­ ganizational task forces play a leadership role in reengineering efforts (Hammer & Champy, 1994). In shared governance initiatives in hospitals, groups of nurses typically lead the change project (Rousseau & Tijoriwala, 1999). Small groups lead diversity initiatives in organizations (Alderfer, TVicker, Alderfer, & Tucker, 1988; Friedman, 1996). Small pilot groups typi­ cally lead organizational learning initiatives (Roth & Kleiner, 2000; Senge et al., 1999). Small groups of organization members even lead large group in­ terventions (Bunker & Alban, 1996). Small groups that initiate and lead or­ ganizational change efforts are often in existence for several years, including rotation and replacement of their membership. The experiences of groups of organizational members leading change ef­ forts, especially groups that endure over several years, have received almost no scholarly attention. Rather, attention typically is paid primarily to the overall outcomes of change efforts, without specific attention to the change agents. This is problematic. Change agent groups’ understandings of the 1

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change initiative and their roles in it, actions they take to implement it, and their relationships with others are the means through which the change ini­ tiative is accomplished well, if at all. It is crucial to learn how such groups understand what they are about within their larger organizational context, how they act based on this un­ derstanding and others’ responses to their initiatives, and how and why their self-understandings, actions, and relationships with other organiza­ tional members evolve over the course of the group’s life. Only then can we truly understand the dynamics through which a particular idea about change becomes transformed into its implementation over time in an orga­ nizational context. Appreciation of how change agent groups understand what they are about, act, and relate with others, and how these processes evolve over time makes significant conceptual contributions to other key organizational lit­ eratures as well, especially those that address how organization members understand themselves. These literatures include work on interpretive schemes (e.g., Greenwood & Hinings, 1993) and, in particular, work on so­ cial identity in both groups and organizations (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Tajfel, 1982). Briefly, literature on interpretive schemes (e.g., Cooper, Hinings, Green­ wood, & Brown, 1996; Greenwood & Hinings, 1993; Ranson, Hinings, & Greenwood, 1980) describes interpretive schemes as shared and mutually constitutive ideas, beliefs, and values that guide organizational structures and systems, leading to the development of coherent organizational arche­ types. Literature dealing with social identity in groups (e.g., Tajfel, 1982) fo­ cuses on individuals’ self-concepts there (e.g., Tajfel, 1978, 1982), especially the role that identification with one’s own group in comparison to other groups plays in one’s sense of self-worth. Literature on social iden­ tity in organizations focuses on fundamental beliefs within the organization (Albert & Whetten, 1985) or organizational subgroups (e.g., Kilduff, Funk, & Mehra, 1997) about what is central, distinctive, and enduring about it. None of these literatures pays significant attention to organizational groups’ actions (although all of the literatures assume that actions flow from interpretive schemes, identity, or both). Moreover, the role of groups’ relationships with others is treated narrowly in these approaches. The study reported in this volume contributes broader understandings of ac­ tions and relationships with stakeholders as both of these evolve over time. Based on a multiyear study of a change agent group, I develop a triangle model of change agent group dynamics, focusing on a group level of analy­ sis, that explains links between change agent groups’ identity, actions, and relationships with stakeholders as these evolve over time and affect each other. Further, I describe the impact of these links on the group’s and the initiative’s vitality The term vitality refers here generally to how much vigor, energy, and zest the change agent group and change effort are demonstrat­ ing at any given time (Forrester & Drexler, 1999; Miller & Stiver, 1997;

T h e F o u n d a tio n s fo r th e W o r k

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Quick, Gavin, Cooper, & Quick, 2000). It is, basically, an indicator of the ex­ perienced life of the group and change effort. Vitality is rarely used as an outcome measure in studies of organizational change. Such measures generally focus on performance and organizational member satisfaction. However, anyone connected with change initiatives knows that some of them exhibit more life, excitement, and energy than others, that in any one change initiative there is more life exhibited at some times than others, and that the amount of life actually experienced may not correspond exactly to objectively measured variables. In this study, the vitality of the change agent group is indicated by how in­ vigorating the work of the change agent group is for its members at any given time. The vitality of the change effort is indicated by how much life others in the organizational setting experience this effort as showing at any given time. This volume explores what happened over several years in a group that conducted an organizational change intervention aimed at empowering teachers. It focuses on how the members understood what they were about, what the group did, its relationships with external stakeholders, and how these all evolved over time. The change initiative took place in a Network of Independent Schools spread across the United States, hereafter called the Network (or Network of Schools). The group that is the focus of attention is the Network Faculty Development Committee (NFDC), a committee of teachers founded with the aim of empowering experienced teachers in the Network. The NFDC was begun in 1988 and was active until 1997.1studied it intensively from 1988, when it began, until 1995. The group’s purpose and its ways of working derived from a well-articulated philosophy that had im­ pacts on the work itself, on NFDC members’ understandings of the group’s core features, and on the group’s relationships with stakeholders in the Net­ work. These relationships in turn affected actions the group undertook to ac­ complish change. Thus, this change effort forms an ideal setting for exploration of the evolution of identity in a group attempting to affect change within a larger organizational setting. While the volume recounts the story of a specific project initiated by a specific group of teachers in a specific set of schools, it tells an underlying story about a great number of organizational groups, change initiatives, and organizational settings. I introduce the story being told in this volume by using the words of the Network Director at the time the NFDC began and of the two founders of the NFDC to present the initial impetus and rationale for the group. I then summarize the conceptual framework for the research to be undertaken.

In 1984, Nancy Walters took a job as director of the Network of schools, a federation of primary and secondary independent schools throughout the

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United States. She had previously been head of one of the Network schools, and when she became Network Director she already had several ideas about next steps needed there. She described one of her early initiatives: In 1984,1 began my work as Director of the Network. At that time, I received letters from faculty members from all across the United States. They were con­ cerned that the Network had done a great deal to bring together the heads of schools, trustees, and even students, but that there was not as much offered to benefit faculty members in the 19 Schools. I did inherit a committee of admin­ istrators (called the Experienced Teachers Committee) who had been looking at this issue with my predecessor. At our first meeting, we determined that an excellent next step would be for us to divide up the schools and visit each one with the express focus of interviewing experienced Network teachers to find out how the Network could be of service to them. The record shows that we encountered quite a few dissatisfied faculty members who felt that their indi­ vidual schools did not appreciate the longevity of their service and that their salaries, of course, did not come close to honoring their experience and ex­ pertise. We also met teachers with very positive suggestions about how to move forward.

Two members of the Experienced Teachers Committee with whom Nancy worked were Catherine Lacey and Diane Wood, who would eventually found the NFDC. Catherine had been a curriculum director in one of the Network schools, and was now working at a Network school in Hartford. Diane was the curriculum director in another Network school, in Denver. They had got­ ten to know each other at the Network school in Sioux Falls. Diane, who had been a teacher there, had replaced Catherine as curriculum director. They continued the story: In the mid 1980s the School Committee of the Network (an administrative oversight group) recognized an increasingly serious challenge to the schools’ traditions and quality: the retention and development of veteran Network teachers. These schools have long attracted gifted teachers because of their well-articulated commitments to social justice, intellectual rigor, holistic per­ sonal development, and community participation. Nevertheless, at this point in the Network’s history, some of the most experienced teachers were raising troubling issues about low salaries, hierarchical governance structures, few meaningful professional development opportunities, and outmoded school­ ing practices. Talk of burnout and diminishing hopes seemed to be spreading from school to school. Those concerned with the future of the Network real­ ized its legacy relied heavily on the safekeeping of experienced, knowledge­ able teachers. The schools simply could not afford to lose them. As a result, the Network Director formed an Experienced Teachers Committee and brought together educators, primarily administrators, from around the coun­ try with the mandate to design an initiative addressing the professional con­ cerns of the Network’s most experienced teachers. We were part of that original committee. During the first meeting, a wide range of initiatives and projects came up for discussion. Eventually, however, we looked around the table and realized that all the members of the commit-

T h e F o u n d a tio n s fo r th e W o r h

tee were presently in nonteaching roles; though most of us had taught at one time. As a group, we decided to plumb the teachers’ perspectives instead of assuming we knew what was on their minds. Within a few months of the meet­ ing, each of us made on-site visits to three or more schools, arranging lengthy interviews with experienced teachers. Out of the transcripts from our inter­ views emerged a range of complaints, requests, and ideas. Most clear, how­ ever, was the longing for a chance to publicly share experiences and discuss challenges with other teachers. The unanimous recommendation of the Ex­ perienced Teachers Committee was to provide a forum for teachers to do just that, and it fell to the two of us to plan it. From the beginning, we knew that we wanted the meeting to convey our re­ spect for the work of teaching. We wanted teachers to come away from it feel­ ing revitalized and appreciated. We were convinced that the teaching profession, long associated with women’s work, was undervalued not only in the Network but also in the larger society. Having been teachers our­ selves, we had felt the sting of those outside the profession patronizing, mis­ guiding, thwarting, and misunderstanding our work. More than perhaps anything else, we wanted teachers to enter a space where respect for them and for what they knew permeated everything else. Over the course of our conversations, our assumptions about how to accomplish this became in­ creasingly explicit. Though we may not have stated the principles underly­ ing our work exactly this way, these seem to be in retrospect those that most shaped and compelled our work: 1. Teaching and learning are essentially creative and relational rather than technical and predictable. 2. At the heart of most teachers’ professional intentions is the welfare of the students they teach. 3. Teachers’ expertise and knowledge are valuable and need to be artic­ ulated and shared, and the view from inside classrooms is fundamental to clear understanding of educational processes. 4. Teachers deserve opportunities to exercise ownership for the direc­ tion and substance of their own professional development. 5. Teachers thrive professionally in the context of collegial communities. 6. Teachers are open to engagement with theory and research, if it is held in respectful dialogue with their experiences, and can use it to stimu­ late new ideas about and approaches to classroom practices. 7. Professional development initiatives, at their best, amplify teachers’ voices and harvest their understandings. 8. The public language of schooling, generalizing and abstract, consis­ tently fails to capture what teachers know and do in particular settings with particular students, the complex relational contexts in which learning and teaching take place, and the specific, grounded challenges and victories that characterize daily lives in schools. Before the meeting could occur, however, we had to select participants. After identifying teachers who had been teaching in the Network five years or more, we sent them letters announcing our project to jointly create a professional development initiative and invited them to apply to work with us. With more responders than we could accept, we chose from the pool of applicants while trying to ensure that a wide range of grades, subject matters, and Network

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schools were represented. Once participants were selected, we sent a fol­ low-up letter asking them to do some preparation work in advance of the think tank. We hoped that if the teachers came prepared to speak and listen to one another, we might reverse ways that conventional professional develop­ ment practices construct teachers as learners rather than holders of valuable knowledge about teaching and learning. We wanted them to hear and come to terms with their own individual and collective expertise, allowing it to shape their deliberations. As we talked through our own hopes for our project, it became increasingly clear that we were going to need to find a process and a language to release teachers’ voices. The more we talked, the more we became convinced that narrative was the discourse participating teachers would need to articulate what they had known and experienced, how they had managed break­ throughs and triumphs, and what had broken their hearts and confounded their best efforts. Having spent considerable time with teachers—and, again, having been teachers ourselves—we knew that storytelling was a hospitable language for them. We also knew that, if we were going to get to the root of what teachers needed to stay professionally alive, they would need to tell their own stories in their own ways and on their own terms and feel comfortable about doing it publicly. We wanted them to tap into their deepest intentions and to speak publicly about what conditions and contexts facilitated their ef­ forts or became hindrances to their best work. We hoped that when individual teachers spoke about what they had known and experienced, the group would draw inspiration from one another and work to reclaim their own pro­ fessional expertise—both individually and collectively. We gambled that the sharing of stories would generate reflection in both the telling and the listen­ ing. Given the perpetually unfinished and uncertain condition of teaching it­ self, particularly in the context of rapidly changing social conditions, we banked on the possibility that teachers’ stories might uncover the most dis­ heartening challenges. It was our hope that by articulating genuine problems in a collaborative and professional context, participating teachers would find a way to refocus and enkindle their collective energies toward finding proactive responses and solutions. In the midst of our planning, Catherine came across an article by Grumet (1983). In it, she discovered a compelling metaphor, which guided our subsequent work. Teachers, wrote Grumet, are artists in search of a studio, and they need a gallery to make their work public so that it might be both appreciated and critiqued. In that spirit, we set out to provide a space for individual reflection and creation, as well as public presentation and dia­ logue. After some discussion, we landed on the idea of a think tank, reason­ ing that such a structure best communicated the respect we had for teachers’ professional expertise. Our hope was to create a means and a context for the teachers themselves to plan strategies for their own profes­ sional development. Ironically, simply bringing them together and asking them to do this became a powerful form of professional development in and of itself—for them and for us. In preparation for the first meeting, then, we asked participating teachers to reflect on their teaching and to recall a key incident that was particularly com­ pelling for them. They were to recount the incident in writing, capturing in

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the process as much detailed description as possible. Once the story was down on paper, we asked them to look back over it and to try to articulate what it was about this particular event that represented a continuing issue in their teaching. Then we asked them to research this issue in one of four ways: keeping an observation log with the issue as a framing device, writing profes­ sional reflections on the issue in a teacher’s journal, writing a review of litera­ ture published on the issue, or summarizing ongoing collegial discussions organized around the issue. We planned the think tank to take place over four days. The written agenda that we distributed when the teachers arrived detailed carefully the goings-on for the first two days. During this time, teachers worked in small and large groups, displayed and shared their research, met in small groups to discuss their critical incidents, talked about problems with teaching and learning, and imagined a productive professional development initiative for experienced teachers. We interspersed presentations to them about conventional school language and how it shaped practice and constrained possibility, about the relative powerlessness and voicelessness of teachers in the policy arena, and about the difficulties of effecting institutional changes. Throughout, we sought to be realistic about potential difficulties and yet inspire them with their collective potential to make classrooms and schools better places for children. The last two days we simply drew a large question mark over the agenda, trusting that the teachers would have discovered by then direction for their mutual work. The think tank proved successful beyond our greatest hopes. The narrative exchanges aroused both compassion and respect. Teachers named their own issues and impressed one another and themselves with the value of knowl­ edge built from practice. Instead of faltering when they took over the meeting during the last two days, they eagerly grabbed the opportunity, working late into the wee hours of the third night. There were, of course, occasional false starts and tensions as priorities were named and the press “to do something” became heavy. The group ultimately decided to submit a proposal to the school committee outlining what they thought needed to be done for experienced teachers. In the beginning, suggestions for that document centered on discrete projects, such as the publication of a journal inviting teachers’ writing and a sabbatical program. Eventually, however, the teachers decided, just as members of the Experienced Teachers Committee had decided, that there was need for a per­ manent forum devoted to building a professional community capable of on­ going reflection, dialogue, critique, and innovation. The teachers wrote a proposal for a NFDC, endorsing in the process the narrative practices and teacher empowerment that shaped the think tank. They recommended us to co-lead the group.

The proposal developed at the think tank is shown in Fig. 1.1. It framed many needs of experienced teachers to: improve methodology, learn to cope with rapid cultural change in order to help students, ele­ vate the status of the teaching profession, become risk takers and critiquers of the process of education, learn how to build these qualities

TITLE: Network Faculty Development Committee PROJECT DIRECTORS: Diane Wood and Catherine Lacey SCHOOL: This proposal originated from the Experienced Teachers Think Tank at which 10 schools were represented PROPOSED DATE FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSAL: 11/87-9/92 Statement of Purpose: Inspired by the rich heritage of Network education, yet faced with the challenge of a world in transition, experienced teachers in the Network have expressed the conviction that they possess the expertise necessary to move the Network vision into the 21st Century. As representatives of experienced faculty from the Network Schools, we acknowledge and af­ firm the valuable resource which is our present Network faculty. In order to preserve and continually replenish this living resource, however, it is necessary to commit to the training of new Network educators and to the retention and continued growth, in both pedagogical skill and leader­ ship, of our current faculties. In this way, we can continually assess and revitalize our programs toward greater congruency with the Goals and Criteria. We, therefore, propose a Network Faculty Development Commit­ tee to provide the framework for ongoing professional growth. Needs Assessment: Through conversation and input gathered from experienced teachers throughout the Network, the following issues surfaced: 1. The need to improve methodology, therefore student motivation and performance. 2. The need to learn to cope with rapid cultural change in order to help students to cope with it. 3. To elevate the “status” of the profession. 4. Become risk takers and critiquers of the process of education and to learn better how to build these qualities in students. 5. The need to learn how to teach more effectively the world’s increasing interdependence. 6. The need to design alternative approaches to teaching. 7. The need to share expertise with other experienced faculty and with faculty new to Network education. On the basis of the above and the additional research we have done, we strongly recommend the establishment of a Network Faculty Development Committee. This committee should be composed of five to seven experienced (seven plus years in Network) faculty-administrators who would serve on a rotating basis and the Network Director. This committee would gather reg­ ularly to elicit annual faculty input on their professional development needs and would implement and expand upon the phases of this proposal. We suggest that Diane Wood, Catherine Lacey, and some members of the Initial Think Tank be among the start-up committee. Whenever possible, the Committee will include someone in the Network who is doing research on education. Regional representation should also be considered. 8

Objectives for the Faculty Development Committee: The proposal is organized in three phases, immediate objectives, short-range objectives, and long-range objectives. Immediate objectives involve little cost, time, or personnel. Short-range objectives can be ac­ complished within a year and require research, funding, and planning. Long-range objectives can be accomplished within five years. These re­ quire research, funding, and the design of a specific structure. In addi­ tion, these projects will require serious commitment from both the schools and the Network for their implementation. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE NETWORK FACULTY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: IMMEDIATE: I. Letter from Network office welcoming all new faculty members to the Network and explaining faculty opportunities for growth in the Network 1. Welcome to all new faculty members 2. Explain faculty opportunities for growth 3. Explain the process for evaluating the schools 4. Explain School Committee (explain role of Network Director) 5. Explain Network Faculty Development Committee SHORT-RANGE PLAN: II. Network faculty development committee working III. Mentoring program: (videotaping master teachers, mentoring training meetings) The Mentor program, working in conjunction with the appropriate adminis­ trators, is a means to help teachers internalize the Network vision of education by acting as a support within each school and as a liaison with the Network. We suggest that mentors can: - Develop and conduct training programs for teachers - Help teachers in the self evaluation of instruction - Serve as a contact person between Network and school - Represent faculty ideas and concerns to the Network - Participate in Mentor training programs developed by the Network Faculty Development Committee - Participate in regular regional mentor meetings to plan and evaluate activities in the Mentor program - Develop materials for the training of new teachers IV The initial formation of an educational journal Educational innovation will be a vehicle for sharing of research, descrip­ tions of innovations in curriculum and methodology, and personal reflec­ tions on the educational process submitted by any member of the Network. Materials could come from: 1. Results of research grants 2. Sabbatical internship experiences 3. Summer Institutes 4. Voluntary submission of scholarly work 9

The formation of this journal will involve the establishment of an edito­ rial board to: 1. Set criteria for submission of work 2. Review articles submitted 3. Oversee the publication and distribution of the journal We suggest that the journal begin with an annual publication and work toward a bi-annual (May and December) publication. The December issue would be devoted to the publication of work from the Summer Institute. V Research grants: The faculty development committee will establish the criteria and solicit proposals for research which will benefit the Network as a whole. These results will be shared through publication in the journal and/or the summer institute. LONG-RANGE PLANS VI. Mentoring program in operation VII. Annual publication of the journal VIII. Summer Institute in effect (experienced teachers meeting to share programs, to instruct each other, to train new faculty, to share research). The purpose of this annual institute will be to enable experienced Network educators to: 1. Confer with one another 2. Share programs or materials found successful in their individual schools 3. Instruct one another in new programs 4. Train new faculty 5. Collaborate on research Suggestions for Implementation 1. Establish an Institute Planning Group 2. The program should be approximately two weeks long 3. Week I: Focus on work of experienced teachers Week II: Focus on training of new (three years experience) teachers by experienced Network Educators 4. This institute could take place on a college campus or at a Network boarding school, rotating on a two-three year basis 5. Faculty and their families would live in the dorms and camp facilities would be provided for the children (option available) IX. Think tanks on specific issues as need, on curricular issues on a cyclical basis Once or twice a year, think tanks would be convened to address issues of concern to Network teachers. The design of these think tanks would include: 1. Sharing of experience and resources 2. Preliminary research done by teachers 3. Development of a tool of self-assessment concerning the issue (s) for colleagues in the Network 4. Recommendations for addressing the issue(s) in the Network X. Sabbatical internship program

1 0

T h e F o u n d a tio n s fo r th e W o r k

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Application Process A. Criteria 1. Seven plus years at Network school(s) 2. Must benefit two or more schools 3. Experience written up and submitted to Network journal at conclusion 4. Plan of study must be rooted in Network philosophy and reflect goals and criteria 5. Length—one year, nonrenewable 6. Limitation of award: no faculty would be considered within ten years of receiving a sabbatical 7. Applicant must sign letter of intent to remain at Network school for one to three years following completion of sabbatical B. Selection process: Applicants would be screened and selected by NFDC Funding A. Maximum of two internships awarded each school year B. Two third Network and one third sending school C. Amount granted not to exceed applicant’s annual salary FIG. 1.1 Proposal to the Network school committee for a Network faculty development committee.

in students, learn to teach more effectively the world’s increasing inter­ dependence, design alternative approaches to teaching, and share ex­ pertise with new and experienced Network faculty. To respond to these needs, the group proposed immediate, short-range, and long-range ob­ jectives for the NFDC. The immediate objective was a letter from the Net­ work Director welcoming all new faculty members to the Network and explaining opportunities for faculty growth. The short-range objectives included establishment of the NFDC, the development of a plan for ex­ perienced teachers helping administrators mentor teachers new to the schools, and the formation of an educational journal. Long-range objec­ tives included annual publication of the journal, the mentoring program in operation, institutes for experienced faculty, think tanks on specific is­ sues, and a sabbatical internship program. The think tank members submitted this proposal to the school commit­ tee. The school committee approved and funded the proposal, and then solicited applications for membership on the NFDC from the think tank participants. From the applications received the school committee se­

12

O k a p te r 1

lected five teachers from diverse regions of the country to join Catherine and Diane for its membership. The NFDC would begin in Otober 1988.

The previously mentioned material introduces the story I am telling in this volume. I continue the story in chapter 2. First, however, I want to situate the story in its organizational context. Then I present an initial conceptual framework that guides the analytic approach to be used. This presentation helps make evident why the events described here are im­ portant not just for members of the NFDC and the Network of Schools, but also for scholars and practitioners in a wide range of settings who are interested in organizational change, in processes associated with iden­ tity, action, and relationships in organizations, in change focused on em­ powerment, especially of teachers, and school reform. THE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT Understanding a change initiative requires appreciation of the context in which it occurs (O’Connor, 2000). To provide an organizational context for the discussion here, it is necessary to introduce the organizational form of the Network, a federation, and to summarize its cultural context and philosophy. Federations consist of several affiliated organizations that agree to re­ linquish control over certain activities to a central management office (D’aunno & Zuckermann, 1987; Oliver, 1990; Provan, 1983). In federa­ tions, especially voluntary ones as is the case here, relationships among member organizations and between each member organization and the central management office are relatively loose. The central office acts on behalf of the interests of the affiliated organizations and coordinates ini­ tiatives that involve all of them. Affiliate organizations are generally auton­ omous in their operations, even as they carry out activities and initiatives introduced by the central office and of interest to the federation as a whole. Thus, when an initiative is introduced into the federation from a central source, its implementation and evaluation may vary widely in the different member organizations. In the case of the Network, many of the individual schools have been in existence since the 19th century, all of them founded and supported by the same Catholic religious order. The Network itself had not been created until the mid-1970s. The Network of­ fice, which is located in Boston, receives its financial support primarily from the dues paid by each member school. The various Network schools are geographically diverse and legally inde­ pendent, but share a religious heritage and a common philosophy of educa­ tion that comprises a common identity, in Albert and Whetten’s (1985)

The Foundations for the Work

13

terms. A primary focus of the schools since their beginnings has been devel­ opment of the individual students in a holistic manner, one oriented to­ wards students’ lifetime growth, not simply their passing examinations in the short term. Deep concern about students is reflected in the often-used phrase that the work of the schools would be valuable even if it were only for the sake of a single child. Moreover, it is not simply by maxim or precepts that such concern is demonstrated, but by the ways adults at a school be­ lieve in and care about the students and provide models through their own lives (Stuart, 1912). In the 1970s this philosophy was rearticulated and updated in an inter­ nal document called the Goals and Criteria, which serves as a guide for ac­ tion in the schools and a means of holding them accountable. The five goals described in this document include: (a) a personal and active faith in God, (b) deep respect for intellectual values, (c) social awareness that impels to action, (d) the building of community, and (e) personal growth in an atmo­ sphere of wise freedom. In addition there are several criteria that articulate each goal. For example, the criteria for Goal 2 include, among others, “the course of study offers intellectual challenge and inspires a love of learning,” “the curriculum prepares students to live cooperatively in a global and tech­ nological society,” and “the curriculum develops aesthetic values and the creative use of the imagination.” In the original formulation of the Goals and Criteria , the emphasis was almost solely on students’ experiences. In a 1990 revision, more emphasis was placed on adult personnel in the schools acting in ways that embodied the goals. An evaluating committee, called the National Committee on Goals, (NCOG for short) conducts regular accrediting visits to ensure that the schools are carrying out the goals and criteria. The NFDC would be affiliated more with the Network’s central office than with any of the individual schools. In addition, because the NFDC was composed primarily of teachers rather than administrators, it would have relatively low power. Social identity theory suggests that under these cir­ cumstances members of the NFDC would be likely to be particularly sensi­ tive to possible threats to their identity as a group (Rubin & Hewstone, 1998). At the same time, the work of the NFDC was consistent with the Net­ work’s philosophy, especially its evolving emphasis on the importance of adults’ behavior as a model for students they teach. THE CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

The purposes of this volume are to contribute to the understanding of the evolution of a group working to accomplish a change initiative in its organi­ zational setting. How does the group understand its identity in this larger context? What action(s) does it take? How does it relate to its stakeholders? How do these important elements interact and evolve as the group attempts

14

G h ap te r 1

to accomplish the change initiative, and what impact does their evolution have on the group and on the change initiative? G ro u p Id en tify

Social psychological research (e.g., Sherif & Sherif, 1953; Tajfel, 1978) laid a groundwork for scholarly attention to groups’ social identities. Studies ad­ dressing these issues have demonstrated that when people are separated into groups, even if their membership is based on minimal or random crite­ ria, they quickly identify with their groups and tend to view members of other groups in a less favorable light. For example, they tend to assume that their own group is complex and diverse, while members of other groups are comparatively homogenous. In addition, members of a group tend to make judgments of individuals in other groups on the basis of stereotypes about group membership more than about the individuals themselves. Tajfel (1 9 7 8 ,1 9 8 2 ) and Tajfel and Tiirner (1979) built on previous work in exploring prejudice and stereotyping that occurs between groups as part of the identity process. They noted that people categorize and compare groups (their own and others) in order to provide a sense of self-reference, to reduce ambiguity about themselves within a larger grouping, and to en­ hance their self-concept (see also Ashforth, 1989). Tajfel and TUrner (1979) proposed that a primary reason people identify with their group is that they are motivated to achieve and maintain a favorable self-image, and they can help accomplish this by developing group identities and drawing inter­ group comparisons that favor their own group over others. This is a reason for prejudice against and stereotyping of groups other than one’s own. Tajfel and Turner’s (1 9 7 9 ) research suggested important dimensions for study of groups leading change efforts in their organizational set­ tings. Group members are likely to be very conscious of their group membership and to have a strong need to maintain and foster their self-image within the organizational setting. Especially if they are lower in status than other groups, they are likely to feel somewhat threatened by these other groups and thus, potentially, in conflict with them (e.g., Ashforth & Mael, 19 8 9 ). Thus, the relationship between organizational groups initiating a change effort and other groups of organizational members plays a central role in the social identity of group members leading the change. Two studies suggest that similar processes take place across organiza­ tional boundaries. In Elsbach and Kramer’s (1996) study of reactions to rankings of elite MBA programs, program representatives felt threatened by Business Week editors who conducted the rankings. Moreover, in Dutton and Dukerich’s (1991) study of how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey responded to the issue of homelessness, representatives of the Port Authority were affected strongly by others’ portrayals of them.

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While prior research on identity is valuable and important, it addresses a limited range of issues regarding relationships between groups in an or­ ganizational setting, in that it focuses for the most part on distrustful, com­ petitive relationships. But in an organizational setting relationships between a change agent group and other stakeholders are complex, in­ cluding both positive and negative affect, and evolve over time. I use liter­ ature on social identity in groups as a springboard for addressing larger issues of relationships between a change agent group and stakeholders of an organizational change initiative. The first issue to be explored in this volume deals with relationships be­ tween a change agent group and other stakeholders. It includes the follow­ ing questions: When a group is initiating change in its organizational setting, what is the relationship between it and other organizational groups? How is this relationship related to the group members’ identity? O rg a n iz a tio n a l Id e n tity

Tajfel emphasized that social relations were realized over time, and, thus, extended time periods were crucial for understanding them (Condor, 1996). However, the vast majority of studies of social identity in groups have been carried out in laboratory settings that do not take time into ac­ count (Condor, 1996; Reicher, 1996). While studies of group social identity typically do not address identity over time, work on organizational identity has begun to address this. Albert and Whetten (1985) developed the construct of organizational identity in 1985, describing it as that which is seen by an organization’s members as central, distinctive, and enduring about their organization. Content dimen­ sions included in organizational identity may be widely varied, including statements of ideology, management philosophy, culture, and ritual (Albert & Whetten, 1985, p. 268). Although only the cognitive dimensions of identity have been defined in prior work, there are crucial affective dimensions as well. Identity, to be mo­ tivating, must be emotionally engaging for members. Without affect there will be no impetus to act based on identity (e.g., Haviland-Jones & Kahlbaugh, 2000; Lazarus, 1991; Pratt & Dutton, 2000). Thus, in this vol­ ume, in addition to dealing with group members’ cognitive understand­ ings, I address affective aspects of identity. There has been considerable conceptual discussion of ways organizational identity (and, by extension, organizational groups’ identity) might evolve over time (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Elsbach & Kramer, 1996; Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2000; Gioia & Thomas, 1996). Several reasons for evolution of organizational identity have been proposed. The most frequendy discussed is differences between the organization’s identity and image (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Gioia, 1998; Gioia et al., 2000). Image refers, among other things, to external stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization,

16

O k a p te r 1

the organization’s sense of its desired future state, and pictures it constructs for various constituencies. Gioia et al. (2000) asserted that organization mem­ bers’ awareness of the organization’s image, especially when this image differs significandy from the organization’s own sense of identity, provides a catalyst for members’ reflexive examination of who they are. When organization mem­ bers see a discrepancy they tend to wonder if they should change their identity or change how others view the organization. This suggests that relationships with other stakeholders may affect a change agent group’s understanding by providing discrepant images of the group. Image is not the only reason for evolution of identity. Albert and Whetten (1985) noted that there may be organizational drift, a shift in the focus of an organization’s identity that comes from adding one or more additional identities, organizations’ tendencies (especially if they are in the public sec­ tor) to become repositories of activities that other organizations will not undertake, the fact that it is easier to acquire a new identity than to divest one, and organizational success, which often results in taking on additional projects. Albert and Whetten (1985) also suggested that at different times in the organizational life cycle identity issues are particularly salient in a way that may lead to shifts in identity. These life cycle events include loss of an identity-sustaining element, such as departure of the founder, and accom­ plishment of the organization’s raison d’etre. The literature on organizational identity suggests a second set of ques­ tions: What happens to elements of an organizational group’s identity over time? How do relationships with stakeholders affect the group’s identity and its evolution? How does identity affect stakeholder relationships? Id e n tity a n d A etion s

Agroup’s self-understanding is typically reflected in its actions. This is consis­ tent with early social psychological studies and later organizational investiga­ tions that demonstrated a relationship between interpretive schemes or identity and the allocation of resources and organizational structure (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997; Ranson et al., 1980; Sherif & Sherif, 1953; Tajfel, 1982). Golden-Biddle and Rao (1997), for example, showed how iden­ tity in a nonprofit organization influences constructions and enactment of the director role and shapes interaction between board members and man­ agers. Dutton and Dukerich (1991) described ways the Port Authority of New York’s identity affected how it addressed homelessness. Pratt and Dutton (2000) described ways a library’s identity affected how it dealt with social and operational issues. Dutton and Penner (1993) and Ashforth and Mael (1996) suggested more generally that an organization’s identity affects how mem­ bers act out its mission, beliefs, values, and norms. It also affects how organi­ zation members interpret key organizational events, thus affecting their actions. It is through these actions, not only their stated identity, that organi­ zational members have impacts on their external stakeholders, and thus af-

17

The F ouodatioos for the Work

feet these key stakeholders' image of and responses to the organization. This suggests a final set of questions: How do elements of a group's identity affect its actions? What impact do these actions have on the group itself and on external stakeholders' responses to the group? These three sets of questions overlap. Identity, stakeholder relationships, and actions are intertwined. In fact, their relationship can best be depicted in triangular form, such as that depicted in Fig. 1.2. As the figure shows, these three constructs can be thought of as the corners (vertices) of the triangle, with each construct affecting the others in an ongoing way. I label this figure as a triangle model of change agent group dynamics, and suggest that in order to understand such dynamics it is necessary to attend to both the constructs themselves and their interdependent evolution over time. 1 As is indicated in the figure, the constructs and the relationships among them affect the vitality of both the change agent group and the change effort at any given time. That is, the triangle model represents a kind of matrix of life and vitality. The word matrix as it is used here comes from one of its original meanings. According to the Oxford English Dictionary; matrix has the same Latin root as mater (for mother). It was defined very early on as a womb, and, then, as a place in which something is bred, produced, or developed, or a point of origin or growth. Another early understanding was the substance between cells that kept them linked. Thus, the three con-

els of each construct.

els of each construct.

Vitality of the Group and Change Effort els of each construct. els of each construct.

FIG. l.2

Initial triangle model of change agent group dynamics.

lWhile a triangle model is unusual, there are other examples of this type of approach in the social sciences. For example, Sternberg developed a triarchic model of intelligence (1985) and a triangular model oflove (1986). The model in this volume differs somewhat from those described by Sternberg in that it focuses on relationships among constructs as well as varying levels of each construct.

18

C h a p te r 1

structs of identity, actions, and stakeholder relationships (points of origin or growth) and their interactions (the substance linking the cells) that make up the triangle model are the source of the life of the change agent group and change effort. The triangle model and its evolution are explored by combining the prior sets of questions into three simpler research questions that will guide exploration throughout this volume: 1. What happens over time to crucial elements of the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort? 2. What is the relationship between the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort and its actions? 3- What is the relationship between a group leading an organiza­ tional change effort and other stakeholders? How is this relationship linked with the group’s identity and actions? In the case of the NFDC, three groups of stakeholders were prominent: other teachers in the Network, the various heads of schools, and the Network Director along with Network level administrative personnel. These three research questions are addressed for each year of the NFDC. I will also explore how much vitality the NFDC and its change effort were demonstrating at any given time. In chapter 10, on the basis of the analyses for each year, I develop the tri­ angle model in depth. I analyze what each of the three central constructs mean in the context of the change agent group studied, how they evolve over time, their links with each other over time, and the vitality of the change agent group and change effort. Some prior research posited links between identity and actions and explored ways actions flow from identity. But prior research efforts have typically been based on an expectation of one way causality, from iden­ tity to action. Moreover, the analyses typically considered a very limited range in time. A full depiction of identity, actions, and stakeholder rela­ tionships unfolding over a lengthy time period in an interactive fashion, and their impacts, has not been presented. But change initiatives can not take place without such interaction over time; it is through this interac­ tion that the life of the change agent group and change effort occur. STUDYING THE NFDC The primary approach taken to study the NFDC was narrative, telling a de­ tailed story of what happened in the group based on transcripts of their meet­ ings and activities. As Langley (1999) indicates, this is a particularly appropriate research strategy for working with a single case, especially over

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19

an extended time period. I bracket the narrative according to school years, which represent natural time periods for this type of group. Several contemporary approaches to organizational studies and other social sciences emphasize the importance of narrative and stories (e.g., Czarniawska, 1998; Gersick, Bartunek, & Dutton, 2000; Langley, 1999; Pentland, 1999; Weick, 1995) for exploring complex events. Stories pro­ vide an appropriate medium for the articulation of the complex dynam­ ics of human activity, because they are composed of surprising and messy predicaments, protagonists who struggle to act coherently in uncertain situations, and plots that trace the vicissitudes of human negotiation and change (Bruner, 1986; Scholes, 1982). Thus, they can be particularly ef­ fective in surfacing the multiple, potentially contradictory, dynamics in­ dividuals and groups experience (Brunner, 1994; Carter, 1993; Clandinin & Connelly, 1991). Telling a story about an event opens it for interpretation and negotiation, and in so doing enables the tacit theo­ ries—including self-understanding—that inform practice to find their way into awareness (Lacey, 1991). J o i n t In s id e r—O u ts id e r A p p ro a ch

The research for this volume was based on a joint insider-outsider ap­ proach. The NFDC founders and other members agreed from the inception of the NFDC to research the group’s development through such collabora­ tion (Bartunek & Louis, 1996; Louis & Bartunek, 1992). A joint insider-outsider approach is based on the assumption that the ways insider members of a setting inquire about it and the ways outside researchers inquire about it tend to differ (Evered & Louis, 1981). In­ siders and outsiders tend to ask different questions and use different means to reach answers. Joint insider-outsider research aims at en­ abling both sets of concerns and both approaches for data gathering to be used; one or more participants in a study become coresearchers working with an outside researcher, rather than simply subjects (Olesen, 1994). That is, one or more participants maybe involved in all phases of the study, from initial formulation of research questions to writing up of results. In the case of the NFDC, Catherine, Diane, and I agreed at the outset that I, an outside researcher, would collaborate with them as in­ sider researchers in studying events that occurred within the NFDC while they were leaders, members of the group, or both. This shared work has resulted in a number of papers about the group that were jointly authored (Bartunek, Galosy, Lacey, Lies, & Wood, 1991; Bartunek & Lacey, 1998; Bartunek, Lacey, & Wood, 1992; Bartunek, Walsh, & Lacey, 2000; Lacey, Wood, & Bartunek, 1990; Walsh, Bartunek, & Lacey, 1998). In addition, the insider authors published some papers about the group themselves (Lacey, 1996; Wood & Lacey, 1991).

20

O k a p te r 1

To implement the joint insider-outsider approach, from the begin­ ning of the group through its seventh year, I sat in as a nonparticipant ob­ server at NFDC meetings and at events the group sponsored. I recorded virtually everything that was said when the members were meeting to­ gether or when presentations were made at events the NFDC sponsored, first using pen and paper, and then a laptop computer. This resulted in several thousand pages of close to verbatim transcripts from NFDC meet­ ings and events. The quotes from group meetings presented here are taken from these transcripts. For their part, Catherine and Diane kept extensive journal notes about their activities. When possible, I talked with the NFDC leaders (Catherine and Diane initially, and then later leaders) about their plans for each upcoming meeting. For the first few years, I also had conversations with the leaders after NFDC meetings ended about their reflections on the meeting. For the first five years, I conducted semi-annual phone interviews with the other NFDC members out­ side of meeting times to discuss the NFDC and its impacts. Finally, during the sixth year of the group, I conducted an evaluation of the NFDC’s impact on the Network of schools (Bartunek, Greenberg, & Davidson, 1999; Greenberg & Bartunek, 1995). In this volume, the joint insider-outsider approach has been modified from its use in the studies of discrete events in the group. Instead of an outsider and one or more insider founders writing the volume, I am writ­ ing the main text, which encompasses a time period in the NFDC beyond when either founder or any of the other group members was present. In addition, I invited all the former NFDC members I was able to contact to contribute their own reflections. Catherine, Diane, Nancy Walters, and about half of the teachers who were members of the group at some point contributed their own reflections on the NFDC as they looked back on their experience. Some are using their own names and others are using pseudonyms. (The names presented for all other NFDC members and Network personnel, including Nancy Walters, are pseudonyms). When they discuss a specific event (as illustrated by the quotations from Nancy and from Catherine and Diane earlier in this chapter) their words are used to describe the event. Their reflections are presented in the chapter that describes events during their last year on the group, or in the last chapter, if their membership on the NFDC postdated my data collection. Diane is discussing implications of the group’s work for educational policy. Fur­ thermore, the volume is based in part on some of the papers already jointly written, although it obviously goes well beyond any of those pa­ pers. Thus, this volume incorporates the perspectives of multiple mem­ bers of the NFDC throughout its history. At various times during the course of the events described here, both founders of the NFDC resigned from their positions in the Network and en­ tered doctoral programs in education. Catherine remained connected with the NFDC during and after her doctoral program. After completing her doc­

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torate she became a program officer at the Spencer Foundation. Diane be­ gan graduate school after completing her term on the NFDC. After completing her doctorate, she took a university faculty position. At this time, she is a faculty member in the College of Education and Human Devel­ opment at the University of Southern Maine. THE PLAN OF THE BOOK In the following chapters, I describe the NFDC as Diane and Catherine envi­ sioned it after the think tank (chap. 2) and as it evolved in practice during each school year I studied the group (chaps. 3-9). At the end of each chap­ ter, I address the first three research questions posed here in terms of the particular time period described in that chapter and also indicate the vital­ ity associated with the NFDC and it change effort during that time period. That is, in chapter 2 ,1introduce two crucial elements of the group’s identity as envisioned by Catherine and Diane. In later chapters, I focus on what happened to each of these elements, as well as on the NFDC’s actions and relationships with stakeholders and impacts associated with these elements that year. In chapter 10, based on the empirical work, I develop a concep­ tual model detailing the interwoven evolution of identity, actions, and rela­ tionships, expanding and elaborating on the triangle model pictured in Fig. 1.1. In chapter 11, Diane develops the implications of the NFDC’s work for contemporary educational policy. Finally, in chapter 12,1 describe the end­ ing of the group, as some of its (then) present and former members viewed, experienced it, or both. This chapter also includes several final reflections on the NFDC by former members, especially their reactions to the decision to end the group. I use this material for a final consideration on the concep­ tual framework and learnings from the NFDC.

2 The Founders' Vision and Design for the NFDC

Any change initiative and its evolution depends on its initial purpose. I already sketched out some of Diane's and Catherine's aim for the NFDC. In this chapter, I elaborate on that aim, especially the way they viewed the group as contributing to educational research. I also describe how they designed the NFDC in order to accomplish their aim and describe some of the practical considerations involved in getting the NFDC started. Finally, I suggest two crucial dimensions of the group's identity as Catherine and Diane envisioned it.

THE FOUNDERS' THOUGHTS ABOUT CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE NFDC TO EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH The think tank had taken place during October, 1987, and the first meeting of the NFDC would be in October, 1988. In late 1987 and early 1988, Diane and Catherine spent considerable time considering both how they wanted the NFDC's work to contribute to educational reform and specific processes they wanted to characterize the group. During the first year of the NFDC, Catherine and Diane articulated their ideas formally in a presentation given at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Lacey et al., 1990). The presentation here is taken in large measure from that paper. 22

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Diane and Catherine believed that current educational research and ed­ ucational reform efforts typically gave little voice to teachers’ understand­ ings of their practice (Duckworth, 1987; McDonald, 1986, 1988; Shulman, 1987). Teachers frequently ignore educational research, since it does little to uncover their own knowledge, judgment, or creativity (Carew & Lightfoot, 1979; Evans, Stubbs, Frechette, Neely, & Warner, 1987; Schon, 1983). Regardless of teachers’ reactions, current educational research fre­ quently has debilitating ramifications in their lives (cf., Cohn & Kottkamp, 1993). For instance, some research asks teachers to be technicians of teacher-proof curricula and replicators of effective behaviors as isolated and defined by external experts, rather than teachers themselves (Carlson, 1982; Grumet, 1988; Martin, 1982; Schon, 1983). This is disempowering for teachers (Firestone & Bader, 1992). In response, several approaches have developed to empower teachers (Bolin, 1989). Some are represented in school site or school-based man­ agement programs that provide opportunities for teachers in a particular school to address and help solve administrative problems (Conley & Bacharach, 1990; Taylor & Levine, 1991). These approaches often foster teachers’ participation in already defined administrative issues, and beg the deeper question of how schools might be restructured based on teach­ ers’ knowledge for better teaching and learning. Other approaches em­ phasize individual efficacy (Fuller, Wood, Rappaport, & Dornbusch, 1982; Maeroff, 1988), giving teachers more autonomy in their own classrooms so they can be more creative there. An underlying assumption of this sec­ ond approach is that self-efficacy is demonstrated primarily in the teacher’s private realm (the classroom), and has little impact on the school as a whole (cf., Shujaa, 1989). Catherine and Diane felt that empowerment approaches like these ig­ nore problems arising in relating power to teacher, for power in U.S. cul­ ture is a trait genderized in favor of males (cf., Martin, 1985). They believed that a lack of power—personal and public—is more often the experience of those in women’s true profession. The low esteem and gender-laden im­ ages associated with teaching get internalized, resulting in low self- and professional-confidence (Clifford, 1989; Grumet, 1988; Herbst, 1989; Johnson, 1990; Lightfoot, 1978; Lortie, 1975; Maeroff, 1988). Catherine and Diane believed that a deeper and far more important challenge of teacher empowerment involved affirming, strengthening, and communicating the power and authority that teachers exercise at the heart of the educational endeavor—the classroom—and transform­ ing the teaching profession from the inside out. As shown in chapter 1, the premise for the approach they wished to take was that strategies of empowerment must involve teachers in naming, valuing, and recon­ structing what they know about teaching in a potent enough way that they can actively contribute their insight to the public consideration of educational issues.

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T H E F O U N D E R S ’ P L A N S F O R IM P L E M E N T IN G T H E I R V I S I O N IN T H E N F D C

As Diane and Catherine planned for the NFDC, they wanted three things that they termed, however loosely, feminist to characterize its processes and projects. First, they would honor, respect, and begin with the knowl­ edge of teachers rather than that of outside experts. Second, they would seek to articulate, authorize, and incorporate narrative language and sub­ jective truth in their work, rather than the “language of fact and ‘objectiv­ ity’” (Bruner, 1986, p. 129) or the instrumentalist approach of technical rationalism (Schon, 1983) that so frequently characterizes the field of edu­ cation. Finally, they would count on the power of collaborative relation­ ships to test the subjective truth released through narrative and to reinterpret its meaning for the communal work of teacher empowerment and educational reform. This vision called for different types of processes than the standard ones that characterize groups. They designed two aspects of the NFDC explicitly, and another came about as a result of the joint insider-outsider research design. The two aspects they designed were the leadership style they would take and the sharing of narratives at the beginning of the NFDC meetings. The aspect that arose because of the research design was a reflection at the end of the meetings. L e a d e rsh ip S ty le

Diane’s and Catherine’s initial idea was not to take leadership at all, since their experiences were as administrators and the other members of the group would be teachers. However, during the summer of 1988, Diane at­ tended a feminist conference at which she talked with Peggy Macintosh of the Wellesley Center for Research on Women. She asked Peggy Macintosh how to incorporate feminist approaches in the NFDC, such as how to have collaborative leadership styles, make decisions, and share ideas. Diane told Peggy that Catherine’s and her original plan was to turn leadership over to the committee. But Peggy Macintosh suggested that they might not want to relinquish leadership prematurely. She said that some feminists were think­ ing in new ways about women and leadership, and she suggested that Di­ ane and Catherine might consider serving as leaders for a stipulated time in order to model collaborative processes. She emphasized that Diane and Catherine should not forfeit leadership. She told Diane that many people are not grounded in feminist theory; thus groups get taken over by male paradigms and then the feminists leave. When Diane told Catherine this advice, Catherine thought it was a good idea. She said that in other committees “I shy away from leadership, then get frustrated. If we’ve conceived this from a feminist theory base, then we

V isio n an d D e sig n fo r th e N F D C

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want to continue to exercise leadership, ensuring projects are imbued with principles we think important. The others probably aren’t as consciously aware of feminist principles.” Based in part on this advice, the leadership style Catherine and Diane de­ signed differed from that present in most settings. As leaders, they viewed re­ lationships within and beyond the committee not as instrumental toward the accomplishment of predetermined agendas, but as empowering by releasing and enabling the agendas of ever more inclusive circles of teachers. They in­ tended not to do the work of empowerment for teachers, which they felt would be a contradiction in terms, but to ask them and their peers to claim their own authority, deal with the pain of self- and cultural devaluation, and choose realistic courses of action. This meant in part that while the two of them would develop overall agendas for NFDC meetings, they would leave room for substantial initiative at the meetings up to the teachers.

Sharing o f Narratives. To foster the kinds of group member interac­ tion they wished to accomplish, Diane and Catherine also established that when the NFDC came together as a committee, it would begin with a shar­ ing of personal experience in narrative form. The narratives would become a text for the committee to read and interpret in order to uncover important considerations to be kept in mind while engaged in task-oriented business on behalf of teachers. Diane had found in her own school that sharing nar­ ratives had been a very effective approach to the development of experi­ enced teachers (Wood, 1992). In immediate preparation for the first meeting of the NFDC, Catherine and Diane sent the members a copy of Grumet’s (1983) article, “The Line Is Drawn,” because it fit their theme well and because teachers at the think thank had responded to it so positively. They also sent them a copy of Kincaid’s (1985) poem, “Girl,” and asked that they use this poem as a model for a narrative they would write and share at the first meeting of the NFDC. Diane had participated in a conference in which this poem was used for a similar purpose, and had used it in her home school. She found that reflec­ tion on it helped teachers think about individual consciousness in a world trying to control and define identity on the basis of gender, something to which many teachers could relate. An E nding Reflection . Finally, as part of the insider-outsider design for the group, near the end of each meeting the group members would re­ flect together on the meeting. They would talk about what had gone well, what had not gone well, and implications for the group’s work. As part of the research on the group, the reflection would be tape recorded and tran­ scribed, and the transcripts would then be given to the group members. Thus, at the end of each meeting, the NFDC would return to group reflec­ tion on personal experience. This was important, since so much of teach­ ers’ work occurred in isolated contexts.

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THE FOUNDERS’ THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NFDC IN RELATION TO THE NETWORK In addition to designing the group, Diane and Catherine reflected on possi­ ble dynamics that could accompany the group’s work. In particular, they thought about dimensions of power and conflict that might be present in relation to the teachers’ home schools. They thought that as administrators who had been relatively successful in the Network they might have more credibility with other administrators than the teachers would, and this would be a good reason for them to lead the group initially. With regard to individual schools, they were concerned about what might happen to some of the teachers on the committee if the group was successful. Diane com­ mented that “if this faculty development vision takes off, the teachers (who are members of the NFDC) who go back to heads (of the individual schools) are going to be experiencing some real hard issues with certain heads be­ cause they’re going to have a sense of their own power and their own ability to formulate and implement (activities).” Thus, Diane and Catherine felt the committee might generate some con­ flict and differences of opinion. They were also concerned that it might gen­ erate fears, that school heads “will fear that their turf is being sideswiped or infringed upon.” COMMENTARY As is evident, the founders had a very well-articulated vision for the NFDC. They saw themselves designing an approach that challenged as­ sumptions about who (outside researchers or teachers) should conduct educational research and how it should be applied. They wanted to fos­ ter the teachers’ respect for their own work and empower them to put their work forward in the public forum, not simply to implement exter­ nal researchers’ authoritative advice. Catherine’s and Diane’s vision for the committee was consistent with some other educational initiatives being undertaken then and now, es­ pecially in the teacher as researcher movement (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 1993, 1999; Goswami & Stillman, 1987; Miller, 1990) and the de­ velopment of professional communities in schools (e.g., Bryk, Camburn, & Louis, 1 999; Louis & Kruse, 1995; Louis, Marks, & Kruse, 1996; Scribner et al., 1 9 9 9 ). Teacher research is a grass roots movement in which teachers join with one another and an outside researcher to study their own practice systematically, often using a kind of action re­ search approach. Professional communities in schools are ways of creat­ ing ongoing inter-disciplinary links across large groups of teachers at a given school. It aims to enable teachers both to improve the practice of teaching and contribute to knowledge about it. Catherine and Diane were not trying to replicate either of these approaches. However, they

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were trying to accomplish a similar aim, and hoping by so doing to foster­ ing teachers’ confidence in their own ability. T h e N F D C ’s Id e n tity an d A ctio n s Im p lem en tin g I t as E n v isio n ed hy Its F o u n d e rs

Catherine and Diane’s vision of the NFDC included two core elements or themes that together formed the NFDC’s identity. I introduce both ele­ ments here, including how they were linked in the founders’ minds with ac­ tions and with stakeholder relationships. Later I trace how these elements evolved in conjunction with the group’s actions and its relationships with others in the Network and then the impacts of their evolution at any given time. These two elements centered on the group’s work and the process by which it would be accomplished.

The Voice o f the Teacher. For Catherine and Diane, the voice of the teacher referred to empowering teachers in a way that was integral to their own practice and that took into account the fact that teaching is primarily a feminine profession. This was the central purpose of the NFDC. Catherine and Diane laid out this purpose and the reason it was necessary in chapter 1, where they said, for example: We were convinced that the teaching profession, long associated with women’s work, was undervalued ... Having been teachers ourselves, we had felt the sting of those outside the profession patronizing, misguiding, thwart­ ing, and misunderstanding our work. More than perhaps anything else, we wanted teachers to enter a space where respect for them and for what they knew permeated everything else. .

What the voice of the teacher referred to was also illustrated clearly in the principles Diane and Catherine stated, that teaching is creative rather than technical, that teachers’ expertise and knowledge are valuable and need to be articulated, and that teachers deserve opportunities to exercise owner­ ship for the direction of their own professional development. Thus, it is im­ portant for teachers’ voices to be heard in wider educational circles than their own classrooms, for them to participate in public galleries of educa­ tional debate. Catherine’s and Diane’s vision had affective as well as cognitive compo­ nents. This is evident in their phrasing: “we had felt the sting of those out­ side the profession” and their desire to have the participating teachers “articulate what they had known and experienced ... and what had broken their hearts and confounded their best efforts.” The primary means Catherine and Diane envisioned for achieving this aim within the group was narrative, a form of discourse that could arouse teach­

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ers’ compassion and respect. In addition, several actions the NFDC could take to implement this aim were developed at the think tank (Fig. 1.1).

The Process. The second core component of Catherine’s and Diane’s vision for the NFDC was a collaborative and reflective leadership process. This became labeled simply as the process during the first year of the group. As noted previously, Catherine and Diane did not want to lead the group in a directive way, but in a way that would model and stimulate collaborative and reflective processes and that would “convey our respect” for the NFDC members, an affective as well as cognitive aim. In practice, their approach included designing meetings in ways that left substantial initiative up to teachers. Narrative was also an integral part of the process, a primary way “to generate reflection in both the telling and the listening.” To implement this process, meetings would begin with a sharing of personal experience in narrative form. The group reflection period at the end of meetings was also a way for the participants to share in reflecting on and discussing how the meeting had gone and what they would like to retain and change. Im p lic it E x p e c ta tio n s o f R e la tio n sh ip s W i th S ta k e h o ld e rs

Catherine and Diane implicitly expected that the NFDC’s relationships with other Network teachers would be positive, since the work of the group was on behalf of teachers. As previously noted, they also imagined that their process and approach could lead to conflict with some school heads. Teachers would have a greater sense of their own authority, and this might generate fear in some heads. They did not have particular expectations for the group’s relationship with the Network Director or Network level com­ mittees. The Network Director had been very supportive of their beginning. Beginning in this chapter and through chapter 9, each chapter will in­ clude a table that indicates the two central themes of the NFDC’s identity as these were expressed during a given year, along with pertinent imagery (usually metaphors) and emotional expressions of the identity element. The table also includes actions that were related in some way to each iden­ tity element and relevant relationships with stakeholders during this time period. Both imagery and emotional expression are core to the meanings of each identity element. There is considerable literature showing that the types of images and metaphors people use to describe organizational experience are particularly good indicators of their understandings. For example, Sackmann (1989) indicated that metaphors provoke vivid images that make future actions more tangible and connote meanings on cognitive, emo­ tional, and behavioral levels. She added that they influence organizational members’ thinking, feelings, and constructs of reality. Lies (1993) com­ mented that metaphors are “a way of expressing ideas and feelings without

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spelling them out, and of transmitting the indescribable” (p. 60). Emotional expression is similarly important in indicating meaning. Damasio (1999) noted, for example, that consciousness of something is inseparable from the emotional experience of it. Moreover, as indicated in chapter 1, it is emotion associated with an understanding that motivates action. E x p e c te d V ita lity o f th e G ro u p a n d th e C h a n g e E ffo rt

Catherine and Diane were designing the NFDC in a way that they expected would be invigorating for its members and for teachers in the Network. They had already experienced how invigorating the think tank was, and ex­ pected that treating the teachers with respect and encouraging their initia­ tives would foster their enthusiasm for the work of the group and its successful impacts in the Network. The two elements—how Diane and Catherine expected prior to the group that they would be expressed in practice, and expected relationships with the NFDC’s three sets of stakeholders—are shown in Table 2.1. The expected vi­ tality of the group and change effort are depicted at the end of the table.

Founders aimed to raise the voice of the teacher through narrative Im agery “Teaching profession, long associated with women’s work, was undervalued ...” Emotional Expression “Felt the sting of the outside.” “Articulate ... what had broken their hearts and confounded their best efforts.”______

Expressions o f the Voice o f the Teacher Founders desired collaboration among NFDC leaders and members and the development of opportunities for reflection as central to the group’s process. Emotional Expression Narrative could “arouse compassion and respect.”

Expressions o f the Process The work of the think tank set the agenda for actions that would accomplish this aim. These included faculty institutes, a journal, and other activities.

Actions Related to the Voice o f the Teacher

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

The founders Teachers designed a Emphasis of the collaborative NFDC was on leadership style. empowering They incorporated teachers. narrative sharing as Network Director a way of helping and Office NFDC members There was no share their voice image of this relationship. and to provide opportunity for School Heads reflection. The founders expected conflicts with some heads of schools as the teachers became more empowered.

Actions Related to the Process

Expected vitality of the group and change effort: The founders expected that the NFDC would be highly invigorating for its members, and that the change effort would be empowering and thus life-giving for other teachers in the Network.

Founders’ plans for the NFDC

Year

TABLE 2.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships as Catherine Lacey and Diane Wood Envisioned the NFDC

3 A n Exciting and Som etim es Difficult Beginning

The First Members of the NFDC, 1988-1989 Marie Albert Jodie Galosy Marian Decker Betty Lies Catherine Lacey Inga Parsons Diane Wood Nancy Walters, Director of the Network of Schools Additional Teachers Included in the NFDC’s Activities During the Year: Members of the Editorial Board for the Journal Heather Brink Elena Javurek Matt Simmons

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Additional Members of the Faculty Institute Planning Committee Rosemary Flagg Terese Riordan

THE BEGINNING OF THE NFDC The first meeting of the NFDC took place from Friday, October 14, 1988 through Sunday, October 16, at the Network office in Boston. The initial members of the NFDC in addition to Catherine and Diane were Marie Al­ bert, Jodie Galosy, Marian Decker, Betty Lies, and Inga Parsons. For all of them the think tank had been a very important experience. Marie Albert was in her ninth year teaching in Charleston. At the time the NFDC started she taught primarily in the lower school, but she had taught virtually all grade levels up to eighth grade. She had originally participated in the think tank because the head of her school had invited her to do so, and she was very interested in Network education: she lived and breathed it. What had most stood out about the think tank for her was that the group had turned out a “remarkable document. We gelled, the camaraderie was overwhelming. There was a feeling of belonging and purpose ... I’d had some lows and needed a shot in the arm. It provided that.” Jodie Galosy was a guidance counselor at Des Moines. She had previ­ ously taught math and science. At the time the NFDC started, she had been at the school for nine years. The years had not all been continuous, since she had left earlier when her son was born and then returned later. At the time invitations to the think tank were sent out she was doing a project on cooperative learning, as well as trying to decide whether to remain at the school or get a doctorate. She was sold on the Network, but wanted to be more involved with it, and with the growth and development of the educa­ tion process itself. The invitation to be part of the think tank was interesting to her. She wanted to brainstorm regarding where education was going. Her school head was also interested in her participating. In 1972, Marian Decker began teaching in the elementary school in Min­ neapolis, though she took leaves of absence when her children were born. She was on the advising board and the building committee of her school. Catherine visited her school when the Experienced Teachers Committee talked with experienced teachers, and had touched a chord when she talked about expertise in the classroom and room for experience. Marian was, at the time, thinking about resigning from the school because of several frustra­ tions there, but saw she could learn from someone like Catherine. What most stood out for Marian about the think tank was that people from other schools were “in the same place I was regarding frustration, and that Catherine and Diane orchestrated the weekend to perfection.” Betty Lies was in her 18th year of teaching high school in Pittsburgh. She started there because the school had a part-time job available, but then got hooked on Network education. She was head of the English department,

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and also just received a prestigious Klingenstein fellowship to study at Teachers College. Her project in conjunction with this fellowship was to de­ velop ways to write poetry to improve expository writing. She applied for the think tank because, “If something comes along I do it.” For Betty, what most stood out about the think tank was “how much we could get done in a short time with a big group. I wasn’t surprised we got along, I expected that ... It amazed me how much we got done.” Finally, Inga Parsons was in her 22nd year teaching at the high school in Napa. She taught English, but previously taught drama and dance. Diane talked with her during the Experienced Teachers Committee’s visit to Inga’s school. When an application form came from the Network office for the think tank, Inga responded because she had “been thinking about educa­ tion in the future instead of the past.” Inga thought the think tank experi­ ence was important, “because most of us feel we’re doing something that’ll have an important impact on Network schools. Also, this is the first time in 22 years a faculty committee is involved in education in the Network. That’s very important. The faculty are always on the line and for the first time are involved in the working of the school.” P r e p a r a t io n fo r th e F i r s t M e e tin g o f th e N F D C

On the afternoon prior to the group’s beginning, Diane and Catherine dis­ cussed the upcoming meeting with me. In preparation for it, as noted in chapter 2, they sent out copies of the prose poem “Girl,” (Kincaid, 1985), and asked the NFDC members to prepare stories to tell at the beginning of the meeting that were similar to the format of that poem. After the NFDC members told their stories, Catherine and Diane planned to review the proposal drawn up by the think tank. They wanted to do this in a way that would help the committee members get in touch with the think tank experience, as well as with what Catherine and Diane hoped would characterize the work of the NFDC. To accomplish this, they would have the NFDC members take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side, they would describe a particular moment of the think tank that symbolized for them the spirit of what the group had discovered and really wanted to do as teachers. On the other side, they would tell a story about an incident or a moment after the think tank that seemed to threaten that vision. Diane and Catherine hoped that in surfacing both of those the NFDC members would recognize the tension that they would continually feel as they tried to do the work. Both the sharing of the stories and the articulation of the think tank’s man­ date for the NFDC would take place on Friday. On Saturday, Nancy Walters, the Director of the Network, would talk about how the work of the NFDC fit into the larger picture of the Network. The committee members would then begin choosing the tasks on which they would work, as well as discuss a pro­ posal I prepared for joint insider-outsider study of the committee. The work

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that was left over would be completed on Sunday, along with the group re­ flection period, assuming the research proposal was approved. THE FIRST MEETING OF THE NFDC The NFDC’s first meeting1began with the sharing of stories based on “Girl.” Both the storytelling and the session in which the members discussed high and low points related to the think tank went well. The storytelling helped the participants make connections, see commonalities in their experience, and develop empathy and relationships. Then the group turned to reviewing and developing the think tank mandate. They outlined initial plans for three objectives they hoped to accomplish in the first two years: a mentoring pro­ gram, a meeting of teachers and administrators regarding hiring practices in the Network, and an educational journal. They designed a process to select members for the editorial board of the journal (Catherine, Jodie, and three other Network teachers). In addition, they chose two teachers from each Net­ work school who might serve as contact people to relay information to teach­ ers in their school. They wrote to the head of each school to ask them to select the contact person from two people they nominated. They would later send information about their activities to these contact people to distribute. The NFDC members were ambivalent about having the group re­ searched. When I presented the proposal on Saturday afternoon, they had several questions and concerns, especially about whether my presence would disrupt their work. The discussion of the proposed research ended without agreement. That night at dinner, when I was not present, Nancy suggested that the group members discuss whether they trusted me or not, and proposed that their trust in me should be the basis on which they would decide if they wanted to do the research. The group decided they did trust me, and so decided to participate in the research. I was invited back to the group on Sunday afternoon, just before the re­ flection period, which Catherine led. A number of difficult issues surfaced during the reflection period. One was whether the group should devote so much time to bonding activities such as the narratives. Some thought that this was important, others that it would be less necessary in the future. One person asked that she not be sent any tasks prior to the next meeting; she was already overwhelmed with work. Some talked about tensions they ex­ perienced between philosophizing and getting work done. Several de­ scribed anxiety they were experiencing: Marian:

I think we feel invested—that the Network has done this visionary thing and we are part of this first historical fac-

1As a potential outside researcher, I did not attend most of the first meeting. The NFDC had to decide first whether they wanted to participate in the research. The account of the NFDC’s work during the meeting comes from Catherine and Diane.

A n E x c itin g and S o m e tim e s D iffic u lt B e g in n in g

Inga: Betty:

Jodie: Betty: Inga:

Betty:

35

ulty committee and we want to succeed and we want to do so much for the people back home in every one of the 19 schools, including the ones not represented by one of us, and I just feel empowered, but I also feel so damn responsible ... Not only responsible, but have we bit off more than we can chew? I think the fear is there of what if back in the schools they say, “Oh God, another one of those things that’s coming” and they don’t know, and they don’t under­ stand where it’s— And we’ve like given our blood and sold our souls— And then we get jumped on for some reason— Well, I don’t think that when we originally came up with the things that the Think Tank came up with, that we saw it as being this historic event... suddenly it seems so important to do it so well, and that’s a strain I think. But it’s also exciting.

Catherine and Diane talked about a dilemma they had experienced coleading the meeting: Catherine:

Jodie: Diane:

Betty:

What went well for me was yesterday afternoon when we started brainstorming. In addition, I think the “teacher” piece sharing was really touching. And the two stories side-by-side for the hope and threat (in relation to the think tank proposal) ... were very moving for me ... I think what didn’t go so well for me was when we started kind of shouting—my introvert just died—I couldn’t get anything in, but I wanted to shout and say, “But I think this”—and I felt like other people couldn’t get in. And you just sat down like this (shrugging shoulders). I think it might be partially that tension between the philosophizing or the new idea generating or the critiquing or whatever’s happening versus the task ori­ entation and there’s some of us, and I would say that I’m one of them, who get panicked if tasks aren’t be­ ing completed and I have a tendency to talk too much and be too “move it, move it, move it, move it” and then maybe drown in my own attempt to be linear to­ ward a goal. I’m concerned about what Catherine said because those of us who are the blurters out and extroverts are always going to get our say in and how are we going to know when we’re killing the introverts ... And how are we go­

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ing to become sensitive to the fact that we are going off all over the place and just shooting off our mouths at ev­ ery second and not letting other people get involved. After this Catherine was largely silent for the remainder of the reflec­ tion. However, some others started discussing how much work they had done: Inga:

Nancy: Betty:

The energy level was extremely high, and the fact that we’re all beat and we all feel that we shouldn’t jump on each other—part of that is because we’re so enthusiastic about everything—and as Nancy says, we all want to do each of these things. It’s an important work and you have the sense of every­ one knowing that. One of the things that I think is so amazing looking back on it is that Friday afternoon, at the end of our first day, I don’t think any one of us would have listed the four (activities) that we’ve come out with. I think we would have said the journal and the research grants as a possibility, but we did not have in mind the hiring thing and the form that you use. We thought Friday afternoon that we were going to do a mentoring project... And look where it went!

There was discussion about whether the group had done well because of Diane’s and Catherine’s special skills: Inga:

Betty:

I keep wondering how much or how successful we have felt and I’m not sure I know—it’s dependent upon how much you two did before the first time we met (at the think tank) and how much you two did this time when we met and is that possible if there are not that kind of two who are planning each new thing along the way. I really do not know how much that was important to what happened to our group. I mean I think we’re all re­ ally pretty good—but how much of it was us? It seems to me that you two brought a lot of knowledge and expertise of the kind that a lot of die rest of us don’t have.

Diane was uncomfortable with the talk about their special skills, and wanted to diffuse it. She said: I would suggest that Catherine and I speak together at the beginning of our next meeting—as specifically as we can, because ... I think probably it would be helpful for this group to hear what we felt we did (at the think tank) and then for you to tell us what you think we did, and maybe we can make a deci-

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sion about that the first hour we work together—you brought it up, not only because you’re curious but because you want to know what to do next.

Discussion on this topic continued until it was time to leave. Afterwards, both Diane and Catherine were upset and concerned about the mystique that seemed to have been built up around their leadership at the think tank. Diane said that they had just used a few techniques from a couple sources, and that anyone could do them. Since she and Catherine were already re­ luctant to take leadership positions in the committee, they did not want their leadership to be a source of mystification. They were upset at some of Nancy’s comments, especially that she raised the issue about whether I, as an outside researcher, should be trusted. They felt that implicitly she was asking whether the two of them should also be trusted. A few days later, Diane felt angry at Catherine and at herself, because of the differences in their approaches that had surfaced. She was concerned that what happened had threatened their friendship. At the same time, Di­ ane commented that “a lot of things really pleased me. I was gratified and happy to see how much energy there is in the group.” Catherine felt exhausted from the weekend. She felt she caused prob­ lems during the reflection when she referred to people not all talking at once and leaving room for introverts. She felt badly that everyone focused on “the introvert stuff.... When I looked at the stuff today and typed the lists, really, we did a good piece of work, but I’m just exhausted.” B e tw e e n M e e tin g s

Before the next meeting, which would take place in February, Diane and Catherine talked with each other about ways they had upset each other in October, and worked out several of their differences. Just before the Febru­ ary meeting they reflected on ways they tended to get caught in situations like the one that had occurred in October: Diane: Catherine:

She was judging some stuff in the group and I think a lit­ tle bit me but not wanting to and very worried about do­ ing it I think— Right. This was unconscious but I think when I said sometimes I felt uncomfortable when people were talk­ ing too much or too loud or it was hard to get in or something like that, that I was probably talking to you.

They reflected on the dilemmas they felt when other members of the group felt their joint work was magical. Catherine:

Well maybe the magical thing is collaboration—or working together on a vision and the excitement and the energy that comes from that and that came from the think tank.

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Diane: Catherine:

Diane:

Catherine:

I think that’s it. ... Maybe we can find a way to talk about the magic and then the unconscious material underneath the magic, or the fact that there aren’t very many models for the kind of group work that we’re trying to foster. Because I think the magic of the process that we cre­ ated was a leveling process. In other words, we re­ spected the participants at that Think Tank before we ever laid eyes on them by asking them to come with some ideas and some reflections and some research ... So there was a leveling of a hierarchy and then my talk had to do with teachers as being experts and interpret­ ers of experience, and your talk was ... on Madeleine Grumet, teacher as artist. It was sort of this reverencing for what they did and then at the end the leadership was completely passed ... Once in a while Catherine and I would nod in agreement with the people but it was so exciting to watch this—it felt like giving birth, it really did, more than anything I’ve ever done in the Network that felt like giving birth because the thing was living outside of me—you know like your baby is—there it is breathing on its own and you know, that’s the way it was. It really had a life of its own. I think that what happened to me at that October meeting was that here we had given birth to this baby which was beautiful and ... And I think what hap­ pened is that I got scared or self-conscious or some­ thing, that like we went through the weekend and the weekend was going extremely well, right? And we get to the last day and we all panicked at the question of can we do this thing. It’s the same thing, like we’ve sort of given birth to this, we’ve started and then all of a sudden it’s like, can we do it?

THE FEBRUARY MEETING The day before the February meeting began, the newly formed editorial board for the journal met to plan initial strategy for soliciting, reviewing, and publishing papers, and to finalize a proposal for funding. The NFDC then met again at the Network office, this time without Nancy Walters, who was unable to be present. They began with an informal sharing of where they were, and then spent a day working in small groups to develop the dif­ ferent proposals that had been introduced at the October meeting.

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Catherine and Diane spent an informal lunch period describing what they had done at the think tank and this seemed to satisfy the members’ con­ cerns about their magical leadership. The NFDC discussed thoroughly the ideas the small groups developed. On the basis of these discussions, they decided not to design a mentoring program without involving other teachers. They also decided not to con­ vene a meeting on hiring. It was not clear to them what these activities would accomplish, and it also was not clear what their authority was as teachers to deal with an issue like hiring, since administrators usually made hiring decisions. Moreover, these activities might deflect attention from teachers to administrators in one of the NFDC’s first projects. They decided instead to create a faculty institute for experienced teachers that would be held during the following school year, 1989-1990, and perhaps biannually after that. The group brainstormed several possibilities of what a faculty institute would address and who would be included. They eventually decided that it would bring two teachers from each school together to work in three areas to: (a) develop a new teachers guide to the educational philosophy and practices of the Network; (b) share research on educational pedagogy; and (c) create a model for the training and development of new teachers through collabora­ tion with experienced teachers and administrators. They also decided to invite two other members of the Network to join them in running the institute. Some of the discussion during this meeting’s reflection time focused on the work the NFDC had accomplished: Betty:

Inga*.

Betty:

I think ... it’s amazing that we pulled it out this time ... We pulled it out—even though we went through a lot of wheel spinning ... I think it’s very good th at... even though we have put hours of work in something, we’re willing to drop it when we see that’s not where we want to go. And we’ve done that three times this weekend. And I think one reason we’re able to do that is that peo­ ple feel in this group that they can be really honest in what they’re thinking and feeling without worrying about whether it’s going to hurt you or you’re going to misunderstand ... At one point yesterday afternoon I thought, and I think I said to somebody else. Oh, I wish Nancy were here to answer some of our questions, to help us out of this di­ lemma, to give us some indication of what the school committee would think about something or other and then last night ... I was thinking really hard about it and I thought, “No, damn it, if we can’t do it without Nancy we’re denying everything that we’re saying about taking our own authority” ... and I think this morning

40

C h a p te r 3

Marian:

Marie:

when we did it essentially I thought that’s just exactly what we’re trying for, what we’re after. I think what’s gone well for me is this underlying re­ minder that the process works2, and that we are re­ ally modeling collaboration in the finest sense of the word ... One thing that has surprised me with the false starts and the energy spent on the false starts, I’m not dis­ couraged at all ...

Some of the discussion focused on other emotional experiences the members had during the meeting because they were talking about expand­ ing the number of people involved in the NFDC’s work (with the journal and with the faculty institute) and membership in the group was already very important to them. Betty said: I’ve been thinking about a very homely little metaphor for our group ... I remember the hardest year I had with each of my children was their se­ nior year in high school when we were going through a preliminary sepa­ ration and a freeing and a taking of wings and it was ... you know, there were more raw edges in my relationship with each one of my children during that year because they were getting ready to go beyond and we were getting ready to let them go beyond. I wonder if this group is not in some sense in that position. It began yesterday at this meeting with the editorial board. I mean we are now saying, “look, our work has to go be­ yond. We’ve got to let our children go.”

Both Catherine and Diane felt much better after this meeting. They felt it was good that Nancy was not there; her absence had forced the group to take more responsibility for its actions. A fte r th e F e h r u a r y M e e tin g

Problems With the Proposal f o r the Journal. After the meeting, the NFDC sent formal proposals for the journal and the faculty institute to the school committee. To the considerable surprise of the NFDC members, the school committee approved the faculty institute—about which it had heard only as a long-term initiative—but, at least tentatively, disapproved the journal, to which it had already given at least tacit assent by its approval of the think tank proposal. Catherine and Jodie, the two NFDC members on the editorial board, were both very upset about this, and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. They thought that perhaps they had not strategized well enough with the heads of the individual schools. Catherine talked with Nancy, and Nancy told Catherine that the school committee members did 2This was the first use of the term the process to refer to Catherine’s and Diane’s leadership approach. The term was used for several years to characterize the group’s mode of work.

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not think the journal would receive a sufficient number of submissions to make its publication worthwhile. However, they would reconsider this opinion if the editorial board could gather enough letters of intent to indi­ cate that teachers would indeed write articles. So the editorial board members strategized about how to elicit letters of intent from Network faculty members. They called teachers they knew in the various schools and asked the contact people to encourage the people in their schools to send in letters of intent; they told them that funding would depend on the commitment to write. As a result of the NFDC’s efforts, the journal received 48 letters of intent to submit articles from faculty members in almost all the schools of the Network, a response that was far beyond their expectations or those of the school committee. The NFDC resubmitted its application for funding of the Journal to the school committee. This time their proposal was ac­ cepted. The editorial board members notified the contact people in each school and asked them to encourage teachers who had written letters of intent to submit their manuscripts. By the August deadline, 28 articles were submitted.

P lanning f o r the Faculty Institute . While this was going on, the in­ stitute planning committee met in April in Denver, at the school where Diane worked. The planning committee consisted of five NFDC members, Diane, Betty, Marie, Marian, Inga, and two other Network personnel, Rosemary Flagg and Terese Riordan. Both were experienced teachers and administra­ tors in the Network, and Rosemary also participated in the think tank. The planning committee had a lot to accomplish at this meeting. In Feb­ ruary, the NFDC determined the three tracks at the institute, and the plan­ ning committee had to determine a way for each track to address its work. They also had to determine how to carry out many other tasks associated with an activity like this, such as: developing an application form; commu­ nicating information about the faculty institute in the Network; determin­ ing the goal of the institute; the method they would use to choose the participants; a site where the institute would be held; who would be in charge of hospitality, planning snacks and social hours, travel plans, pick-up from the airport, paperwork, and budget; who would invite speakers; who would do opening and closing sessions; the name of the institute; prelimi­ nary readings; what materials would be printed; and so forth, all within the fairly tight budget given them by the school committee. The NFDC and the two other planners would meet again in October, so there would be oppor­ tunities for fine tuning, but all the major decisions had to be made as soon as possible. The planning group fleshed out the work of the three tracks. One would initiate the writing of a guide booklet introducing Network educa­ tion for teachers new to the Network. The second would address ways experienced faculty could mentor new teachers. The third would discuss

Chapter 3

how to carry out pedagogy consistent with the goals and criteria of the Network and begin development of a faculty institute to deal with pedagogy. The planning group decided specific aims for each track, decided to invite Madeline Grumet to be the keynote speaker and decided on readings to go to members of each track. A subgroup became the selection committee for applications that would come in. Overall, the group worked very well and productively together, as they commented in their reflection: Inga: Marie:

I think we've gotten a lot of work done with a minimum amount of confusion and panic and worry. It gelled. I found everything just fell into place like a puzzle, you know, the pieces fit.

Terese, reflecting as an outSider, thought the group had done very well: I think that ... you have shared a lot together at other levels than simply at the task at hand and that makes working together easier.

Diane felt the members of the planning group had shared leadership very well. However, others were still focused on something special about her leadership Diane:

Inga:

Betty: Inga:

Have you noticed the sharing of leadership? It's just powerful for me anyway and I had to sit down here in the beginning and say, "here's kind of the way I see things going" and the next thing I knew Betty was scratching out tasks she knew we had to do, next thing I know Marie's saying "now wait a minute, let's back up here. Have we told these people enough?" Inga's picking up the whole thing on writing the letters-do you know what I'm saying? It's amazing how much leadership every single person exercises so that I don't feel oppressed with responsibility. I just know it's all shared and everybody's gonna pick up the pieces if they start to drop. Don't you think it's much more than a couple years ago when we first met? Oh no, I still believe that you and Catherine are the guiding force. I think we're all the guiding force, but there is something about your and Catherine's leadership that makes this happen better than it would happen without your leadership. I'm convinced of it. Oh absolutely. I'd like to know what it is. In fact, I keep saying, let's see, now how am I going to use that when I get back.

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Betty: Marian:

43

It’s sharing the leadership, that’s what it is that Diane is talking about, it’s enabling other people to play these roles. And empowering them and it is the cooperative style of leadership.

Immediately after this meeting, the faculty institute planners got in touch with the contact people to distribute letters and application forms and started searching for a site at which the meeting could be held. They found a site within the budget the school committee gave them at the Net­ work school in Napa, in northern California, at the beginning of November, 1989. This was the school where Inga taught. CO M M EN TARY

This was an eventful year. The NFDC began and did so going full speed, im­ mediately beginning work on the journal and several other projects that had been envisioned in the think tank. The year was also full of emotion, as was evident from the reflection periods. The intertwined questions that guide exploration of the NFDC’s experi­ ences this year were: 1. What happens over time to crucial elements of the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort? 2. What is the relationship between the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort and its actions? 3. What is the relationship between a group leading an organiza­ tional change effort and other stakeholders? How is this relationship linked with the group’s identity and actions? The NFDC’s expression of identity themes, actions in relation to them, and relationships with stakeholders during this first year are shown in Table 3.1. The vitality of the group and change effort this year are summarized at the end of the table. T h e V o ice o f th e T e a c h e r an d A sso ciated A ctio n s

Within the NFDC, the purpose of the group—the voice of the teacher—was not discussed much, at least after the first meeting (though the group clearly focused on this before I was permitted to attend the meeting). But retelling the girl story, the reflections on the think tank in relation to the Network and the actions the NFDC was carrying out, especially its planning for the faculty institute and for the journal, were explicitly aimed at raising teachers’ voices in the Network. The group worked hard and well on these tasks. The terms they used to describe their work came out of their experi­ ences as women and mothers. Thus, creating the group felt like giving birth

At the first meeting, the think tank was linked with teachers’ experiences in their schools. Imagery Metaphors of “giving birth” and of a “Mother letting children go.” Emotional Expression Feeling “empowered,” anxious and “so damn responsible.” We’ve “given our blood and sold our souls.” “enthusiastic.” Panicked at question of “can we do this?” Even with false starts we’re not discouraged. Upset that the journal was not approved at first.

Expressions o f the Voice o f the Teacher

During the second meeting, Marian identified that the process works. NFDC members see Catherine and Diane’s leadership as “magical.” Emotional Expression Tensions between philosophizing and getting work done. Diane and Catherine were upset at themselves, but gratified at what had happened at first meeting. Members could be honest without worrying whether they would be hurt or misunderstood. “I don’t feel oppressed with responsibility.”

Expressions o f the Process The NFDC started planning the journal and the first faculty institute, and discussed other possible projects. Other teachers invited to work on the faculty institute and journal. When the NJE was not initially approved NFDC members worked very hard to solicit letters of intent and submissions.

The collaborative leadership style, accompanied by narrative sharing and reflection at the end of meetings was implemented. Members of the institute planning group worked collaboratively with other teachers at their April meeting.

Actions Related to the Actions Related to Voice o f the Teacher the Process

Teachers Contact people established in each school. Network Director and Office Unexpected conflict between Catherine and Diane, and Nancy. Conflict with Nancy and the school committee because the NJE was not initially approved. School Heads No salient interactions with heads of schools.

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

Vitality of the group and change effort: As indicated by their discussion, the members were invigorated by participation in the NFDC. The group was also planning a faculty institute and soliciting letters of intent to write articles in the journal.

First year, 1988-1989

Year

TABLE 3.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships During the First Year of the NFDC

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(Diane and Catherine), and when the number of people working on NFDC projects increased, Betty experienced what was happening as letting chil­ dren go as they got older. The work (and others’ reactions, presumed reactions to it, or both) had affective impacts on the NFDC members. One was anxiety. Several of the teachers noted at the group’s first reflection period the anxiety they were feeling about the work. Had they, in Inga’s terms, bitten off more than they could chew? Would others back home say, as Betty wondered, “Oh God, an­ other one of those things that’s coming,” without realizing that, in Jodie’s terms, the group members had “given their blood” for their work? At the same time, however, the members felt “enthusiastic” about their work, and not even “discouraged” by their false starts.

T h e P r o c e s s an d A sso ciated A ctio n s

There was substantial attention paid to the group’s process. This was shown in particular in Catherine and Diane’s collaborative leadership of the meetings and in the way the members of the institute planning group worked together at their April meeting. At the reflection at the end of the second meeting, Marian identified that “the process works.” The group’s manner of working was already identifiable to its members. The process was indeed working (though the group members felt some tensions between bonding and philosophizing activities and task accom­ plishment). By the NFDC’s second meeting the members felt close bonds. Inga talked about the fact that they could all share honestly, and Betty was already feeling concerned about having to share their work with others. At that meeting, the members were able to confront differences well enough to pull back on some tentative decisions they had made earlier. By the time of the April institute planning meeting, an outside participant observed that the group members had “shared a lot together at other levels than simply at the task at hand.” Moreover, these close bonds did not interfere with their work being accomplished, but fostered it in the way that Diane and Catherine envisioned. The process also had some unintended effects. First, though group members saw the group’s work as collaborative, they focused on the special things Catherine and Diane had done to create the collaborative effect. The teachers on the NFDC had tremendous admiration for Catherine and Diane extending back to the Experienced Teachers Committee’s first visits in the schools, and the think tank had solidified that impression. The NFDC mem­ bers were continually trying to figure out what the magic was that Diane and Catherine were using, even when Diane was attending, as she did at the April meeting, to how much the leadership had been shared. This focus was surprising and upsetting to Diane and Catherine, who did not see them­ selves as performing magic.

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There was a second unexpected complication associated with the pro­ cess, conflicts that arose during the NFDC’s first meeting. A kind of hidden conflict between Catherine and Diane, and Nancy arose at the first meeting, as Nancy appeared not to be trusting them when she asked the group whether they could trust me as an outside researcher. They had not antici­ pated a problematic relationship with Nancy. Their focus had been on the heads of the individual schools. This incident undoubtedly exacerbated the impact of Nancy’s concerns about the journal. In addition, conflict between Catherine and Diane arose during the NFDC’s first reflection period. The different styles they discovered as they worked together—withdrawing and taking strong initiative—led them to become angry at one another, and they feared this conflict might threaten their friendship. However, they took time between meetings to repair their relationship. R ela tio n sh ip s W it h S ta k e h o ld e rs

The NFDC almost immediately started to include other teachers in their work of preparing for the faculty institute and the journal. The most salient stake­ holder relationships, however, were with the Network Director and the school committee. Nancy’s influence was felt very soon, when she attended the first meeting and asked the group if they could trust me. The school com­ mittee was also prominent in the NFDC members’ experience. The original expectation was that acceptance of the journal would be relatively routine, since the school committee already approved the proposal in principle. Thus, nothing special was done to present the recommendation. The lack of acceptance of the journal, however, had profound effects. It led to anger and anguish on Catherine’s and other NFDC members’ parts, and to a much greater effort to get letters of intent and submissions than would otherwise have been the case. This enhanced effort probably also led to greater aware­ ness on the part of Network teachers about the journal than if the challenge had not arisen. The success of the push for submissions was exciting to the NFDC, even as it strengthened their sense that the school committee and Nancy did not care enough about the teachers’ voice being heard. V ita lity o f th e G ro u p an d o f th e C h a n g e E ffo rt

Both the NFDC and the change effort were vital this year. The members of the NFDC were clearly invigorated by their participation in the group—even if it was sometimes anxiety producing for them and even if they were surprised by the opposition to the journal. The work was also go­ ing well. Although it was too early for the work to have much explicit impact in the wider network, the first faculty institute was being planned and invi­ tations to apply for it were being sent out. In addition, the editorial board was succeeding in getting a large number of letters of intent.

4 T k e N F D C Begins to Im plem ent Its Initiatives

Members of the NFDC, 1989-1990 Marie Albert Jodie Galosy Marian Decker Betty Lies Catherine Lacey Inga Parsons Diane Wood Nancy Walters, Director of the Network of Schools Additional Teachers Involved in the NFDC’s Activities During the Year: Members of the Editorial Board for the Network Journal of Education Heather Brink Elena Javurek Matt Simmons Additional Members of the Faculty Institute Planning Committee

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C h a p te r 4

Rosemary Flagg Terese Riordan

You know that once upon a time there was a god on Mount Olympus who looked down at the human creatures made by Zeus. They were isolated, they were estranged, they were not working together, not trying to live on any plane but survival. They were suffering, not binding together. They were helpless to the forces of natural disaster, famine, flood etc., helpless and lonely in the struggle, because they didn’t know how to bind together. They were not creatures capable of transcendence or transformation. But they were, sadly, just enough conscious to be especially suffering creatures on the face of the earth. Zeus—you remember him, the king of the gods—also looked down at these poor, pathetic creatures, and, instead of being moved to pity, was moved to shame. How could he have possibly created such ridic­ ulous creatures? Prometheus, moved by pity, knowing Zeus planned to destroy them, knew there was one way they could be saved, and that was if he gave these crea­ tures fire. Fire was the sole domain of the gods, forbidden to be given to hu­ man beings. It was, after all, the element that could save you—provide warmth, purify water and food, ward off predators. More importantly, fire symbolizes the creative imagination, the divine immortal spark, that piece of god that’s within the human. Indeed, it was a gift only a god could bestow. But fire represents the power of transformation, the beginnings of technol­ ogy—a means for the community to gather around, to make community around the fire as they told stories which bound them together. Community was there through this divine spark, and Prometheus paid for his gift, as you remember. Because he defied Zeus, he was staked to a rock. Every day a vul­ ture came, tore out his breast, ate out his liver, the liver regenerated, and ev­ ery day he went through this agony. In the storytelling of Prometheus, the human beings, now capable of transformation and transcendence, now ca­ pable of compassion, heard that story with compassion, a kind of compas­ sion they’d never felt before, and that compassion spread through the human community. This, then, this Greek myth, provides an explanation for the human capacity to communion, and also the experience of the capacity for transformation and transcendence, for creative imagination.... Out of this myth, I think, three themes emerge, imagination, compassion, and audacity. I would like, when you work together, to think about these three themes. If we want in our small sphere of life to build a community we do well to remember the myth of Prometheus and incorporate its themes. (Diane Wood’s presentation at the beginning of the 1989 faculty institute)

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T H E O C T O B E R M E E T IN G A N D P L A N N IN G F O R T H E F A C U L T Y IN S T IT U T E P r e p a r a ti o n

From 1989 to 1990 would be a busy year, including the faculty institute, the first volume of the journal, and the first rotation of membership and leader­ ship. In early October, Catherine and Diane prepared for the first NFDC meeting, which again was at the Network office. Diane was thinking about the upcoming faculty institute and the talk she would give there. She wanted to present the story of Prometheus as a metaphorical explanation for the roots of human community, and to help teachers recognize that they—because of their isolation—needed community with one another. She wanted them to imagine new ways of acting, being, and relating; and to use their compassion for children and each other to motivate audacious ac­ tion to change the profession. Catherine and Diane were both concerned about how to bring everyone in the NFDC back together again around the vision of the group, since they had not all met together since the previous February. They decided to for­ malize the practice they had informally begun the first year of having the NFDC members prepare for and tell stories at the beginning of each meet­ ing. Catherine thought that, perhaps as a way of coming together for the Oc­ tober meeting, “each one could spend some time thinking about how she would tell the story (of the group’s first year).... If each one could pick out one incident in the course of this journey ... that would touch something critical about the work together.” T h e M e e tin g

Everyone was glad to be back. Diane started by telling a version of the Pro­ metheus story and the other NFDC members told their own stories of the NFDC’s first year. Betty said how happy she was to come to the meeting. Jodie and Catherine described the problems they had encountered with the journal. Inga told of how she became aware that she and Diane were very much alike. Marian and Marie each said how important the think tank had been for them. Then the group began work on the institute. Diane announced that Madeleine Grumet agreed to talk; she proposed to teach ideas from her book Bitter Milk (1988). They discussed in detail the approach the facili­ tators should take to leading the institute’s three tracks, since they wanted to model the style of leadership Diane and Catherine had been using. They developed plans for implementing facilitative leadership styles in each track. Resources were a constant concern; the NFDC was under a strict budget for the Institute. At one point, however, Nancy, who was present at the

50

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meeting, suddenly made some extra resources available. The group was talking about how to transport the institute participants to the airport when the institute ended: Marie: Inga: Nancy: Inga:

What about a school bus? We have three vans. Get a bus—it’s okay to go over the budget. I can’t tell you what a burden that would take off me.

Preparation for the first volume of the journal was going well. Jodie re­ ported that in the final count the editorial board had received 48 statements of intent and 28 papers. Three people, two on the editorial board and one outside the editorial board who was experienced in the topic, had reviewed all the papers received. There were 19 articles at a second read, and the edi­ torial board expected to publish between 8 and 10 articles. No one would be outright rejected; all whose papers were not accepted would be invited to resubmit them the next year. On Saturday afternoon, there was a difficult interchange in the group. Diane was leading the discussion of planning for the faculty institute, and at one point she said “anything you need me to do—I’m very good as a fol­ lower for last minute things.” Others started laughing when she said that, and it appeared that they were laughing at her. The group took a break shortly after this incident. Terese told Diane that the reason they were laughing was that they were looking at Terese’s face and that Terese was re­ sponding to an unrelated topic, that the response did not have to do with Diane. After the break, at Diane’s initiative, the group discussed what had happened, and agreed that the timing was coincidental. But this still felt hurtful to Diane. At the reflection at the end of the meeting, the participants felt it had gone well, although they had to work with an enormous number of de­ tails—something many of them felt were not their strengths. They talked about how well they had worked together on a whole, and their trust in the teachers who would be coming to the institute. Betty said: We’ve clarified for ourselves that we have the same trust in the other teachers who are coming to this institute that we have, and we don’t have to have every minute planned. If we had to have every minute planned we would be ner­ vous wrecks at this moment because there’s no way we could handle that. But the freeing part of it to me has been this feeling that, of course they’re going to do what we’ve done, what other teachers in the Network have done, and the success of it does not entirely depend on us.

After the meeting concluded, Diane and Catherine were angry with Nancy for suddenly making money available for a bus to take people to the airport. Nancy was appearing to Diane and Catherine as a kind of “lady bountiful,” someone who had money to dispense apparently capriciously,

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although she had emphasized the importance of Diane and Catherine stay­ ing within their budgets. How much authority did Catherine and Diane re­ ally have in the group, especially if, when there were budget problems, Nancy could suddenly solve them? Catherine and Diane were also upset at some of the heads of schools. The NFDC received a large number of applications to attend the institute, and some heads complained about which teachers from their schools the NFDC chose from the applications. Diane said: Like Judy Jilek ... calling me and confronting me on (choosing participants for the Institute), “Just how is it that you decide on these people and on what cri­ teria do you take these people? And who gave you the authority to choose these people? And I’m not really very happy with the people that are going there from my school” ... I cannot imagine myself, no matter what position I was in, going to somebody ... planning a thing like this (and saying), “Who gave you the authority to do such and such?” T h e E a r th q u a k e

In mid-October, just two weeks before the Institute was to begin, there was a major earthquake in San Francisco and nearby parts of northern California. The building where the Institute was to be held was damaged and could not be used. When the earthquake occurred, Diane, who had primary responsibility for the Institute as facilitator of the planning group, felt overwhelmed. During the first 24 hours afterwards, she was preoccupied with the safety of family members who lived near the epi­ center. After confirming their safety, and learning that the original site would not be available, she wrestled with trying to relocate the meeting while at the same time fulfilling her considerable responsibilities at her own school. She talked with Nancy about whether to still have the insti­ tute, and relocating it if it were to be held. Diane did not keep the other NFDC members informed, largely because she was uncertain about her authority to make decisions regarding relocation, especially if such deci­ sions involved increased expenditures. Some NFDC members called to ask if a decision had been made. Even­ tually Diane asked them not to phone, but told them they would be in­ formed once a decision was made. Finally, she told Nancy that, given the pressures of her home school position, she did not have the time or re­ sources to find a new site, ascertain budgetary implications, and coordinate decision making. If Nancy wanted to cancel the faculty institute she would have Diane’s support. On a Sunday morning, after lack of success in finding another location, Nancy decided to cancel the event, and Diane activated a phone tree to begin notifying the NFDC members. But then Nancy felt uncomfortable about her decision. She felt that too much work had gone into the faculty institute, and that it was the most ex­

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citing event in the Network that year. So she called on Monday to say the fac­ ulty institute was on again, and asked her administrative assistant to search for a place. Diane stopped the phone tree before all the members had been called and asked those who had heard to wait for further news. The admin­ istrative assistant found a new site in Napa and Nancy approved the addi­ tional money required. These events resulted in negative feelings on the part of a few NFDC members who felt Diane had broken the NFDC’s collaborative model. Inga, who was in charge of dealing with logistics, was particularly upset. She said that she found out “by accident” that the meeting was for a time canceled, “no one making the decision called me.” She continued, “No one knew what was going on with the higher-ups making decisions ... After the earth­ quake, ... when it came down to the crunch, the decisions were made at the top without consulting (us). Since I’d put in a lot of time and effort I felt I at least should have been informed.” Diane, who had borne the brunt of the burden on top of her full-time job and was unsure of her authority, believed the circumstances had made the approach she took necessary. She was up­ set that some NFDC members did not appreciate the constraints under which she was operating. T h e F a c u lty In s titu te

The institute began as scheduled on November 1. Diane gave the first major presentation. As indicated in the excerpt at the beginning of this chapter, she talked about Prometheus, and focused on imagination, courage, and audacity. Her presentation was very inspiring for the participants, several of whom referred to it during the institute and afterwards. Catherine reviewed for the participants how the NFDC had come about, starting with the Experienced Teachers Committee thinking they had devel­ oped something wonderful for teachers and then thinking, “Maybe we’d better check it out, maybe we’d better talk to teachers and find out how they’d respond to (what the committee had envisioned), how they’d see things that’d be helpful.” She talked about how the administrative commit­ tee’s interviews had resulted in the Think Tank. She introduced the mem­ bers of the NFDC and the work of the NFDC during its first year. She used the metaphor of “widening the net,” talking about the increasing numbers of teachers—the contact people, those attending the institute, those who had submitted papers to the journal or reviewed for it, and those who had been involved in the NFDC’s activities. Her theme of “widening the net” was echoed for years in NFDC activities. The next morning Madeleine Grumet talked. She focused on several themes related to the contradictions embedded in teachers’ work. She spoke about teachers’ desires to be expressive and inventive, but their obligation to follow a curriculum, the pull of focus on children’s interests and needs while wanting also to push them beyond their own experiences, the need for nur­

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turing environments but the responsibility to prepare children for the out­ side world. She exhorted teachers to give up either/or thinking and to make of these contradictions new ways of thinking about classrooms. Both Catherine’s presentation and hers were well received and energizing.

The Tracks . Most of the work of the institute was carried out in the three tracks. The proposals to be developed in the tracks were: (a) an out­ line for a guide for new teachers in the Network and plans for its writing and publication (Track A, facilitated by Inga and Marian); (b) a mentoring pro­ gram that would use the experience of veteran teachers in developing new teachers (Track B, facilitated by Marie and Rosemary), and (c) plans for a 1991 summer institute that would bring teachers together to explore the congruence of pedagogical practice and the goals and criteria of the Net­ work (Track C, facilitated by Betty and Diane). In Track A, Inga and Marian started by having the group members share narratives about their experience. This was very successful. Inga and Marian turned the leadership over to the group early on, and felt very satisfied with how the group members took leadership roles and owned the process. Af­ ter considering several ideas, this group decided the Guide should take the form of a booklet. They designed the general format for the booklet, chose three of their members to prepare it after the meeting was ended, and de­ cided that the rest of the group members would remain as an editorial board for the project. When reflecting on their group’s experience during debriefing sessions the NFDC members held each evening, Inga and Marian felt that track members “were totally empowered.” However, the other facilitators encountered problems. In Track B, the topic was one on which Rosemary had done considerable research. Per­ haps due to her expertise on this topic and her comparative inexperience with the NFDC process, Rosemary was very directive. She developed part of the proposal for the track, rather than facilitating its arising from track members. In addition, she took over the leadership of the track, leaving Marie feeling ignored. Marie was very upset at Rosemary, feeling Rose­ mary’s actions violated the spirit of the NFDC planning. But she was un­ certain how to handle it. She did not raise the issue during the NFDC’s nightly debriefing sessions. Rather, at one point late in the Faculty Insti­ tute she left the group to come tell me, an outsider, how upset she was at Rosemary. She said that Rosemary had totally designed the process for the group at the October NFDC meeting, had not communicated with her in between time though she said she would, and had been much too direc­ tive in the group. The focus in Track C was pedagogy. On the one hand, the facilitators for this track felt their group was “dynamite.” But they also encountered problems with a disruptive group member, George, who they felt was dominating the group discussion with his own agenda (faculty benefits) rather than the task set for the track. At the first night’s debriefing session,

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the NFDC members and other institute planners discussed how to deal with George: Diane: Betty:

There was one person in the group with a clear agenda and feels “Oh my God, a forum.” ... He really wants everyone to hear and take on his project ... What we’re afraid of is he’ll take over the group and destroy it.

Betty and Diane decided to give the track members the chance to take the initiative in determining the group’s focus. The next day, as the problem with George persisted and the group continued to look to the facilitators to take care of it, Betty and Diane grew increasingly frustrated with him and with each other. This found expression during the next night’s debriefing: Diane: Betty: Diane:

Betty: Jodie: Diane:

Betty: Diane: Betty:

My biggest issue. Our biggest issue. Is a leadership issue. I tried to step back today— (George) filled the vacuum. I switched it back again. I feel I’m not letting the group take care of its work. We have to decide to lead or butt out. What’s the worst that can happen if you butt out? They’ve heard all these wonderful talks about experi­ ence and insight and they go home feeling they didn’t get anything back ... Also Betty and I don’t want to be hypocrites, that we can’t turn leadership over. Diane’s and my mistake was not looking at our plans last night. I did look at them. We had some wonderful questions I didn’t use.

Eventually, partially at Diane’s suggestion, the track members developed a way to deal with George. They divided into subgroups to work on two dif­ ferent proposals, a Summer Faculty Institute on pedagogy and local faculty development committees in each school, and let George develop a separate proposal regarding benefits. This approach seemed to succeed; the small groups worked together well and George developed his own ideas. At the conclusion of the institute, the three tracks (and George) pre­ sented the proposals on which they had been working. Afterwards there was a closing session, during which the teachers spontaneously talked about how valuable the Institute had been. The NFDC members distributed evaluation forms to participants. All of the evaluations were very positive. The participants seemed not to have been affected at all by the complications surrounding the earthquake or leadership in two of the tracks. At the last night’s debriefing, with Nancy Walters present, the NFDC members who spoke (Marie was generally silent) were happy about how

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the institute had gone. At one point in the debriefing, Catherine asked them all to reflect on what they had learned about leadership: Inga: Betty: Nancy:

I had a question answered—can this be done without Catherine and Diane—and it can. You finally said it, Inga. It’s very important to choose different styles at different moments. This is fascinating to me—this is the only committee in the Network I’m not a leader in. So few people operate in this style—I get thrust into leadership. In your committee I can be my natural collaborative style ... It was so exciting.

The NFDC members were excited about how much initiative the tracks had taken. They were excited that some group members who were initially quiet had started to participate much more in the groups. They had become aware that many of the institute participants did not know what the NFDC was, and this was a chance to tell them. All of this was positive. In addition, Betty and Diane discussed the difficulties they had, and agreed that they handled the problem of the disruptive group member well. T h e N e tw o rk J o u r n a l

After the faculty institute, the editorial board for the journal—which they named the Network Journal o f Education (NJE)—had a meeting at which time they reviewed all the articles that came in and planned the layout for the first volume. They wrote acceptance and revision letters, and sent the school heads a list of the articles and authors that would be published in the first volume. JA N U A R Y 1 9 9 0 N F D C M E E T I N G : T H E F I R S T R O T A T IO N AN D L E A D E R S H IP S U C C E S S IO N

Just prior to the January meeting, at which the first membership rotation decisions would take place, Diane and Catherine talked about what had been happening and their plans for the upcoming meeting. Diane said that she received a phone call from Marian’s school head thanking her for all the NFDC was doing for the Network, but also saying that teachers from her school who were involved in Network committees were miss­ ing too many school days, and asking if Marian really needed to come to the January meeting. Diane said yes, this would be an extremely impor­ tant meeting. The school head replied that Marian could not continue on the committee; it was more important that she engage in activities at her home school. Diane received several nice letters from teachers who had participated in the Institute. In addition, two teachers from her own school who had been

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at the Institute had done an excellent inservice for the other teachers based on their experiences there. Catherine had a conversation with Nancy Walters. Nancy had been very positive about the institute, but had talked with one of the school heads who, upon reading George’s addendum to the pedagogy proposal had been concerned that “they’re going to form a union.” Catherine and Diane both felt that Nancy was being very supportive of the NFDC. So Catherine asked her for help in strategizing ways to make the school heads “realize that we’re really working together ... not in an ad­ versarial position, but in a position of, well, I can’t do the whole thing, but what can I do and that’s what’s empowering.” Because of the link with Grumet, Diane and Catherine were invited to a conference where they were asked to talk about their work. This was excit­ ing to both of them. But it also made Diane aware that she did not have the academic credentials necessary to be really influential. So Diane said she had decided to get a PhD. “That’s another thing that’s going to happen to me through this NFDC work. I don’t have the credentials I need to have the freedom I want.” She thought she would start taking courses the next year to prepare for it. Diane added that they both were feeling kind of down: We were both saying that you know we did this big brouhaha, this three-ring circus, this faculty institute, and wasn’t that great, we both gave a good talk and everybody felt good about themselves and so what in the meantime are we really doing?... And basically the insight was ... we began to realize that if Jean Baker Miller is right, that nurturing relationships, supporting one an­ other, collaborating with one another, all of this stuff that’s relational in the culture is devalued. And not only devalued, but repressed out of the public realm. And since work necessarily has always been defined as being in the public realm, then of course we don’t think we’ve done any work in the Fac­ ulty Institute because what we did was bring people together in relationship to create some meaning together about their work.... But the subjective en­ ergy that is extraordinarily elusive and yet obviously made people feel better, made people recommit, made people feel inspired, is not work, doesn’t feel like work, it doesn’t feel like accomplishment, it doesn’t feel like grown up endeavor ... All of a sudden it occurred to us, my God, this is the work, shut up you’re not doing any work, you do a lot of work.... What work did I do, I mean, my name’s not on anything ... I haven’t written a book that somebody’s going to read ... It’s a faceless kind of work, it’s a faceless territorial-less other-oriented work, it’s not an egocentric work... I think that the work that we do, whether it’s ego-gratification or not, is self-effacing. If we’re really successful in the NFDC, we’ll float away off that committee and people will hardly miss us ... Philosophically I like that ... Egotistically, where the self-doubt emerges is when I say to myself oh, so you made some people feel good about them­ selves, good for you. So that’s work? It’s the same feeling a mom gets when she’s home with the kids all the time. Who appreciates it? Who knows it?... I think we felt powerful when we saw that it was work.

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Diane and Catherine had planned for the upcoming meeting. On the first day, everyone would reflect on what had occurred at the institute. Then, in small groups, they would work on the proposals and discuss the evalua­ tions. Finally, they would reflect on their own experiences in the NFDC and discuss rotation of membership and leadership. The first evening Diane introduced the agenda for the meeting. In prepa­ ration for the next day, she asked the NFDC members to write a personal narrative describing their reentry into school life after the Institute. When the group met on Thursday, they started by sharing stories of their reentry into their schools. Some focused on problems they were having there. Marian:

Inga:

At our school... we set up a meeting with the head. Her response was shocking. She said th at... in Minneapolis we were already doing the work of the three tracks. The other two teachers and I were almost speechless, as we realized she didn’t understand. I think the experience of most of us is the same: I go back to school... they listen politely. I asked the dean of studies if I could deal with the NFDC and she said no, deal with the school.

Jodie told of a different experience she had with the head of her school, Agnes Sargeant: Agnes and I were talking about going to this meeting.... And then Agnes said “I believe in the Network. It’s important to all of our schools. I’ve never be­ grudged the expenses, because teachers always come back stronger.” ... And then Agnes said the concern she personally has is that when faculty get to­ gether they (gossip with) each other in the different schools about the heads, and that always winds up getting back to h e r... “I wind up feeling I’m funding people to go away and undermine or deal below board instead of above board.”

Marie described the problems she had experienced cofacilitating with Rosemary: Marie:

Catherine: Marie:

(Rosemary was taking) too much direction, and had a hidden agenda. I felt control was being taken and that wasn’t what we were there for. How do you cope in those situations? First looking inward. That’s why I needed to walk away. Am I being selfish? I thought the most important thing is the outcome. If the proposal was good I’d have to ac­ cept it. There was one (part of the proposal) that made me uncomfortable. I think the proposal is good. But I felt incongruent.

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Diane:

When we’re mad at one another and feeling it’s selfish— somehow we’ve got to see that to save the person from the confrontation isn’t being unselfish. (To Marie) Rose­ mary would have appreciated more your direct talking to her. Then you’re saying I didn’t confront her, but this is what she did. This is women’s evil, and I’m part of it. And that’s what we’re getting caught in.

The next day, the NFDC members worked in small groups to develop each proposal more fully. Track Aproposed writing and distributing a guide for teachers new to Network education. The NFDC had a lengthy discussion about the best way to distribute the guide, especially given tight financial re­ sources. They started talking about marketing strategy, and Inga reminded them: “Remember, this is their project, not ours.” They decided to combine the pedagogy and training proposals (Tracks B and C) into one overall pro­ posal, an institute to be held the summer of 1991 that would have two tracks, one on pedagogical approaches, and one on mentoring teachers new to the Network. They spent considerable time discussing how this would be planned, and eventually decided the planning committee should be composed of three members from the NFDC and two from each of those tracks at the first faculty institute. They did not discuss George’s proposal at all. Nor did they develop one of the proposals from the pedagogy group, for local faculty development committees in individual schools. As Catherine put it, “there wasn’t even a response when the idea (of local faculty development committees) was presented.” They broke into small groups to continue development of the proposals. Then they met together to finalize the proposals in preparation for sending them to the school committee for approval and funding. R o ta tio n a n d L e a d e rsh ip S u c ce s s io n

On the second evening of the meeting, the NFDC members were work­ ing in small groups on the proposals. I went to the room where Diane and Catherine were working, and heard Diane telling Catherine that she decided to resign from the NFDC, rather than do what the two of them had expected at first, remain on the group but not in a leadership capac­ ity. Diane gave several reasons for the decision. She had been overex­ tended all of her adult life, and would like to pull back. Her struggles with how to be a leader in an organization predicated on its members’ empowerment exhausted her. She felt that these struggles, both external and internal, infected every meeting but the planning meeting in April. There was much professional development to do at her own school. She felt too overextended to be sufficiently reflective to determine why she was struggling with leadership so painfully. She felt she could not find

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the right balance in leading, and that she needed to pull back and rethink some things. As can be imagined, Catherine was very sad about Diane’s decision. The next day, after the group finished working on the proposals, Diane said that it was time to discuss the rotation of group membership. The dis­ cussion would start with a reflection period. Diane said: Think deeply about your work on the NFDC. What has been your personal contribution? Think again about how the NFDC has affected the Network so far. How would you articulate the continuing mandate of the NFDC?... What has the NFDC experience done for you and to you? What have been the bene­ fits and costs for you? Do you want to continue serving? Can you?

In the afternoon they discussed their reflections and who would stay on and who would rotate off the committee. Diane added: I’d like to go first. In terms of personal contributions, I think I brought an ex­ tremely honest commitment, vision, energy, hard work, organizational skills, because of the collaboration in this group some inspiration to teach­ ers. I’m often willing to change directions. It’s brought me good friends, made me aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader, the need to keep process and vision in balance, revealed to me that work and relationships are related, showed me the importance of a strong sense of self. Individual and community are both important. It’s recommitted me and scattered me terribly and caused me at a time where I feel an inner call to pull in and have solitude—and when I think that I wanted to develop teachers at my school—I need to do the work developing those teachers. I’m not going to contribute on the committee. I have to leave the committee in order to be there for those teachers and some of my own work.... I know there is a lot of work I have to do in myself so if I’m in a leadership position again I’ll be stronger and more generous and clear. And it hurts like hell.

All of the NFDC members but Catherine were stunned at Diane’s an­ nouncement. After discussing it for a time, however, they continued with their own reflections. For example: Inga:

Jodie:

I like to work and I like this work and I think it’s impor­ tant and vital. When I look at my contributions they’re time, thought, effort, commitment, collaboration ... I think of myself as part of the holistic being here, and it doesn’t die if it changes. The group has done a lot for me in terms of my profes­ sional development, and in terms of learning about teachers ... I’m a different person because of this.... I’ve learned how to publish a journal.... Then courage to be political and recognize the importance of that, and a re­ newed confidence and trust in myself that’s given me a sense of peace. That’s an awful lot.

C h a p te r 4

6 0

Marian:

Catherine:

Marie:

Betty:

We’ve grown so much together. You’ve given me this won­ derful gift of accomplishment and encouragement. I just feel so good about myself and others, especially you all. (The NFDC) renews my fundamental beliefs, and lets me see if collaborative leadership can work. It can. And it’s a new model for the world. What I’ve brought to this com­ mittee is preserver of the process, trying to keep voices heard, my love of philosophy, ... recent research and theory, and I think I bring a gift of friendship. Being part of this group that’s trying to communicate that relational power is a great motivator. I’d like to stay on the com­ mittee, but stay as a member. I’ve gotten far more than I’ve given. When I think back to ‘87—before that, I was so frightened to get on a plane. I was afraid to go to the think tank. And now I drive myself to the airport and I’m delighted to go.... What do I have to offer? But I’ve felt my voice grow. I’ve changed in ways I never felt possible. ... One thing the committee has done for me is change my kind of feminism to a large extent. Being able to be collaborative has blown me away, and the model of lead­ ership has been very inspiring.... This year has been ex­ tremely difficult at school—the committee has been saving, and has allowed my restlessness an out. I’d like to stay on another year.

By the end of this session it was clear that Diane, Marian, and Inga would rotate off the committee. (In fact, Inga left the meeting and the group in the middle of that afternoon to spend the rest of the weekend with one of her children. Though she had told the group this would be happening, it left the group with an unsettled feeling). In the late afternoon, the group took up the discussion of whether there would be coleaders or a single leader, and who would be in a leader­ ship role. Catherine reiterated that she would not continue in leadership. The ensuing discussion was very awkward. As the group moved toward a reaffirmation of coleadership as consistent with the collaboration central to Catherine’s and Diane’s philosophy, it became even more awkward, since it was evident that two of the three remaining members other than Catherine (Jodie, Betty, or Marie) would become leaders and one would not. No one strongly presented herself as a successor. This lack of presen­ tation occurred in part because, as Jodie said later, she was “struggling with wanting to be a coleader, but wondering whether she could possibly measure up.” Betty was having her own difficulties. She later noted that “during the second day (of the meeting), I became extremely ill with flu, but felt I had to

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participate as much as I could, though it was almost impossible for me to concentrate. (Back home after the meeting, I took my temperature. It was over 102.)” Eventually, after a very lengthy discussion, Jodie and Betty volunteered to be coleaders: Jodie:

Betty: Jodie: Betty:

Jodie: Marie:

I’m ready to say I’d be willing to take on a leadership role. I think there are enough people interested in the Journal, and someone like Heather would be willing to take on more of a leadership role and so would Elena. So. Okay. I’d be willing to do it one year if we wanted to do it two (years) and one (year). We could look at that. My real worry is: My husband can retire in January, at which point all kinds of options are open to me. So if we wanted to do 2-1 I’d be willing to commit for one year. ... Marie, where does that leave you? I’d have no problem working with you, and I’d be will­ ing to do it, but am just as pleased to continue being a member.

That evening, the NFDC members spent a little time celebrating the institute: Diane: Others: Diane: Marie: Diane:

Betty:

You know (one) thing I think we totally avoided is, at least this is my opinion, I feel a little bit unfinished in terms of yippee. Yeah. There needed to be an extraordinary yippee after that institute. Yes. And I was very hopeful when I was thinking for the meeting that reading through those evaluations would cause us to do yippee but then I wasn’t capable of it and I, now maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I wonder if it has something to do with our not be­ ing able to really, kind of, revel and wash and bathe and swim around in success. I think that’s part of the woman’s evil, or whatever you were talking about, you know, you listen to mothers who are so willing to take all of the guilt for their chil­ dren’s problems, but when the children are wonderfully successful and so forth, they admire the children (Diane: they say isn’t that a great kid), isn’t that a wonderful kid and you never say, “Whoopie, I did it,” you’re willing to

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say, "Oh, shoot, I did it" when it's wrong, but you're not willing to say, "Whoopie, I did it. Diane referred back to her challenging Marie early in the meeting: Diane:

Marie:

I think of what I said to Marie at the beginning ofthis meeting which I know was hard for her, but it was an extraordinary act of respect. I don't think I could have done that last year ... (but now) I knew somehow you could hear it, I really believe that. And you may say, you know, "Diane, you're wrong" (laughter) but I just knew that there was going to be a resilience there. Do you have anything to say back to me about that? When you said it, everything you said, I knew, yes it was hard to hear and part of it I wanted to resist and say, "Oh my God, I didn't mean it to come out that way." ... but everything you said was true and I'm proud of myself that I heard it and I didn't go off the deep end and totally wipe out everything.

They discussed Diane's decision to leave the committee and Catherine's and Diane's leadership in the NFDC more generally: Jodie:

Diane, you see that integrity has really characterized much of the work of this group and as a leadership issue I think that what really scares me is a challenge to be true to that integrity ...

Marian:

I think we have to say what went well is Catherine and Diane having the tenacity and integrity to know that there was a problem in the Network, that voices were not being heard in the faculty, that there were people who were dying slow deaths, not from disease but from not being heard and not being attended to and that that could have a direct relationship to the preservation of Network education. I mean the debt we owe you Catherine and Diane ... I mean, only saving the Network.

Betty:

I don't like this change, but to me something that has just gone well is-I got panicky this morning ... because as I came into this meeting my feeling was well we can persuade ... persuade Diane and Catherine to do it for one more year. My feeling was the child who needs the parents to do it, who loves the way the parents are doing it and knows what the parents are doing and needs it, and to me part of what went well was that after that panic and after that horror and after that awfulness, for

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me, we were able to sit around and talk about leader­ ship ... and that is the success of your work. On the last morning they reviewed the final pieces of work they had to do, the application process for membership on the NFDC, the application for the next institute, the contact they should have with participants from the next institute before it took place, and how they would choose contact people for the next year. To establish better communication with the school heads, they decided to write letters to each head to tell them about their upcoming agenda and to thank them for enabling people to attend the prior Institute. They also agreed to have a conference call in March to review applications for the NFDC and do some preliminary planning for the next year. E v e n ts A fte r th e M e e tin g E n d e d

After the meeting ended, Diane said she felt divided about the decision pro­ cess she went through, but had been burned out by the Institute. She said of the discussion of leadership that: “I was shocked. I thought there’d be more interest... I felt like ‘where’s your dedication,’ and ‘this is why I’m leaving’.” In February, the NFDC members sent letters to everyone who had par­ ticipated in the think tank or the faculty institute, updating them on what had been done with the proposals developed at the faculty institute. They sent another letter to the think tank participants and faculty insti­ tute participants inviting them to apply to be on the NFDC. Finally, they sent a letter to the school committee that included the proposals for the next institute and for the development of the guide for teachers new to the Network. In late March, the NFDC members (except for Inga, who did not call in) had a conference call. By this time the school committee had approved the proposals, although the budgets had been pared down. In addition, the head of a Network school located in Springfield offered her school as a site for the 1991 Summer Institute. They discussed the work of the NFDC. They felt that it would change, and that they would be playing more of a consultant or facilitator role for pro­ jects undertaken by an increasingly wider group of teachers. They selected three new members from those who had applied. Finally, they brainstormed some first steps for the new leaders. They agreed that it would be important for Betty, Catherine, Diane, and Jodie to meet together to pass the torch. Jodie and Betty met with Catherine and Diane for a weekend in April. As Betty later recounted: That April, we met in Denver on a Friday afternoon to begin planning. (Jodie and I) talked and talked, and by the end of Friday night we knew that we would enjoy working together. Saturday we spent following the agenda we’d

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set for ourselves. As the day went on, we became more confident that we un­ derstood the working model for the NFDC begun by Catherine and Diane, and that it felt natural to use those principles to guide our work together. That night Catherine and Diane came in, and Sunday Jodie and I led a meeting of the four of us. It became clear that we were ready to assume the leadership and carry on the collaborative process in NFDC work. Jodie would continue working on the journal, and I would chair the planning committee for the next institute.

Jodie said later about that meeting that: The astonishing things that emerged from the day were a feeling that (Betty and I) really did know what the work was about, understood the process or model on which the work was based (how well Diane and Catherine had taught us) and that we could do the job we’d undertaken. We were also pleased to find that we would work very well together.

At the April meeting, Betty and Jodie developed a working model for the kind of leadership they hoped to accomplish in the NFDC. It included sev­ eral new initiatives, as well as attempts to continue the kinds of processes Catherine and Diane emphasized. It emphasized that they should always follow the process and considered several dimensions that should be in­ cluded in it. They planned the first meeting they would coordinate and talked about their communication between meetings, and communication they would maintain with Nancy and the Network office. Excerpts from their working model are in Fig. 4.1. Finally, during the weekend, Betty wrote a poem for Diane and Catherine that celebrated their leadership. It is shown in Fig. 4.2. During the late spring of 1990, the first volume of the NJE was published. There were some printing glitches, and the Journal was distributed after some schools had already been finished for the school year. Overall, how­ ever, reaction to the NJE was positive, and the editorial board felt good about the journal.

Learnings About Relationships a n d Conflict. During the spring and summer of 1990, Diane, Catherine, and I worked on a paper about the faculty institute in which we discussed some of the conflicts that oc­ curred (Bartunek et al., 1992). As we worked together, Catherine and Diane became aware that one of the implicit, unexamined assumptions guiding their thoughts about the NFDC as a fundamentally collabora­ tive group was an absence of intragroup conflict. In the narratives they presented at the NFDC meetings, the teachers shared pain and conflict, but the conflict they described was in their back home schools, not with each other. The disruptive effects within the NFDC of the conflicts that occurred in association with the faculty institute made Diane and Catherine aware

O U R W O R K : T O E M P O W E R E X P E R IE N C E D T E A C H E R S

The Model fo r Achieving Our Work • The process is important and characterizes all the work we do. • The process includes collaboration among members of the group and any project or activity we design must have that built in. • The process is based on trust and respect for each person and their experience. • Time spent on building trust and respect and on bonding is energizing. • Reflecting on the process and the work is necessary. The major question is what does everything that happened mean for our work together? • We need to stop and look at the process with that question in mind: when pain, conflict, anger, etc., surface, we need to deal with it and ask what its implications for the work may be. • We need to remember that “feeling is knowing,” to trust the subjec­ tive realities of people: subjective truth, experience, and feeling are knowledge. Collaboration does not mean harmony. • We are creating a model, not following one.

Our New Ideas 1. Communications - A quarterly report on the progress of the committee’s work and the subgroups to be sent to: Think tank and institute participants, heads, old NFDC, school committee, contacts Nancy Walters, the new Net­ work Development Director - A directory of all participants from past NFDC activities, with their school addresses and phone numbers ... This should not only help people keep in touch with each other, but will remind them of their involvement, and show how many people have been touched by NFDC projects. 2. Archives We really need to keep a good historical account of the work of this committee, its method of working and accomplishments. We will ask Marian Decker, a past member of the NFDC, to become our archivist. 3. Planning meetings We need to consider the new role of the NFDC as it becomes less a committee that does the work and more a sponsor of other people doing the work. We must find a way to guard the process by ensuring that NFDC members understand it and can pass it on to the planning groups. What role will NFDC members play in the planning groups? Their responsibili­ ties might be: to coordinate activities, track the process, guide the process, report to the school committee tracker and NFDC.

First Meeting of the New NFDC Process: Reflection Bonding: sharing experiences, discussing collaborative process State the agenda Do the work End each day with looking at the work End the whole meeting with reflection 65

Planning Meetings 1. Notifying the NFDC - Send rough agenda of the meeting; ask members to think about agenda items. - Transportation: suggest time of gathering at airport... Ask them to find cheapest flights. - Narratives: Ask everyone always to think about something specific to bring to meeting. 2. Cochairs’ tasks at NFDC meetings Jodie—keep an eye on the process. Betty—track where we are in the work, make sure progress is being made. 3. Always follow the process • Bonding-building respect. • Begin with our reflections on the reflections of the last meeting. • Discuss agenda: what we see as the work to do, how we think it could go. Ask for suggestions. • Begin the work. • At the end of every day, look at what we did, how to adjust the sched­ ule, if necessary. Any problems? Check on progress of the work and talk about issues that have been raised. • At the very end, always include the three reflection questions. Tape if possible. • Make it clear to all members that they should be there for all the scheduled time of the meeting. Emphasize the importance of every­ one’s participation in the whole process. 4. Make sure we have all the forms that may be needed: proposal forms to follow in writing proposals, reimbursement forms, etc.

Communications 1. Jodie and Betty: regular phone contact, scheduled, with agenda. Try always to meet before and after meetings. Set agenda together. 2. Members of NFDC: Conference calls after any planning group’s meeting. Directory for addresses and phone numbers of schWritten minutes from all planning sessions to be sent to NFDC and tracker.ools. Home phone numbers and addresses of NFDC for each member? 3. Contact people: Quarterly reports: what’s happened, what’s coming. 4. School committee trackers: minutes of planning session. Phone call from NFDC liaison heads: - Strengthen individual contact. Call whenever we send a quarterly report (after report is sent). - mention work of individuals. - ask if they have suggestions for us. - Can an NFDC member go to heads’ meeting to give a report? - Continue policy of heads signing applications: make sure this continues. - Letters to heads about their school’s participants in NFDC, planning groups, etc. FIG. 4.1 Excerpts from Jodie and Betty’s working model for their leadership of the NFDC. 66

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67

TEACHERS For Diane and Catherine 1. Pathfinders First you found a way into the cloudy forest, saw fireflies dancing where others snatched at gnats— glimmers of light along a rocky cliff edge— rolled will-o’-the wisps into luminous lanterns shining beyond boulders and fallen trees, to discover the path itself is a destination 2. Netcasters Your journey made no sense unless the way could be traveled by others at your side. Knowing the delicacy of fishing for equals, with patience and care you cast the nets in circles always wider and wider, loving the prey, swimming beside us, to prove the net is not a snare but a doorway 3. Firebringers The true audacity is people bringing fire to people, gathered slowly, spark by spark, laborious, treacherous sometimes, flashing back to sear you— No one said being Prometheus was easy. 4. Torchbearers Holding your torches high, you let the light shine over the way where the rest can join you. Clearer now we see where the path may lead, not yet the place achieved, but, with you, knowing the pains of the trail make it wider and surer; that rocks piled high enough can become a lookout; of branches that block the way, we can build bridges ...

FIG. 4.2

Poem written by Betty Lies about Diane and Catherine, April, 1990.

that they had been assuming that intragroup conflict would be a sign that NFDC collaboration was not succeeding. Subconsciously, they had thought that open conflict in the group would cause NFDC members to become angry and upset at each other, which in turn would cause them to keep their knowledge to themselves, rather than use it in the service of their work. But they had come to realize that “collaboration doesn’t mean harmony.” They passed this learning on to Jodie and Betty, and the

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learning was incorporated in Jodie’s and Betty’s working model for their leadership (Fig. 4.1). COM M EN TARY

The intertwined questions that guide exploration of the NFDC’s experi­ ences this year were: 1. What happens over time to crucial elements of the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort? 2. What is the relationship between the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort and its actions? 3. What is the relationship between a group leading an organiza­ tional change effort and other stakeholders? How is this relationship linked with the group’s identity and actions? The NFDC’s expression of identity themes, actions in relation to them, and relationships with stakeholders during this second year are shown in Table 4.1. The vitality of the group and change effort this year are summa­ rized at the end of the table. T h e V oiee o f th e T e a c h e r an d A sso ciated A ctiv ities

The NFDC was very conscious of the voice of the teacher this year. Means of raising the voice of the teacher were publicly enacted at the first faculty institute and in the first issue of the NJE, where the empha­ sis was on teachers presenting their ideas in a public forum. Diane em­ phasized this theme in her presentation at the opening of the faculty institute in which she told the Prometheus story and asked the teachers to incorporate its themes of imagination, compassion, and audacity as a way of forming community. In addition, the NFDC tried to live out this understanding in its own, less public, work. In planning, Betty talked about trusting the teachers. When the NFDC started to revise some of the plans of the group developing the guide, Inga reminded them that the proposal was the teachers’, not the NFDC’s. In their working model of leadership, Jodie and Betty emphasized that the work of the group was empowering teachers. Images and metaphors NFDC members used in conjunction with the fac­ ulty institute continued to center around mothering, and ways mothers of­ ten focus on their children in a way that downplays their own contributions. Diane reflected on the work of a mom often being invisible. Betty talked about mothers feeling guilt more than pride in their mother­ ing, and the importance of valuing the work the group had done. In addi­ tion, the image of widening the net of participating teachers found

Second Year, 1989-1990

Year

NFDC members reminded each other of the vision as they carried out activities. Diane told story of Prometheus at the faculty institute. Jodie and Betty emphasized that the work of the group was empowering teachers. Imagery Diane described the work of a mom as often invisible. Betty noted that mothers feel guilt more than pride; this is “women’s evil.” Widening the net.

Expressions o f the Voice o f the Teacher

Actions Related to the Voice o f the Teacher Actions Related to the Process

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

continued on next page

First faculty institute Diane and Catherine Teachers Institute planners Contact people in began the year with and first volume of emphasized the each school the NJE. In addition, narrative sharing. process at the continued. the NFDC worked to Institute planners faculty institute. Network D irector incorporated flesh out proposals Sometimes the and Office collaborative process was violated initially developed Conflict with Nancy leadership in or didn’t work at the at the faculty planning the tracks. regarding budget. institute. institute. But she found a new Institute leaders Imagery site for the faculty tried to use the Catherine and Diane process during the institute and learned that institute. During the strategized with the “collaboration does NFDC about leadership not mean harmony.” working with heads succession Betty’s poem of schools. discussion no one described the School Heads volunteered at first founders as Conflicts with some to assume pathfinders, heads about leadership. netcasters, Catherine and Diane teachers chosen for firebringers, and told Betty and Jodie the institute. torchbearers. Conflict with some that “collaboration Emotional heads about doesn’t mean Expression harmony.” Betty and NFDCmembers’ Upset and taking time from frustration

Expressions of the Process

TABLE 4.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships During the Second Year o f the NFDC

Expressions o f the Process

when the process was violated or seemed not to work. Diane felt hurt by some reactions to her, felt overextended, exhausted, burned out, hurting after January meeting.

Expressions o f the Voice o f the Teacher

Emotional Expression FromPrometheus story: Fire makes humans capable of compassion to motivate audacious action. Excitement about the institute and initiatives taken there. NFDC members felt they had gained courage and confidence, and felt better about themselves.

Actions Related to the Voice o f the Teacher Jodie described the process in their working model for leadership, including formalization of narratives.

Actions Related to the Process

school to attend NFDC meetings. But some school heads were supportive. NFDC became aware of lack of communication with heads of schools, so started writing letters to heads about its activities.

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

Vitality of the group and change effort: For most (not all) NFDC members, the experience of the group was very invigorating. The faculty institute was successful and the first volume of the NJE published. Both of these could have impacts on many Network teachers.

Year

TABLE 4.1 (continued)

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71

expression in both Catherine’s talk at the faculty institute and Betty’s poem about the founders. Considerable affect was associated with the voice of the teacher. Di­ ane’s moving talk about Prometheus at the faculty institute focused on compassion and motivating audacious action on behalf of schools. The NFDC felt excited and energized by the outcomes of the Institute. Though Catherine and Diane both felt a little down after the institute, they came to realize that considerable energy had been unleashed there, and that per­ haps they really had done work there. Their recognition that this was real work led to the necessity for a time at the January NFDC meeting to say “yippee.” At that same meeting several NFDC members referred to ways they had been empowered, including Jodie’s learning the courage to be political and confidence and trust in herself, Marie’s becoming more proud of herself and less frightened, and Betty’s being proud that the group did not entirely panic after Diane said she was leaving it. T h e P ro c e s s

The collaborative process was very salient this year. Diane and Catherine started the year with narrative sharing. The Institute planners explicitly in­ corporated collaborative leadership in the planning for the tracks, and tried to operate out of this model even when problems arose. Betty and Jodie developed a lengthy description of the process in their working model for leadership, including formalization of narrative sharing. Sev­ eral images were associated with the process, especially in terms of leader­ ship succession. While Catherine was convinced that shared leadership worked, based in part on the successful faculty institute, others, such as Betty, still wanted “the parents to do it.” As Betty and Jodie worked to­ gether in April, however, they fleshed out what Diane’s and Catherine’s leadership meant in practice. They felt they understood it, and were ex­ cited about that. In contrast to the first year, there was also considerable conflict within the group. Diane experienced conflict at the October NFDC meeting and in dealing with the earthquake. She and Betty had to deal with differences be­ tween them when a participant in their track did not respond the way he was expected. Diane and Betty dealt straightforwardly with the conflictual situations they experienced, discussing their differences outright. Marie and Rosemary also experienced conflict at the faculty institute, al­ though Marie avoided it. At the January meeting, Diane raised the issue of Marie’s conflict with Rosemary, and suggested that things might have gone better if she had dealt with Rosemary directly about her concerns. Marie did not say much in return, but during the reflection she said that while she found Diane’s raising this issue difficult she thought it was appropriate. Affect associated with the process primarily took the form of upset when it was not adequately enacted or did not work. The NFDC mem-

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hers’ understanding of the process within the NFDC led them to expect similar experiences in the faculty institute. When these did not always happen there was considerable upset, particularly on the part of Inga, Marie, Diane, and Betty. This was part of what led Catherine and Diane to identify that “collaboration does not mean harmony.” Catherine and Di­ ane realized that their implicit assumption about the NFDC had been that it would operate without conflict, that internal conflict would signal problems. However, they developed a more complex insight about the value of conflict within the group, and passed this learning on to Jodie and Betty. There were additional strong feelings expressed. Diane in particular was hurt by apparent reactions to her during the October meeting, and felt overextended and exhausted and “hurt(ing) like hell” after she with­ drew from the NFDC in January. R e la tio n sh ip s W ith S t a h e h o lJ e rs

The NFDC’s actions focused on teachers’ participation in their work. In ad­ dition, the group took an important step at the January meeting, to develop better communication with others who had been involved in the NFDC’s work and with the heads of the schools. They started by writing letters to tell these groups about what the NFDC was doing. This kind of communication with the heads of the schools was a positive step to deal with relationships beyond the group. These relationships had again been mixed. There were certainly conflicts with heads of some schools who were upset about which of their teachers had been chosen for the Institute. There was conflict with the head of Marian’s school and with administrators at Inga’s school about their work on the NFDC. But these conflicts were not universal. Jodie reminded the group that her head had been supportive, and one of the school heads offered her school as a loca­ tion for the second faculty institute. There were intermittent conflicts with Nancy, the Network Director. In October, after insisting on a tight budget to Diane, she exceeded it with Inga, making Diane feel foolish. But conflict with Nancy was balanced by the attempts she took to help the NFDC. She found a place to hold the fac­ ulty institute when the original site was unavailable, supported the NFDC’s proposals, and strategized with Catherine about how to work with the heads of schools. At the time this school year ended, relationships between the NFDC and Nancy were positive. In their planning for the coming year, Jodie and Betty explicitly stated the need to keep in close touch with her (Fig. 4.1). At the conclusion of the Faculty Institute, Nancy commented that the NFDC was the only group in the Network that could function without her present. This was a suggestion both of support and appreciation for what the NFDC was accomplishing.

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V ita lity o f th e G ro u p an d C h a n g e E ffo rt

Membership on the NFDC was invigorating for most of its members this year. Diane and Marie sometimes experienced it as difficult, especially when they met some type of opposition. The change effort itself, as re­ flected in the first successful faculty institute and the first volume of the NJE, was going well. Some teachers who participated in the faculty institute were very enthusiastic about it and led inservice days in their schools afterwards, so the impact of the NFDC was beginning to be felt beyond the activities the group initiated. In addition, the publication of the journal made innovative ideas known (potentially, at least) to a wide range of Network faculty.

5 A Y e a r of Challenges

Members of the NFDC, 1990-1991 Marie Albert Jodie Galosy (cochair of the NFDC, also coeditor of the NJE) Evelyn Davis (also faculty institute planning committee) Betty Lies (cochair of the NFDC, also coordinator of the Faculty Institute planning committee) Carole Holtmann (also faculty institute planning committee) Catherine Lacey (also coeditor of the NJE) Dorothee Riederer (also on editorial board of the NJE) Additional Members of the Faculty Institute Planning Committee: Susan Austin Beth McGovern Annmarie Smith Sheila Kurtz Jackie Silsby 74

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75

Members of the Editorial Board for the NJE Heather Brink Elena Javurek Nancy Walters, Director of the Network of Schools

Have you ever had a student in your class who deftly navigates the bound­ aries of rudeness? Maria is extremely bright, and her disaffection wounds my pride.... She knows what effect she’s having on me. Every day when her section approaches I’m very nervous. She says, “I just can’t learn the way you teach.” I refuse to give her approval in class. I withhold any special treatments she wants. But her attacks continue until a 20-year career is tee­ tering in the balance. The last day of school I’m reading thank-you cards. Before I read her card I say to the other teachers that she couldn’t resist one parting shot. But the card reads, “You may be the one person who really knows what makes me tick. I’ve learned a lot more in class this year than grammar. Sincerely, Maria.” (Dorothee Riederer’s narrative at the beginning of the August, 1990 meeting)

The first NFDC meeting Jodie and Betty led took place in August in Boston. Just before it, Betty and Jodie talked about their work during the summer and their plans for the meeting. They had received several applications for the planning group for the next institute and several letters of intent to write articles for the second volume of the NJE. They had assigned a topic for narratives the NFDC members would tell at the beginning of the group meeting, “moments that helped them reconnect to teaching.” Jodie had also prepared a directory that included addresses and phone numbers for current and past NFDC members, as well as information on all the teachers who had participated in the faculty institute. Jodie also had a couple conversations with heads of schools. One of the heads asked for additional copies of the NJE and expressed displeasure at the teacher from her school who had been chosen to be the NFDC contact person. The other wanted to make sure that a teacher from her school who would be on the guide’s writing group would not miss a parent-teacher conference at the school in order to come to the meeting. Jodie felt “that there is a whole lot that may be stewing around about our work that might well be misconceptions and or, by the same token, maybe some legitimate objections or some concerns (about what we’re doing) ... and then you have on the other side of that the whole thing that happened at Asheville.” She was referring to the fact that after the faculty institute the teachers from the Network school in Asheville proposed to their school head that they start a local Faculty Development Committee (FDC) at the school, and the

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head approved the proposal. The local faculty development committee at that school would begin this year. One of the founders of the local FDC in Asheville was Barbara Mooney, who had participated in the 1989 Faculty Institute. She later described its beginning: It was the Network’s 1989 Faculty Institute that really opened my eyes to the energy and talent of Network teachers. It was here that I met Gatherine, Di­ ane, Jean, Jodie, Marian, Betty, Dorothee, Beth, Sheila, Abigail, and any num­ ber of others. Some of these people put on the conference, others were participants, but we all worked together with amazing intensity, commitment, and unity, planning, almost demanding, structures and materials to continue our teaching life in the schools.... I think it was the special relationship of the people, the emphasis on empowering teachers and giving them their voice, plus the faculty institute’s profound call to the mission of Network education, that led so many to be involved at the national level. But the first residual im­ pact of the conference for me came locally. When we came back from the faculty institute in 1989, Mary Catherine Levins (head of the school at Asheville) asked Simone Martell (another teacher from Asheville who participated in the faculty institute) and me to implement something from it. Simone said that what impressed her most was the NFDC itself and that we should implement a local FDC. Mary Catherine agreed and we began. I can’t say enough about the impact of Nancy Walters, Catherine Lacey, and Diane Wood on us. Jodie and Marian and Marie and all of those magical women! We talked to them, heard their narratives, and were caught up with a sense of being a part of something bigger than our school, full of people like us but models for us because of their confidence, spirit, and hope in the future. They were idealists who wanted to continue the work of Net­ work education into the next century. They believed in the work because they had experienced it as teachers and knew it had dimensions beyond the aver­ age education. It was their energy, their sense of having a voice, and their sense of a bright future that was imbued in us. We too had become disciples. In April, Simone and I began to plan for the June teacher workshop where we would begin. I remember waking up in the night and writing ideas down. I re­ member getting together with Simone, sharing our newest brainstorms. I re­ member talking to Betty Lies on the phone—calling a fellow Network educator at her school to ask something, because you now knew her and knew she’d be glad to hear from us—we take it for granted now—but we did­ n’t then. Betty said she would be glad to come for the opening, but maybe it would be better if no outsider came, to think about it. We thought and then turned to our own faculty. We explained about June inservice, and asked for help. We wanted to get our teachers to reminisce about their mentors because that was what we had done in Napa. The teachers were so glad to do this—they loved telling us about earlier times in their teaching lives—and for most of them the mentor turned out to be someone who had helped them when they had come to Asheville as young teachers. So we ended up with a wonderful informal videotape of teachers from all over the school remember­ ing our mentors and their personalities and telling wonderful stories about ways they had conveyed the essence of Network education to them.

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When June came, we had a huge banner and each teacher got a button that said “Network Educators for the 21st Century! ”After we showed our video, we talked about our Network heritage, the concept of the unique Network educator, and the continuation of Network education into the future. The faculty reaction was immediate, intense, and involved. They took ownership of our local FDC even before it officially began. They bore out the research on the effectiveness of narra­ tive in uniting people. We listened to the voices of our teachers, talked about be­ ing Network Educators for the 21st century and broke into three groups to put our FDC together. One group created the structure while two others listed possi­ ble professional and personal faculty needs the group might address. Mary Catherine Levins accepted our proposal within days, and the group was under­ way. Simone and I, the faculty, and the administration were so excited! The fac­ ulty was now so obviously a part of what was happening at Asheville. In our minds, having a voice and being a Network educator went hand in hand. They were both important to those who embraced our local FDC. Per­ haps that was because our models at the national level had a voice and were committed to the mission. And also because the NFDC talked about “going public” with Network methods and philosophy.

Three teachers, all of whom had participated in the first faculty insti­ tute, joined the NFDC. Dorothee Riederer was a middle school teacher and a staff member in a communications skills laboratory for middle school students in Denver. Evelyn Davis was a high school math teacher from Phoenix, Carole Holtmann was a high school language teacher from Birmingham. They all were very impressed with the NFDC’s work at the faculty institute. When the meeting began, Catherine reviewed the history of the NFDC to this point1and I obtained permission to continue the research. Then Jodie in­ vited the group members to share the narratives they had prepared on mo­ ments that reconnected them to teaching. The new members were anxious about this type of sharing, but complied. Dorothee’s narrative at the beginning of this chapter is an example. They then began dealing with several tasks, in­ cluding selecting a planning committee for the next faculty institute, discuss­ ing the status of the NJE, the possibility of getting funding, and so forth. The next morning Jodie introduced discussion of the role of the NFDC now that it was working with several different groups. She asked how the NFDC could be true to its purposes, while at the same time not inappropri­ ately constraining the work of the other groups: Catherine:

I’m thinking back to an early meeting of the NFDC when we wrote what we wanted to characterize our work. One thing we wanted on that list was to assure that what­

1The story Catherine told about group’s history was comprehensive. I had not yet received the new members’ permission to take notes, so did not transcribe it. In later years, I made sure to receive this permission before any events took place.

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Marie:

Jodie:

Betty:

ever’s being done starts with the teacher’s knowledge and returns there ... I see us as overseers. We’re casting the net, and we’re there to help organize, and facilitate, but it’s their pro­ gram and we’re in the background. I want to call it “keepers of the process.” One of our re­ sponsibilities is ensuring collaboration is associated with our work. Our real responsibility is to the teachers. As we draw back from individual projects, we have to be sure that what the teachers asked for is happening.

They commented that many of the Network teachers had no idea there was a committee like this. They agreed that they had to do a good job of communicating what they were all about, not only with teachers, but also the administrators, some of whom supported the committee and some of whom saw it as a threat. They selected the non-NFDC members of the planning committee for the next faculty institute and divided up to work with the NJE editorial board or the Institute planning committee. Evelyn and Carole decided to work with the Faculty Institute planning committee, which Betty would co­ ordinate. Dorothee decided to work with Jodie and Catherine on the NJE. Marie declined to join either group, despite efforts byJodie and Betty to get her to do so. She said, “I’d rather sit back and see ... I’m having a hard time today with all the different issues.” Jodie and Betty were annoyed at Marie for not putting herself forward to be on one of the committees. That evening, outside of meeting time, they talked with her about this, and she agreed to talk about her decision and Jodie’s and Betty’s reactions to it the next morning. Jodie began that discussion by saying that it was important not to avoid problems. She added that: The sense I had was that Marie was having a difficult time connecting. I thought Marie had withdrawn from the group. Some things that made me think that were when she talked about not wanting to be on the editorial board or institute planning group.... We’ve made a commitment to open communication and this was hampering it. We didn’t know how much group members knew. So we decided to talk about it this morning.

Marie responded, and a lengthy discussion took place: Marie:

I needed to talk to Jodie and Betty first. I just kept thinking all day I’ve got to talk to them. I didn’t know what was go­ ing on.... I have the attitude of let’s plow ahead. But I was­ n’t going to initiate the process. So I just sat back. It got worse for me. I knew I was getting angry.... I don’t like

A Y e a r o f C h a lle n g es

Jodie: Marie:

Betty: Jodie: Marie:

Jodie:

79

putting things on the table for fear of being fussed at.... I’ve learned from this group if you don’t put it on the table it will rot. I’ve learned a lot from this group about that. Do you want to talk about your sense of your discomfort from the first day (of the meeting)? It’s hard for me to talk about it, partly because I’m not sure. Part of me felt like, what do I have to offer?... So I might as well resign ... When I called my husband and thought about resigning he said no, all you talk about is this committee ... Do you want to talk about the January meeting (when Diane had confronted her)? Or what you learned? All I’ve learned is the pain. I find it hard to encounter people. That happened to me in Napa.... I had a very bad experience in my track.... My coworker began to run the show.... I knew I needed to confront her, but couldn’t ... I still was carrying it in January. I said I couldn’t confront her, and Diane reacted. When she did it I can’t tell you how I felt inside. It was very painful, but I wasn’t gonna let ‘em know ... That influenced how I felt about coming this time. If it happened today I still couldn’t be better confronting it. Marie, another thing that seems important is not neces­ sarily for the other person to stop or change them. That was the struggle Betty and I had—not to make you do something different. But what happened when you bring it out is it cleans me out to be able to go on and do my work with this stuff behind me.

The newcomers to the group had a different reaction to the previous day’s discussion. For example: Carole:

Dorothee: Carole: Evelyn:

It was clear yesterday something was going on. It was clear you, Jodie, were angry at Marie. I didn’t under­ stand. I thought Marie was contributing so much by say­ ing I don’t want to decide. You were pushing her. She said I just want to listen.... I thought I was the only one who had nothing to bring. Whatever the agenda, Marie is fulfilling the goal of bring­ ing me into the group more than anyone else. She’s re­ ally playing a big part in th at... I felt that way in Napa. You were so gracious and af­ firming in the group. I’m always in awe of real graciousness.

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At the end of this discussion, the group felt good that it had taken a real problem and addressed it. They continued planning for the year, return­ ing to communication with the schools, and decided to issue a progress report. They would contact individual school heads to tell them what was happening in the NFDC, and would also talk individually with the contact people in the schools. They decided to have the November meeting in­ clude the institute planning committee, the guide group and the NJE edi­ torial board. Marie agreed to coordinate travel and hospitality for the November meeting. In their reflection at the end of the meeting, the members agreed that the transition to new leadership had gone well. Marie said she felt good about her experience: Needless to say, for me to be able to open up was what I needed, but I didn’t think that I was going to be able to do that because I had just set my mind against it, because I am stubborn (laughter).... I just feel light and happy again ...

Others also felt good about the meeting. Some of the newcomers talked about the value of the narrative sharing at its beginning. For example, Evelyn said: I am working to try and embrace narrative as the communication and dissemi­ nation of the content as well as the process. And there’s a part of me that when the story is going on is saying “let’s get to work.” ... I think my ability to hear the story in the narrative, or hear even the message, has improved a bit in the pro­ cess of our days working here, and for me that’s a very good thing. B e h in d th e S c e n e s o f th e A u g u st M e e tin g

All of the NFDC members stayed at Catherine’s house during the August meeting. As was the case at earlier meetings and at the faculty institute, there was wine available in the evenings. During the August meeting, both Catherine and Betty observed Evelyn drinking a great deal when the group was socializing after work hours. Evelyn was continually asking Catherine to “make sure there’s enough wine.” FA LL 1990

The NJE received 11 submissions, down quite a bit from the year before. However, Jodie was encouraged, because many of the submissions were of very high quality. One member of the NJE editorial board had taken the ini­ tiative to send a questionnaire to all the teachers in the Network asking for assessments of the journal. While the response rate was low, the assess­ ments were positive.

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Everyone invited to join the institute planning committee (Beth McGovern, Jackie Silsby, Sheila Kurtz, Susan Austin, and Annmarie Smith) accepted. This committee had what Betty called an “absolutely fabulous conference call in September.” In October, there was a conference of trustees of Network schools. Catherine, Betty, and Dorothee made effective presentations about the NFDC. But afterwards Jodie and Betty each received letters from Nancy Walters, the Network Director. The letter to Betty focused on the fact that one of the school heads had been upset about some of the NFDC’s activi­ ties. Betty said: I got a letter from Nancy saying ... that Maureen Brady had said that the con­ tact person at her school had been changed without her knowledge and without the knowledge of the old contact person.... And Nancy’s letter said Maureen is trying to be a very supportive administrator but she can’t do that if she doesn’t know what’s going on. Well, I called Jodie and we hit high C to­ gether, because, I mean, we have these umpteen, umpteen, umpteen letters that we sent to these people and telling them so that they ought to have known, and it also bothered us that Nancy was writing to us that way.

Betty told Nancy she was upset about the letter, that “the problem with that kind of thing was that we didn’t feel that she (Nancy) should be put in a position where she had to answer for us.... Nancy said, ‘I never thought of it in that way’.” The letter Nancy had sent to Jodie had been about the NJE editorial board member sending out the questionnaire without sending a copy to the Network office. Jodie replied that the questionnaire had only gone out to teachers, not administrators. Jodie was upset about this interaction with Nancy, but Betty reminded her that Nancy “does get jumped on by peo­ ple. ... And she is at the center of all of this, and so, we have to look at it as in­ forming her rather than asking for her approval.” Jodie agreed, and was fearful that she had alienated Nancy. During the fall of 1990, Catherine, Diane, Betty, and I worked on a paper about the first leadership succession in the NFDC that we would submit to a regional conference. I wrote a draft and sent it to the other authors for their comments. Working on the paper, in conjunction with her initial leadership experience, caused Betty to think quite a bit about leadership in the NFDC. As she later recounted: By the fall of 1990, 1 had already begun to worry about the leadership of the NFDC. It seemed to me that though the leadership of the committee was collabo­ rative, in that it was shared by two leaders, the committee was not truly collabora­ tive, simply because of the activities of the leaders. Jodie and I talked frequendy between NFDC meetings, set agendas for all the meetings, came in early and met together before the rest of the committee arrived. We ran every aspect of the

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meetings, even providing the food and drink. We met together privately over lunch, in the evenings, and well into the night while the rest of the group was do­ ing something else. We met with Jean privately and were clearly seen discussing the group. We stayed to meet after the others left. We acted as contacts between the schools and the various NFDC projects, and oversaw all aspects of the bud­ get. In feet, we took total responsibility for the workings of the NFDC. I felt that we were only perpetuating the mystique of leadership that had led us to beg Catherine and Diane to stay on, the power of their leader­ ship—which had happened against their own wishes. I thought it should be possible to diffuse that by sharing the leadership among the members, as we had done with all the other work. I sent a letter to Jean and Jodie suggesting ways to do that, and intended to bring it up at the November meeting.

N O V E M B E R 1990 M E E T IN G

The night before the November meeting began, Betty said she hoped to raise questions about leadership at the meeting. (However, the meeting would turn out to be too hectic for this to occur.) Betty and Jodie also men­ tioned this evening that they were annoyed at Marie, who had not taken any initiative to organize hospitality or travel. This meeting took place at Jodie’s school in Des Moines. The NFDC stayed in a house on the grounds of the school. The members of the other groups stayed at a small conference center nearby. The meeting began on a Friday morning. There was a brief time for intro­ ductions and orientation of the three groups (faculty institute planning committee, guide, and NJE editorial board), and then the groups began their work. The editorial board dealt with several issues, such as how to re­ view articles, when the journal should be distributed and how this would af­ fect calls for papers, how to get teachers from multiple grade levels to contribute, and a host of other issues. The faculty institute planning group started by telling individual narratives. Then they developed an agenda that included defining their goals, making an overall plan for the institute, plan­ ning a research component, and developing a specific design and forms for applications that would be sent out after this meeting and so forth. The guide committee discussed several formats the Guide could take, the num­ ber of copies per school, and how they could work within the very small budget they were given. The groups all met together on Sunday morning to give a brief update on their work and to get feedback on it, and then continued their meetings for the remainder of the day. At the end of Sunday, all those who were not part of the NFDC went home. While the work of the three groups was being done, a drama was de­ veloping in the background. NFDC members were seeing Evelyn behave in a way that suggested she was drinking excessively. This pattern was

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manifested on Friday night, a free night for the NFDC members. While others went out to dinner, Evelyn stayed at the house alone. Evidently she had several drinks. Late that night after the other NFDC members re­ turned and most had retired for the evening, Evelyn had a conversation with Betty and Carole that frustrated both of them, for she was not mak­ ing any sense to them. As Betty recounted this conversation later, “it did­ n’t dawn on me for awhile what was the problem, but I ended the conversation. I remember asking Carole, ‘Do you think Evelyn’s had too much to drink?’ And she agreed.” Sunday evening the NFDC ate together at the house. Evelyn began drink­ ing a considerable amount again. Catherine felt that this evening Evelyn “was really incoherent.” Jodie’s background as a guidance counselor gave her considerable expe­ rience dealing with drinking problems, especially through formal interven­ tions (Johnson, 1980). She saw what was going on and began to feel that Evelyn’s behavior should be addressed. As coleader of the group, she felt re­ sponsible to take some initiative. P la n n in g th e In te rv e n tio n

When Jodie and Betty went upstairs later that night to plan the next day’s session, they were both feeling half-hearted about the task at hand. Betty suddenly interrupted the discussion to tell Jodie she was very concerned about Evelyn’s drinking. Jodie said she had also been thinking about it. They jettisoned the agenda planning at once and talked about what to do. Jodie felt that the effect of Evelyn’s drinking on the group seemed to be ob­ vious, but was being handled “on the side.” She told Betty about the denial process involved in alcoholism and they agreed that it was important to face the possibility that Evelyn was an alcoholic. This area was unfamiliar to Betty. But “I was willing to help Jodie with whatever had to be done ... Jodie was certainly taking the initiative, since I knew nothing at all about alcohol intervention, and my nervousness could perhaps more accurately be called ‘scared to death.’ I trusted Jodie’s experi­ ence as a counselor to know what that was and to lead the way.” As I went upstairs to retire for the evening, I dropped in to greet Jodie and Betty. They told me they felt they had to do something about Evelyn’s drinking. I agreed that this was important and decided not to play solely a research role, but rather, to help out in primarily a background way that, if possible, would not interfere with the overall research. Jodie’s and Betty’s first plan involved the two of them confronting Evelyn after the meeting ended the next evening, perhaps at the airport, since Evelyn was on the last plane to leave. I suggested that before decid­ ing what to do it might help to have Dorothee, an alcoholic in recovery, join the conversation, since Dorothee had related experience. I went to find Dorothee, who was having a conversation with Carole. I asked

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Dorothee to come upstairs, and we all discussed possible options. Dorothee suggested that it might be possible to work through Evelyn’s family to get Evelyn a place in a residential treatment program in advance of the intervention, so that, if she consented, she could be admitted di­ rectly from the plane when she arrived in her home city. The group de­ cided to involve Catherine as the member of the group closest to Evelyn and Nancy as the Network coordinator. Thus, Carole, Marie, and Evelyn were the only people who (apparently) did not know what was going on. However, Dorothee, herself new to the group, had thought that leaving another new member, Carole, in the dark was unfair. So Dorothee told Carole about it, but also “told her to act surprised when she heard it offi­ cially.” No one told Marie, in part because she had told the group she would be leaving early the next day before the meeting officially ended, and in part because, as Betty noted, “she had removed herself from the NFDC’s work and responsibilities already.” Nancy suggested that it would be better for all of the group, not just Jodie and Betty, to confront Evelyn. The others agreed and planned to have the intervention after the formal meeting ended, but before most of the group left for the airport. Based on Dorothee’s suggestion, the group decided that it would be best to make arrangements for a treatment facil­ ity in advance. But no one was familiar with treatment facilities in the city where Evelyn lived. In addition, the group had to tell the head of Evelyn’s school about its intended actions. Catherine volunteered to go with Evelyn, and Nancy volunteered to have the Network pay for it. Perceiving (correctly) that Catherine was quite ner­ vous about this, Dorothee volunteered to go to support her. I volunteered to call a contact who was familiar with alcoholism treatment centers in Phoenix. Nancy said she would call the head of Evelyn’s school, Maureen Brady, to get things set up at that end. She also volunteered to find out the names of Evelyn’s children, so Jodie could contact them. This all was to be done secretly during the course of the day’s meeting, without it seeming that anything out of the ordi­ nary was going on. The next day’s work included an update on the trustees’ meeting in which NFDC members had spoken, and a discussion by Nancy of the new organization of the Network, how the NFDC could make better use of the resources of her office, and the importance of the group’s maintaining good communication with her and others in the Network. She said that the communication between the NFDC and her office had to improve: “I have no interest in controlling this group. But I need to have copies of what you send out. It’s not good PR if I don’t get something—people leap to thinking you’re doing something beyond my back.” Then the NFDC members broke up to work individually and in pairs to draft various letters and the first update from the group to be sent to the

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schools. Betty coordinated the work, while Jodie left the room frequently to make arrangements regarding Evelyn. Some arrangements went smoothly. My contact gave me a list of treat­ ment facilities in the city where Evelyn lived. I also made airplane reserva­ tions for Catherine and Dorothee. Other efforts met with more frustration. Nancy could not reach the head of Evelyn’s school; she was out of town. But Dorothee called another ad­ ministrator there, a personal friend. This friend told Dorothee to have Nancy call Evelyn’s division head, which Nancy did. Evelyn’s division head found the names and phone numbers of Evelyn’s children. She also told Nancy that if Evelyn went to a treatment facility her job would be waiting when she got back. She said she was grateful the NFDC was taking this step; she had previously spoken to Evelyn about problems with drinking, but the exchange had not gone well and she had not pursued the issue. Jodie talked with Evelyn’s daughter on the phone. She reported after­ wards that Evelyn’s daughter “didn’t even seem really surprised—just sur­ prised that we were going to face Evelyn. Her daughter said that they had tried to get Evelyn to treatment for years.” They talked about possible treat­ ment centers from the list I had obtained. Eventually she and her brother, Evelyn’s son, chose one of them and arranged for their mother to be admit­ ted that night. Evelyn’s daughter said she was grateful to Jodie for what the NFDC was doing. In the early afternoon, one of the NFDC members told Carole. As previ­ ously advised by Dorothee, Carole acted surprised. Marie left shortly before the final reflection. At the reflection session the group continued, in Nancy’s presence, to talk about the importance of good communication. They talked about how they could coordinate their own meeting with that of other work groups, and they all agreed that there was quite a bit of unfinished business. After the NFDC meeting formally ended, everyone but Evelyn returned immediately to the house where they were staying and were there when she arrived. Jodie advised everyone to tell Evelyn as straightforwardly as possible how her behavior under the influence of alcohol had affected them personally. T h e In te rv e n tio n

Jodie began the intervention as soon as Evelyn came into the house. She told Evelyn that each one in the group cared about her very much, that all of the group members had observed her problem with alcohol, and that the group had taken action to get her the help she needed. She described what the group members had done in preparation for the intervention, includ­ ing talking with her division head and her children and arranging for her to go into a treatment facility accompanied by Catherine and Dorothee.

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Evelyn expressed astonishment at all that had occurred without her knowl­ edge and strong dismay at her life being arranged for her in this way. Then Jodie invited other NFDC members to add their own statements. Dorothee described her own experiences, including a time when she was arrested for drunken driving, and her desire to spare Evelyn that shame. She stressed that Evelyn could get well, but that she needed outside help. Betty talked about how helpful Evelyn’s contributions were to the group, said that she admired her intellect, and added that it was extremely painful to see Evelyn’s mind muddled as it had been during their Friday night con­ versation. Catherine said she thought that Evelyn had a vision that she wanted others to understand, but had difficulty in communicating it to oth­ ers. Catherine added that she identified with Evelyn’s difficulty in express­ ing her vision and that it was painful to see Evelyn being more incoherent when she had drunk too much. In a moment that was very moving for the group, Carole sat next to Evelyn and put her arm around her, saying that she did not care about Evelyn’s mind, she just loved her as a person. I made it clear that I was not taking notes on what was happening; this was a personal issue, and Evelyn’s life was more important than any study of the group’s life. Several said that Evelyn scared them when she was drunk. Evelyn surprised the group with her lack of defensiveness. Most group members had feared a strong, angry reaction, but Evelyn acknowledged that she knew the group cared for her and admitted that she had a drink­ ing problem. Other dimensions of the intervention did anger her, how­ ever. Several times she said she felt absolutely humiliated. She expressed considerable distress that Nancy had talked with her division head. She felt that despite the administrator’s assurances to the contrary, her job would be in jeopardy. Eventually everyone went together to the airport. Evelyn was fairly doc­ ile. She kept saying: “I should be furious with you; you know you’ve ar­ ranged my whole life and I don’t like it, but ...” Everything went very smoothly at the airport. Evelyn’s son, daughter, and infant grandson met them at the airport, and they drove to the hospital. Eventually the admissions director came to get her for the admission interview. Evelyn returned afterwards to invite Dorothee, Catherine, and her children to come back and see where she was being “incarcerated.” After seeing her room and meeting her roommate, they all hugged each other and said awkward good-byes. Evelyn’s son and daughter thanked Catherine and Dorothee effusively for their help, and her son drove them back to an airport motel. Catherine and Dorothee called Jodie the next morning during a stopover on their flight home, and told her what had happened. Their phone call gave Jodie “a sense of peace that we had refused to pretend there isn’t a problem.”

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In phone conversations after the meeting, Betty and Jodie both talked about the meeting and the intervention. They both felt that it was amazing how much work they had accomplished, given what was going on. F E B R U A R Y 1991 M E E T IN G

The February meeting was in Boston. The faculty institute planning com­ mittee would be meeting jointly with the NFDC there. Marie had written a letter to Betty and Jodie saying that because of heavy school responsibilities she would not be able to make it to the meeting. While the Institute group was working, the three remaining NFDC members there (Dorothee, Catherine, and Jodie) would be working on NJE business. The night before the meeting of the two groups officially started, the NFDC members had a short meeting to catch up. Evelyn, who was now back at her school, spoke briefly about the intervention and her subsequent treatment. She did not refer to it in public again during that meeting. Some NFDC members felt that Evelyn’s minimal discussion of the intervention made it difficult for them to broach the subject with her individually or in the group. The institute planning group worked on several planning issues, such as the number of teachers from each school, the objectives for the institute, its timing, how much the Institute should be explicitly linked to the philoso­ phy of the Network, and so forth. At this meeting an event happened that at first seemed less major than the alcohol intervention, but that would have a longer-term impact within the NFDC. While on the surface a lot of work was getting done in the faculty institute planning committee, Betty thought there were problems with the process. She later described what was happening as follows: My greatest epiphany about the process happened during the February, 1991 planning meeting for the institute. We had been going along quite well when it occurred to me that everyone was looking at me for decision making and approval, wanting leadership of the old directive model. I understood why: I was the only one in the group with experience of planning an insti­ tute, and was coleader of the NFDC. But I sensed a threat to everything we were doing. I knew that it’s easy for me to be bossy; given half a chance, I could take over and do all the planning myself, and I felt that this could hap­ pen. Paradoxically, I had learned that one of my strengths as a leader and teacher was the ability to make a cohesive group and to spread out decision making among its members. At the break, I talked to Jean about my feelings and asked what I should do. She suggested that I simply bring the issue to the group for discussion. When we reconvened, I opened the subject of leadership by stating my problem and asking them to reflect on how the work was going. The committee’s first reac­

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tion was puzzlement: things seemed to be going so well, what was bothering me? And the old objection that I’d had to struggle with myself; when there’s so much to do, how can we spend all this time on reflection? After what seemed like a very long discussion, we resumed our work, and to my delight (and I think everyone else’s), things slowly began to hum. Everyone was contribut­ ing, and they stopped wanting answers from me.

After the individual work groups completed their work, they met together. Catherine raised an issue about whether the workgroups at the institute would be knowledgeable about the process. The response of people from the Institute planning group suggested how differently they were thinking now as a result of the discussion Betty led. For example, Carole said: We hit a turning point yesterday. We seemed to be getting a lot of tasks done, and most people including myself thought all was going well. We took a break and came back and Betty said I feel my leadership role—I’m not really han­ dling it, not feeling comfortable.... We kept telling her everything was fine. This went on for an hour. By the time the hour was up everyone knew the problem—we hadn’t been working through the process, we hadn’t been working together, but after that hour we didn’t say we’re working through the process, but from that moment the process started working.

At this joint meeting, Catherine also announced that the guide group had received a grant of $6,000 to facilitate its printing and distribution. In addi­ tion, Nancy told the groups that the Network had hired a development di­ rector who would begin work in July. This person would work to get funding for the NFDC’s work. A P R IL 1991 M E E T IN G

The April meeting would include just the NFDC members, and was back in Boston, although Nancy was not present. Prior to the meeting, Betty and Jodie asked the NFDC members to prepare written responses to three questions: (a) What gifts-strengths have I brought to the NFDC during the past year; (b) Wliat moments of doubt have I experienced dur­ ing the past year as I served on the NFDC; and (c) What moments of cer­ tainty have I experienced during the past year as I served on the NFDC? They also told the NFDC members to look over the original mandate from the 1987 think tank and to check the items that had been accom­ plished and the items that were unfinished, to think about membership and leadership, to think about what the next faculty institute would likely generate, and about future plans for the NFDC. Marie again wrote them a letter saying she would not be able to be present, and that she would be rotating off the group. Jodie and Betty did not structure the leadership succession discussion in detail. However, they decided that, contrary to what had happened the pre-

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vious year when the entire discussion took place in one day, they would space it out. The group started with reflecting on the gifts and strengths they brought to the group. Group members mentioned a number of gifts, including the time and energy they brought to the task (Jodie), unflagging interest in ev­ erything the group was doing (Evelyn), never stopping learning and chang­ ing (Betty), friendship with each person (Catherine), a loving heart (Dorothee), and honesty and sensitivity (Carole). When it came time to share their doubts, Evelyn talked about the inter­ vention the group conducted with her: (At our November meeting) the honesty came crashing into my life and it de­ stroyed me as you all know. It destroyed my presence. But, at the same time I was torn apart and shredded, it was oddly affirming. I was so struck by that over the next week or two, that even though I was brutally forced to face something I didn’t want to, I didn’t walk away from the group feeling of no value. You carried off a most delicate conflict and still affirmed me as a person. That’s an awesome thing.

The other members also expressed doubts. For example, Jodie said she had doubts each time they met, about whether she had acted correctly to­ wards Marie, say, or whether someone would be upset about the binding on the journal. Carole said she saw the original members of the group as so “tough,” and had doubts because she realized that they were not as tough and confident as she thought they were. Dorothee said that dealing with conflict was hard for her, that there was trust, but not as deep as it might be, and that she was feeling somewhat burned out on issues of education. But they also experienced moments of certainty, when they were confi­ dent in the group. This happened for Dorothee and Catherine, for exam­ ple, when they flew with Evelyn to Phoenix, for Evelyn at the faculty institute planning group “when from the moment the day began the power of collaboration and creativity and ownership and responsibility in that room was palpable,” and for Carole at a meeting at her school “when it hit me that this is a very important committee.” After this sharing the NFDC members reviewed the mandate from the think tank (Fig. 1.1) and were, in Evelyn’s words “overpowered at the vision stated there and how much has been accomplished.” The accomplishments included the NJE, the NFDC as a working committee, the beginnings of some mentoring programs, and the faculty institute. They were also aware of some things that had not been done, such as research grants and sabbati­ cals, regional meetings, regular think tanks and institutes, and self-assessment of curriculum and methodology. On the second morning, Jodie raised the question of membership in the group. It was already evident that Marie would not be returning. Catherine was not sure whether she should remain on the committee, though she

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wanted to. All the other members encouraged her to remain. Betty went back and forth about whether she should leave the committee. When the leadership discussion started, Jodie talked about the collab­ orative relationship between her and Betty, and commented on how, as Betty noted in November, it created a separateness between them and the rest of the group. Several members agreed that this created a separa­ tion, and mentioned the discomfort and even fear they felt in taking on leadership because they were not sure if they could carry on the vision of the founders. Jodie and Betty asked if there was a way to design a new leadership structure that would encompass all members, and they dis­ cussed this question. Eventually, Dorothee, whose job involved conduct­ ing group dynamics laboratories in which middle school students rotated leadership responsibilities for different tasks, suggested that they use the same procedure. She said that if they did this, “I’d own this a lot more. I don’t like to be in leadership. I like to be told what to do. But I see the value of it—I’d own things much more if I had more responsibil­ ity for them.” The other NFDC members also liked the idea, though Jodie admitted it raised some dilemmas for her. She said she enjoyed leader­ ship: “I like being queen of the universe.” After much more discussion, the group decided to replace coleaders with shared leadership that would rotate between meetings. Different members would be responsible for the various aspects of the upcoming meetings (agenda, hospitality, minutes, etc.). Decisions about who would be in charge of each aspect of a meeting would be made at the end of the prior meeting. In addition, one member would have a one-year appoint­ ment as coordinator. The primary responsibilities of that role would be to act as liaison with the Network office, to recognize situations where imme­ diate decisions were necessary and act on these decisions, and to be re­ sponsible for the budget. In the afternoon, the group returned to discussion of the work of the NFDC the following year. They decided that there were several proposals from the original mandate that needed to be addressed: a concentrated effort to find grants for NFDC projects and for individual teacher devel­ opment, sabbatical programs to encourage teacher-based research, es­ tablishment of regular think tanks, development of the mentoring program, encouragement of local FDCs, and establishing a solid re­ source base to further programs emerging from the faculty institute. They also felt that it was time to start thinking in broad terms for the fol­ lowing years. They decided that their primary focus for the following year would be to develop a long-range plan for their future work. Since a development director would be hired at the Network Office, their plan would be geared in part to activities that would be fundable, since fund­ ing was always a concern. They agreed that they also needed to develop ways to communicate better with teachers, administrators, and the Network office. They some-

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times had some difficulty getting correspondence sent out from the Net­ work office. They decided to address this with Nancy at their October meeting, as well as meet with the new development director. On Sunday morning, the group returned to the issue of rotation off the committee. Betty told the group that she decided to rotate off the commit­ tee, that she had done what she came to do. She later noted: After the committee had discussed the proposal for changing the leadership structure, and seemed willing to try the new model, it became apparent to me that I should rotate off the NFDC, although I had not even considered that move before the meeting began. Rather to my surprise, I realized that I had al­ ready accomplished what would be my best work for the group: the 1991 in­ stitute, and the new model of leadership. Suddenly, I knew that it was time for me to leave. I had seen the process work.

The group decided to wait to send out applications until after the insti­ tute, to see about the quality of the applicants. Then they returned to the question of who would be the coordinator. Betty*. Jodie: Evelyn: Jodie: Catherine:

Should we talk about what the coordinator would be re­ sponsible for? And who it would be? But we’d like to give it to you (Jodie). Okay. But next year will be my last year. I don’t think it makes any difference. We’re in an experiment.

The group reflection at the end of the meeting was positive. Dorothee talked about how much closer to others she now felt, and others agreed that everyone’s voice was heard more, especially with respect to leadership. Carole said she felt a greater sense of ownership as a result of the distribution of lead­ ership, even as she was aware that: “I can see that’s going to mean more anxiety in between the meetings. I think we’re going to end up sharing the anxiety of the codirectors, their burden. I’m not sure I’m happy about that, to be honest.” Dorothee later added her own reflections on what had happened: Once we developed the more collaborative leadership style by which we shared the responsibilities of leadership, this increased my self-esteem. I knew what was expected of me and I could perform these tasks to every­ one’s satisfaction. The tasks had boundaries. There was no undefinable mystique about leadership, nothing to worry about “getting.” Interestingly enough, when there were two coleaders, my self-esteem was diminished. This is why. The coleaders arrived at the meeting location a day or so early. Quite naturally, (on occasions where everyone was staying at the same house) they selected the best bedrooms and ones close to one another. There were additionally

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many subtle communications between them during the meetings, things such as glances, one echoing another’s intonation, one repeating another’s words, and/or following another’s line of questioning, etc. They also rushed to meet with one another secretly after each meeting, often with the re­ searcher, the “expert.”We knew they were discussing us and this was demean­ ing. We felt left out. These elements made up the “mystique” surrounding the coleaders. For the next observation, I must credit my psychotherapist, Denise Fort. Did not the fact that there were two coleaders repeat the original role of parents in our lives and make us feel like children, disempowered rather than empowered? We saw them disagree, but we also knew they had a se­ cret life we were left out of, some of it centering around the bedroom. This was a mystique, to be sure, one we wanted and didn’t want to know more about. At any rate, we didn’t “get” it, so how could we feel empowered by it? Now, later in life, some of us did eventually find out what it was all about and realized our parents were modeling it for us, but this long-term learn­ ing was not something on which we could draw as long as we were chil­ dren. In short, the coleader idea backfired and, though it was well-inten­ tioned, had exactly the opposite effect than it was intended to have had.

After the meeting was over Betty and Jodie felt good about it. Jodie added: “I still have a little concern about how all this will play out.... This is funny. I told my husband about what we did—I don’t usually tell him in de­ tail what happened. I just blabbed on forever. He told me we’d be the first committee in history to accomplish anything without a designated leader. He thought it would be great if we could do it.” At the end of the school year, Evelyn had a disagreement with the head of her school over issues apparently unrelated to alcohol abuse. She felt that the way the school dealt with her on these issues was not fair, and talked with different NFDC members just before the faculty institute started about whether she should resign her position. 1991 S U M M E R F A C U L T Y IN S T IT U T E , S P R IN G F I E L D

The 1991 Summer Faculty Institute took place in Springfield. Betty began the institute by tracing the roots of the NFDC, focusing in particular on the 1989 Institute. She said: We know this is an incredible group (of participants). We’ll spend time build­ ing trust and respect. We’ve learned from our work together that it’s worth it to do that. It’s important to reflect on both the work and process. We have to deal with conflict, anger and pain, to use it to make our work stronger. It sounds touchy-feely, but it isn’t. We also have to recognize subjective truths. We might see things differently—there’s a variety of truths that come from ex­ perience—constantly remembering that experience and feeling are meaning­ ful knowledge bases. The most hard won insight we’ve had is that collaboration doesn’t mean harmony.

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There were several important activities on the agenda for this institute. These included sharing narratives, presentations by Diane, Catherine, and Nancy that set the teachers’ work in larger educational contexts, teacher sharing of research they had done in preparation for the meeting, work­ shops led by participants, Carole’s introduction of narrative as a form of re­ search, Jackie’s interview with a teacher who kept a daily journal, the introduction of the NJE byJodie, and a presentation by Dorothee on how to write for the NJE. Discussion here will be confined to three activities. The first was a presentation by an administrator in the Network, and the second a description of the first local FDC. The third was a presentation of out­ comes of the work of the two small groups that were formed to plan re­ gional meetings for mentoring teachers new to Network education (Group A) and to develop teaching methods congruent with the goals and criteria, and also develop a plan for sharing these methods with teachers from other schools (Group B). P r e s e n ta tio n hy a n A d m in is tra to r

A keynote talk was given by Abigail Williams, who the previous year had be­ come head of the high school at Los Angeles. Prior to this appointment she had been a high school English teacher for several years, and as such she had participated in the 1989 faculty institute in Napa. She was asked to talk at the Springfield faculty institute about teaching methodology, and she did that, but she also did more. Her talk created important links between teach­ ers and administrators, in part because, in an engaging and sometimes hu­ morous way, she identified herself with both groups. For example, in addition to talking about methodology, she said: Last year I became head of the high school and my life changed drastically ... Most of my day is on the phone, primarily with parents. I keep records of all conversations with parents. I’d like to tell you some anecdotes. The first calls I received were from worried mothers with problem children who have trouble reading or taking time tests or don’t remember homework. Coincidentally, I have a child with educational disabilities. So I started to set up a program for kids with educational disabilities. That was fairly easy com­ pared with what followed. (Laughter.) Then the fathers’ secretaries called. My child is coming but doesn’t speak English. Next was the disappearing child—We couldn’t find a child. She was in the lounge rather than in class. I started to hear about child abuse and court cases. I got a call about a child who ran away. His mother said: “I have to go to work, when you find him, call me.” I hung up, told the head of the school, she called the woman, three other mothers called about the child. I have a beautiful office, but I felt horrible. I said, what has happened to me—it was like plexiglass between me and everything good going on.

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Then I had a really wonderful realization—I’m the boss! I don’t have to stay in my office—I can get out. I went into an English class and felt happy again. This all leads to the next point, that there’s much more beyond this—whatever methodology, there’s another level of stuff beyond our school—parents, emotional problems with kids, parents’ needs and fears—no matter how proficient we become with our methodologies in the classroom there’s all this stuff going on. So there’s a back and forth movement we have to be aware of. The next level of awareness had to do with faculty We would trash on the ad­ ministration. I was in that group—then I was out. I have friends on the faculty I’d known for 20 years. I had to be their boss, but I remembered what had hap­ pened when I’d been a faculty member. So faculty came into my office and told me stories about their personal lives and problems. To digress, I live in a poor neighborhood. Each week I have to go to the laun­ dromat, which gets me angry. When I get there I feel happy again. Why? ... When I sit there there’s something about these people who are very poor. The kids are racing around, I start to feel alive and hopeful. These people are giving me something. When we’re talking about reciprocity as an ideal, these people are giving each other life. I read an essay in our literary maga­ zine by a ninth grader. She said in this society if you miss the boat once, chances of another are impossible. That threw me back to my office. What we have to do as teachers and administrators is never to allow that kind of hopelessness to go on. That’s what the Network mission is about.

This was a very influential talk. As evident before, there were a number of tensions between the NFDC members and administrators. However, this talk, by an administrator who was a highly respected teacher, almost single-handedly made the participants in the faculty institute think more posi­ tively about collaborating with administrators. D e s c rip tio n o f a L o c a l F D C

The next day Monica Moore, from Asheville, talked about that school’s local FDC (the one described by Barbara Mooney at the beginning of this chap­ ter). This presentation was greeted by much enthusiasm. Several teachers asked about how equivalent efforts might take place in their own schools. O u tc o m e s o f th e Tw o P la n n in g G ro u p s

Then the two groups got down to work to develop proposals. Group A devel­ oped into three subgroups to develop plans for local, regional, and ongoing mentoring. This group had some trouble believing that the NFDC really was open to their developing proposals, but the Institute planners convinced them that that was the case. Problems with the process did not elicit the within-NFDC difficulties that had arisen in the first faculty institute.

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Group B, which was dealing with pedagogy, went smoothly. This group started by talking about computer linkups between the schools. This led into a discussion of communication between schools and the possibility of Institutes related to teaching methods that might involve both teachers and administrators. The group expressed varying opin­ ions on possible dynamics if teachers and administrators participated in Institutes together. For example, one felt that it would be difficult to break down barriers between the two groups. A second commented that “until we hear the other person talk, like Abigail Williams saying ‘this is what I deal with’ we forget what administrators do.” A third noted that “the topics we’re discussing aren’t topics an administrator would be ad­ verse to ... if we had administrators in our groups they’d see that the fac­ ulty really want to progress. I don’t think there’d be a wall between us and them.” Group A eventually developed two recommendations, including estab­ lishing faculty development committees in each of the Network schools and having a national Mentoring Institute that would include faculty represen­ tatives, NFDC members, administrators, and other teachers. Group B also recommended such an institute. This group also recommended establish­ ing computer link-ups between the schools, a traveling teacher program in which teachers would talk about their areas of expertise in different Net­ work schools, and the formation of teacher-researcher groups. When the two groups met together near the end of the institute, they dis­ covered they both had proposed institutes including both teachers and admin­ istrators, and so they recommended combining the proposals into one. The teachers were excited about what they had developed. How well this Institute went was indicated in the reflections of Mark Ly­ ons, one of the participants, who would later become the first male member of the NFDC. He later recounted: It was in the summer of 1991 that I had my first experience with this group of Network educators known as the Network Faculty Development Committee (NFDC). It was at a conference that dealt with methodology, held at our school in Springfield. There was one other male in attendance. The confer­ ence was good. I remember it as being a pleasant, well-planned, and highly in­ formative event. It was very motivating, both for me as a teacher in a Network school, but also in terms of wanting to contribute more to the Network. Above all, this group of colleagues stood out in my mind as a very positive aspect of this system known as the Network. At this time, I was already a 10-year veteran of the Network as a teacher, so I was not new to it. Nor was I new to the profession of education. What was new to me was this particular element of the Network’s structure. There was actu­ ally a group of educators who were empowered with helping to plan the pro­ fessional development of their colleagues. I only knew of such committees on the administrative level, so the discovery of this particular group gave me a new perspective on the Network organization.

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Perhaps I had always held reservations about getting involved on the Network level. Up to then, I was very active in my individual school and at one time was called upon to participate in a national project planned by an administrative committee. I felt somewhat apprehensive to participate actively in a school system founded by a woman and run, for the most part, by women. Being one of only two men attending a Network conference attended by over 60 partici­ pants served as a model to me that men did not take a very active part in this organization of schools. However, the fact remains that I was impressed by this particular collection of educators. It was a committee for the betterment of Network teachers.

After the institute was completed, the NFDC members and institute plan­ ners felt very good about it. Betty said: “Last night I felt an incredible sense of calm and relief you feel after having a baby. I just had a sense of complete satisfaction and joy. And then I looked at my notes and the first meeting was nine months ago.” Others talked about teachers from their home schools who had come alive during the meeting, who had experiences they had not realized had been in them. Betty volunteered to write a letter to each of the heads about specific contributions faculty members from their schools had made. The offer was gladly accepted. The NFDC met as a group by themselves to discuss sending out appli­ cations to the NFDC. Evelyn was supposed to be in charge of applica­ tions, and this led to discussion about the status of Evelyn’s job. She was not sure if she should resign from her school. She felt fairly certain that she would be fired if she did not resign. However, she wanted to con­ tinue being in charge of applications regardless of what happened at her school. Thus, shortly after the meeting she sent out letters to former think tank participants and participants in both of the faculty institutes inviting applications for membership. Before leaving Springfield, the NFDC set up a conference call to discuss the applicants. They also reviewed the proposals that had come from the in­ stitute, and developed the action steps they would take on them. Each NFDC member was assigned one of the projects proposed at the institute to think about before the October meeting, and to brainstorm issues involved in getting the project accomplished. The group agreed that Carole would facilitate the next meeting, assigned other tasks for it, and developed a ten­ tative agenda. They concluded with a formal sendoff for Betty. A U G U S T 1991

Evelyn did decide it was necessary to resign from her school. Before doing this, however, she asked Catherine and me to write about the alcohol inter­ vention. She felt that it would not be true to the story of the NFDC not to in­ clude this story. The NFDC received six applications to join them. At their conference call in August, they decided to accept Sheila Kurtz, Beth McGovern, and Jackie

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Silsby, all of whom had been on the planning committee for the institute. Given the rather emotional times of the year before, they preferred to have known entities join their group. Betty rotated off the group at the end of the faculty institute. Her reflec­ tions on her experience on the NFDC follow.

Reflections by Betty Lies (NFDC member 1988-1991) As I headed off to my first meeting of the newly formed NFDC in the fall of 1988,1 didn’t know what to expect. I only knew that I had been energized by the Think Tank, excited by the Network’s desire to tap into the expertise of ex­ perienced teachers, and eager to be part of the new process. I was also a little leery of what might turn out to be the kind of group I’d learned to think of as “touchy-feely.” I had just embarked on a sabbatical year of study at Columbia University, and was in my most rational mode. At the first meeting, I felt very uncomfortable at times: as narratives of job-re­ lated pain unfolded, I felt myself becoming quieter and more withdrawn. After all, I was temporarily out of that particular fray, living in New York City, freed of school and home responsibilities and doing my favorite thing. When I confided my discomfort to Catherine, she suggested it was because the committee seemed to “favor pain.” But it wasn’t that. I felt iso­ lated, but not because I was being excluded: it was good old-fashioned guilt. How could I talk about my joy and freedom when my colleagues were suffering from stress and frustration? And I still didn’t trust the time that was given to narratives and talk. Like many later newcomers to the commit­ tee, I wondered how time apparently taken away from the task at hand could be justified when there was so much work to do. Little did I know that what we came to call the process would turn out to be for me the most important learning of the whole NFDC experience. As that first year went on, I began to understand the power of collaboration when a group shares a deeply felt goal and has genuine work to do. When I look back on the planning and execution of the two Institutes that took place during my time on the NFDC, I am in awe. What we accomplished! A small group of unpaid women, who not only worked full-time but had fam­ ily responsibilities as well, planning and carrying out five-day meetings that would bring together from all over the country about 50 educators with a common set of goals, to discuss substantive educational issues and plan ways to take back their learnings to their own schools. With no experi­ ence in such matters, the planners decided on the issues to be covered; cre­ ated a schedule that balanced large and small group meetings, speakers, discussions, narrative sharing, and reflection; found a site and planned hospitality-meals, transportation, airport pickups, and sightseeing oppor­ tunities; suggested pre-institute research activities for the participants; wrote letters of invitation and communicated with the heads of schools be­ fore and after the event; even coordinated small details such as folders and paper, specially designed mugs to avoid environmental pollution—and more I can’t remember now. And all of this in three planning sessions! The

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group who planned and executed the Netw ork Jo u r n a l o f Education ac­ complished equally amazing work. One phenomenon that always proved to be part of the process fascinated me. In every subcommittee meeting when there was a great deal of work to be done, many plans and decisions to be made, we reached a point where everything was confused, frustrating, simply a mess. It looked as if nothing could ever be accomplished and all the plans were hopeless. (At the Febru­ ary 1989 planning meeting for the first institute, in fact, at this point we scrapped all the planning we had done and started from scratch.) But when we worked through the confusion by acknowledging and discussing it, it abruptly cleared up, as if a roadblock had been removed or lights sud­ denly turned on. From that point on, the work would proceed smoothly, ef­ ficiently, and the group would work together in the most empowered manner, as one strong being. It reminded me of the cookies I made at Christmas, when the sugar, flour, and butter got more and more scattered as I mixed, and just when I’d despair of its ever coalescing into dough, it came together perfectly. Once, when I was talking about the NFDC work, my son commented, “Mom, I’ve never seen you so empowered.” I was struck, since I’d never mentioned the word to him, and I had never felt “unempowered.” But it was true. Still, empowerment of individuals was fine, but not the point of our work. More important, and central, was the fact that the group itself was empowered by the process. Look what we accomplished in just the first three years: two large educational Institutes, two volumes of an educational journal, a published guide for Network Educators. And a raft of new projects that had been pro­ posed at the institutes, which were carried out subsequently: mentoring pro­ grams, the computer network, and others.

CO M M EN TARY

The intertwined questions that guide exploration of the NFDC’s experi­ ences this year were: 1. What happens over time to crucial elements of the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort? 2. What is the relationship between the identity of a group leading an organizational change effort and its actions? 3. What is the relationship between a group leading an organiza­ tional change effort and other stakeholders? How is this relationship linked with the group’s identity and actions? The NFDC’s expression of its identity themes, actions in relation to them, and relationships with stakeholders during this third year are shown in Table 5.1. The vi-

Third Year, 1990-1991

Year

Agreement that empowering teachers was the main purpose of the NFDC. This purpose was explicitly incorporated in the new leaders’ plan for the NFDC. Imagery When describing the Institute, Betty talked of the joy a mother has after having a baby. Casting the net. Emotional Expression Emphases on energy, excitement, and awe about NFDC initiatives.

Expressions o f the Voice of the Teacher

Actions Related to the Voice o f the Teacher

Jodie called the NFDC Second issue of NJE published. “keepers of the process.” Betty noted Second faculty that current institute leadership style was included not really multiple collaborative. activities Imagery initiated by teachers. First Dorothee saw the local FDC began mystique of leadership as due in in Asheville and was discussed at part to “pairing” of leaders. Jodie imaged the faculty the leadership role as institute. “queen of the universe.” Betty likened the process to baking cookies; there had to be a mess before things came together.

Expressions o f the Process

Teachers Contact people in each school continued, with more efforts to stay in touch with them. To communicate better with teachers, NFDC began writing regular updates on their activities. NFDC quiedy supported local FDCs Network Director and Office Some disagreements between Nancy and Jodie and Betty seen as due to lack of communication, and so they attempt to communicate better. Jodie developed a directory of NFDC members, former members, and participants in NFDC activities to aid communication. Jodie and Betty formalized the telling of narratives at NFDC meetings. Following the awareness that “collaboration doesn’t mean harmony.” Betty and Jodie confronted Marie in August and the group confronted Evelyn in November. Afterwards the group did not address conflicts publicly. At the February institute

continued on next page

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

Actions Related to the Process

TABLE 5.1 Identity, Action, and Stakeholder Relationships During the Third Year of the NFDC

,...

8

Expressions of the Voice of the Teacher Emotional Expression Jodie and Betty were annoyed atMarie for not participating more. Marie felt anger, fear, self-doubt, and pain. Feelings about the alcohol intervention included "scared to death, nervous, grateful, strong dismay, fear, shredded apart" but also "affirming." Feelings associated with the change in leadership: discomfort, more ownership, increased self-esteem, and anxiety.

Expressions of the Process

Actions Related to the Voice of the Teacher meeting Betty challenged the institute planning group not to look to her for direction. The NFDC redesigned leadership to be consistent with the process.

Actions Related to the Process

School Heads To communicate better with school heads, NFDC began writing regular updates on their activities. Some disagreements between Jodie and Betty and heads of some schools, but attempts made to understand the source of these and to communicate better. Presentation by Abigail Williams at the faculty institute improved participants' desires to collaborate with administrators. After the institute, Betty writes letters to heads of schools detailing the contributions their teachers made to it.

Relationships with Other Stakeholders

Vitality of the group and change effort: NFDC members were excited about how they dealt with difficult issues, and felt invigorated by their accomplishments. The faculty institute was successful and there was excitement about the formation of the local FDCs

Year

TABLE 5.1 (continued)

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tality of the group and change effort this year are summarized at the end of the table. T h e V o ice o f th e T e a c h e r an d A sso ciated A ctio n s

The mission of empowering teachers was quite salient. When the NFDC discussed its purpose in August they agreed that this was their main fo­ cus. This agreement was embodied in the design and implementation of the faculty institute, which included multiple activities initiated by teachers. It was also embodied in the NFDC’s attention to the proposals that arose from the institute, as will be evident in subsequent chapters. This focus of the group was also very clear to Barbara Mooney when she helped design the first local FDC. The imagery that best expressed this emphasis remained motherly, as Betty talked of the joy a mother felt after having a baby. There was also considerable affect, most of it quite positive, associated with this identity element. Betty talked of how energized she was by the think tank. Barbara spoke of opening her “eyes to the energy and talent of Network teachers.” Faculty members in her own school were excited with their local FDC. Teachers at the 1991 Institute were excited about what they had developed. T h e P r o c e s s an d A sso ciated A ctio n s

There was also considerable attention paid to the process in ways that w ere som etim es challenging for NFDC m em bers and Institute planning

participants. Jodie and Betty took a number of steps to foster empower­ ing relationships within the NFDC. In the summer of 1990 Jodie devel­ oped a directory of all the NFDC members, former members, and participants in their activities, an effort that took a great deal of work, so that they would be able to stay in touch with each other. Jodie referred to the group as “keepers of the process” during the August meeting. Jodie and Betty formalized the telling of narratives at NFDC meetings in a way that linked them as much to the process as to the voice of the teacher. Narratives were told in the first institute planning meeting. A dramatic example of concern about the process occurred during the faculty insti­ tute planning meeting in February, when Betty stopped the group be­ cause it was trying to get her to lead directively. She stepped back and facilitated the group talking until it started operating out of a shared leadership model, and later referred to what had happened as her great­ est “epiphany” about the process. Betty also raised the question perti­ nent to shared leadership in her note in November and in the discussion she and Jodie led in conjunction with the leadership succession process in April. She used the principle of collaborative leadership as a way of

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questioning the group’s leadership design, and this led to a radical change in the form of leadership in the group. The April NFDC meeting started with an extensive discussion of the gifts, doubts, and certainties the members brought to the group. It was at this meeting that the process with respect to leadership in the group was most fully addressed. At this meeting, the NFDC completely redesigned its leadership structure so that the structure would be more consistent with the collaborative leadership model that Catherine and Diane es­ poused. This was a major creative effort, one that led Carole to feel closer to others and feel more ownership of the group even while it increased her anxiety about sharing the burden. It also spawned a new metaphor for leadership in the group, “queen of the universe.”Jodie used this met­ aphor to express the mixed feelings she had about the redesign of the leadership. She believed in it, but also liked having clear authority. This metaphor remained present in the group one way or another for the next several years. In her reflections about collaborative leadership in the group Dorothee noted a reason for the mystique of leadership in the beginning of the NFDC. Having two people leading the group had a different meaning for her than it had for Diane and Catherine; it signified the special relationship parents have from which children are excluded.

Collaboration Does N ot M ean H armony. There was considerable affect associated with the process, but it was often negative. The affect tended to be linked with the activities that led Catherine and Diane to real­ ize that “collaboration does not mean harmony.” The first issue to surface in August was Betty’s and Jodie’s relationship with Marie. Betty andJodie felt annoyed at Marie for not choosing a workgroup dur­ ing the August meeting. Based on what Catherine and Diane learned and passed on, they felt that it was important to deal openly with their concerns about Marie’s participation. So they talked with her individually and then openly discussed their concerns in the group. On the surface, this confronta­ tion went well. Marie said she was glad it happened—just as she said she was glad that Diane spoke openly with her the prior January. But her true response was clearly more complicated; she expressed anger, fear, pain, and self-doubt. She did very little during the November meeting, even leaving early, and did not come to either of the other meetings during the year. A second complicated issue involved dealing with the problem of Evelyn’s alcohol. Betty and Jodie did not shrink from this, even though they and other NFDC members were nervous and scared to death. As soon as they were clear about what the issue was, they planned a complex interven­ tion in a very short time frame. They carried out the intervention very suc­ cessfully, even though Evelyn felt strong dismay at as well as gratefulness for their actions. Evelyn went into treatment, came back, rejoined the group as an active member, and in April expressed her admiration for what the group

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had done, saying that even while she had been shredded apart in November the experience was also affirming. The group shied away from addressing conflicts publicly after this inter­ vention. For example, they did not have further discussion with Evelyn about problems, even though some were present. R elatio n sh ip s W ith S ta h e h o l J e rs

Clearly the second faculty institute was very successful for participating teachers. The second volume of the NJE was also important. Beyond these activities, Jodie and Betty were concerned about maintaining good commu­ nication with teachers. They were aware that many of the teachers did not know what the NFDC was about. So they started writing regular updates and contacting individual heads of schools, as well as staying in touch with the contact people. As was the case before, there were somewhat complicated relationships between the NFDC and the heads of schools and between the NFDC and Nancy Walters. However, their tenor changed a bit. While Jodie and Betty were upset at Nancy and some heads, they also considered that the prob­ lems might have to do with misconceptions or legitimate concerns. It was evident from her interactions with Betty and Jodie, and indeed with the group as a whole, that Nancy was openly confronting differences with the group. She contacted both Jodie and Betty about problems with their commu­ nication, and told the group at its meeting in November that she needed to have better communication with them. While Jodie and Betty were upset about Nancy’s individual letters, they could understand her perspective. It would appear from the previous descriptions that the relationship be­ tween the NFDC and its outside constituencies was becoming more nuanced. The group was becoming more able to see both negative and pos­ itive aspects of its external communication. Such movement had begun the year before, when the NFDC had started communicating with the individ­ ual school heads, rather than simply being upset with them. V ita lity o f th e G ro u p an d C h a n g e E ffo rt

The group and the change effort were both full of vitality this year. The members dealt with a number of complicated issues. Most of the members felt good about how they dealt with the alcohol intervention (though it will be seen in chap. 7 that not everyone’s feelings were totally positive), and all of them were at least somewhat excited about the redesign of leadership in the group. In the Network, the second volume of the journal was pub­ lished, the second faculty institute was a big success, and local FDCs were beginning. There was considerable enthusiasm for the NFDC’s work.

6 T re m bling on the Ed§