"A Journey To Community"

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How We'll Work Together
What Can We Agree To

Myron Rogers then framed the work and process of the journey going forward. He said we are here as peers in a shared inquiry, colleagues in learning about what works, what doesn’t and why. In the current environment of public education, we’ve labored under the tyranny of technique—of the blind application of tools that work well in one environment, but fail to transfer to other environments. Myron suggested that there may be something unseen, something deeper, conditions and capacities that go unobserved and contribute greatly to the success or failure of any tool in different environments. We need to enter into a shared inquiry in order to go deeper. Often, that shared inquiry will create frustration, confusion, or chaos as we generate new information and seek to make sense of it. To do our work and develop breakthroughs in knowledge and understanding, we need to be willing to enter and experiment together, one where the answers are not known in advance, where our predetermined explanations might have to be surrendered for something new and surprising. We’re seeking to make tacit knowledge—how we’re really working—explicit and useful.

The process we use here is one of honoring different learning styles; of paying attention to the needs of individuals, small groups and the whole community. We balance inquiry and information creation with structured process. Myron invited everyone to hold some principles about how to work together, alongside some agreements that could support the quality of our work.

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