Chapter I Orientation (pp. 3-58)

Senge et al use the term "learning orientation" to refer to the concept of involving everyone in the system for expressing their aspirations, building their awareness, and developing their capabilities together. (p. 5) They argue that learning is a process that should help individuals make the right connections.

To do this effectively, it is important for educators to be aware of the inner scaffolding (my italics) of learners. This inner scaffolding of learners includes their individual and social experiences, the individuals’ emotions, will, aptitudes, beliefs, values, self-awareness, purpose, and more. (p. 21)

The authors elaborate on commonly held perceptions about assembly line school systems, and refer to them as the "industrial-age system of schools and assumptions about learning" (pp. 27-52). They propose that an alternative to this machine model of schools should embrace the “systems revolution” first observed in physics in the 1900s. The essence of this systemic view of the world recognizes that the fundamental nature of reality is relationships, not things. “Unlike machines, living systems continually grow and evolve, form new relationships, and have innate goals to exist and to re-create themselves” (p. 53).

One of the consequences of this paradigm shift is, subjects become alive. “Such an educational process rests on:

Learner-centered learning rather than teacher-centered learning;
Encouraging variety, not homogeneity – embracing multiple intelligences and diverse learning styles; and
Understanding a world of interdependency and change rather than memorizing facts and striving for right answers.

There is also something different about treating schools like living systems instead of machines. In particular, it means:

Constantly exploring the theories-in-use of all involved in the educational process;
Reintegrating education within webs of social relationships that link friends, families, and communities” (p. 55).

Chapter II A Primer to the Five Disciplines (pp. 59-98)

The five key disciplines of organizational learning are:

Personal Mastery: It is a process of articulating a coherent image of one’s personal vision.

Shared Vision: This collective discipline establishes focus and fosters a commitment to common purpose.

Mental Models: This discipline of reflection and inquiry skills is focused around developing awareness of attitudes and perceptions.

Team Learning: Using techniques such as dialogue and discussions within small groups, this discipline transforms our skills of collective thinking.

Systems Thinking: In this discipline, people develop and awareness of complexity, interdependencies, change and leverage. To clarify the common confusion about this term, they elaborate on seven different types of systems thinking in current practice: “system-wide thinking”, “open systems thinking”, “human systems thinking”, “process systems thinking”, “living systems thinking”, “feedback-related systems thinking”, and “system dynamics simulation” (p. 79).

The authors argue that catalyzing people’s aspirations doesn’t happen by accident; it requires time, care, and strategy. (p. 72) Elsewhere, Senge observes that two of these disciplines, personal mastery and shared vision, are methods for developing and using aspirations. Aspiration in human beings is intrinsic (p. 560).

Chapter XIII Moving Into Community (pp. 459-465)

Similar to a learning classroom and learning school, the learning community is a vision that will never be fully realized. It is the most complex level of the three levels and includes the learning environment within which a school operates.

The premise of this unit is

ALL COMMUNITIES CAN LEARN

The unit seeks to develop children, who might eventually transform all of human society, not top down but from the inside out.

The word community as used here refers to a place, rife with activity, mutual respect, and the recognition that everyone in that place is responsible for and accountable to one another, because the lives of all are interdependent. The community is a nurturing, supportive, sometimes challenging, but always caring container wrapped around the school and the development of children.

There are three kinds of activities that a community engages in to develop a learning approach. They are IDENTITY, BUILDING CONNECTIONS and SUSTAINABILITY.

Chapter XIV Identity (pp. 467-488)

Except the first unit in this chapter, the others outline practices in different states and countries. I’ve briefly outlined the other units with their title for further specialized reading.

1. TAKING STOCK OF COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

This Unit is targeted at school leaders (or other community leaders) to help them come to a better understanding of the community around them and the resources available in that community for children.

They authors (Lucas et al) recommend a six step process to make connections and recommend small group brainstorming sessions to draw on everyone’s knowledge in the room.

Step 1: LISTING YOUR COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

AUDIENCE: School leaders (or other community leaders)
PURPOSE: To come to a better understanding of the community, and
the resources available in that community for children
TECHNIQUE: Small group brainstorming (with over 13 lead questions
categorized into five broad areas)
# OF MEETINGS: Two or more
TIME FRAME: Two hours or more

Step 2: EXPANDING THE LIST OF COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

AUDIENCE: Include four or five people to represent a larger % of the school population
Repeat of Step 1

Step 3: PRIORITIZING

Identify five most important community connections organized in three separate lists based on QUALITY, IMPORTANCE and ACCESS.

Quality – list them by quality of shared experiences with members
Importance – list them by importance of their efforts to children
Access – list them according to the access you have to them

Narrow down to a new list of five to ten community connections that are viable as a starting point.

Step 4: WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM

For each of the “key resources” from Step 3, WHAT

What do each of these groups see as their purpose?
What do they want most?
What leads them to want it?

Step 5: MOVING TOWARD A RELATIONSHIP

Answer three more sets of questions:

What is it you want from them?
What do they see in your organization?
How could they see your organization?

Step 6: CONTACT

Using the lists developed so far as a starting point, contact community members to further the inquiry.

The book lists three more Units to illustrate cases

2. EXPRESSION IS THE FIRST STEP OUT OF OPPRESSION
Building grass roots capacity for local education at Cincinnati’s Peaslee Neighborhood Center

3. AS THE COMMUNITY GOES, SO GOES THE SCHOOL
An overview of the breadth of initiatives taking place in the West Des Moines Community School District in Iowa

4. SHARING A VISION, NATIONWIDE
The thinking schools, learning nation initiative of Singapore

Chapter XIV Connections (pp. 489-528)

1. PARENT TO PARENT
The community engagement process in St. Martin Parish school district in Louisiana

2. REPERCEIVING CLASSROOM BOUNDARIES
The discovery team at Creswell Middle School in Oregon describes how the boundaries of a classroom can extend out into the community and beyond.

3. THE SYSTEMS BASKETBALL COACH
The author, Nancy Lippe, describes how community members involved with children can use systems thinking to improve their improvement

4. TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
This unit illustrates four potential ways by which the government might intervene and prevent a crisis while sharing limited resources available to the community

5. FUTURE OF THE COMPANY
Strategic learning alliances: a model that works for business-education partnerships

6. SESAME BRIDGE
Peace building in the Middle East through television for children

This unit ends with a two-page list of questions, which pertain to Media literacy that educators and parents might use, for bridging the gap between teachers and TV producers.

XVI Sustainability (pp. 529-553)

1. THE RAINMAKERS
The author Katharine Briar-Lawson describes a model for school improvement that engages families and community agencies as key resources.

2. VISION ESCALATION, POSITION DE-ESCALATION
An exercise that uses “shuttle diplomacy” to bring to the surface underlying aspirations and fears that shape the boundaries of an impasse.

3. RESOURCES FOR EARLY CHILD EDUCATION AND CARE
This unit guides the reader through a systemic view of resources for early childhood education

4. CHILDREN AS LEADERS
The lessons from Columbia’s Children’s Movement for Peace?a model of how children can become the authentic leaders of their community

5. HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATION IS LEARNING?
A series of questions based on the definition of organizational learning (in practice, it means developing a clear and honest understanding of current reality that is accessible to the whole organization, can be used to produce new, equally accessible knowledge, and might help people take effective action toward their desired future)

XVII End Notes (Conversation held between Howard Gardner and Peter Senge) (pp. 555-566)

Gardner states that multiple intelligences are not an educational goal in itself. He says the goals of education must be to teach students what it means to think scientifically, historically, artistically, ethically and mathematically (perhaps spiritually too, I think because of a possible sixth intelligence, I heard he was toying with!). Gardner says this is the idea is the basis of his book, The Disciplined Mind.

Unlike subject matter, Gardner continues, a discipline deals with understanding the differences between opinion and evidence, and the relationship between theory and data. (p. 558).

Senge, following Gardner’s prompt, refers to the five disciplines mentioned in this book as aspiring disciplines (my italics). Aspiring, because they are arbitrary and were proposed to give organizational learning practitioners and theorists something to refer to.

Senge believes that a discipline is a participative methodology based on underlying theory offering concrete practices that can develop capacity and help in achieving practical results.

Gardner argues how an injection of critical thinking or systems thinking per se in schools for teachers and students might be useless , unless they are reinforced with appropriate contouring in each of the disciplines (such as science, math, history, and music).