What is Sacred? Learning to Name and Nurture What is Most Important in Systems Change

Re-reading Bowles & Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist America this week left me reflecting (somewhat dismally) on a 20-plus-year career in education and human service improvement research.  In the re-reading I reminded myself that many educators and education researchers understand deeply that the work they do each day to uplift the dignity of young learners and use education settings and practice to enhance their freedom is to a great extent designed and constrained by larger social and economic systems that sort individuals into strata defined by who does what and who gets what. Educators don’t show up each day because they are deluded. They show up because they believe that there is something to be gained by being present, by participating, by being in relationship.

Let’s be clear that many educators understand that even if they were to suddenly arrive at a moment in their lifetimes when all the curricular and infrastructure improvements resulted in all students graduating from high school with strong cognitive, academic, and social skills, there would still not be enough spaces for all of the youth to join the affluent rungs of our society. We have not designed our economic and social systems to allow all of our youth to become prosperous.  

It seems to be true that, although for many individuals academic success is a pathway to economic success, academic success in our current systems is not a pathway to economic success for our population as a whole.  Something altogether different is needed for the global population to experience prosperity.

But, Monday will come again, and we will get back to work.  How should we work after reflecting on the constraints imposed by our economic and social systems?  How should we behave to reflect our values and our deepest aspirations?

I’ve been developing a tool for decision-makers in systems change work.  The tool can be used to discuss and identify what is sacred to groups as they pursue changes in organizations and communities.  Keep in mind that systems change efforts often unfold from the receipt of funding that comes with guidance for (1) what should change (e.g., more equitable access to quality education, better instruction, better test performance, etc.) and (2) what methods of achieving the change are considered worthy, rigorous, and recommended.  Such guidance, as well as local preferences and habits, shape conversations and logics in ways that center some ideas and exclude others.  By 'centering' I mean shaping people’s attention so that which is centered becomes the focus of strategies and intent.  

As an example, consider funding for a systems change effort designed to improve early literacy instruction so that children in the school district demonstrate sufficient reading growth in early elementary school.  The funding will support curricular adoption, leadership training, teacher professional development and coaching, and new formative and summative testing to trace student performance over the funding period.  

Imagine that at the outset of the funding period different factors vie to be centered.  Depending on the school district the test scores could become central focus of the initiative, or the teacher experience and reaction to the change could become the central focus, or perhaps some other factor.  

Imagine now that before the central focus emerges, each school involved in the change initiative defines what is sacred to them at the start and investigates the systems in which the sacred factor is located using the question sets below.

Sacred:  What is most important?  What lies at the core of our willingness to undertake this initiative? What should not be lost or diminished by this effort?

Seminal: What are the main ingredients for achieving what is sacred in this initiative? Do the main ingredients come from different domains - child, home, school, community? 

Synergistic: How do seminal ingredients combine and interact to yield affordances for the sacred?  What combinations seem especially effective in achieving the sacred?  What combinations put the sacred at risk?

Structural: What conditions inside and outside of our district lead to adequate levels of seminal ingredients and synergistic affordances available for each child? What conditions result in inadequate levels of seminal ingredients and synergistic affordances available to each child?

Ensuring that the people experiencing and delivering the change lead the identification of the sacred is key.  Note that in the model below what has been identified as sacred centers the learner experience. Once the sacred is identified by a group, it can serve as a guide for subsequent decision-making allowing for meaningful strategies to be shaped by practitioners' best understanding of how to preserve and nurture what is sacred.  I’ll write more about the tool and its use going forward.  For now I will mention that this tool represents an exercise in identifying organizational values within a systemic framework for the purpose of sensemaking and action in complex settings.