I've been doing some fascinating reading from Thomas Sergiovanni's The Lifeworld of Leadership. He really nails some things that I have been trying to find words for. I'm troubled by what I see as an encroachment of systemsworld into the lifeworlds of Christian schools. We are particularly vulnerable to this as leaders in Christian schools because much falls on our shoulders that is part of the systemsworld and so we look for solutions that end up making us feel more like businesses than like a community of learners. Here are a few lines from Sergiovanni: The lifeworld provides the foundation for the development of social, intellectual, and other forms of human capital that contribute, in turn, to the development of "cultural reproduction." The systemsworld by contrast, is a world of instrumentalities, of effecient means designed to achieve ends. The systemsworld provides the foundation for the developemnt of management and of organizational and financial capital that, in turn, contributes to the development of material capital, which further enriches the systemsworld....For this relationship to be mutually beneficial in enterprises like families and schools, however, the lifeworld must be generative. It must be the force that drives the systemsworld....schools have both a systemsworld and a lifeworld and noting that the two world must be successfully balanced to function effectively points to a major problem facing schools across the globe. Habermas refers to this problem as the "colonization of the lifeworld" by the systemsworld. Colonization occurs when the systemsworld begins to dominate the lifeworld....Unfortunately, like the proverbial frog sitting in the soon-to-be-boiling pot of water, colonization happens gradually and goes largely unnoticed.
So how do we keep the two in balance? How do we, with limited time and resources, feed the lifeworld side of the equation?
(Loaves and Fishes by Matt Cupido)
3 comments:
Habermas' system and lifeworld conceptualization of organization really brings great clarity to the current educational climate we find ourselves in. I think your question Dennis is somewhat answered by Habermas when he challenges use ensure that the lifeworld stuff is generative - essentially that the system serves the lifeworld. - An overly simplified way of thinking about this might be to look at the leader vs. manager dichomoty - leaders do what is right first and manage the details in compliance with strongly heald overarching value systems. The hard thing is in culture still so predominately modern, system stuff so easily gratifies our need for 'facts' and measureable ways to understand what we are trying to accomplish.
One direct area to apply habermas' work pertains to how we do community in christian schools- Kant challenges us to ensure that we treat inviduals as an end in themselves and never as a means to an end. A strongly system approach to organizational theory veiws people as instrumentally useful in achieving a desired end. Whereas a lifeworld approach begins with an ethic that values justice and humanity. All of this grossly oversimplified - for more read Habermas's THeory of Communicative action (AUthentic dialogue for democratically and socially just ends) - Dave
But have we gone past the point of no return in schools where the lifeworld serves the system world? I sometimes wonder when we see "CEO" models, various forms of teacher evaluation et al, where I wonder what is driving the lifeworld instead of the lifeworld driving the institution. I realized that there is a business/system side of school, but we need to be careful that the business model doesn't essentially become the vision for Christian education, otherwise I fear we will value justice and humanity in name only.
Dave, your post makes you sound suspiciously smart...
for the record i hire a ghost writer from time to time. Anyway, I echo your concern and feel quite strongly that there needs to be some good hard work with school boards and principals to grapple with what it means to run an organization biblically. With all the different theories of organization what fits with the BIblical narrative or... what kind of organization do we need to imagine. At this point, I think we spend time on worldview and currriculum and teaching but I am not sure we spend much, if any, time on worldview (organzational structures, policy development, etc. (ie: What do I believe about humanity and reality and how does that affect how the ways and means of organization i serve in?) Cheers, Dave
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