My Growing Conceptual Framework

Right now I am leaning forward... my pulse has quickened... I am exploding with thought and joy. Here are some of the latest things I have been thinking about- they pertain to the research like a scientist who studies sea life or a doctor studying the behavior patterns of cells or vaccines.

I used to watch Jacques Cousteau reruns on T.V. Fascinated by the life in the ocean. I always wondered how they could swim up on things and not scare them away. When I was a boy I was going to be a marine biologist- or a zookeeper because of influences like that. Perhaps I can still pursue part of this childhood dream. Perhaps there are lots of similarities between a marine biologist and a doctor of education. Instead of swimming in a complex ecosystem called the ocean with incredible wildlife we doctors will swim in a complex edusystem called a learning organization. When we approach these "schools" we can scientifically begin to observe them- to learn about how they breath and move. I picture swimming up on a district and seeing the organisms from far off as a marine biologist might approach a bed of Sea Aneemone.
found on wikipedia The 49th plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, showing various sea anemones classified as Actiniae

My mental model of a school looks like the inside of the brain- at the synapse level. the organism called school has a core- a network of relationships that include informal and formal leadership. These are invisible. When you walk into a building they are there and you can feel them more than see them. They can be fragile- they can be toxic- they can be strong- they can be healthy.

They are mental models- thousands of messages transfer back and forth every day about what is valued, important, hated, etc.

Each teacher "cell" in this organism is bonded to all the students they work with. This forms an outer covering or shell of the learning organization. When things are good and students are blossoming into all they can be a school organism looks amazing as you swim up to it. Not all of these organisms are the same shape or size. They have lots of different looks because each is unique. It is like discovering a new species each time you swim up to this anemone bed. However their outer shell colors all seem to follow a pattern. When students are able to blossom these organisms- no matter how uniquely shaped- all turn a beautiful blue. When students are hurting academically, they all turn red.

I can define what "blossom" means in many ways: student performance on state exams, student independence, or student passion for learning. In any case, I think the color of the outer shell is dependent on what is going on in the invisible network of mental models below the surface. Are there high expectations? Is there an enthusiasm and a passion for learning that is contagious? What does the core truly believe about the learners around them? These messages are transmitted whether they are verbalized or not in the way we look at children- in the structures and activities we create for them. When we believe they are the next generation of leaders and that they are capable of meeting our challenges... we then can see the colors of our shell change as students blossom.

What does this have to do with our potential dissertation? Is this too abstract? It has everything to do with this dissertation because maybe when we swim up to a bed of learning organizations we will be able to identify the schools that use quality tools by their color. Maybe the mental model network under the surface is similar in these organizations. It is like the biologist identifying the common genetic codes in a species. Could we describe schools that use quality tools as a family? Maybe the title of this dissertation should be, "How Do Quality Tools Color the Mental Models within an Urban Learning Organization?"