Your suggested theme, Harrison, is almost identical to the one I'm using for an Open Space on designing a Corporate Health Plan: "Creating a Workplace We Love". Some of the corporate "suits" were a little horrified at the use of the "L" word, but it sort of summed it up for me . . . if we could love our workplace, how much could that contribute to our individual and collective well-being? (And how would a loving and loved workplace assist our frantic attempts to recruit people into both education and healthcare?) I've had a great response to my invitation so far, so don't think I've offended anybody too deeply!
Laurel. Laurel Doersam Human Resource Consultant (Employee Wellness) Capital Health Region Victoria BC Canada -----Original Message----- From: Harrison Owen [mailto:owe...@mindspring.com] Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 5:00 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: a mentoring idea At 05:57 PM 6/29/00 +0000, you wrote: Here's what I imagined today: What if all the mentors and all the new teachers at a particular site (say, 25 of each) attended a half-day (or more if we can) Open Space to start things off. The focus groups would be convened around the needs of the new teachers. Useful relationships would be formed, but not in a one-to-one fashion; the new teachers would leave that event with the names and contact info for ALL the mentors, and with relationships with several of them based on their OS interactions. >From then on, the new teachers would choose when, how, and from whom they would need help. Mentors could be paid for being available, and, hopefully, for attending regular mini-open-spaces with the new teachers throughout the school year. So: Has anyone else done this type of thing as an alternative structure of a mentorship? And, here's my specific question: During the first OS, I am considering inviting only the new teachers to convene focus groups. On one level this feels heretical to the spirit of Open Space. But on another level I want to deliberately break the set-up of the mentors being the experts. I want the whole program to be oriented around the needs of the new teachers, not around the expertise of the mentors. In my current thinking, requesting that the mentors not convene focus groups but instead to simply attend the ones to which they feel they can contribute the most would serve to empower the new teachers. WOULD YOU DO THIS? Or is it a bad controlling idea? I think this could be wonderful! And I would suggest two things. a) Try for a whole day -- it will really pay off. b) Don't restrict who can post. This is not about keeping Open Space "pure" -- although I guess there is some of that -- but mostly because I am sure everybody will have value to add, and the Law of Two feet will take care of the difference. To make all this work, I think the theme should be a lot broader then just the needs of the new teachers -- How about something like "Building a school System we would all like to be a part of" (and please forgive the dangling preposition ) I once did an OS for a corporation (different venue but similar issue) that began the orientation program for new employees. We had about 100 participants roughly divided between old hands and new comers. The theme was Building X Corp that swerves all the stakeholders. Folks really got into it AND the mentoring relationships just naturally formed. The one thing to watch out about is that the new folks might take their contributions seriously and actually think they had something of value to add -- Could be a bummer for all those who thought they knew how to design the program and determine the content ( smile). Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 fax 301-983-9314 website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh <http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh> Open Space Institute websites www.openspaceworld.org <http://www.openspaceworld.org/> * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html =========================================================== osl...@egroups.com To subscribe, 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign up -- provide an email address, and choose a login ID and password 3. Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions To unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@egroups.com: 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign in and Proceed