Dear colleagues! Last Thursday I reported on the result of the deep discussion the planning group for the open space on "The future of Beethoven" had with the principal of this local highschool on whether to go ahead with the event in the face of the heinous terrorist attacks in the US with the result to have the event even though there were voices asking to postpone it. About 90 students (aged 12 through 19), parents and teachers met at 2pm on Friday. The principal informed the group of the discussion, the parent spokeswoman of the planning group opened the space and I introduced the group to the os-technology(being closely followed by a reporter from the German National Broadcasting System, very unobtrusively). After that it worked just like any open space I facilitated in the past...as it progressed I kept sensing more intense spirit even though it looked like any old open space. People produced 36 issues, 29 documents emerged from the 3 sessions that began at 3:30, 4:45 and 6pm. At 7:30pm Irmi Grünsteidel and I (never having done it this way before and actually designed only that afternoon) asked the group to jointly look at the 29 documents that we had spread out on pinwalls around the gym and to sort them into "issue families" and to give each of the clusters a heading. They did this completely selforganized in 20 minutes in what looked like chaos most of the time but also had the flavor of something that I dont really know the taste of yet, maybe a dose of the open space-organization or the integral organization or the interactive organization. It was a very spirited, high energy performance resulting in 6 "issue families: Different Ways of Learning/Different Ways of Teaching Discipline/Wellbeing Identification with purpose and mission of our school Constructive culture of conflict resolution and communication Marketing School-Spaces They then all grabbed felt tipped markers to put down further ideas, suggestions, proposals for action, etc. on large posters positioned next to each of the "issue families" under the heading "tips". After intense evening news ("this event has changed my view of what is possible in this school"....."I never imagined that students, parents and teachers could collaborate in such productive fashion"...) and a standing ovation by all the adults for the students everyone departed at 9pm with the information that all they had worked on would be in a document the next morning ready for them to proceed with action planning.
Friday evening, while we were still in session, some 200 000 Berliners gathered at the Brandenburg Gate to voice their grief and to demonstrate their opposition to terrorism and to show support for the people of the United States. This was the largest gathering of this kind in Berlin since the wall was brought down. On Saturday, most showed up at 8:30am for the morning "break", the event resuming at 9am. At that time more people were present than had been there at any time on Friday. Right, surprise. And all were eager to get down to work (Zeigarnik at work?) which they did in the most intense fashion I had ever seen. After looking at the book of proceedings (arranged by "issue families", the "tips" included that we had reduced to regular size in a copy shop over night) they had 30 minutes (eventually expanded to 45minutes) for action planning around the 6 "issue families" or any other items they wanted to. Agreements were documented on sheets with the heading "This is how we will continue:". 18 action plans (10 of them authored by the students) were reported on, every single one heavily applauded. After a break I had planned to do the traditional talking stick round. Well, the group selforganized into a final round including thankyous to the planning group, the parents who had done the lovely catering (someone had asked them to come on in, they cried as they got a standing ovation), the custodian, the people at the copying machines, the parents who had organized the carpet for the gym, etc....so I kept still and as invisible as possible and left the talking stick under my chair. At 11:55 we all stood in a close circle, everyone looking at each other as they had done at the beginning of the open space during "focusing the group", then everyone turned outward, held still for a minute to feel the group behind oneself and then walked apart. After icecream for everyone accompanied by two students performing jazz on their saxophones some 20 people joined to convert the gym to its original setting...everyone departing at 2 pm. I needed to write this down and send it to you all from Berlin in these otherwise terribly disturbing times. Love michael Michael M Pannwitz Draisweg 1 12209 Berlin, Germany FON +49 - 30-772 8000 FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464 www.michaelMpannwitz.de To subscribe to the oslist, send the following message (and nothing but the message): "SUBSCRIBE OSLIST" to lists...@listserv.boisestate.edu SUBJECT field should be left BLANK * * ========================================================== 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