The protective cloak of shared beliefs and vision; the whakahuia(treasure box) of important values and actions; the spiral to represent energy, growth and people held together; the poutama tuku tuku pattern (steps to learning) to represent teaching beliefs to achieve the vision.Shared beliefs are stronger than contractual agreements - when beliefs are shared you have strong responsive and inclusive culture.
A true shared vision determines all actions; it is a moral covenent.
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As Russell Bishop, University of Waikato, called his book, 'Culture Counts'. Education ought to be ecological - all 'bits' fitting together to make a growing and changing whole.
Culture is the 'glue' that holds people together - and the 'stickier' the better! The trouble is whatever culture exists in schools is biased towards one point of view - and it's not Maori (or the creative).
I have been working with a school to develop with them a simple vision.
With a Maori name meaning 'singing in harmony' and a strong Maori community it wasn't hard to select appropriate metaphors to use to develop a simple story to tell.
We selected suitable visual Maori design graphics to add an extra dimension.
Vision: Soaring into the future.
Values: to sing like the birds in harmony ( developing partnership and to make the 'best choices' ) Graphic - a treasure box - a Whaka huia.
Teaching Beliefs - Whakapapa -represented by five feathers based on the saying, 'Without feathers the bird can't fly.'
Each feather is further defined to make it clear what is expected of teachers.
Future organisation will be those with the best stories and metaphors to tell rather than strategy plans and performance agreements. As you say culture and relationship will be what 'counts'.
You are right it's stories and myths, not bullet points and data, that will work in the future! The future belongs to the storytellers with the richest imagination. None work for the Ministry - they only write according to set criteria and exemplars!
What we need is a Star Trek School - to go where no person has been before - to explore the edge of the human mind. A school designed to invent the future - learning at the edge of possibility. The future is an age of inner space!
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