1. Lesson 02: Are schools learning organizations?
2. Lesson Road Map
3. Are Schools Learning Organizations?
4. Industrial Age Thinking
5. The Learning Organization
6. Characteristics of a Learning Organization
7. Lesson Activities

The Learning Organization

As the culture of work evolved toward the end of the twentieth century, well-known organizational experts such as Peter Drucker and Peter Senge began to describe the change from a bureaucratic structure with workers functioning as interchangeable cogs in a production machine to Drucker’s description of "the knowledge worker" and "the knowledge work organization" ³ and Senge’s extension to the functions and characteristics of "a learning organization." Writers such as Daniel Pink are now describing the next evolution as a change from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, requiring a change from a knowledge worker with highly developed skills of logic and analysis to a conceptual worker who is creative, intuitive, and empathic.⁴ Pink describes the future of work as a marriage between high tech and high concept/high touch. How are public schools to prepare their students for the Conceptual Age?

Note. From A Whole New Mind (p. 49), by D. Pink, 2006, New York: Penguin. © 2006. Daniel Pink. Adapted with permission.

We return to our essential question for this lesson, "Are schools learning organizations?" Listen to Dr. Schlechty’s audio interview (www.futureofeducation.com), review DuFour’s chapter from last week, and read Senge’s chapter in your assignment for their responses to that question. Based upon your own experiences, formulate your own answer to that question.

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³ Schlechty, P. C. (2009). Bureaucracies versus learning organizations, Leading for learning: How to transform schools into learning organizations (p. 40). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
⁴ Pink, D. (2006). High concept, high touch, A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future (pp. 49-50). New York: Penguin.