Category: Organization Management

  • On Change, pt. 3

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    Surprise! Change comes! Expect it!  This includes expecting forgetfulness and inertia from self and others. We have limitations and tendencies as humans, and networks of humans. Without support, we can lose perspective, our anchoring in ourselves, or our agility. Acknowledging this, we can then create systems to help us meet the changing world well.  Whether…

  • On Change, pt 2

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    Sometimes, teams fail to account for change happening to them even when they have, as Agile Learning Centers do, explicit expectations and systems for responding supportively to changes in their students’ goals, clients’ visions, or the enveloping environment. In theory and practice, the team members embrace change, design for it, and may even be loud…

  • On Change, pt 1

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    ALC Network Starter Kit addendum There’s a section in the ALC Network Starter Kit called “Season Change and Maintenance,” which was added even though the guide was for teams just getting started for two main reasons. First, those of us working on the document realized that setting expectations and prompting folks to think long-term from…

  • Pandemic Planning School Year 3

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    Remembering the early days — the creeping sense of unease, moving to prepare and then close the physical school before the city fully realized what was about to hit us, refrigerator trucks in both my park meditation spots, and acute awareness that our neighbor’s sickness or safety was our own in these old apartments —…

  • Crisis Response Notes

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    In March of 2020, I went digging for information on best practices for supporting kids through the unfolding and ongoing crisis of the coronavirus’ arrival in NYC. Yesterday, January 6th of 2021, I pulled my notes back out to plan my response to the storming of the US capitol. I would love to feel confident…

  • Mid November NYC: Covid Spikes Again

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    I get it. Things have been overwhelming. We’ve got ongoing election-related news: “President Donald Trump appeared on Sunday to acknowledge losing the U.S. election but then backtracked and said he concedes “nothing,” while President-elect Joe Biden focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and set meetings with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines.” (https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election/trump-still-refusing-to-concede-to-biden-inflaming-supporters-and-delaying-transition-idUSKBN27T0IQ) and “Zuckerberg was asked…

  • Election Week Content

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    Here’s what I’ve been sending to the folks who have been asking: Planning: https://truthout.org/audio/planning-for-disaster-a-writing-exercise/, this guide https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KcQmN0ZnSldZfFo_TW5zOXpp1nx9CYlUwvnrfezzrNQ/edit?usp=drivesdk and this podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/6zlWrWcDX7HjTMiyI0qmQB?si=HjnGeNqFR7KZMJhnbtYZdw Recording of a de-escalation training https://www.afsc.org/action/prepare-and-breathe-bystander-intervention-and-de-escalation-training?submit=Register+now and a street medic guide to protest first aid https://www.paperrevolution.org/street-medic-guide/  Masha Gessen talking with Anand Giridharadas about “Surviving Autocracy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbYtnndsS5E, this brilliant panel on “Abolition on Stolen Land”…

  • Covid Plan Update Research, part 1

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    So in light of New York City’s new “covid zone’s” micro-cluster approach to pandemic management, I need to re-write the Agile Learning Center’s plan for operations this year. I published the plan in July, knowing that parents would feel better with *something* concrete heading into the school year rather than having plans unknown and changing…

  • October 26, 2020 Covid Zones Update

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    Since my last DOH update — an email about the introduction of “Zones” and their implications for NYC schools like the Agile Learning Center — I’d been watching the news for updates on transparency about what criteria move an area into or out of a zone designation. I’d also been keeping an eye on general…

  • What is a cluster? A hotspot? A zone?

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    Last Tuesday, October 6th, I wrote about the city’s early experiments with targeting zip codes for covid-restrictions was going over in relation to the school I run. On October 8th, borough president Gale Brewer’s newsletter noted (again) an increase in cases then added a note that experts are advising using seven-day averages, which that day…

  • NYC Covid School Iterations

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    After a [predicted] spike in covid cases in NYC starting Sept. 25-27 and by some accounts putting us back to March 13th numbers over the past weekend, city government appears to be testing an approach of allowing or restricting hot spot area according to zip code. On one hand, families I work with in East…

  • Opening the Conversation on Reopening Schools

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    I’m listening, from the part of occupied Lenape lands called New York City, from East Harlem where the sirens and refrigerator trucks left and left us pandemic poverty without resolving the struggles of redlining and gentrification that were here before them. I’m listening, by which I also mean reading and watching, as the conversations of…

  • Reads the week of October 28th

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    Logging some of what I’m reading. Aside from all the global news, details on local laws for running different kinds of businesses, and chapters in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and Radical Transformational Leadership by Monica Sharma, I’ve been devouring web articles this week. And was feeling anxious about losing track of them…

  • something old, something new

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    Networked self, domination to partnership relationships, crews and congregations and communities… One of the too many tabs I have open right now is a Medium article from the Enspiral publication collection: https://medium.com/enspiral-tales/microsolidarity-part-2-a-theory-of-groups-and-groups-of-groups-7c6e7ce63eda I’d been looking at the publication format on Medium, picked Enspiral since I’m looking at their work for other research anyway, and have now…

  • Agile, Culture Creation, and Self-directed Community

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    This post shares a long draft of an essay which later became an article published in the Cutter business journal’s 2019 special issue on applications of Agile. I’d been asked to share about the Change-Up process, and I’m grateful for folks across the network sending stories so I could include use cases from a variety…

  • ALF Calls

    ALF Calls

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    After the first ALF Summer, a group of us agreed to hold weekly facilitator calls to connect and support each other. As the earliest ALFs, it felt like we were constantly encountering situations that we needed to newly figure out how to navigate. On the one hand, we had years of experience of facilitators at…

  • Newsletters Sept-March

    Newsletters Sept-March

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    For the past few months, I’ve composed and sent out monthly newsletters to ALC Network members. Here are a few of them… 9.4.17 Hi everyone! Back in September of 2013, I could have updated the whole ALC Network by just walking into the back room of the East Harlem school and talking to the 4 men there.…

  • ALF Resource: Intergenerational Trauma

    ALF Resource: Intergenerational Trauma

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    After reflecting a bit on how I’ve been voraciously consuming nonfiction without pausing to share out my learning–waiting, I think, to see the whole tapestry it’ll become once I weave the pieces together–I’ve decided to push myself to share my draft-y notes. Here’s the first attempt: The other night, I got home and decided to…

  • Note on ALC Logos

    Note on ALC Logos

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    With new variations on our logos coming out (and start-up groups showcasing their creativity all the time), I remembered this email exchange where @tomis explained a bit about what the deal is with our branding guidelines and @spence suggested he put something together to share on the topic. In case it takes Tomis a while…

  • ALC-NYC Summer Planning (list)

    ALC-NYC Summer Planning (list)

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    When it’s time: Explore why you’re interested in organizing a facilitator training. Re-read some anti-colonialism/anti-oppression texts. Reflect on your experiences facilitating and then as someone holding an ALC community. What roles and topics can you rock? Which ones do you need to find partners to take up? Set personal intentions and goals ASAP: Gather a team…