6/25

Friday's workshops included Henny van der Stel, a leadership consultant who coaches executives in change management. This was my *BIG* day because I had the privilege of giving my LAST presentation in my doctoral coursework. The only thing left is the dissertation defense, which will happen in late October (hope, hope). Henny's presentation was my favorite so far because it was very interactive. Even when discussing attributes of bureaucratic (what they call "Anglo-American") versus participative (what they call the "Rijnland model") consisted of sheets of paper with one attribute in large, bold type each, which we had to lay out on the floor, matching left (bureaucratic) with right (Rijnland). I enjoyed presenting with Roz and Peter. Everything that Roz says seems to resonate with the audience. She is a communications lecturer at Baylor University, and is not fearful of telling things as they are and as they should be! I got to share (very briefly) the systems model of organizational development, and got lots of good feedback afterward from the cohort. All in all, contrary to the names given to organizational types, we also strive toward participative management in the US, and I've seen plenty of "Anglo-American" management in action in the Netherlands, so I think I would call it even!

As a group project, we designed a new organizational structure for a school district, and my group came up with a cosmic atomic model which is enormously creative (even if we do say so ourselves). The student is at the center of the universe (draw a circle) with a thin outer ring consisting of parent. Many orbits exist around the student in the school system. Each orbit consists of a teacher and all of those in the school system who interact with that teacher and student, including staff support services (we were very clear that this includes janitor, security, administrative assistants... everyone), leadership team (counselors, principal/president, advisors, etc.). We struggled with where the Board of Directors fits in all of this, since they have less daily interaction with the system. We decided that, ideally, the Board should function like electromagnetism, attracting all of the forces, resources, and attention on the student, and working against gravity (drugs/alcohol, bureaucracy, politics, lack of funding) that seeks to pull attention away from students. In reality, everyone from the teacher to the custodian to the leadership team has to have that *electromagnetic* energy focusing attention and resources on students. It was very inspiring, and a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

Henny also had us draw a Venn diagram--on the left listing how we functional as an educational manager, and on the right how we function as an educational leader. In the middle, we were to come up with what we should be doing, ideally. Then we shared ideas with others, and engaged in dialogue. It was a very fruitful exercise.

The rest of the day was spent with two inspectors of schools from the National Education Inspectorate of The Netherlands. As one of them shared, the Inspectorate is the "eyes of the government." They look at rest results, and if those are below average for 3 years, they will visit a school. The ideal is that every school is visited once every four years, but in reality, mostly low performing schools are targeted. There are 88 inspectors for 10,000 schools in Holland. One of our groups had been assigned to give a presentation on the TAKS test and assessment in Texas. I learned a lot from their presentation since I am not in P-12 education. The inspectors also shared information about assessment in the Netherlands, and then we had break-out sessions where we compared similarities and differences. While it seems extreme to us that children are tested at age 12, and this test determines whether they go to university or not, once and for all (usually), the truth is the Netherlands does a very good job of placing children in educational tracks that are suited to their skills and abilities. Instead of a drop-out rate of 25%+ in the US, it is closer to 10% here. We also have high stakes testing, and one could argue that repeated high-stakes tests are very stressful for children. I found it interesting that one of the inspectors has a degree in mechanical engineering and work experience in business.

We are up early this Saturday morning to take a bus to Amsterdam. There we will visit the Anne Frank house, the Van Gogh Museum, The Hague, and the House of Parliament. We have a meeting with a member of the Christian Union party, as well as a meeting at the Ministry of Education. It should be really interesting!