An Education (System Redesign) for Shared Leadership
“We have been slow to understand that a system cannot do anything else than what it was designed for… Our current educational system was designed for the industrial machine age of the nineteenth century. It was designed as an assembly-line factory model, well suited to train workers for the assembly lines of the Industrial Age.” (Bela H. Banathy)
“Designing educational systems for a new millennium begins with reconsidering who we are and what we want humanity to be…” (Patrick M. Jenlink)
“…a humble host to humanity – a servant of the Earth and an ever-vigilant conscience of the people. Such a ‘servant’ leader is as mindful of the process and purpose of life as she or he is aware of the goals… In the work of such a leader there is complete harmony between what is to be done and how it is to be done… We are all potential leaders, because we can all lead our own lives in the right direction.” (Satish Kumar)
“Leadership can be a shared phenomenon. Indeed, for many ancient societies leadership and decision-making is a shared process, with all members contributing a voice, from the oldest and wisest to the youngest and most curious.” (Sharon Turnbull)
“In the current educational reform movement, people still practice the kind of social planning that aims to reduce the problem to `manageable parts’, seeking a solution to each. They believe that an incremental, piece-by-piece addressing of what is wrong in the system will correct the larger issue they aim to remedy. But systems designers know well that `getting rid of what is not wanted does not give us what is desired’.” (Bela H. Banathy)
“We have to create opportunities and programs for design learning, for the development of design competence. People empowered by such learning will become competent individually to design their own lives and, collectively, to design the systems in which they live and work, design their communities and design their systems of learning and human development.” (Bela H. Banathy)
Balancing the Commons, the Market and the State
“They hang the man and flog the woman that steal the goose from off the common, but let the greater villain loose that steals the common from the goose.” (English folk poem, ca. 1764)
“THE COMMONS, n., gifts of nature and society; the wealth we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished or enhanced, to our children; a sector of the economy that complements the corporate sector.” (The Commons Rising 2006, a report by the Friends of the Commons)
“The market needs a counterpoise with a different calculus. The ideal counterpoise isn’t the state. It’s the commons… The state’s role is to nurture both the commons and the market, and to maintain a healthy balance between them.” (The State of The Commons, a report by the Friends of the Commons)
