Working with SMART people . . .

The SoL Education Partnership is a loosely coupled organization focused on organizational learning, sustainability, youth engagement, and systems thinking. The key players include Peter Senge from MIT and the Society for Organizational Learning, the Cloud Institute, and the Creative Learning Center. The people representing these organizations are all very bright and committed to this work. They volunteer their time and find grants to support our work. They have also been working directly with Martha Kanter the number two person in the education department. They have met twice and will be in D.C. at the end of this month to continue the conversations around grants and department goals. We are one of eight school and community organizations currently part of this work.

I continue to learn that we have much to offer with the story of our journey and the capacity that we ave developed in our system. Unfortunately, I also learned today that we will struggle to meet the i3 grant requirement of a 20% match unless the department removes that requirement before the request for proposals. We will continue our planning and hope that they do just that. The partnership is also exploring the potential for a SoL Institute to support members work around systems thinking and dynamics, education for sustainability, and school community partnerships. There are a number of grants that could potentially support this work.

I was impressed today with a presentation by Tracy from the Waters Foundation, an organization supporting systems thinking in schools. They have experienced success in Arizona and are beginning to branch out into other parts of the country and internationally with a program in India. They have many resources on their site and have collected data over time that supports learning through use of system thinking tools. Staff in both of our 10th grade integrated programs are using these tools in their sustainability work. In Water's supported schools they start in kindergarten.