Still thinking about diversity...

The day following our Open Space conference on diversity, I wrote a letter to the School Board encouraging them not to underestimate the importance of diversity in our local schools. Here is an excerpt:

"I wish to express compassion for the families and neighbors who fear the changes that must occur as redistricting decisions are made. However, I implore you to make these decisions with the best interest of our entire community in mind, not just those who speak the loudest or threaten the most.

To quote the management scholar Peter Drucker, “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” Many people clearly feel that “doing things right” means ensuring that children attend school closest to their home. This may indeed be efficient but I believe that as leaders in the community, you must balance several criteria to ensure that our schools effectively serve all of our children.

Business organizations now know that diversity of background, culture, and thought provide real advantage in process and outcome. The same is true of educational organizations. Please do not allow certain schools and neighborhoods to forget the advantage of exposing children to the true diversity of our community."

Personally, I see that many venues like neighborhoods and churches tend naturally to be segregated and it seems our schools might be close behind if leaders and organizations do not pay enough attention to tenaciously creating diverse learning communities. I'm not very familiar with the individuation concept but when it was mentioned in the debrief, I thought to myself that I want my children to develop their sense of "self as different" from within a community that allows them to see the incredible value of unique backgrounds and beliefs.

And so Open Space was important for me because it motivated my voice to my community leaders and it has kept me thinking about diversity more purposefully than I had in a long time. I see using the ideas behind Open Space in the future to stimulate reflection and the "habit of being present" in a concept that might not reflected on enough otherwise.

As an aside, for my conference mates, according to a Pew Research Center study of 50 million millenials age 18 and older, 38 percent have tattoos as compared to 32 percent among Gen Xers and 15 percent of boomers. So, the generation gap may not be as wide as we all think after all !