The K-16 CFG met this evening at The Rice School/La Escuela Rice. Present were Mary, Marilyn, Marcela, and Donna. We skipped over the opening team builder and started by going over a few announcements and talking about having a social event like a pot luck dinner sometime in March since the varied district spring break schedules are preventing us from having a regular meeting that month. This discussion morphed into an exploration of why there has been such light attendance the last few months. I have been disappointed and Mary even used the word "disheartened."

I wasn't planning on having this conversation, so I was not prepared with focusing questions or a protocol to guide the discussion. Still, I was impressed with how the group non-judgmentally teased out the major issues and proposed possible solutions to help get our critical friends back to the meetings. Here is a summary.

Barriers to meeting:
Scheduling around multiple after school commitments: This seems to be a challenge for many CFGs and our K-16 CFG is no exception. Our members are involved with graduate school classes, evening work obligations such as leading professional development classes, meetings for other school reform groups, school committees, etc., etc., etc. I don't know what to do about this except trust that each member will make a commitment to scheduling around CFG whenever possible.

Life happens: Sometimes things just happen. Members get sick, children get sick, parents get sick, administrators call emergency meetings. No amount of creative scheduling can prevent us from occasionally having to miss a meeting.

Sense of ownership is lacking: This is something that I've struggled with as a facilitator--How do we best balance the needs of the group with the needs of individuals? This year, we have really focused on developing a group goal and an action plan to study how we can best build capacity for professional learning communities in Houston. In the meantime, we have slacked off on putting our own work on the table and opening ourselves up to feedback.
Solution: Both Mary and Marilyn will bring "juicy dilemmas" to the April meeting. They need a crowd of critical friends to help them. They need you.

Irrelevance: Perhaps the K-16 CFG just no longer meets the needs of many group members. When this group started two years ago, many members were "CFG orphans" because their school-based groups had dwindled away. With job changes and the jumpstart of the Teacher As Researcher Grants, many K-16 group members have new CFGs or other outlets for professional conversations. The four of us that were at this meeting come because "I learn something when I come", "I need interaction", "It's an avenue to help me to help other groups", and "[It helps me be] true to what I'm doing."
Solution: Solicit more input about agendas.

Inertia: When somebody misses one meeting, then it gets easier to miss that second or third meeting. Without regular "face-time" we become disconnected from each other. We are tired and forget how uplifting and energizing the meetings can be.
Solution: Have a fabulous social event to reconnect with everybody and just have fun.

So the simple question "Do you think it would be a good idea to have a potluck" turned into a deep discussion about the state of our CFG--and then actually planning a potluck dinner became part of the solution to our current dilemma of missing so many of our dear critical friends!

After we closed the discussion, we went back and did a team builder called "Team Discovery" from The Big Book of Team Building Games by John Newstrom and Edward Scannell. The purpose of this activity is to create team identity by helping members to discover more about each other and to establish asking for information and self-disclosure as team norms. Together, we brainstormed a list of seven provocative questions that we wanted each other to answer. We then narrowed the list down to three questions that we were all comfortable with and took the time to go around and share the stories and opinions that addressed those questions. I loved hearing the laughter and passion that emerged from sharing a more personal side of ourselves. Are you wondering what we talked about? Sorry! Reading the weblog is no substitute for actually being there.