Learning to be a Learning Organization

A professional note on a personal event, tonight. Tomorrow is my birthday, and in keeping with tradition I have prepared a sweet treat for my departmental colleagues at work. It is usually a substantial carrot cake, but since a cake can only have so many slices, I decided to try something different this year. Tomorrow’s treat is a tiny (cubic centimeter) piece of fondant wrapped in coloured tissue paper- one piece for each one of 120 staff members who are in my professional orbit. What makes this relevant to the matter of TESOL professionalism? During the Zen practice of wrapping 120 pieces of fondant, I recalled the venomous atmosphere of the department on my last birthday. For a long time, my work environment seemed to be a viper’s nest, and I had become so accustomed to working around this that I didn’t even notice at what moment the turning point came, or what made the difference. But the workplace I will walk into tomorrow morning is one that- despite its difficulties- houses individuals who are looking forward, rather than pulling against each other, or even backwards. This truly is something to celebrate.

Among the avalanche of reading materials for my current study module there is a review of the work of Peter Senge, whose 1990 opus The Fifth Discipline pioneered the concept of the ‘learning organization’. When discussing the concept with my tutor, I automatically considered my own workplace to be anything but a learning organization. In retrospect, I see that the workplace I had been evaluating was a construct of past experience. My image of it had not kept up with recent developments, both in the college itself and in my department. My organization does not yet reach the lofty goals set by Senge, but there has been a groundswell of dedication to making things better on a holistic, ongoing basis. Staff are no longer complaining about minute hiccups, they are conspiring to beat the negativity and poor standards that have plagued us. Though not yet what Senge would call a ‘learning organization’, it seems we may have taken the first steps towards learning to be a learning organization. And that is a gift I will not refuse.