Concepts, Processes and Strategies
The Adaptive School approach draws the organizing metaphor for their work from the field of biology. Adaptive organisms respond to changing environmental conditions by flexibly responding to their surroundings to meet their basic biological needs. Species such as raccoons, deer and coyotes have adapted to a wide variety of habitats in both natural and human-created environments.
This is not true for all species. Some species are adapted to place and condition and are not adaptive. Many bird and insect species and populations are threatened today because of the tight fit between their physical requirements and their requirements for supportive habitat. They are so finely adapted to certain food plants and shelter conditions that alteration in their surroundings puts them at risk. Being unable to modify their habits or immediate environment, they end up clinging to the “fragile islands” that currently sustain them. Unable to cope with a changing world, they decline in numbers and eventually disappear.
Human organizations and individuals can be adapted to a specific niche or can become adaptive, flexing to meet the challenges of a changing world. To be adaptive means to change form and clarify identity. Form can be the ways we structure our organizations and the ways in which we do our work. New challenges require new and increasingly flexible forms. Identity is about who we think we are as an organization and who we think we are as professionals. The ways in which we define the meaning of schools and schooling shape the identity of the organizations in which educators work and the identity of individual players within schools.
This is not true for all species. Some species are adapted to place and condition and are not adaptive. Many bird and insect species and populations are threatened today because of the tight fit between their physical requirements and their requirements for supportive habitat. They are so finely adapted to certain food plants and shelter conditions that alteration in their surroundings puts them at risk. Being unable to modify their habits or immediate environment, they end up clinging to the “fragile islands” that currently sustain them. Unable to cope with a changing world, they decline in numbers and eventually disappear.
Human organizations and individuals can be adapted to a specific niche or can become adaptive, flexing to meet the challenges of a changing world. To be adaptive means to change form and clarify identity. Form can be the ways we structure our organizations and the ways in which we do our work. New challenges require new and increasingly flexible forms. Identity is about who we think we are as an organization and who we think we are as professionals. The ways in which we define the meaning of schools and schooling shape the identity of the organizations in which educators work and the identity of individual players within schools.