Walk Out Walk On

Teachers Teaching Teachers#280 - Walk Out Walk On w/ Deborah Frieze 2012-01-18

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers , we are joined by Deborah Frieze one of the authors of Walk Out Walk On http://walkoutwalkon.net 

We are joined by Chris Sloanmonika hardyJeff LebowChad SansingScott ShelhartMaryBeth HertzPaul AllisonKelsey Shelhart,Deborah Frieze, and Ryan White

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More about Deborah from http://www.walkoutwalkon.net/authors: 

In 2001, Deborah Frieze walked out of her career as an executive in the high-tech industry. She was disillusioned by a business culture that emphasized short-term results, looked upon growth as an end rather than a means, and cared more about compliance than community. A year later, she met Meg Wheatley and a community of pioneering leaders who, like her, were walking out of organizations and systems that were failing to contribute to the common good. These were friends and colleagues of The Berkana Institute. She currently lives in Boston but can more often be found visiting friends and colleagues around the world who are creating healthy and resilient communities.

 Learn more at http://www.deborahfrieze.com.

Chat Log Below

Teachers Teaching Teachers #279 -Turning "Be You" into "Be Us" with Fred Mindlin, Chad Sansing, Kelsey, Rahul Deodhar - 1.11.12

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we are joined by:

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Chris Sloan,

Monika Hardy

Fred Mindlin

Chad Sansing,

Scott Shelhart

Paul Allison,

Kelsey Shelhart, and

Rahul Deodhar

In addition to getting to know each other better, on this episode, we also brainstorm possible questions for Deborah Frieze's visit on the next episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #277 Hacking Classrooms and Congress with Chad Sansing, Brian Ingram, Pam Moran, Adam Mackie 12.21.11

After hearing about a teacher from Ft. Worth, Texas, Brian Ingram at the end of a couple of recent “Best of the Left” episodes http://www.bestoftheleftpodcast.com we decided to invite him to join us on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2 . Brian is a teacher who recently made a decision to Walk Out and to Walk On into an electoral campaign. The Occupy movement has inspired him to consider a run for Congress. Talk about Inspiring!

Brian joins the teachers listed here in an ongoing a conversation about Margaret WheatlTeachers277ey and Deborah Frieze’s book, Walk Out Walk On http://walkoutwalkon.net :






Pam Moran, and


Like on earlier episodes in December, we talk about our work in classrooms, schools and beyond through some of the the lenses provided in Walk Out Walk On. (See http://edtechtalk.com/node/5057 and http://edtechtalk.com/node/5053 )

We also look to learn from the Occupy movements. Recently we have been having discussions around the book http://walkoutwalkon.net which was published earlier this year by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze of The Berkana Institute. We’ve been noticing the convergence between the school change movements that many of us connected to Teachers Teaching Teachers are involved with and this book. We have also taken note of the convergence between the Occupation movements and Walk Out Walk On.

As it says in the book:

Walk Outs are people who bravely choose to leave behind a world of unsolvable problems, scarce resources, limiting beliefs and destructive individualism. They walk on to the ideas, beliefs and practices that enable them to give birth to new systems that serve community. This is the story of an emerging movement of pioneering leaders and communities around the world who are self-organizing to create healthy and resilient communities.

On Teachers Teaching Teachers, we have been talking to teachers involved with their local Occupy Wall Street movements, and we are looking for what we can learn from both that movement andWalk Out Walk On to further our commitments and understanding of change in education.

Enjoy! And join us in upcoming shows when we plan to continue this conversation.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #276 Questioning Efficiency in Schools: Mary Ann Reilly, Ann Leaness, Pam Moran, Heidi Gable 12.14.11

This is the second episode on Teachers Teaching Teachers [ http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2 ] in which we invite the ideas of Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze's Walk Out Walk On http://walkoutwalkon.net to inspire our conversation. 

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We are joined on this episode by Chris Sloan, Monika Hardy, Scott Shelhart, Mary Ann Reilly, Paul Allison, Ann Leaness, Pam Moran, and Heidi Hass Gable

Are you a Walk Out? Read these couple of paragraphs from the book and Web site, then come join us on Wednesday, 12.21.11 for a chat room at http://edtechtalk.com/live-ttt and watch the LiveStream.

ALSO - if you would like to join us in the Hangout soon, if you have read the book and would like to get in on the conversation directly, just let us know.

Inside dying systems, Walk Outs who Walk On are those few leaders who refuse to work from the dominant values that permeate the bureaucracy, such things as speed, greed, fear and aggression. They use their formal leadership to champion values and practices that respect people, that rely on people’s inherent motivation, creativity and caring to get quality work done. These leaders consciously create oases or protected areas within the bureaucracy where people can still contribute, protected from the disabling demands of the old system. These leaders are treasures. They’re dedicated, thoughtful revolutionaries who work hard to give birth to the new in very difficult circumstances.
And then there are those who leave the system entirely, eager to be free of all constraints to experiment with the future. You’ll read their stories in the next pages. But even though they might appear to have more freedom than those still inside, they encounter many challenges that restrict their actions. Old habits and ways of thinking constantly rear up on their path. It’s easy to get yanked backwards, or to doubt that this is the right direction. It takes vigilance to notice when these old ways of thinking block the path ahead.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #275-Walk Out Walk On & Occupy w/ Mary Ann Reilly, Liam O'Donnell, Ann Leaness, Fred Mindlin-12.7.11

Below the video here are notes and links on some of the threads we weave together on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers (Please subscribe: http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2 ). Participants in this episode’s Hangout are: Monika HardyMary Ann ReillyScott Shelhart (and his daughter)Liam O'DonnellPaul AllisonAnn Leaness, and Fred Mindlin

We begin a conversation about Margaret Wheatley’s and Deborah Frieze’s book, Walk Out Walk On [ http://walkoutwalkon.net ], and we explore how the Occupy movements and Educamps might reflect some of the principles in this book.

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Below the video here are notes and links on some of the threads we weave together on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers (Please subscribe: http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2 ). Participants in this episode’s Hangout are: Monika Hardy, Mary Ann Reilly, Scott Shelhart (and his daughter) , Liam O'Donnell, Paul Allison, Ann Leaness, and Fred Mindlin

We begin a conversation about Margaret Wheatley’s and Deborah Frieze’s book, Walk Out Walk On [ http://walkoutwalkon.net ], and we explore how the Occupy movements and Educamps might reflect some of the principles in this book.

Monika Hardy wrote recently that she is “absolutely swimming in Walk Out Walk On.” She goes on to explain:

We have been working on a quiet revolution the last four years in Colorado [ http://labconnections.blogspot.com ], both outside and in the public school system, in order to create the communities the authors, Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze share and describe so poignantly, so beautifully in their book.

Mary Ann Reilly joins us this week. Mary is also be inspired by Walk Out Walk On, and has been trying to get a group of teachers together to talk about the book. Mary is a progressive educator, artist, photographer, and writer of Deepening Literacy Learning: Art and Literature Engagements in K-8 Classrooms. [ http://infoagepub.com/index.php?id=9&p=p4b917a12e9f4a ] We are delighted when she is able to join our conversations at Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Ann Leaness joins us as well. Ann is a high school English teacher in Philadelphia, and she is a member of the edcamp foundation [ http://edcampfoundation.org ] board. Ann’s team began edcamp in Philadelphia [ http://edcampphilly.org ] in May of 2010. Walk Out Walk On is on Ann’s bookshelf too, and recently she wrote about “The Dissenters” [ http://lifewithl.com/2011/12/04/the-dissenters-part-1 ] in her blog:

I wanted to spark some interest and also to make this unit relevant for my students. To get started, I showed the students these two videos: “UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed” [ http://youtu.be/6AdDLhPwpp4 ] and “UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to car amidst protesters” [ http://youtu.be/nmfIuKelOt4 ] These videos sparked some interesting discussion about non-violence and the violent reaction. Some students were shocked by the violence of the direct pepper spraying on the docile students, and the lack of reaction on the students’ part. Why did they just do nothing? Why didn’t they fight back? They also remarked about the silence on the second video. We talked about the impact of that silence and the effect of the sounds of the heels hitting the pavement. Again, someone questioned why they didn’t get up and get in the Chancellor’s face.

Reading Walk Out Walk On, one can’t help but wonder if the Occupy Wall Street movement might a place to find “Communities Daring to Live the Future Now,” as it’s put in the subtitle of Walk Out Walk On.

One of the authors of the book, Deborah Frieze also wonders in a blog post last month, “Is Occupy Our Opportunity?”

In Walk Out Walk On, we found ourselves often in the conversation about “building the world we want today.” The communities we wrote about were walking out of failing institutions and walking on to experiment with new ways of feeding and sheltering themselves, of creating health and safety, of learning together and rebuilding relationships. This has never been about creating utopia. It’s about confronting the reality of our situation with new eyes, being willing to abandon limiting beliefs about what’s possible and who’s qualified to make a contribution. Walking on is an invitation for a different kind of social order to emerge in community. So, too, is Occupy. Dewey Square [Boston] is in some ways a microcosm of our society—for better and for worse, it amplifies our gifts and diseases. It places our social impoverishment under a microscope and invites us to do something different. It challenges us to re-learn what it means to be citizens who take responsibility for one another. [ http://www.deborahfrieze.com/2011/11/understanding-occupy-as-a-space-to-... ]

Also joining us on this episode of TTT is Liam O’Donnell, an award-winning children's author and educator [ liamodonnell.com/graphic-novels-books ]. He will help us wonder about communities and to talk about his work as an educator in the Occupy movement. He writes:

I’ve been bringing the Occupy movement into my work with Grade 5/6s studying government and protest (with videos, twinke fingers in the classroom, etc) As a member of the OccupyToronto Education work group, I can speak to the curriculum we're developing for schools around issues of social justice, and poverty.

Also, in a recent blog post, “How Twinkle Fingers turned my classroom into a General Assembly” Liam writes:

Instead of shouting out agreement or disagreement, students showed their “Twinkle Fingers” of agreement or their down low twinkles of disagreement. Confusion or questions were shown by making a letter ‘C’ shape with their hand. This “General Assembly Guide” [ http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide ] from the New York City General Assembly shows what each symbol looks like. And to ensure all voices were heard, not just the loudest, a “stack” or speakers list was put on the chalkboard. [ liamodonnell.com/feedingchange/2011/11/how-twinkle-fingers-turned-my-classroom-into-a-general-assembly ]

Fred Mindlin also joins us to reflect on his nine years of “living at Black Bear Ranch, one of the original 60's "back to the land" hippie communes, and perhaps the only one which survives on the same terms on which it was founded: radical free.”

Enjoy and plan to join us for follow-up episodes on Walk Out Walk On in the coming weeks.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.
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