Trying to make sausage!

The Committee Self-governance process is moving along nicely.  

That's not to say that everything is happening the way I wish it would in all the classes.

Several different "issues" can arise.  In fact, each of these has.

One is that the committees don't fully understand their writ.  Asking the Rules and Discipline committees to "create expectations and help us generate the self-discipline to live up to and within them" is a tall order.  They and I are still plumbing the depths of what that means.

Another is that the members don't fully recognize how the committee process works.  Or maybe I should say "works," the quotes signifying variability in the processes that different committees construct in their interaction.  I remember the first time I was on a committee...I didn't really understand the dynamics and the unspoken parameters of how the whole process went.  I'm happy for them to navigate that as they go.

A third issue is that some members aren't taking their duties as seriously as they need to.  That, of course, pervades the reality of committee life.  Interestingly, this disengagement tends to be worse later in the day.  More brain exhaustion leads to less energy to undertake activities we don't fully understand...?  No doubt.  Addressing this involves good old-fashioned classroom management. 

A fourth issue is that the committees have limited authority.  Everybody knows that I'm still responsible for what we do and how we run the class.  The Curriculum Committee, for one, is making our calendar more than they are creating or even managing content.  My goal here is to let them have a hand in--and thereby see--a process that requires flexibility and responsiveness, both of which demand patience and resourcefulness.  

A fifth (and final only in the sense that I'm going to stop) issue is the committees have limited capacities.  The Social and Data Committees, for instance, can have aggregate information about the class, but not about individuals.  For instance, when I do a "Today, I am [Green, Yellow, Red, Blue]" check-in, I can only tell them aggregate results.  What they can do with that is somewhat limited.  So, besides hoping these committees can contribute to self-governance, I also hope they recognize some of the complexity of the social dynamics in our room, and thereby have and help encourage greater patience in the process of interacting with each other.

I'm pleased with how this has gone.  These issues are a lot like pedagogical and management issues that routinely arise in every classroom.  We're just managing them a little bit differently now.

So far, so good.