Obviously, bottom-up change has to be led by a person or persons at the bottom. This is a paradox for change managers who hold senior positions in the formal hierarchy. The initiative for bottom-up change cannot come from them, authentically or even logically.
But you cannot just say to the pupils: what do you want to learn? You can’t say to ordinary people: what do you want for your community?. They need to be educated before they can answer such a question.
Someone once coined the phrase ‘inside-out’ to describe a process that was neither top-down nor bottom-up. I suppose it has something to do with realising values.
Supposing that as a change manager you want people to change because they want to themselves, as a part of their process of realising their values. Supposing you have experienced the power of authentic values realisation when conducted effectively and want that to be the driving engine of your organisation or colleagues.
They need first the thinking skills necessary to be able to implement an effective process of values realisation (the first one being the skill of recognising the need for change where it exists and accepting responsibility for your part in that).
The education that children and adults need is one that empowers them to take on the management of their own affair, design their own curriculum, develop and realise their own values.
Values realisation is one way of understanding the process of Action Research.
Beyond the 'Islamic School'
About the Puebla Learning Community
The Puebla Learning Community is a collaboration between Abdullah Trevathan and Ibrahim Lawson and their families. Their aim is to create the possibility of an authentic learning community which provides all its members, children and adults, with the opportunity to acquire and practice the knowledges and skills needed to fulfil our individual and shared potential for Islam, Iman and Ihsan. At some point, this project may have a physical presence in Southern Spain (see photo above). They invite everyone who is genuinely interested in collaborating in this project to contribute to the ongoing inquiry: what is the best we can do to establish an authentic process of education for ourselves and our children?
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