ABSTRACT
The concept of the learning organisation came to prominence in the 1990s and caused some cognitive dissonance in some educational circles because of the mistaken belief that schools are automatically learning organisations. The authors argue that this may in fact not be the case as teaching may not be learning and further, it may not be education. In the absence of ongoing learning staff simply repeat previous practices and therefore, change remains at best cosmetic.
The authors define the concept of a learning organisation and tease out the implications for schools in adopting such a teaching and learning culture. They indicate that a school as a learning organisation is one that is skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its teachers’ behaviours to reflect new knowledge and insights. They also indicate that a learning organisation culture will influence both the pedagogic imperative and the curriculum within the school. Such a concept sits comfortably within a school renewal change agenda. The continuous nature of a school renewal agenda requires an organisations commitment to learning.
The authors maintain that a school as a learning organisation actively promotes its professional capital and uses this as the vehicle to grow sustainable renewal changes. There is no doubting that building a learning organisation culture will require quite a paradigm shift for educators in the way they think and interact with stakeholders.
