New Routines
By Zoe
September was a momentous month for my family. My 3-year-old recently started Pre-K and my two-year-old started daycare. A few weeks into our new routine, as we join the drop-off parade of scooters and strollers lining the block around the school yard, I find myself marveling at humans’ capacity for change–my kids facing new situations with bravery and a healthy dose of skepticism. School staff and educators in an impressive choreography to welcome new students despite last-minute pre-K staffing changes here in NYC,
Transition to new routines is predictably slow and non-linear. The CDC reminds us that transition in a time of extra stress is extra hard, and while visceral feelings about first days of school and toddler independence are particularly hard as we still grapple with uncertain realities of Omicron, this reminder should also transcend systems change efforts taking shape within our post-pandemic organizations.
In many cases, the reimagining of post-pandemic organizations is authentic and timely, driven by workers’ dissatisfaction with the status quo and signs of an ongoing Great Resignation, but not all change is created equal.
Asking What Do We Mean by Systems Change and Why Is It so Hard?, the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) recently hosted a conversation featuring biologist Mette Miriam Böll, systems scientist Peter Senge, comparative media studies professor Eric Klopfer exploring systems awareness in education. Boll urges us to be wary of attempting to impose new programs and initiatives into “ancient structures” that produce exactly the adverse outcomes that we are trying to avoid and to forgo “mechanistic processes” of systems change. Instead, our systems are living, with deeply complex humans at their core.
So before we introduce a new change initiative or organizational restructuring, let’s take stock: What is essential, driven by our communities’ needs and with appreciation for the confluence of ever-evolving identities and new routines – and what can wait?
Back in the schoolyard, as I will myself to embrace the uncertainty of the current moment, I turn around to see my oldest grab his classmate’s hand to join the sea of preschoolers and a confluence of changes and beginnings.