What is Teal?
Teal is a color in between blue and green, named after a bird. It is also the name of an emerging new paradigm, or model for sense-making.
An organisation is in essence a group of people that together can perform tasks and achieve results that individuals can’t manage by themselves. In our history as humans we have gone through six paradigms of sense-making, highly connected with the development of self or ego in individuals. The first two (described below in the picture as Infrared and Magenta) are reactive and cannot be considered as task organisations. In the Infrared stage scientists don’t even think we had developed a real sense of self.
So, what we usually discuss in the organisational context are the levels from Red to Teal – Teal being the new, 7th paradigm emerging now. Although these stages of development have evolved throughout history, we can still see all levels from Red to Teal in action today. Red is for example typical for Mafia-like organisations, Amber is common in the military and churches, as well as in large institutions and companies (that can have aspects of all levels Amber to Green). Orange is the level that emerged with the Industrial revolution, like e.g. with Taylor’s Scientific Management.
As society changed and went in to what we call the Information society the organisations started to change as well, entering the Green stage. More people were educated (not only top-management) and more people could access information needed for decision-making. Companies started realizing the value of motivated and loyal employees, which led to empowerment programs, and working more with values and company culture. But the basis is still in many ways the Tayloristic model, although with the egalitarian thinking added.
What is a Teal School?
What can a Teal school look like, what are the most important organisational factors and pedagogical principles, and what is the research behind this?
We will try to answer these questions here. However, please note that we are not claiming that our answers are a universal truth. There are many ways to be a Teal school. (Also note that this page is work in progress until this parenthesis is removed).
Biggest differences compared to a traditional school
All individuals in the Teal system are treated as human beings and met with an open mind and an open heart. People are developing holistically and the healing of trauma and creating (or preserving) self-worth and self-love is as important as developing cognitively.
Teachers are learning guides, facilitators and coaches. Learners are much more in control of their learning process and learning experience. This means most kids develop self-leadership, self-efficacy and their internal motivation is preserved. If some, however, struggle with this they are never treated according to a standardised blueprint, since their needs is always in focus.
A Teal school is organised in teams, with no boss-subordinate relationships. It has a framework of practices that help teams in decision making, dealing with conflicts and developing as a team and as individuals. This is true on both levels; learning guides and learners.
“Classes” are mixed in ages. Changing from one group to another is based on individual needs and development, not birth year.
The learning environment should be activity-based, so that there are choices between e.g. calm spaces and creative or lively spaces.
A Teal school could be based on unschooling principles or have some division into subjects and scheduling, but in those cases the schedule is most often consisting of larger blocks of subject-based – but still to a large degree self-directed – learning, of collaborative project work and blocks of time cut out for democratic or sociocratic processes, as well as wholeness practices. How far the school goes in this respect may depend on national frameworks and curricula.
A Teal school doesn’t give grades (if possible). Grades are part of the paradigm we want to leave behind, that which sees kids as products, labelling them, grading and sorting them. In a Teal school we want kids to develop their full human potential. That requires no grading, it requires supporting them in finding their purpose and goals, providing them with tools for learning and guiding them in their personal development.
“The world is changing. The rapid technological development and the digital revolution are perhaps the most important driving factor, but it is in the development of our humanity that we will see the most important changes.”
Digital transformation
What do we think about the ongoing digital transformation, and digital tools in learning? We are actually quoting ourselves above. Digitalisation is definitely one of the driving factors behind the rapid evolution we are seeing in the world today, and it has changed and is continuously changing, our every day life.
We believe that the right digital tools can be fantastic in helping kids learn and manage their own learning and development. Gamification can help make less engaging tasks more fun, and with the help of GPS-tracking tasks and challenges can move outdoors. VR-equipment can be used for meditation, learning to speak in front of a crowd, as well as exploring aspects of the Metaverse.
AI is giving us so much possibility in individualising, and in providing easily understood bits of knowledge (although still lacking in regards of fact checking), but it is a subject in its own right that we will have to come back to, but it will surely help in making the new learning paradigm we want a reality.
The digital transformation also comes with the possibility of networking, content sharing, webinars, online education etc. which means schools can more easily become smaller, and areas (like e.g. many villages in Northern Sweden) that are today being depopulated can come alive again.
There are actually so many possibilities in using digital tools for learning and learning management that we will probably have to discuss this separately sometime.
But, we would also like to stress that we think the choice of tools have to be made very consciously. Nothing should be digitalised for the sake of digitalisation only – we see many analogue processes that get a “digitalised form”, but the really good digital tools, no matter in which area, are also changing the processes (and eventually how we comprehend the problem they solve).