Schools That Learn reflects the experiences over the past five to ten years in applying the theories, tools and methods of organizational learning to schools. It is based on the work of hundreds of teachers, administrators, parents, community leaders and students.Like the preceding "Fifth Discipline Fieldbooks," it aims to capture the insights and challenges of an emerging field, and to make them available in a manner that will help others engaged in similar work.

Having Schools That Learn now available is very exciting for all of us who have been associated with this project over the past several years. As concern about education grows throughout the world, and particularly in North America, schools are increasingly awash in "quick fixes": measures that range from tougher curriculum to standardized tests to medication for non-performers. Most of these measures will not lead to better performance in the long run, because they are not based on any in-depth understanding of the forces that shape schools today.

My co-authors (Nelda Cambron McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Bryan Smith, Janis Dutton and Art Kleiner) and I hope that this book will make a difference by giving people a way to think about (and act upon) the underlying forces, including the attitudes and assumptions, which have shaped schools (and communities) for a very long time. The world in which children are now growing up differs dramatically from the world which give rise to the industrial age school. So, it is no wonder that it is failing. Efforts to prop it up will not suffice.

I feel a deep gratitude to all of those who contributed to make this book possible and to complete it in such a timely way. As with previous fieldbooks, we have edited these contributions to make it easy to use the ideas individually and in teams. My co-authors and I look forward to any comments you may have, on the book or on how to move forward with these sorts of changes.

The book is just a start. Please peruse this site or visit http://www.solonline.org (for the Society for Organizational Learning) to keep posted on new developments within the growing worldwide network of innovators committed to recreating our educational system.

— Peter Senge