What is Governance?

My new education leadership course called Governance began today. The instructor explained that this course is being specially design for our program and has never been taught like this before, not at FAU nor at any of the other universities in the area.

Ok that is great- We are getting used to being program guinea pigs- And so the class began by having our teacher ask us what we thought Governance meant? Hummmm... I was really kind of hoping that my professor was going to answer that because I really didn't have a clue. Mind you, I am smart enough to know it had something to do with the government, more likely that it also has something to do with constitutional law. But other than that... no clue.

We did some reading prior to class that focused on great leaders in educational policy- even studied Socrates- I recognized this Socratic method of questioning she was using but it did not bring me to the point of self discovery on this question!

So in an effort to help us understand the societal, economic, and political influences on Governance we did a little carousal activity (Something educators like to do to get you up and moving while you work). More information to put into our definition, but we were still guessing.

After several more discussions and activities, we shared out all the definitions we had come up with and then we highlighted the key words that were common in all our definitions. This is what we came up with:
              Guidelines and procedures, political, societal, and economic factors, framework,          expectations, common beliefs, norms, established rules, in response, and values.

From these we are supposed to come up with a definition that we can all agree upon. The thing I find interesting though, is the fact that when it comes to issues related to government, people rarely agree upon much of anything! Just look at the current political discussions, look at educational policy, look at the controversy related to school choice/ vouchers/ charters/ and public school funding, look at class size, the adoption of Common Core- is there ANY agreement on any of this?

Discussions in class touched on globalization, outsourcing of jobs, generational expectations, and political influences... the conversation was interesting and spirited- but there was little agreement. So how are we going to agree on a common understanding of something that relates to such issues? I am not quite sure, but I am really looking forward to the next 4 weeks as we try to figure it out!


Until then, I couldn't help but wonder what the term did mean... so according to Webster's it is described as "the way that a city, company, etc., is controlled by the people who run it."

As for the PROPEL Cohort 2 Definition, I will keep you posted!