<div dir="ltr"> At Chillicothe High School, rational, natural, and open/social systems can be found in various aspects of the organization. To begin, an example of the school’s rational system would be within its mandated instructional practices. For several years, the building principals have directed teachers to utilize a set of research-based instructional practices (bell ringers, review of learning targets and establishment of an essential question of focus, gradual release model, and exit slips), representing formalization to regulate teacher behavior. This top-down approach, implemented with high rigidity and strict guidelines, has been critiqued for reducing teacher creativity and autonomy, which is consistent with a rational system. The mandated framework’s common goal was to increase teacher effectiveness, but it was implemented without accepting teacher feedback, and, to some, it showed the administration’s mistrust of the staff to complete their jobs without constant direction. While this structure served to improve efficiency, it could also be viewed as an impersonal transactional approach (if teachers adhere to the directive of implementing the instructional practices, they will be rewarded with high evaluative marks) for managing individuals. <br><div><span style="white-space:pre"> </span>In contrast, while the rational system in place compels teachers to adhere to a common set of standards defined at the state or national level, the natural system in place gives teachers the freedom to construct their own learning targets to connect to the standards. These learning targets allow for teacher autonomy in terms of connections between topics and the order of skills taught. Similarly, in the manner of a natural system, teachers have the freedom to choose independently what content they use to deliver the concepts of the course. For example, two teachers of the same course might choose entirely different stories to teach the same concepts. As such, teachers feel that they are in control, that their voices are being heard, and that their administrators value and trust their content expertise. The natural system displayed is people-oriented, and it allows the teachers to feel respected and confident, which will increase efficiency and productivity.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre"> </span>Finally, open systems exist at Chillicothe High School, in one aspect, through the transformation of students. Students (inputs) enter the school with an expectation of gaining skills to apply outside of the school. Through offered graduation pathways, which are state-mandated and therefore rational, students are given the opportunity to engage with the environment outside the school through job shadowing and career exploration activities. Students also obtain letters of recommendation and construct resumes and cover letters to use to pursue a career or college acceptance. After transformation, graduates (outputs) are released, having gained the skills needed to succeed confidently in their environment. This open system is also a social one because not only does it involve an interdependence between the organization and its environment, it also proves to be an intersection of all four perceptual lenses (structural through the state-mandated graduation requirements, human relations through meeting the individual needs of students, political through the emphasis on graduation rates which impacts the perception of the school, and symbolic through the inspiration of students to become productive members of their environment), as well as a combination of both rational and natural systems. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font color="#000000">T<font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">hank you,</font></font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000"><br></font></div><b style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">Jessica Orr</font></b><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">English Teacher</font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">Department Coordinator</font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">Chillicothe High School</font></div></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">Phone: (740) 702-2287, ext. 16231</font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000000">"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say."</font></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font color="#000000"> --F. Scott Fitzgerald</font><br style="color:rgb(51,51,51)"></font></div></div></div>
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