The Conversations that Matter

Patronizing their own World Café, Lahore American School faculty and staff members get into the thick of it (photo: LAS).

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Lahore American School makes a point of talking shop

For the past several months, Lahore American School (LAS) has been engaged in the process of preparing itself for re-accreditation through the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges (MSA). The most exciting part so far has been the opportunity the re-accreditation process has provided us to engage in meaningful conversations with students, parents, and teachers about our true purpose as a school.

Once the planning team had determined that our school’s current mission did not sufficiently meet the criteria of understandability, vision, passion, or uniqueness, we needed to identify a means of gathering input from students, parents, and teachers about what they feel the new mission of the school should be.

Our team decided to use the World Café model, which proved, just as its website promises, to be a powerful method for “engaging people in conversations that matter.” We created a welcoming environment and framed significant questions concerning our school’s mission, beliefs, and profile of graduates. Next, we selected and trained hosts to facilitate discussion at each table. Participants formed groups of five or six, and moved through three rounds of discussion, noting down key ideas on large pieces of paper provided for that purpose.

Following these lively sessions, our next step was to synthesize the input from students, parents, and teachers, and, based on this synthesis, to develop a new mission, set of beliefs, and profile of graduates for our school, one that embodies a vision of the future in which all of us can share.

After many months of painstaking work, we are proud to unveil LAS’s brand new mission!

Igniting Passion for Learning

Connecting to the World

Building our Community

Preparing for the Future

Realizing our Potential

Using the World Café model, LAS’s re-accreditation planning team was able to successfully tap into our community’s most deeply held and commonly shared hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future.

We highly recommend it to other schools that may be in the process of re-envisioning their futures.

Ms. Maloney is a high school English teacher at Lahore American School, Pakistan. To learn more about the World Café model, visit http://www.theworldcafe.com.

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