Critical Friends Groups (CFG)

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Critical Friends: A Process Built on Reflection

YPS Professional Learning Community Workshop

Introduction
The Critical Friends process focuses on developing collegial relationships, encouraging reflective practice, and rethinking leadership. This process is based in cooperative adult learning, which is often contrary to patterns established in work environments. It also addresses a situation in which many leaders find themselves - trained to work as independent units; certified as knowing all that is needed to know; feeling like the continuation of professional learning is not essential to the creation of an exciting, rich, learning environment; and that they are simply supervisors in the leadership role.

Critical in the context of the group is intended to mean "important" or "key" or "necessary." Those who have used this process have found that many leaders are clumsy at being "critical." They have further discovered that many leaders are trained to talk around and avoid difficult issues, not carefully confront them. The Critical Friends process provides an opportunity both to solicit and provide feedback in a manner that promotes reflective learning.

Ypsilanti Public Schools CFG holds this commitments:

To be reflective;
To make our practice public to one another;
To frame meaningful questions and ask for substantive feedback from our colleagues;
To hold each other accountable for meeting the needs of students who struggle most;
To ask the kinds of questions that provoke and challenge our assumptions and habits;
To believe that together we are more capable of knowing what we need to know, and learning what we need to learn, than we are alone.

NSRF's Mission:
"To foster educational and social equity by empowering all people involved with schools to work collaboratively in reflective democratic communities that create and support powerful learning experiences for everyone."