To parents who follow my blog, this is a great place for ideas on books and Math lesson plans. Darlena has spaced out ideas throughout her blog and it is worth exploring for ideas which support your child’s learning at home. In our unique environment, the LA and Math ideas will be helpful
Category Archives: Community
Learning Trajectories, Adult Learning, and Blogs
Last week, I spoke to a colleague about blogging and a professional development project she is undertaking. She is to blog between learning sessions, but she finds this difficult. She feels she is putting herself out there and prefers to write well and coherently with a fully edited product to publish at then end. She is concerned less is expected in the digital world when it comes to adult learning and is uncomfortable with the public exposure of her work under the new norms.
Etienne Wenger wrote about learning trajectories and adult learning in Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. He proposed newcomers in organizations require time to learn on the job and essentially make mistakes on an “inbound trajectory.” I would extend this to learning in the rapidly changing digital era we live and work in. Inbound learning trajectories also affect veteran, savvy teachers just beginning their use of social media. Wenger alluded to learning as a series of social activities that included support found in and through friendship, intimacy, families, gaming, creative production, and work. My friend pointed out “Old habits die hard. What about spelling? What about grammar? What about the coherency of the message?”
Adults require safe environments for learning, particularly in times of rapid and unabated change. John Murray in Supporting Effective Teacher Learning in American Schools suggested externally driven forms of professional development currently used in schools need change. Mentors that offer time and non-judgmental support for teachers in applying new technologies are an important step in the delivery and acceptance of embedded professional development in schools. Dovetailing this thinking with inbound learning trajectories is logical in creating safe, supportive adult learning communities.
The etymological roots of technology includes words such as art, craft, and technique and referred specifically to grammar. The writing of blogs is an art and craft. I advised my colleague to hone her craft, perfect the technique, and be an artisan, and actively read, follow, and respond to blogs. Turn to people she trusts whether they are physically or digitally present. Stay true to what you value i.e. good grammar, good spelling, and coherent messages. I use these principles and feel I am slowly moving forward. The blogs I follow, including those on my Blogroll, are well done and professional. It is not enough to just be “out there” for me. I am doing it my way and finding others publishing similarly.
Educational Theory in Practice
Where I work is a place that can bring me great joy. The word work is the wrong word actually. Since beginning this ‘gig’ 12 years ago, I refer to it as the place I teach and learn. I had two chances to interview for this role. Most of us only get one chance. I made the most of the second chance and the rest has been history.
What do I do? I teach and learn in a small school setting combining a traditional attendance model and home schooling. It was the ‘brain child’ of several families almost 20 year ago. They believed there was something of worth to take from both models and they helped to build a hybrid school.
I teach multi-grade junior high students three core subjects: English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science while students attend each Tuesday and Thursday plus every other Monday. We provide complementary programming i.e. curling, food sciences, and archery. Students learn Math at home guided by their parents and with help from the teacher, in this case me. The home school component occurs on the non-attendance days and the teacher conducts regular home visits on those days, as well. Home visits help the child and/or parent with contentious Math concepts and build relationships with families.
This community uses a three-legged stool approach. Students, parents, and educators are all important contributors to the success and quality of learning and we all are learners on a journey together. Parents learn curriculum and teaching strategies assisting the learning of their children. They assist in the classroom on a regularly scheduled basis. Students grow to accept the learning journey belongs to them. They are companions in the learning enterprise and learning is with them. Teachers learn about the children and their families through open, honest conversation. What does each child need is a central question to the conversation. Most of all, the support needed for children’s success is in a community environment where we are partners and not adversaries. This is a relationship grounded in covenant as opposed to one centered on transactional contracts. We all commit and invest in something we dearly and deeply value.
I wanted to share this because we are an innovative educational project and some upcoming postings will share some of my experiences in this community of practice or learning organization.
Abundant Community
We talked about community today. Community is organic. Through and in it, we tell stories revealing relationships. It grows around what is held in common. We communicate what is held in common, valued, and shared. Community is breaking bread and being true companions with those who join us. We hold and share vision denoting our shared nature within community and exist in paradox. It is what is today, the present, and what was, a historical memorial.
The poet David Whyte wrote “What we hold in community is loved, because it is offered from the heart; a place of love.” Because it is a place of love, it is a place of abundance. Even in crisis, members of a community find ways to heal and regain wholeness through resiliency. Its members know there are others to turn to and seek help from. We do not have to ask; it is given instinctively and intuitively. It is the right thing to do and not the easy or expedient thing to do.
Community is a place we identify with and it signals we are entitled to membership. It is a safe place to be and someone wants us there. It is a sacred place; hallowed ground. We share and expose personal vulnerabilities, because those around us love us unconditionally. Community is a place of discovery. We are nourished and nurtured and grow. It is a place of invitation and opportunity due to its abundance. A wonderful metaphor emerged. A community is a garden. You plant a seed and it prospers in the abundance of the place we name home and community.
Qualities of a Learning Community
What did the World Cafe events reveal? The concept of community, in some form, was the most repeated quality of what engaged people in their learning. There were many descriptors for a community of learning. One that stood out was the community of learning being safe. Safe learners feel comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone and stretching to learn. This could be called the “Goldilocks Paradigm.” Learning is not too hard causing arresting stress; not too easy allowing boredom to prevail; just right, adding to the edges of knowledge the student possesses.
One discussion led to an interesting revelation about the use of technology and what it contributes to a safe learning experience. As a strategy, it might be better suited for older students, but has potential across a range of ages and abilities from upper elementary and beyond. Video and audio files allow for use of pause and rewind, reinforcement of key concepts, time for mindful reflection and response, and opportunities for anonymous questions. The group was clear this should not replace the face-to-face interactions vital to learning, but could provide opportunities for interactions to develop in addition to the teacher-student relationship, such as valuable peer-to-peer connections. In an increasingly digital world, students and teachers can support each others learning outside the existing temporal and spatial restrictions associated with school as a building to attend on school days. School becomes more than a space and the online capacity expands the potential rather than diminishing it. Physical attendance coupled with other points of contact i.e. blogs, online forums, and video formats provide exciting potential for what a safe learning community can mean.
The conversation about community, learning, and the role of multiple points of contact in the learning community resonated with my own learning experiences. I use a variety of digital formats in my learning at Gonzaga i.e. electronic blackboard, wikis, and blogs. They reveal the reality that learning is not place- or time-focused. It is ongoing with multiple points of contact essential to the shifting landscape of what school is and can become. The Khan Academy is a useful Math resource for some students and Selman Khan, its designer, has employed self-directed learning features by Selman Khan in the design of this site. He makes use of the advantages discussed in our group-connections, time for reflection, and anonymity, and makes learning safe..
Community and Servant-Leadership
Community has been a recurring theme throughout the World Café conversations and events, with many descriptors alluding to communal practices and relationships needed for learning to happen. Reciprocity, connection, supportive, affirmation, and other words expressing interactions suggest community. The summary posters of the March 17, 2012 World Café Event confirmed this recurring theme of community and the table posters, to being posted, also bear this out. The theme of community is important not just in learning, but in life itself. Without community, can life and learning be as meaningful?
Parker Palmer recently shared in a Facebook posting: “Community does not mean living face-to-face with others—it means never losing the awareness that we are connected with each other…”
The servant-leadership conference I attend in Portland reinforced that, although community continually evolves, as a value it can remain intact. Here are some examples.
Professor Shann Ferch, from Gonzaga, spoke about the “beloved community” that the late Martin Luther King so eloquently referred to. It is the necessity to see each other, including oppressors and those who have done harm to us, as human. Dr. Ferch also quoted Viktor Frankl: “We are made to turn outward, toward another human being to whom we can love and give ourselves. … Only when in service of another does a person truly know his or her humanity.”
We easily dismiss these references to community as the extreme and needed actions and words of those in different settings. After all, Dr. King led the Civil Rights movement in its halcyon days and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Dr. Frankl survived the atrocities of concentration camps during World War II. What do their experiences have to do with simply getting through the day?
Kirk Young, a colleague from Gonzaga, elaborated on what could be understood as community in the form of a value. The communities we choose to belong to share one common ingredient: intimacy. Ferdinand Tonnies, a German sociologist, used the word gemeinschaft and described this form of community as “a tighter and more cohesive social entity. [It is] exemplified in family and kinship” suggesting when humans gather in community, intimate experiences are shared. Members share the good, the bad, and grow together towards common purposes, thus are mission driven. Values and mission serve as glue for community.
Father John Dear, a Jesuit priest, proposed in The Rebel Jesus, a second, mostly unnoticed miracle occurred during the Sermon on the Mount: the forming of community. Community allowed people to see the human nature of each other as Jesus instructed those closest to him to organize the large group (some believe well over 5,000 people) into small, more intimate groupings of about 50 people. Father Dear suggested that in these small communities, people interacted differently and shared as they made connections with those now close to them. People were no longer strangers; because moments before they were simply part of a large and increasingly hungry throng. In contemporary parlance, they were statistics.
By witnessing the humanity in each other, we form community and share intimacy without fear. Our humanity is the one thing we share with others and through it, we find purpose to gather and create community around the universality of human values and the value of humans.
Teacher as Transformer 