Joel Zehring

My plunge into Professional Learning Communities reminded me of some insightful comments by Shane Hipps, a former advertising mind for Porsche turned pastor in Phoenix, Arizona. Hipps spoke about authentic Christian community, but the principles and dynamics apply very closely to schools.

Via the video, authentic community depends on four critical components:

Shared history – Who we are together is defined by where we have been and what we have done together.

Proximity – This is the together part of shared history, but it’s not limited to spatial proximity. The factors of time and attention must also be included to add up to significant proximity.

Permanence – Longevity of the school building is not enough to nurture community. A core group of members must remain over a long enough period of time to build a tradition from shared beliefs and values.

Shared imagination of the future – It’s really challenging to get teachers to stay at a school, or even keep them in the profession. Engaging in open, sustained conversation about personal purpose and beliefs can lead a group of teachers to discover common traits in what they hope to do where they hope to go in their professional lives.

This certainly isn’t the only way to slice and dice community, but I think these four factors sum up the challenge for schools pretty clearly. If your school isn’t developing each of these traits continuously, then your community is like a shaky chair with wobbly legs.

YouTube – Shane Hipps NPC.

Dan Pink asserts in this video that the modern workplace will thrive on three factors: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

I especially like the idea of a FedEx day. What if teachers the district were given a full day to work on anything they wanted? We’d only need one rule:

You have to present your creation to the rest of the staff at the end of the day.

This kind of self-directed development reminds me of the Idea Stock Market that I wrote about a while back. With any luck (and leadership), the days of stale, stagnant professional development are numbered.

…you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Sir Ken Robinson

This video has been around for a while, but it still reminds me that I have much more to uncover as an educator serving young people. I’m daily reminded of the importance of data-driven instruction and best practices in education. Sir Ken reminds me that there’s learning and creating outside of the lesson objectives and standardized assessments.

A little video dump from a couple of RET activities. Sorry about the flaky audio in the LEGO video.

Get a behind-the-trash look at an active landfill in Tucson, AZ. From trash management to water reclamation, there’s a lot more going on at Los Reales than dumping.