cc licensed flickr photo shared by gcouros
Sitting in on a meeting this morning with my Superintendent and other principals, she had brought up this AMAZING Ted Talk that she had recently seen on another school blog. As I furiously searched for this blog, I laughed as I realized that it was Diana Laufenberg who I had just ate supper with and chatted with on numerous occasions at Educon on the past weekend. Small world.
As we prepared the video, Diana messaged me and told me that she would gladly come in and video chat with the group. Immediately after we finished watching her video, Diana came in on video and chatted with the group about her views on the classroom. In fact, what was even cooler about the experience was that she was actually IN the classroom while she was talking about it. The group was stunned at how easily we could connect and share our learning.
I was disheartened to read a post this weekend after Educon about the “clickiness” of Twitter. I will admit, that there are some people I talk with more on Twitter, but that is not because they are in the cool crowd, but just because they are people I have become friends with. Some people call it “cliques” and some people will call it a group of friends. I cannot tolerate when people are rude to each other and hope that I have never been. I have not always agreed with certain viewpoints, but that is part of the learning process and development of our schools. Rocks do not shape without the constant resistance of the water against them.
There have been several occasions where I have had teachers that I have rarely talked with jump in and help me or my school, because of one thing; they are passionate about kids.
Full disclosure: Diana and I talked for the first time this weekend. I have seen her Ted Talk prior to this weekend and enjoyed it even more after talking with her. Deepening these relationships does definitely make learning more meaningful to me (as it does for most people).
Here is the bottom line for me. We are all teachers. We care about ALL kids, not just our own students. Some of my best interactions this past weekend were with students from SLA. Sometimes I believe that kids do more for us as educators than we do for them; they are great to be around.
Dean Shareski said this over the weekend:
I really felt the power of this today (as I have on so many other days). It is amazing how connected we are becoming, but I think it is even more impressive why we are becoming connected.
We are all teachers. These are our kids. We need to do our best for them.
