Culture of Collaboration

I am taking today's inspiration from a quote from Danny Steele (@Steelethoughts) on Twitter as well as some inspiration from George Couros' book Innovator's Mindset.  For those of you who are not yet familiar with Danny Steele, he is a principal in the States who posts MANY times a day about culture, collaboration, the value of teachers and all things relationships in education!  His school contains only one grade level and he only has students pass through his building for ONE year!  Imagine 500 grade 6 students who you only have one year to have an impact on, develop relationships with, educate and make to feel like a cohesive learning group.  

Danny Steele quoted, "A culture of collaboration among teachers is the best formula for professional development out there.  In my experience, learning from colleagues, is more meaningful than sitting in workshops."

WOW!   That quote really struck a chord with me as I reflected upon my past 4 years at Eldorado and how much I have grown as an educator and a professional and it is all because of the group of people that have collected  and come through the building.  Some were hired at the start, some came over with the Huttonville closure, some came through one of the many reorganizations and others joined in somewhere along the way.  But regardless of how each came to the building and regardless of who came to the building, it has always been a culture of collaboration and learning from each other.  Every single person approaches each day with a mindset of being ready to learn from each other.  The talent and expertise in the building is unbelievable, as we have some of the most intelligent, educated and amazing educators that exist on the planet.  YET, every single one of them is humble and vulnerable and truly believes he/she has many things yet to learn from others.  

That has been the difference--everyone feels that they have something to learn from everyone else in the building!  Being open to growing and improving ourselves while at the same time being surrounded by amazing people to grow and learn with has made us all better educators and people!

In the Innovator's Mindset, George references Steven Anderson, a speaker and writer, as having said, "Alone we are smart, together we are brilliant!"  George goes on to say, "The power of networking is sharing ideas, clarifying our thinking and developing new and better ideas."

So, thank you to all of those educator's whose path I have crossed with over the past 4 years.  The networking, sharing, reflecting and clarifying has definitely led to helping me to develop new and better ideas, refine my own practice and continue to strive to push the boundaries of myself as a person and as a teacher!  

In the section of Couros' book about Creating Our Own Learning Opportunities, he asks, "What would education be like if we adults intentionally created opportunities to be co-learners with the children we serve?"  

I think the culture of collaboration and learning from each other that we have created has created exactly that--a culture where we do not feel that have to be the experts but rather co-learners, both with our colleagues and with our students.  The magic happens when we approach each day that way! 

So I look forward to 2018 and the many opportunities we will all have to learn with and from each other--in each other's classrooms, through our Twitter feeds, through our hallway or lunchroom conversations...however we connect, keep sharing!  We all benefit from the work we do together!