Shared Understanding

Day 38 (of 187) – October 26, 2018

Teaching is a funny profession. We deal with so many people yet it’s one of the most isolating professions… meaning, we rarely connect with other educators to sense-make together to establish a shared understanding. Most times it’s because we HAVE NO TIME. Sometimes other reasons could be “the door is closed”… we have professional autonomy… and basically, we easily adopt the mindset of “I’m on my own”… so no need to share, collaborate, or be a critical friend. This is concerning particularly when we want our students to be critical and creative thinkers, be good communicators, and find personal relevance in their learning. BIG ASKS but do we as educators ask ourselves to do that.

Educators are often ALONE in their classrooms, physically separate from other colleagues. We are surrounded by students and students have the luxury of observing different educators over time… but educators do not. In this case, I say educators… but it’s all those who are also connected to the educator like administration or support staff. We need to have a SHARED UNDERSTANDING to collectively operate but also offer a cohesive and comprehensive learning experience for our students. This is where I am beginning to value meetings more and more. I did a lot of meetings as a school trustee and some as a mathematics educator. Meetings are important to stay connected and share our stories.

The meetings can be formal or informal. The meetings could last 20 minutes or 2 hours. These meetings are opportunities for sense-making… collaborating… and co-creating. We need to meet more often to the point where meetings are not an event, but they become another segment of an ongoing conversation with each other. When we understand who we are more, what our collective purpose is, and how we can achieve our share goals together… that’s when we have a winning team but also students will see our collective efficacy in ourselves as educators but also our shared belief in them as learning to achieve and succeed. We we can be vulnerable with each other with a deep level of trust and respect, that’s when we are learning and great things happen. Hello next meeting…