Building Community

Community Building

 

 …learning and engagement is about the 4Cs—Curating, Creating, Connecting, and Collaborating. These steps are loud and require a teacher to relinquish control. An engaged classroom is one where students own and express the learning and the teacher facilitates.  (https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-building-student-engagement-begins-with-community-relationships/2019/10)

How do we build Community?  IN the context of the classroom, the building, and, in general, everywhere?   What are the facets we must have aligned in order to precipitate the function of Community?  

 

Let’s begin with the adults:

•  Commonalities - what are shared goals, traits, and similarities that can bind the group?   How can these people function and have a “buy-in” to the concepts and mission of their community?   As educators, what challenges do we face daily, hourly, weekly, and yearly?  How can/do we support each other in overcoming those obstacles that can create a successful, growing, and sustainable environment wherein we look to the next challenge - always wanting to better ourselves and each other? 
• Embracing the Differences - What are the differences among us that create a vibrant community - who has what talent/skill and at what level?  Surely we all believe we can do most things, but there are others who are able to achieve some tasks better than others - how can we work with them and be supportive when we are those people?  How do we overcome animosity when egos come into play? How do we use and raise each other on a daily basis in order to support our mission(s), our goals, and our environment?  What parts of us are completed with these others?

 

• Engagement - How do we remain active participants in the conversations/activities that we are having in order to better, not only ourselves, but the group as a whole, and those others who are on the perimeter and in the center of those conversations' actions? 

 

• Decision-Making - Are we making choices based on input from the community/group? Or are we making determinations from our internal selves? Perhaps they come from an outside source from this one community (let’s say our building/program) which doesn’t actually hold any viable cognition as to what the conversation holds?  How do we make adjustments, adaptations, and adoptions based on the betterment of our collective group while serving the needs of those we are working with?  How do we overcome adversity - not only from the outside of the group but also within? 

 

• Facing Realities - How do we, as a group, keep everything real while also maintaining the sweet smell of success through failing forward?  How do account and take into account what we tried - aspects that worked and those that might have deeper meaning at another time or, perhaps, in another place and the world?   

 

• Celebrations - How do we celebrate the misses and the hits?  How do we reflect and opine on what has worked, what could be improved, excised, or put to the side?  

 

• Balance - How are we working to balance each other and our lives outside the community so when we rejoin on a daily basis we are all refreshed, or there to offer refreshment (no, not necessarily doughnuts and coffee, but something more spiritual) to each other’s psyches?  

Remember, the NAEA 2022 Conference is coming - October 19-22 in St Louis, MO.