Parallel Lines, not blurred lines

Once you get out of your own sphere of influence (be it large or small) sometimes you discover that the same things are happening in different forums.  Everywhere I look I see the power of collaboration.

Last month I attended a seminar for business and professional women in the Goulburn Valley, where Janine Garner's collaboration message is encapsulated in the title of her book From Me to We.

I watch Hawthorn FC with interest as the coaching panel is dominated by professional coaches who are also school teachers....powerful collaborators who are committed to a shared vision and purpose. I observe the lack of this in the Carlton FC executive, which is why the most experienced AFL coach is now at liberty to be a full time grandad. I support Melbourne - I am nothing if not loyal and steadfast. :-)

I watched SBS Insight on Tuesday evening because it was about Shepparton, and how the community is facing challenges going forward. The most wealthy people in the town claim to be unaware of the rates of teen pregnancy, drug use and poverty. SERIOUSLY! COLLABORATION is desperately needed in this major regional centre where I live and work.

Yesterday at the CEP Conference I listened to Maggie Farrar share with us the power of schools collaborating in clusters in the UK.  I also sat next to her to hear about the brilliant work being done at Bright P-12 and Apollo Bay P-12 colleges in collaborating with the Wadeye community. The day before Yong Zhao spoke about the role collaboration plays in developing entrepreneurial skills in our students. The key takeaways from the conference for me were how relationship building plus passion for change and progress in education plays an essential role in improving opportunities and outcomes for students in rural communities.

If I haven't said already, the CEP is the Country Education Partnership and they ran a Twitter feed live for the 2 days of the conference. The Twitter conversation brief included the following questions:
Q1. Rural learning: How can we seize the potential to focus on education on what really matters?
Q2. How can we create powerful, relevant learning opportunities that inspire young people within and beyond the "school gate"?
Q3 How can we inspire our communities to seize and embrace opportunities to cultivate holistic education approaches?
Q4 How can we generate and grow collaborative approaches so we can be at the forefront of connecting and boosting learning, outcomes and pathways?

As you can imagine I answered Q2 and Q4 numerous times - check out #RLSeize, but a crystal clear answer for me is for teachers to do PL in courses like LSDA (assuming there is one that can match it). For me all of these questions can be answered by employing innovative teaching and learning via new pedagogies and digital technologies. 

So I put this idea forward to you, my patient blog readers. Schools in rural areas recognise the need to provide powerful learning opportunities that inspire young people. Young people, like the Rural Youth Ambassadors present at the CEP conference told us that is what they and their peers want and need. Not once in the last 2 days did someone stand up and say the data tells us we need to change. The most important evidence of need for change is in the uncertainty of life/work/society/community as we move further into the 21st century.

Maggie Farrar shared a line from David Whyte -  "start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take.

School leaders and teacher leaders are morally bound to do this.