The magic of learning communities

I believe in the magic of learning communities.

Although they can be terrifying, requiring vulnerability and risk, the learning can be powerful. But we do not always recognize their potential until some time and distance have passed and we are able to look back with a dispassionate mind.

That’s the case with a boardwide group exploring co-operative learning strategies that I was able to join about a dozen years ago. We went to Kagan conferences, played around with strategies during our meetings and experimented in our own classrooms. We had specific protocols for collecting data and sharing our learning. We became Jane Goodall, learning how to observe and take notes with the clear, unbiased eye of a biologist in the wild. But things didn’t get truly anxiety-inducing until we were required to prepare a lesson and teach it in front of members of the group – all of them with clipboards and pens poised to note every flaw and failure.

At that time, I had some challenging Grade 9 applied English classes. Many of students didn’t finish high school and several ended up in jail. Most had weak literacy skills and poor attention. Their home lives weren’t great. I chose a day to celebrate everyone’s birthday and put all their names on a classroom cake. They couldn’t believe it. One student took a picture of the cake section with his name on it. I don’t think he had ever had his own birthday cake before. In addition to reading and writing, we were working on self-regulation in that class. Sometimes we just focused on staying in our seats to start a task.

I was sick-to-my-stomach terrified when it was my turn to teach in front of the group.

The demonstration lesson started with all eyes on me as I introduced the concept and explained what the students were expected to do in groups of three and four. I went through the plan with the kids, and we talked about the learning goal. I had everything in place, but I knew that as soon as I finished talking, I had about 30 seconds to get to every group to make sure they didn’t all go flying out of their seats.

It all worked out. My colleagues with their clipboards could see my students’ struggles and, like all good educators, started talking with them to help them get started. My students were on their best behaviour and mostly tried to work through the task. Back in the debrief, everyone noted that it was a high-needs class and they wanted to know some of my strategies.

That experience was a turning point for me. From that point on, it has been easier for me to collaborate and team teach. But I only realized that much later. At the time, I was convinced the whole professional learning group experience was a failure.

Since then, I have been part of many learning groups, either through Teacher Learning Leadership Program grants or professional development book clubs that I run as the teacher librarian in the school. The learning is always enhanced by the energy of the group. That’s partly why I was eager to sign up for Cohort21. I was just starting a new job as the Head Librarian at St. Michael’s College School and I knew little about the independent school world. I thought this would be a good opportunity to make some connections and was confident I would come up with a project – something to do with school libraries.

Well, that old feeling of failure returned.

Here we are at the end of Cohort21 and I still didn’t come up with a plan or project. At one point I thought that this would be a good opportunity to start regularly blogging but that was a fail, too. This is only my third blog. In my second post, I talked about the challenges of coming up with a blog name because all the good ones were taken. I landed on a really bad name, which my husband immediately rejected when I told him about it. (I am not going to repeat it here, that’s how ridiculous it is.) Luckily, not too many people read that post so I will pick another one –hopefully.

Feeling a little morose, I reached out to Allison Macrae, my group leader, for a little pep talk. She was so supportive and helped me evaluate my participation with Cohort21 through a different lens. I re-examined all my contributions through COVID19 eyes. Yes, I did meet a few people through the face-to-face sessions. I participated in an enjoyable wine-tasting evening via Zoom. And I was able to connect with a colleague at SMCS. The two of us have started a thriving DEI book club for staff.

And she made me realize that this really isn’t the end. The magic never stops with Cohort21.