Co-Creating learning Communities
As an educator many of the most powerful things I have learned I have learned from my students. Those powerful lessons started my very first year of teaching. That year my first period class taught me a lesson I would spend years seeking to understand even more deeply. Our district held a writing contest each year with one of the categories being a class anthology. I shared the writing contest with my students and two young women in that first period class, Natasha and Natalie (I came to call them my N² crew), decided that our class should submit an anthology. They rallied support from the other students in the class and we began the creation of our classroom anthology.
My first period class taught me a lesson I would spend years seeking to understand even more deeply
The guidelines for the writing contest said the anthology had to have at least 80% of the students in the class represented through a piece of work. 80% was not good enough for Natasha and Natalie. They were determined that our class anthology would have 100% representation- something from every student in our class- and these two young ladies were on a mission. They created to-do lists and check sheets. They told me what to do! In the end they rallied their classmates and we had 100% participation. My students were so proud of their efforts. To this day that anthology sits in a desk drawer where I work each day to remind me. It reminds me that I was a young teacher who thought she knew what she was doing. A young teacher who wanted to create spaces for all students to learn. But I still had so much to learn and that first period class in my first year taught me so much about the idea of community.
I wanted my classroom to be a place of learning. And I wanted it to be a community. At that time I didn't fully understand how strongly those two concepts needed to be woven together.
The experience with this group of amazing seventh graders challenged me to rethink what I thought I knew. They compelled me to learn more and to understand more clearly what it means to create a learning community where 80% isn't good enough. It's about 100%. It's about everyone feeling that their voice matters. That there is a space and place for them in this community. And that they already possess tools and knowledge that matter and that we can build on in our learning journey together.
I wanted my classroom to be a place of learning. And I wanted it to be a community. At that time I didn't fully understand how strongly those two concepts needed to be woven together.
I've taught many more students over the years, but I will never forget how much that group taught me. Because of them and so many other students I've had through the years, I've worked to understand for myself and to put into action in my classroom what it means for us to work together to co-create a true learning community. My learning is represented in a Learning Community Development cycle that guides all of the work that I do- whether it be with young people in the classroom or adult learners.
I've tried to capture the essence of what it means to truly build a learning community on paper. I share that with you now. You can go here to access the overview of that Learning Community Development cycle.
Community connection and relationship are sorely needed both in our learning communities and in our communities around us. Only through creating a sense of visibility and belonging and self-efficacy for each individual student and by explicitly working together to create a sense of group belonging and efficacy and shared leadership will we be able to communicate and collaborate in the ways that we need to and to deal with conflict in effective ways that move us forward and don't stall us.
Conflict is a natural part of people being together in community, but conflict does not have to be something that is divisive and tears us apart. Conflict can offer us space and place to take time to listen to each other more deeply, to understand each other's perspectives and to work together for compromise in community which does not deny anybody their individuality, but understands how collectively we are stronger. I hope that this will offer you some support for what you are already doing in your learning communities and perhaps offer you an idea or a thought that helps spark something new for you.
I invite you to some opportunities to unpack what it means to develop a learning community and to create an action plan for yourself and your learning community in the upcoming academic year. Please see these opportunities to come together to unpack this idea of community and creating community in our classrooms and schools. Registration for these events is pay what you can. The goal is that you will leave our time with a plan and a toolkit of ideas to begin the work of building your learning community. I look forward to this learning together and this moving forward as we truly create spaces that honor all of us.