In our most recent #IMMOOC Live session, I had the pleasure to have a conversation with Katie Martin, AJ Juliani, and John Spencer. As we are all discussing the importance of sharing your learning (process and product), one question that came up was along the lines of, “How do we ensure that this is seen as sharing not bragging?”
First of all, I made the distinction between “sharing” and “bragging”; bragging definitely happens in all spaces, online and offline. Sharing though is crucial to the growth of any profession, especially education (watch this older video from Dean Shareski if you have the chance), and great ideas that are shared tend to find people, not the other way around. But here is something that I stated that I truly believe. If someone feels uncomfortable because you are doing good work, you are not the problem.
We all want the best for our students, and sharing your idea can not only have an impact on the person seeing the idea, but also the person sharing it. The person seeing the idea might be inspired to try something new, where the person sharing might see the need to tweak and remix what they are currently doing based on feedback. It is a mutually beneficial transaction if we see it that way.
Yet if someone feels that the work you are doing is making them look bad, then they should do better. We should never let others hold us back from doing an amazing job because it might make them feel uncomfortable. Discomfort is not a bad thing. As long as we both support and push one another (competitive-collaboration), the big winner will always be students.
I have seen a major shift in education in the last few years, that has been greater than my 15 years in education prior. The positive shifts we have seen in education in the last few years are not because we have access to information. It is because we have access to each other. I truly believe that.
This quote from Stephen Johnson resonates:
“And then one day, you look up and realize that all those individual trajectories have turned into a wave.”
Share away! It makes all of us better.
Thanks Amber Teamann for the visual!
from Connected Principals http://ift.tt/2m4Fcdy
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