"People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the tribe and make it something even better." Seth Godin
I've been following Seth for a while now, often finding inspiration in his words. I love his video about curiosity and learning.
This weekend, I downloaded his newest book, Tribes, onto my iPod to listen to on a trip to Rhode Island and back. His words are still ringing in my head.
Though his focus is marketing, his words make sense to schools and teachers, too:
And I love the idea of having a tribe.
This year a group of us have been trying to define what 21st century learning looks like at FA. In our teaching, in our division and department meetings, and in readings we share, the focus is on the students and what we need to do to prepare them for this uncertain future we all face.
We know this–connecting and creating meaning matters. Students learn best when they see real-world application to what they do. And it's possible.
I am watching our tribe do it through oral projects to practice students' target language skills with a real audience, blogs about political opinions, reflections about teaching and learning, and more. Our students spent this fall studying the election process by hearing a representative talk to them in person, practicing debates and then polling fellow students, and creating videos about their beliefs. Our science students headed out to the woods to take pictures of water samples, which they used in their lab.
Not a day passes without a colleague stopping me in the hall to ask, "Is this possible?" And my answer is usually, yes (even though it may take some time and effort to figure it out!) Godin says, “A group only needs two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
A tribe. We're there.