What's on the Feed? Today's Schools on Diversity.

Every now and then something quite interesting pops up on my various feeds through social networks.  I thought it was a good time to start a new feature on the blog and try to bring these through on a more regular basis.  Some of our long term readers may remember that we've done link spotlights in the past and this is pretty much a renaming and upgrading of that old concept to be more inclusive of a wider range of interesting things to look at.

So here we are with "What's on the feed?"  Sometimes this will just be a look at something that you might like to add to your own feeds and at other times, like today, it will be something that I'll also want to say something about.

A couple of days ago it was a notification of a new video from "Today's Schools".  Their YouTube channel is a nice and well-rounded one with a couple of different segment types.  They have interviews with different teachers and schools, "breaking news" videos and often string videos together through the use of common themes.   Its also fairly frequent with a couple of new videos each month.  It's well worth having a look at ;).

Sometimes it astonishes me that the channel doesn't get a lot of views and it's a shame that this channel isn't utilised on a more regular basis.  Some of the stuff is pretty uninteresting sometimes but sometimes their videos are gems of wisdom.

It was a video about how a school has used diversity as a classroom resource and how doing that has allowed students to become teachers for the benefit of the local community.

Watch this video on YouTube.

This struck a cord with me personally because it's essentially about the power to achieve great things that is held within the collective capacity of a community;  Teaching a group to teach other groups to teach the community.  This helps communities to adapt to and overcome adversity through a shared strength.

This is something that the "inner circle" of the Wodonga CRT Support Network understand well as it is one of the very things the Network is founded on.  VIT created CRT Networks with the specific goal of providing a collegial arena for CRTs to meet and learn from each other.  The DEECD utilised CRT Network Coordinators to distribute funding that provides PD for CRTs.  These, of course, are where the two mainstays of the Network come from.

If the quality is kept high, these things allow CRTs to learn strategies and get access to resources that will positively effect their teaching.  They get access to quality PD opportunities for their 20 hours for registration renewal.  The goals of VIT and the DEECD are both met and we hope that each and every CRT who attends finds what we do on this front beneficial!

There is a 3rd, and less obvious but no less important, component to what we attempt to provide for our members.  Like the above we don't want the effect of what we do to end at the door of the classrooms our members teach in.  We always wanted to have a much greater impact on local education in a solid way so that our efforts gained the most positive and productive effects possible.

The Network, through the input of it's members, built a community that inspires it's members.  A community that felt confident not only in it's ability to learn from itself or the professional development workshops provided but was inspired to head out and also become inspirational to others, to become the teachers outside of the network for those inspired to learn.

Of course we worked hard in the background to enable this too.  We sourced high calibre presenters such as Michael Ymer and Karen Starkiss, forerunners in their fields.  Of course the first reason is that these presenters provide valuable knowledge that they explain easily to those attending, maximising the learning potential of our workshops.  This, however, wasn't the only reason.  These two in particular are quite well known in the local educational community because of their quality.  Because they are not brought in locally very often, it's a big deal when someone has seen them.

This generates a certain effect;  "Wow, you saw who?  Tell me all about it!".

The pupil becomes the teacher.  The wider community benefits from what we do in a solid way.

This has a resounding effect.  CRTs become better trained, they become confident and motivated, they are seen as a valuable source of information by their peers (CRT or otherwise).  CRT morale is raised allowing them to become more resilient to the everyday trials and tribulations of working as a CRT.  More local schools begin inviting more CRTs to in-school PD which begins this cycle all over again.

The Network allows us to carry each other through difficult days and difficult times.  That right there is the true power of community.

Regards,

Mel.