Cherish the journey

Going on a journey from point A to point B means you get to view different things.  Especially the first time.  Arrival is not as important as the journey and what you see and think about on the way.

While on a journey whether a physical one like a holiday or a mental one like professional learning, you are open to change.  The very nature of journeying is to expect change.

Teaching as inquiry which New Zealand Teachers embark on every year can feel compulsory.  If we can drive the inquiry by deciding which direction to go in, it will be authentic and meaningful.  My inquiry this year around learning through play was motivating, iterative, focused, meaningful.  I was driving it.  Like all authentic learning it expected me to take it seriously.    I learnt more this year than any other year.  

Starting a Facebook community that really took off was significant.  The community included experts, practitioners, researchers, novices.  This mix meant posts became useful.  Provocations, inspiration, ideas, examples all made up the content.  They called me on deeper.

This type of journey may not happen everyday, but I would like to believe it could.  Finding the right topic, the right people and the right medium.  It makes professional learning dynamic and inspiring.  People who hold knowledge on the topic become very important.  They help those new to the discussion by giving helpful tips, books to read, photos of examples.    But for those experts, the newbies also offer a fresh look at the journey they have taken, maybe several times.  Their staleness is challenged and they get to see the issues and dynamics of the topic through new eyes.  This is gold.  

I have loved the journey and appreciate the gems of discovering something for the first time.  Being able to make the discoveries myself makes learning fun and meaningful for the students I teach.  Being supported and enabled by others so amazing.

I look forward to 2016 and the new discoveries to be made.  If you haven't taken a journey like this before, find your passion, mix it with some danger, take some risk, step out and share and ask the questions even if you think they sound dumb... they won't be.  Try a new online medium.  Form a community.  You will be amazed at how it develops your teaching.