Learning has changed. The Learner has changed. I have changed. We need to change.

Dear Colleague,

In our world of core curriculums, standardized tests, and a myriad other factors influencing learning, the importance of having a network for support, encouragement and growth is critical.

As we seek to provide a more differentiated and individualized opportunity for our learners, we must also acknowledge the reality that our profession is undertaking to adjust its role in the larger scheme of education. Just as not all of our learners learn equally well in the same manner, neither do all of our colleagues draw from the same strengths, backgrounds, comforts of expertise, or environments necessary to support all aspects of learning. The rapid changes brought about by technology provide both a wonderful opportunity to allow us to better support learning, and at the same time present challenges for our profession, our institutions, and our societies.

Our voices and our actions can be personal, or they can be collective. But we must work to ensure that the environment exists to support that dialogue and those actions. When we feel constraining pressures due to political, social, institutional, personal, or environmental conditions, we must ask, "How can we support one another to ensure that our learners, colleagues, and communities can work together to find a positive solution?"

In today's "flattened," and increasingly less hierarchal world, we each need to be more open to engaging in effective communication to support and enact steps to help one another. We say our children need to better understand their global world so that they can be prepared to both survive and live productively within it. This must be more than a curriculum that we "teach." It must be a practice that we, as adults, implement as well.

In moving away from the long-standing model of schooling which sees learners as the standardized outputs of a process, we must acknowledge that our learners need better skills and awareness to set their directions, respectfully collaborate, and act in the best interests of everyone in the global community. These are the same elements that we must create for ourselves as members of our own learning and working environments.

Just as we work to open doors for our learners, we must work to open doors for our colleagues and our communities. We can neither idly wait for this to come to us, nor must we abdicate our responsibility to act.

Find a trusted colleague with whom you can work. Set some common directions, and be sure to support one another as you act.

Make some meaningful change of your own.

Andrew Forgrave