How can communities that have been treated inequitably by our society cultivate leadership that improves lives in their communities?
In January, we posed some of the compelling questions the Center is addressing this year. This month, we dive into one of those questions more deeply. We highlight how the Community Learning Exchange is helping communities and share stories of how communities are developing local solutions to issues.
We also invite you to post your own examples of leadership that improves lives in communities at the Center’s Facebook page.
In January, we posed some of the compelling questions the Center is addressing this year. This month, we dive into one of those questions more deeply. We highlight how the Community Learning Exchange is helping communities and share stories of how communities are developing local solutions to issues.
We also invite you to post your own examples of leadership that improves lives in communities at the Center’s Facebook page.
Break the Isolation – Growing Local Leadership in the Community Learning Exchange
On a recent trip to Detroit, Center staff witnessed the challenges in a community that has had rough treatment by major systems. The city that helped build the wealth of the country in a previous generation has been abandoned by major corporations in search for cheap labor and greater profits. The dramatic loss of jobs and commerce led to an exodus of one million people reducing the population from 1.8 million to 800,000. This has affected every major system in the community – housing, schools, and government. In this city of visible decline, people are working together to build leadership and create a new story for the future.
We came to Detroit to meet with educators and community organizations promoting educational equity. Center staff spent three days with local organizations as well as teams from other communities across the US. People came together to create and share innovative approaches to public education, work, and stewardship for theenvironment. They were also redefining what it means to be neighbors living together in a community. The message from Detroit citizens was, “We are moving from survival to thriving and from despair to hope.” We witnessed great talent and spirit in the people we met.
Community members are breaking their isolation and learning to work together. They are also connecting with other communities across the country who are reimagining how communities can work when conventional systems are ineffective. As people come together, they build local leadership capable of creating solutions that work in their community.
This concept of breaking the isolation and growing local leadership is why the Center for Ethical Leadership has partnered over the past decade to create the Community Learning Exchange. Teams from communities across the country come together and share successful approaches to leadership for community change during three-day gatherings. Participants experience the unique local context of the host team’s approaches to issues, share ideas, build their leadership team, and form plans to implement when they go home.
How can you get involved? Break the isolation and recruit a team to come to the 2103 learning exchanges to meet other community teams from around the country:
On a recent trip to Detroit, Center staff witnessed the challenges in a community that has had rough treatment by major systems. The city that helped build the wealth of the country in a previous generation has been abandoned by major corporations in search for cheap labor and greater profits. The dramatic loss of jobs and commerce led to an exodus of one million people reducing the population from 1.8 million to 800,000. This has affected every major system in the community – housing, schools, and government. In this city of visible decline, people are working together to build leadership and create a new story for the future.
We came to Detroit to meet with educators and community organizations promoting educational equity. Center staff spent three days with local organizations as well as teams from other communities across the US. People came together to create and share innovative approaches to public education, work, and stewardship for theenvironment. They were also redefining what it means to be neighbors living together in a community. The message from Detroit citizens was, “We are moving from survival to thriving and from despair to hope.” We witnessed great talent and spirit in the people we met.
Community members are breaking their isolation and learning to work together. They are also connecting with other communities across the country who are reimagining how communities can work when conventional systems are ineffective. As people come together, they build local leadership capable of creating solutions that work in their community.
This concept of breaking the isolation and growing local leadership is why the Center for Ethical Leadership has partnered over the past decade to create the Community Learning Exchange. Teams from communities across the country come together and share successful approaches to leadership for community change during three-day gatherings. Participants experience the unique local context of the host team’s approaches to issues, share ideas, build their leadership team, and form plans to implement when they go home.
How can you get involved? Break the isolation and recruit a team to come to the 2103 learning exchanges to meet other community teams from around the country:
- July 25-28, 2013. Youth Adult Partnership hosted in Central Texas. This CLE will bring together a variety of youth/adult partnerships that are implementing innovative approaches to reach youth from diverse backgrounds, including those who are disconnected, disengaged, or from vulnerable communities. We will tap into the wisdom and passion of youth to shape the institutions that in turn shape their futures
- October 2013. School Leadership as Community Engagement hosted in North Carolina. This learning exchange will focus on a holistic approach that engages schools and communities as one in improving public education. It will emphasize the importance of enacting real changes that embrace deep relationship through love of community.
Developing Local Solutions – A Community Approach to Improving Math Education
When schools come into the national discussion, it is easy for rural school districts to feel they are on their own to grapple with the challenges of helping their young people succeed. In many small school districts, teachers can feel isolated – for instance if there is only one math teacher in the high school. In Wisconsin, a dozen small school districts formed an organization called New Paradigm Partners (NPP) to connect educators in order to address critical issues and share ideas and strategies. They are modeling a collaboration that other districts, whether urban or rural, could learn from.
There is great pressure on all public schools to help students graduate from high school and go to college. The accountability-through-testing movement has ratcheted up this pressure on academic preparation and college readiness – particularly in the areas of math and science. When student mathematical performance was identified as an problem, New Paradigm Partners was ready to act.
NPP has sent teams to several CLEs in the past few years, increasing their capacity to work together in partnerships and to develop plans on key issues. They have learned to ask themselves some of the key questions posed in CLEs: What is the work you need to do next to advance the wellbeing of the community? Who do you need to work with to advance solutions to this issue?
To address the students’ math needs, NPP Identified who needed to be in the discussion and brought together higher education institutions and community members working in local businesses to develop solutions. They developed approaches to work with both students and teachers.
One solution was launching a summer math initiative to work directly with students. The planning team enlisted local business people to help. Volunteers from Johnson Bank, Thrivent and the Experimental Aircraft Association signed up to share real world math problems from their various professions. The University of Wisconsin Barron County and Wisconsin Technical College in Rice Lake brought their expertise on academic preparation and college readiness to this initiative. Additionally, they will work with area teachers to help them better prepare local students for college math courses. The community-university-schools partnership is a great fit for the professional development of the teachers.
Because the local community is involved, it is expected that this work can be sustained and grown. The sharing of information and ideas and will result in stronger teachers. In the end, the students will benefit. “So far, it has been a great partnership. I am hoping that we can do more in the future through NPP,” said Sherry Timmerman, Executive Director of NPP.
For more information, contact Sherry Timmerman.
When schools come into the national discussion, it is easy for rural school districts to feel they are on their own to grapple with the challenges of helping their young people succeed. In many small school districts, teachers can feel isolated – for instance if there is only one math teacher in the high school. In Wisconsin, a dozen small school districts formed an organization called New Paradigm Partners (NPP) to connect educators in order to address critical issues and share ideas and strategies. They are modeling a collaboration that other districts, whether urban or rural, could learn from.
There is great pressure on all public schools to help students graduate from high school and go to college. The accountability-through-testing movement has ratcheted up this pressure on academic preparation and college readiness – particularly in the areas of math and science. When student mathematical performance was identified as an problem, New Paradigm Partners was ready to act.
NPP has sent teams to several CLEs in the past few years, increasing their capacity to work together in partnerships and to develop plans on key issues. They have learned to ask themselves some of the key questions posed in CLEs: What is the work you need to do next to advance the wellbeing of the community? Who do you need to work with to advance solutions to this issue?
To address the students’ math needs, NPP Identified who needed to be in the discussion and brought together higher education institutions and community members working in local businesses to develop solutions. They developed approaches to work with both students and teachers.
One solution was launching a summer math initiative to work directly with students. The planning team enlisted local business people to help. Volunteers from Johnson Bank, Thrivent and the Experimental Aircraft Association signed up to share real world math problems from their various professions. The University of Wisconsin Barron County and Wisconsin Technical College in Rice Lake brought their expertise on academic preparation and college readiness to this initiative. Additionally, they will work with area teachers to help them better prepare local students for college math courses. The community-university-schools partnership is a great fit for the professional development of the teachers.
Because the local community is involved, it is expected that this work can be sustained and grown. The sharing of information and ideas and will result in stronger teachers. In the end, the students will benefit. “So far, it has been a great partnership. I am hoping that we can do more in the future through NPP,” said Sherry Timmerman, Executive Director of NPP.
For more information, contact Sherry Timmerman.
Engage the Community – Principals in Training Learn How to Host Learning Exchanges
The closing circle at a Community Learning Exchange marks the end of a three-day gathering, but it also opens an entirely new chapter. As CLE participants return to their communities, they are ready to facilitate the kinds of solutions-focused conversations experienced during their gathering.
Matt Militello, assistant professor at North Carolina State University and longtime member of the national CLE organizing team, has made it a priority to infuse CLE pedagogy in his work in higher education. When Militello received more than $4 million in federal Race to the Top funds to train rural principals in northeast North Carolina, he started the Northeast Leadership Academy, a two-year principal training program unlike any other in the country.
From the start, future administrators spend more time in rural North Carolina schools than they do taking courses, working through the kinds of challenges they will face on the job. They’re paid a full salary while receiving mentorship and participating in specialized trainings, including at least one Community Learning Exchange. Each graduating NELA fellow will receive his or her principal certification and Masters in School Administration, going on to serve in a rural North Carolina district with a three-year commitment.
This month, twelve NELA fellows flew to South Texas for a Community Learning Exchanged customized for them. In keeping with the CLE process, the participants gathered on a Thursday night with dinner and an opening circle designed to break down barriers and inspire honest conversations. On Friday, the group delved into questions about how to engage communities authentically, such as, “How do you get to know a geographic area? How do you bring people in from different groups and make an action plan to move the community forward?”
Next, the fellows spent all day Saturday turning their exploratory conversations toward action planning, each mapping out an answer to the question, “How would you create a CLE back home?” By the time closing circle wrapped up the gathering on Saturday night, each fellow had developed a plan for hosting a CLE later this year around issues such as race in North Carolina schools.
NELA fellow Elizabeth Moran began applying what she learned at the CLE as soon as she came home. "My first phone calls back in northeast North Carolina were to my County Commissioners, Housing Authorities, Superintendents, and fellow educators," she said. "We must begin the dialogue between schools and community leaders. That is the only way that a difference can begin to be made."
Ultimately, when the fellows take on roles as new principals, Community Learning Exchanges will be a useful tool to build relationships with their communities from a place of mutual listening and learning.
To learn more about the Northeast Leadership Academy, contact Matt Militello.
The closing circle at a Community Learning Exchange marks the end of a three-day gathering, but it also opens an entirely new chapter. As CLE participants return to their communities, they are ready to facilitate the kinds of solutions-focused conversations experienced during their gathering.
Matt Militello, assistant professor at North Carolina State University and longtime member of the national CLE organizing team, has made it a priority to infuse CLE pedagogy in his work in higher education. When Militello received more than $4 million in federal Race to the Top funds to train rural principals in northeast North Carolina, he started the Northeast Leadership Academy, a two-year principal training program unlike any other in the country.
From the start, future administrators spend more time in rural North Carolina schools than they do taking courses, working through the kinds of challenges they will face on the job. They’re paid a full salary while receiving mentorship and participating in specialized trainings, including at least one Community Learning Exchange. Each graduating NELA fellow will receive his or her principal certification and Masters in School Administration, going on to serve in a rural North Carolina district with a three-year commitment.
This month, twelve NELA fellows flew to South Texas for a Community Learning Exchanged customized for them. In keeping with the CLE process, the participants gathered on a Thursday night with dinner and an opening circle designed to break down barriers and inspire honest conversations. On Friday, the group delved into questions about how to engage communities authentically, such as, “How do you get to know a geographic area? How do you bring people in from different groups and make an action plan to move the community forward?”
Next, the fellows spent all day Saturday turning their exploratory conversations toward action planning, each mapping out an answer to the question, “How would you create a CLE back home?” By the time closing circle wrapped up the gathering on Saturday night, each fellow had developed a plan for hosting a CLE later this year around issues such as race in North Carolina schools.
NELA fellow Elizabeth Moran began applying what she learned at the CLE as soon as she came home. "My first phone calls back in northeast North Carolina were to my County Commissioners, Housing Authorities, Superintendents, and fellow educators," she said. "We must begin the dialogue between schools and community leaders. That is the only way that a difference can begin to be made."
Ultimately, when the fellows take on roles as new principals, Community Learning Exchanges will be a useful tool to build relationships with their communities from a place of mutual listening and learning.
To learn more about the Northeast Leadership Academy, contact Matt Militello.
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