“No school, and no school type, has a monopoly on good ideas.” John Chubb, the late president of NAIS, said this to me when we spoke last year for an Atlantic story I was writing about how different school sectors can and should learn from each other.
From that story and my nine years of classroom experience, including the last four reporting in the field, I offer five ways that teachers can connect across sectors. Summer is an ideal time to get started and begin to make connecting a habit.
1. Attend an Edcamp
If you’re eager to break into private-public exchanges, nothing wets your feet like attending an Edcamp, a free-of-charge professional development conference that never has a theme or sets an agenda. Before breaking into groups, participants from all types of schools post discussion questions about anything of interest to them related to learning and teaching. The organization’s website contains a list of upcoming events around the country, including this summer. I plan to attend Edcamp Cape Cod August 1 at Mashpee High School. Educators can even organize an Edcamp at their school.
Educators of all types and sectors broke out into sessions of their choosing at Edcamp Baltimore 2015, hosted at Friends School of Baltimore (Maryland). Photo courtesy of the Edcamp Foundation. Credit: Rebeccah Levey Wish
2. Engage with social media
It’s impossible to overstate the number of meaningful connections I’ve made through social media, especially Twitter. For instance, several years ago I used this platform to connect with Mark Barnes, a celebrated public school teacher and education author. Thanks to him, I now promote student agency to a greater degree in my classroom and focus on sources students use to master concepts and complete work. This summer, I’ll chat with Mark about ways to rethink assessment and feedback. I suggest following #PubPrivBridge to foster discussion about how public and private schools can exchange ideas and work together to benefit all students.
3. Get on Edmodo
Although I don’t use Edmodo, the online social learning platform, for managing my classes online, I do rely on it to exchange ideas with teachers from all types of schools all over the world. As far as I can tell, Edmodo is unrivaled when it comes to making connections (I have more than 120). On this platform, I belong to several niche communities, including College Readiness, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Professional Development. I often post stories and questions about issues that transcend sectors.
As a U.S. history teacher, I ponder the age-old debate about content vs. skills. Through Edmodo, I connected with a public school teacher in Maine last year. She explained that in Maine, teachers must adhere to specific skill-based standards and teach specific content areas. She also sent me a link to Maine’s “Learning Results for Social Studies,” and I assessed how my curriculum matched up.
4. Get involved with Private Schools with a Public Purpose (PSPP)
Through social media and reporting, I’ve become involved with PSPP, an organization whose vision is “to serve all our students by forming partnerships within school communities (private, public, charter, homeschools), nonprofits, foundations, businesses, and any other entity that can support students.” During spring break, I attended the organization’s annual conference at Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland, Ohio. I particularly enjoyed Eric Gordon, chief executive officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, who spoke in support of creative collaboration and why it matters. I suggest examining next year’s conference program for workshops on virtually every possible aspect of public-private partnerships.
For the 10th annual PSPP Conference, teachers from all different school sectors met at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Photo courtesy of Hathaway Brown School.
5. Organize a coffee hangout
I’m engaged to an amazing public school teacher, which allows me to regularly connect with her colleagues. But I run into plenty of other public school teachers during my early-morning coffee runs. I often hear chatter in line about teaching practices or I spot a teacher by his or her identification lanyard. I’m eager to participate in conversations with these professionals, and through them, I have been led to many illuminating discussions about assessment and best practices.
Recently at Dunkin’ Donuts (my coffee of choice), I ran into a fellow American history teacher from the Watertown public school system. We compared how far along we were in covering content and were pleased to realize that we were both about to launch a unit on the Cold War. This summer, I plan to start a more formal coffee hangout with teachers I bump into near where I teach.
Whatever your plans this summer, I urge you find time to reach out to teachers from different sectors. The experience will be worthwhile, I promise.
Elana Rome contributed reporting to this blog post.
