Will and Bruce have been “Promoted”!
I’m in my office working on building out next month’s MLC theme (blogs, podcasts, and more) AND finalizing the details of getting three new courses shipped for our community. Yes, I’m working really hard while Bruce is likely swimming with the sharks, and Will is likely headed to Tuck’s basketball game at Colgate!
No, really…I’m not bitter!
I guess that’s what happens when you get “promoted” at Modern Learners! Yes, you heard it here first: Bruce Dixon and Will Richardson have both been… “promoted”! They are escaping the day to day operations at Modern Learners to do…well, to do life.
And, life is treating both of them well!
They have turned over the day to day operations of Modern Learners to me. I’m sure they’ll check in every once in awhile via the blog or the podcast, but for the most part, they are going to be advising the work of Modern Learners from behind the scenes. Bruce is truly enjoying this promotion, and unless you’re planning a trip to Melbourne, you likely won’t hear much from him. Will is enjoying his promotion too, but he can never be quiet for too long. His tweeting is still on point!
So what does this mean for Modern Learners?
Well, that’s an interesting question. In regards to the business model, not much.
We will still offer Change School, although fewer times each year. Cohort 10 begins in Mid March. Get on the waitlist here!
We will still provide a safe online space for building community around the concepts of Modern Learning. A huge shout out to Lyn Hilt, Hazel Mason, and Linda Ashida for continuing to help me with MLC!
And, we will still offer courses created by members of our Modern Learners Community that will encourage looking at learning through the Modern Learners lens. The goal with these courses is to provide them to teams of teachers who want to learn and grow together. We are in the process of welcoming Bexley Schools from Ohio to the 10 Principles course, and Prospect High School in Illinois has a team of teachers working through Reimagining Assessment.
In regards to the voice of Modern Learners and the tone…lol…I’m not Will or Bruce. Will is a prolific writer and provocateur. He pushed our thinking with everything he put into the world. Bruce always had a different angle worth considering. His global experiences in the field added a dimension that will be greatly missed and greatly sought after. I’ll continue to blog and it’s likely the podcast will become a bit more regular in a few weeks. I think you’ll learn to enjoy my “sassy by design” personality…once you adjust to my voice, which as you know, was God-given and I can’t really change it. 😜 I do know a person who may help me with my “radio voice”, but let’s be real, I’ve got a day job, a company to run, kids to raise, and schools to change, so that might not be the biggest priority.
The biggest change you’ll see from Modern Learners over the next few months is the raising of the voices of the people in our community. We will be calling for submissions to the blog very soon as we want to feature the people in our community who are digging in and doing the work. If you are one of those people and would like to write for us, please watch your email later this week. The opportunity is just around the corner!
We’ll Keep On Learning
Finally, in 2019 Modern Learners set a learning goal to dig into equity. We were committed to looking at ourselves and our biases first. We continue to do this work together. We also did a lot of this work inside of our Modern Learners Community. We read Robin DeAngelo’s White Fragility, and Cornelius Minor’s We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be. We added a topic to specifically address anti-racism work in order to continue conversations after our book studies. We also tapped into the work of our colleagues of color. We are definitely different as a result of #distrupttext founded by Tricia Ebarvia, Dr. Kimberly Parker, Lorena German, and Julia Torres. The #cleartheair conversations established by Val Brown have been monumental in the our learning too. There are so many other colleagues of color we have learned from in the last year. All this to say, we are a lot more conscious of our own biases, and we recognize we still have them, but we will continue to do what we can to create a safe and welcoming space in the Modern Learners Community for our colleagues of color.
Modern Learners will continue to be on a mission to change the experience of school for children around the world by putting a focus back on learning. Our work has never been about individuals. It has always been about creating a movement. Will and Bruce will always be a part of this work. Their love and guidance will always be welcomed and appreciated here. They have truly been promoted to advisor status! Their promotion is not permission for the work to stop. We need to keep on building the movement. I’m committed to the journey, and I hope you are too!
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Wow, exciting changes abound. Will and Bruce have been truly inspirational and I wish them the best always, and look forward to their advisory words from time to time. The great thing about this community is the building of people ready to catch that relay baton and keep promoting and provoking modern learning. Look forward to your voice Missy and contributing whenever I can!
Karyn, you are such an amazing contributor. Your course will be promoted very soon! It is so good!
Congratulations Missy! Sounds like it will be an exciting transition. I look forward to staying connected and hopefully contributing more to the community.