I've been thinking about community lately. What communities am I part of and how do I interact with them. What do they bring to me that I cannot get on my own. As an EdTech person, the number of communities I have joined has grown over the years. Some are super active at the start, then life gets in the way of everyone and the community slowly falls away. A community only thrives when its members are active. Managing a thriving community takes time and dedication and that can be tough for teachers who might not have the energy after a particularly difficult day or week or month of teaching.
With that idea of EdTech communities, I thought more about school communities. Every school wants to foster a community feeling that makes everyone feel welcomed, seen, and heard. Building community is a marathon, not a sprint. That idea can be tough for some school leaders to accept because "turn around" need to happen quickly to showcase change.
As teachers, we work very hard to foster a strong sense of community in the classroom and that can lend itself to a school community, but do teachers have the bandwidth to support the growth of the entire school's community? Where would they even start? Do not come at me with committee work either.
I'm not sure there is an answer to these questions. I know that the communities I cherish most are filled with people I consider to be friends and I always leave community interactions feeling better. Not just about what I learned, but about who I spent my time thinking and growing.
What does your community do for you?