Learning Forward
Emily Robinson Leclair, Community Learning Network
March 11, 2021 was a significant date. A date that marked one full year since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.
In that year, you may have whipped coffee, baked banana bread, kept a sourdough starter alive or cleaned your house from top to bottom. Maybe you started a new hobby or revisited an old one. Alternatively, you may have stopped something or decided to make a significant life change.
You may have lost a loved one, missed celebrations of birth and life, cried more (or less). Our individual experiences this past year have been diverse.
In addition to our own personal experience this past year we have shared in a collective experience. We watched as our province shut down (more than once) and are all too aware of the far-reaching impacts on our work, home and communities.
I just revisited my blog post from this time last year and it focused on connecting with learners remotely. At the time, I relied on the guidance of the Violence and Learning Network:
When we are in crisis, it‘s hard to take a step back so we can breathe and maybe even look at our situation in a new way. Thinking about what's going on can feel intimidating, painful, and sometimes useless - we just want everything to stop!
But, if we are gentle with ourselves, when we are ready, it can be so helpful to just play around with ideas a bit - try out some ways of expressing ourselves, experiment with different ways of thinking.
Fast forward 365+ days and I am equally struck by a quote from George Couros: 
George Couros is a worldwide leader in the area of innovative teaching, learning, and leading, and has a focus on innovation as a human endeavor. His belief that meaningful change happens when you first connect to people’s hearts, is modeled in his writing and speaking. George will be joining us on Tuesday, April 20 11:30 am – 12:30 pm to discuss the idea and characteristics of “The Innovator’s Mindset” and share persuasive examples on why this is so crucial for all educators. Register here.
Heather Plett’s work also focuses on relationship. When our lives are disrupted by something like a pandemic, it can impact our relationships, send our emotions into overdrive, and make it particularly difficult to do our jobs and support people we care about. Heather joins us on Wednesday, April 21 11:30 am – 12:30 pm to explore holding space for each other and ourselves in the midst of disruption. We will talk about how people respond differently to disruption, based on what their greatest areas of threat are, and we’ll explore ways of being compassionate with ourselves while continuing to be supportive of others. Register here.
Jesse Lipscombe is an actor, activist, speaker and musician. Jesse launched the #MakeItAwkward campaign to combat racism, misogyny, homophobia and hatred of all kinds. Small micro-aggressions have created a dangerous and unsafe landscape for many marginalized individuals in Alberta. Jesse joins us on Thursday, April 22 11:30 am – 12:30 pm to help us incorporate the #MakeItAwkward mantra into our own lives. Register here.
We encourage you and your teams to join us for all three Featured Speakers. In order to ‘Learn Forward’, we need to make space for reflection and innovation, connection and relationship and learning and unlearning.
Emily Robinson Leclair
CLN South RSS
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