New learning and continued amazement . . .

Cort, one of the students will be guest blogging this week about his experience in New York. Unfortunately, he became ill on our return so it will be awhile before we hear from him. I am eager to hear what he has to say because he is one of the critical leaders in the Environmental Club at the high school and his energy and commitment will be necessary as we move into the future.

On Thursday and Friday we had some time as a team to begin thinking about how to move this work into the future. The Global Academy team is committed to a focus on sustainability and to embedding the skills of system thinking into the units that they develop. Clare and Matt have also agreed to be advisors for the club. Terry will also play an important role and shared ideas that he believes can become a part of the school and the community. We have started the discussion to establish goals and have agreed to meeting at least quarterly to monitor our progress and to maintain focus and energy.

As I shared earlier, the Global Academy team had an opportunity to begin planning with Peter. They will be reading parts of his book, The Necessary Revolution and he has agreed to meet with them electronically over the year. There will not be any other high school students in the world with the opportunity this year to learn from one of the leading world experts on system thinking and sustainability business practices.

For me it was a learning and rewarding week. I learned much more about what a comprehensive sustainability curriculum must include. We have started this work aligned with our state’s standards so it will be interesting to see how what I have learned compares to the state’s guidelines and our implementation of these guidelines. I also for the first time have a better understanding of how system thinking can be embedded into our existing work and some guidance from the work done by the Cloud Institute over time. I learned a lot, but left knowing there is much more to learn.

I also have an e-mail from Peter wanting to connect on future planning for the SOL Education Partnership and the work we are doing. It always amazes me when he takes the time to share his thinking and actually asks for our thoughts and support. He will be out of the country next week working with government and business representatives on world sustainability issues. This work, after he volunteered to work a week with students and staff from public and private schools in our country to promote the need for and support changes that influence our work and the role of students in this work. Who would have thought that Tahoma would become an important part of this work?