Published in the Jan. 21 – Feb. 3, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
John Horner
Teaching isn’t just for teachers. Students are not just the young. And everyone and everything is connected whether we like it or not.
Education in our community is everyone’s job. We are teaching others all the time, either consciously or unconsciously.
Given that, let’s be thoughtful about it. For four years now, one way of inspiring learning among our young people has been through your Chamber of Commerce’s Education Committee.
This past week we put on two of our major programs, “Rock the Mock” interview skills training for high school students and the Morgan Hill Science Fair for middle and high school students. These are exciting and impactful programs in their own right, but they just scratch the surface of what is possible and feasible. While we continue to build incrementally on the joy and connections those programs generate, we also must look forward to our next big leap forward into further engagement.
Fortunately, innovative models of even deeper community engagement are already being demonstrated in school districts throughout California — such as those in Antioch, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena, Porterville, Sacramento City, and West Contra Costa — through the comprehensive implementation of the Linked Learning model.
Linked Learning includes the traditionally recognized elements of rigorous academics and personalized support services, but it goes above and beyond through implementation of courses specific to career-focused coursework and work-based learning.
In order to do so, regional businesses engage as educational partners with mentoring, job-shadowing, site visits, intensive internships, school-site based industry laboratories and virtual apprenticeships.
A wealth of information, resources and how-it-works videos are on the connectedcalifornia.org website, and I urge you to spend some time there. After all, students are not just the young and we all have skills and information to learn. So please do your homework.
The most surprising thing which consistently comes out of our interviewing skills program isn’t the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students, but the heartfelt appreciation the adult volunteers share about their time with these students.
Traditionally we have a short wrap-up session with the volunteers at the conclusion of the event, and the stories the volunteers share of the inspiration, excitement and satisfaction they got out of their time with these amazing young people often brings tears to my eyes.
No matter our age, we have things to learn from and about one another. In this way, we really all are connected. Our modern systems tend toward putting bits or our lives into discrete and separate boxes, but those boxes are an illusion.
Like it or not, our businesses, schools, homes, public spaces and more are all connected. Great things are possible when we realize that fact and deepen those connections. Linked Learning is a fabulous opportunity to achieve just that.
John Horner is the president and CEO of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce. Reach him at (408) 779-7444 or at [email protected].
