Related Resources from TLT Group
FACULTY/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Invitations   Goals/Participants  Definitions/Issues Tools/Media
Principles/Structure  Practices/Techniques  Implications/Next Steps

BCCOOC Vision Worth Working Toward

Vision(s) Worth Working Toward:  A Starting Place

• We admire or at least respect many different ways of teaching and learning;  and similarly, different uses of new technologies to improve teaching and learning. 

• However, some ways of using information technology impede progress in the directions we admire or move education in directions we do not. 

• We cannot help advance all Visions, nor do we want to.

• While there are many characteristics we respect, we will work to support only those educational visions that include efforts to build community and "connectedness" among teachers and learners - and other active contributors to education. 
  [See "Connectedness" by Edward Hallowell.  ==>]

• We will try not to support ways of using technology that tend to undermine or impede such efforts.

• NOTE:  Early in the 21st Century it may be more important than ever both to strengthen "community" in a small, uniform group taking a course together, and to strengthen connections among large, diverse groups extending beyond the boundaries of any single nation.

Connectedness

Edward Hallowell on "Connectedness":

"What is connectedness? 

It is a sense of being a part of something larger than oneself.  It is a sense of belonging, or a sense of accompaniment.  It is that feeling in your bones that you are not alone.  It is a sense that no matter how scary things may become, there is a hand for you in the dark.  While ambition drives us to achieve, connectedness is my word for the force that urges us to ally, to affiliate, to enter into mutual relationships, to take strength and to grow through cooperative behavior.

"   six different kinds of connectedness ...
They include:

  1. Familial connectedness

  2. Historical connectedness

  3. Social connectedness

  4. Institutional/Organizational connectedness

  5. Connectedness to information and ideas

  6. Religious/Transcendent connectedness

From Pages 193-209, "Connectedness" 
the closing essay by Edward M. Hallowell in 
Finding the Heart of the Child:  
Essays on Children, Families, and Schools

by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.  
and Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D.

To order a copy of this book, please contact:

Association of Independent Schools 
in New England, Inc.

222 Forbes Road, Suite 105

Braintree, MA  02184

phone: 617/849-3080