Notes From The Brier - Of Men and Brooms, and Communities...

Lots to see at the Tim Hortons Brier here in Winnipeg - amazing curling, amazing people and crowds, and men with brooms. It took a sport like curling to even introduce men to brooms, because I don't know about you, but I for one applaud the rights of dust bunnies in their quest to become sentient beings. For all of those housework-challenged males out there (and you know who you are...) you may want to take up curling and ease into that whole wielding a broom at home thing...

The real cool thing at the Brier though is the sense of community or should I say communities - each province and territory has a team - there are communities supporting each of them, there are the pin traders, the curling fanatics, the curling novices, organizations like the Governor General's Curling Club, local clubs and associations, and many, many more - some who have been around for 50 years and longer. Then there is the organizing committee, and the hundreds of volunteers that make the whole show work. A whole series of individual communities that collectively comes together to be the Brier.

I have spent a week listening to perfect strangers talk to each other like life-long friends joined by the sense of community of their sport and the event. There are people who make the annual trek to the Brier - their annual community get together and many have been doing this for scores of years.

Being surrounded by all of this sense of community has gotten me thinking - if we are so good at making and being part of communities in our day to day lives, how can we successfully bring this into learning communities - which for me will be (and are) the future of education - learning has become too complex and there is just too much information out there for learning not to be done collaboratively in a community - the key is how do we do that? we need to take our ability to form and nurture communities and do the same for our faculty, staff, learners, and institutions of learning - learning is a team sport - it works best in a community that will encourage and foster it - I have lots to say about that - stay tuned...

But for now it's back to the Brier - "HURRY HARD!!"