Professional Learning @ Montcrest: Book Clubs

As a learning community, we take time and are intentional about the ways we learn and grow together. The past two years of disruption to our ‘normal’ ways of engaging in school life has not stopped or slowed our professional learning, arguably it may be the complete opposite. In this blog series, we intend to share a little about the professional learning of the Montcrest faculty, staff and leaders, focusing on the books we have been reading.

What did learning look like in 2021/22?

In our last school year, personal professional growth goals were tracked against our strategic commitments with high degrees of alignment for all faculty. Although there were diverse interests and desires for learning, there were some emerging themes we were able to identify as commonalities across groups:

• Anti-racism (eg social justice, culturally responsive teaching, decolonization of the curriculum)
• Gender identity (eg inclusive community, school and classroom practices)
• Mind, Brain and Education Science (eg Science of reading, neuroscience)

With these themes identified, the Strategy Working Group took time to determine appropriate books to support the learning that would transcend the age of learners and subjects taught. The books selected for last year and the numbers of people who have read, who are reading or are interested in reading are:

• Me and White Supremacy: 25 people
• Gender: Your Guide: 46 people
• Powerful Teaching: 38 people

Once a month we took time to meet with others reading the same book to discuss our learning. With many people engaged in reading over the summer, we look forward to a Montcrest Monday in the near future to discuss and plan how we intend our learning to have an impact on our practice in classrooms and beyond.

What might learning look like this year?

As we move into the second year of our strategic plan to empower personalized learning in an inclusive community, we are aware that many people’s areas of priority in their practice may have evolved over time. As we have embarked on collaborative learning and goals relating to Structured Literacy, Mathematics and enhancing our curriculum, we feel that it is necessary to continue to offer choice in the ways we continue to learn together. Through professional growth conversations, we will again identify the common emerging themes and identify new texts for members of the Montcrest community to engage with.

These are all texts we have multiple copies of and will continue to be in circulation with the internal team. In the near future, we hope to have copies available to share with families for anyone interested in digging deeper. In the meantime, look out for a series of three articles summarizing each of the books, including some of the key takeaways from the faculty and staff members. We hope these summaries will spark your own learning and unlearning as we strive to empower personalized learning in an inclusive community.