In Seth Godin’s Tribes, he explains that “it takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe:

• A shared interest
• A way to communicate (24).

Godin also posits, “So a leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members by

• transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change;
• providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and
• leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members” (25).

Well, on July 25, 2011, David Wees (whom I have never met, yet I feel he is a colleague) published a blog post entitled, “The quiet revolution in education.” Via a tool like this blog, I may be preaching only to the choir, but I would encourage you to watch the TED talk that Wees embedded into his post, and I would strongly recommend that you read his post. In essence, he provides an incredibly cogent explanation of why we educators should be embracing social media tools and sharing practices so that we can “tighten [our] communication” in order to further “[transform our] shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change.” Together all of us can “[leverage] the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members.”

As teachers, educators, lead learners – whatever you want to call us – don’t we want a similar thing for our children? Don’t we want them to pursue their interests with passion so as to increase their knowledge and understanding of a thing so as to contribute to positive growth and development in our citizenry?

If we want it for our children, we should practice and model it ourselves! We are rearing and guiding students in a Web 2.0 and 3.0 world…we need to be Web 2.0 and 3.0 people! School should prepare students for the world in which we live – teachers should guide the way.

I believe David Wees has provided a superb “why” regarding our need as educators to connect with one another and share. What if each of us who already feel a member of this tribe reached out to an educator who is not connected in this Web 2.0 way? What if an entire faculty – 100% of us working together in a school – agreed to an experiment of being connected in this way with a “world faculty” of passionate, questioning, driven and motivated teachers…educators…lead learners? How much more resourceful could we be for our student learners?

Then, just this morning, David Wees retweeted MmeNero and her great Slideshare about Twitter for educators. Now, in addition to the “why,” we have a good link to a “what” and a “how.” With the why, what, and how at our finger tips, we can get some exciting things accomplished.

With whom will you share? Who will you bring into the tribe? The new tribe member might just tweet that one thing which could help us all reach a child that much better. Imagine the wisdom and experience that is NOT in the social media landscape. Let’s work to get those amazing voices here!

Bonus: Simon Sinek’s TED talk about the Golden Circle of Why, What, and How.

Works Cited:

Godin, Seth. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Penguin Group, New York: 2008.