#LRNG It's What It's All About Today, Culminating Innovative Projects In Connecticut and Celebrating Ubuntu All The Way

A year ago today, I was interviewing new teachers for the Invitational Summer Institute to participate in 2014. At the time, I didn't realize they would bond as they did or that they'd plan ideas for future projects that they desired to be carried out in their classrooms.

Summer occurred and excellence followed. Soon after the summer, the National Writing Project, John Legend Show Me Campaign, and MacArthur foundation hosted an RFP for innovative projects that required students to think outside the box and to challenge traditional classroom boundaries. I called the teachers and asked, "What do you think?" They loved the idea and we applied.

The rest is history.

Today, May 22, 2015, the 6 schools receiving the LRNG Innovation Challenge Award will congregate at Fairfield University to showcase their yearlong projects. It will be a day of learning (LRNG) because the conference design is based on the National Writing Project model (but this time, students teaching students about their Tedx work, digital stories, ethnographies, web designs, and blogs).

And it is an interesting concept, really - one that we've somewhat forgotten with 21st century technologies. Human beings need human beings in order to survive. Not a single one of us can go at this adventure alone. Rather, we can be who we are because of one another - the theme for this particular conference.

And so I send this post off into cyberspace knowing that 24 hours from right now, I will be reflecting on a collaboration that once was.

I'm so excited to celebrate with Darien, Staples, Central, Global Studies, Barlow, and Bassick today (but I also need to gloat a little...Chitunga got three A's and an A- during his first semester in college - very, very proud of him).