Many of us are busy preparing for the 23-24 school year. And like every year, we are hoping to kick-off our work in a way that inspires hope and a sense of togetherness.
This past week I had the pleasure of meeting with building leadership teams to do some planning and preparation. The longer I’m in our beautiful profession, the more clear it is to me just how deeply we need each other. This work is hard. This work is important. This work is made better when we leverage the strengths of teammates and work together to design learning experiences.
Because this work is so hard. And because this work is so important. And because the traditional system of school places educators in silos, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the idea of working together and collaborating. So, how do we make this big shift to having rich conversations about instruction with our colleagues? How do we make the shift to designing curriculum and experiences together? And why does this really matter so much?
I think one simple place to start is with fireflies. You read that correctly.
Fireflies.
I was first introduced to this scientific phenomenon in the book, Big Potential, by Shawn Achor. In this book, happiness researcher Shawn Achor outlines a story about male fireflies. I will paraphrase it, but it is such a powerful read. You can find the excerpt here. In short, a scientist uncovered a truly interesting fact about fireflies in the deep jungle in Southeast Asia. He thought he was seeing flashes of lightning at first but what he uncovered was so shocking that people didn’t believe him at first. Male fireflies were timing their light pulses to occur at the same time. You see, male fireflies, light up to attract female mates. So, why would these fireflies light up at the same time? Wouldn’t this cause them to be in competition? That doesn’t make much sense. Or does it? When male fireflies light up on their own, they have a success rate of 3%. When male fireflies time their pulses within milliseconds of each other, they light up the forest, shining brighter for a bigger distance, drawing more females to them at a mating success rate of 82%. That’s a 79% improvement.
Achor goes on the explain, “Researchers Mirollo and Strogatz from Boston College and MIT found in the Journal of Applied Mathematics that, amazingly, the fireflies do not have to see everybody to create coordinated action; so long as no group of fireflies is completely out of sight of any other group, they can sync up with one another’s rhythms. In other words, it only takes a few nodes to transform the entire system. Our new understanding of “positive systems” teaches us that
the same is true for humans.
As you will discover in this book, by becoming a “positive node” in your workplace, company, or community, and helping those around you improve their creativity, their productivity, their abilities, their performance, and more, you are not only helping the group become better; you are exponentially increasing your own potential for success.
There is one final important detail to this intriguing story. Biologists who have explored these jungles now know that the glow emanating from those mangroves can be seen for miles.
This means it is even easier for other fireflies to find their way to the light. So the brighter it shines, the more newcomers join and add their light. This is true just as much for humans as it is for
fireflies: The more you help people find their light, the brighter you both will shine.”
To kick off the meetings I referenced, I did a small demonstration. I took a strand of rice lights and unraveled it to it’s fullest length. With the lights off and rice lights on, I asked them whether the lights were brighter when they were spaced out in the strand or when they were bunched together inside of the mason jar I put them into with the lid ofnit. Volunteers in both meetings both said the mason jar was brighter.
We then used that demonstration to lead us into the above excerpt to uncover why that was true and to make connections to our work in schools and on teams of teachers.
Their connections were simply beautiful and meaningful. Much moreso than if I had simply told them we were going to focus on collaboration this year because it is important for these reasons or here is what the research says.
At the end of our time together, I gave the lit up mason jar to a person I wanted to celebrate for the many ways they shine. I told them we are starting a new tradition where if we receive the mason jar, we keep it for as long as we need to be reminded of how much we shine and how much brighter we shine when we work together. When we don’t need the jar anymore, we pass it along to a student or staff member with the same message and with a specific celebration about their unique light.
This year, let’s be fireflies. There is enough light for everyone and when we work together, leveraging the individual and collective brilliance of the team, we all shine brighter for our students.
And students shine brighter too.
MEGHAN LAWSON 