My uncle George spent 90 years joyfully searching for people to whom he could delegate a task. He found me along the way as well as hundreds more. George had a mysterious gift for telling folks what they were going to do. And, as far as I know, everybody did it. That’s pretty cool, but not the best part. Speaking at his memorial, his son-in-law mentioned how George was known for asking others to take on responsibility for this or that. Probably every one of the several hundred people present could raise their hand if asked if George had ever asked for a favor. But the next question his son-in-law asked was the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. He paused, then asked, “When George asked for your help, did he ever ask you to do something for him personally?” That was a “wow” moment. Of course, the answer was no. He never asked for himself.

George’s mission was to make the world aware that Childersburg is the best place in the universe. The superior status of his hometown was not up for debate. You learned this the way he did – by working for it. He did all the things great citizen leaders do – he saw a need and met it. Whether it was launching a chamber of commerce, rebuilding and refurbishing historical sites, or establishing commissions and societies to promote the town’s interests, George made it happen. But, he’d be the first to tell you that he did not do it alone. He was 90 years old when he died. Most likely Uncle George wasn’t up on the 21st Century skills we are so busy promoting these days in education. We fill our computer screens with words like collaboration, cooperation, sharing, teamwork, flexibility, innovation, and problem-solving. We focus on these so-called 21st Century skills because we think they are the keys to our future. Aren’t we silly? Those actions have been around a very long time. Examples are all around us if we are willing to open our eyes.

Some day I want to be on someone’s “wow, what a life” list. I have to be willing to be like George. In the end no one minds your passion, eagerness, and urgency in working to make the world better. When you make the sacrifices, keep the long hours, and do yeoman’s labor day in and day out, you’ll be remembered by countless smiling faces. Hopefully, I will have asked each one of them to do something to make our world better.

Yesterday the Alabama Best Practices Center held its first face to face meeting of the year for the schools involved in its 21st Century Learners project. Five people from twenty Alabama schools convened in Alabaster to prepare for a year of professional technological growth in the third year of the program. I don’t remember being served a Jolt or Vault cola, but somehow an energy source was poured into me and many of the other teachers present. This energy could be found everywhere. You could feel it in the messages each educator left to another on our networking site, Ning. You could hear the energy in the noisy conversations. You can see the energy on the abpc wiki, in the emails to each other, and in today’s conversations in the halls among the teachers who attended. And it hasn’t even been 24 hours since it ended.

The day was loaded full of instruction for meaningful uses of technology in our classrooms. All of this can be seen by the world at the abpc wiki. The leaders of the project, Cathy Gassenhieimer and Sheryl Nussbaum Beach, can be counted on to thoroughly plan a meaningful experience for teachers. This kind of attention to detail provides the motivation to engage the message and transfer to practice. Today, the transferring began.

But what made the F2F (Face to Face) launch such a great jolt into this professional learning year was how the group felt about the project. It is our mission to prepare our students for this century. We no longer need to teach kids how to work on the railroad, we must teach them how to adapt and work on things we haven’t yet conceived. Not only does everyone believe in this mission, 21st Century Learner teams refused to make excuses for failing to carry out that mission. It’s exciting to be a part such a trailblazing group of educators.

I am looking forward to so many things during this next year. Deeper connections to other “mission-minded” educators is somewhere near the top of my list. Sharing, talking, and blogging will be great fun in 2007-08. I’m even feeling pretty good about failing when I try something that doesn’t work. Basically, it’s a year to take risks, reflect, and learn from taking risks. And none of us have to do that alone. A supportive structure for learning is not easy to create. But this has been accomplished over the last couple of years by the hard work of lots of teachers and their leaders at the ABPC.

Jolt and Vault promote themselves as energy in a bottle. Trying to bottle and sell what is happening in Alabama might really be worth a venture capitalist’s efforts. Our 21st Century Learners project doesn’t have an official energy drink as its corporate sponsor. Now that I think about it, maybe it should!

Students are not the same kinds of learners that teachers once were. Their world is drastically different from what we knew as students. And that changes so much about teaching. It changes techniques, tools, methods, and even content, to an extent. But, the most important thing that must change is our attitude. If we hang on to our learning styles of decades past, our audience will see our teaching as a less that classic black -n- white show with nothing that seems to interest or apply to a student of the modern world.

What do today’s audiences demand from us? How can we deliver?