Community+Leader

=Meet Brian Crosby, Your Community Leader= **Brian Crosby** **learningismessy@gmail.com** **Twitter: [|bcrosby]** **Skype: learningismessy**
 * Blog: http://www.learningismessy.com/blog**

This is a great place to be! You are going to meet and learn from some very knowledgeable people, and some of them are you. As educators we are often so busy and confined to our classrooms or offices we miss out on our greatest resource … each other. And I don't mean just the several teachers at your grade level or others in your building you meet with the most, but others we aren't even aware of much. That is what Powerful Learning Practice is best at. Because you are part of this group now … and that means you are actually expected to get involved in the new pedagogy you are hearing about.

You have “permission” to try new things. And there are great new things. That's exciting … well and maybe a bit scary, depending on who you are, but that is normal when you take a trip to somewhere not familiar to you. You have already gotten to (or are about to) hear from Will, Sheryl and others about a vision of what schools are starting to become, and what is possible for them to become. They are great at the big picture stuff.

I've been fortunate to have the tools - laptops, cameras, internet access that is mostly open, - available to me, but until the last few years I've been missing the relationships with others that are trying to do the same things. You have that at your fingertips here. Maybe better, you will have some that are very experienced to help along the way, but others that are at a similar place as you.

My blog is titled “Learning Is Messy.” My motto is, “roll up your sleeves and get messy.” Well here is your chance. Try things out … get messy … learn from what happens along the way. We've all been there … it's OK. We will make it safe. We are a community of learners. This is a core piece of my philosophy and the attitude I engender in my students.

This is a great place to be, and a great time to be here!