Blog #4: Chapter 4 Connected Educator

    In Chapter 4 of the Connected Educated the author focuses on the relationship factor of a personal knowledge that and allow other people to guide you, you become more powerful in what you know and what you teach. The relationships you build in such work environments can sometimes become your whole life and so upkeeping them becomes almost mandatory. She begins with emphasizing the importance of trust which is developed through "clear, not imposed, codeveloped, and consistent" standards (Nussbaum 63). This is how leadership skills develop and how people feel comfortable enough to effectively collaborate. It is also important that if you are creating these relationships that you create a space of "genuine collaboration and collegiality" because when the connections are real the work brought from those conversations are their best (Nussbaum 63). Nussbaum explains that when you have a bunch of conflicting ideas and beliefs without a good means of facilitating the conversation, the conversation begins to "lack richness" which is never something you want as you want the conversation to thrive and be fruitful (Nussbaum 64).  

Essentially the ability to upkeep collegiality is a big step in becoming better educators in general because it allows for better means of collaboration. But without a shared vision, none of this would be remotely possible because you don't want to force people to build ideas that they don't necessarily agree with. You want to build a community of genuine "commitment and enrollment" so that the work can have an impactful meaning rather than it being an assortment of conflicting values (Nussbaum 65). You want to foster passions and allow creativity to shine through and allow for a more efficient learning environment. Nussbaum then goes into to explaining the steps of collaboration starting from forming the group, brainstorming ideas, setting norms for the group, and placing that into action for good performance levels.  

    This is particularly important in a career field in the criminal justice system because it is imperative that we feed off one another's ideas and inferences. In order to solve any case, you need minds to combine to create a conclusion. That is also why you see detectives or cops or agents band together so much because they consistently feed off one another's ideas. That is the only way you can be good at a job that really makes or breaks society. Creating an environment where you can have trust in the people that you are building ideas or sharing tasks