During one of the initial meetings for our new mentor program one of the fellow mentees leaned over to me and said "we should do this over drinks". I think he had a great idea (not that I am promoting drinking). I have worked on teams where we were social together and teams where we weren't social. together. I know that having that more personal interaction helps with the everyday grind and maybe even introduces you to someone you didn't know very well, especially in the isolating career of teaching.
So as we are moving forward with the first semester of the new mentoring program I decided to incorporate two or three social outings. Last week was the first outing. When I organized it, I purposely didn't ask people to RSVP, I just told them where and when. As expected a couple of people stopped me in the hall or sent me an email with their regrets but I didn't hear many "I'm coming" so I wasn't sure how it would go. In the end there were over a dozen people who came and socialized after school (close to half the group). I think that's a win!
By my observations there seemed to be good conversation between many people, some social and some professional. I also heard many introductions around the table so I know some relationships were new. In the end as the crowd started to thin I was talking with a fellow mentee and he told me that he learned more than one thing that night. I also had a couple of good conversations and confirmed a couple of things about our upcoming interim reports. I think that's a double win!
Learning doesn't have always happen in the classroom or at a PD session and sometimes is better if it doesn't! Plus, it's also nice to know a bit about the person you pass in the hall everyday.
