Groups, Professionalism and Pictures

I've written on this topic before but I am urged to do it again so here goes.

On Wednesday of this week the Regina Business Educators' Association (RBEA) has its winter meeting. When I first arrived in Regina this association met very often and was the prime source for professional development and interaction for business educators in Regina. Over the years that primacy has faded to the point where we have only met three times a year for the last few years - once in the fall for coffee, once in the winter to have my pre-interns make a presentation and once in the spring for a 'windup' dinner. For the last few years the attendance at the winter meeting has been my students, me and just a few - fewer than 5 - teachers.

This year is different - so far 26 business educators have indicated they will attend - many of them teachers. What is interesting is that many of the teachers that have signed up, although they were either majors or minors in Business Education at University, aren't teaching in Business Education primarily.

So what's happening to make this change? Perhaps they see this as an opportunity to maintain ties with Business Education. Perhaps they want to return to teaching Business Education. Perhaps they see it as a networking opportunity. Perhaps the topic "A Course in Personal Financial Management" is attracting them. Perhaps they see it as a way to support prospective business education teachers. Or maybe they have just heard about the delicious hamball that will be served.

Regardless of the reason I am excited and really looking forward to seeing all of these people at the meeting on Wednesday afternoon. It will be 90 minutes of each of us demonstrating our professionalism through our professional organization. It will be fun.

On a totally different note - I like to play the game of creating stories around pictures - one day, who knows, I may actually write these stories down.

A fellow blogger, a friend, a terrific artist brought the following to my attention. What stories can you create?

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/meeting_of_turret_stairs.htm

of buildings, communication and professionalism

Last night we were invited to attend the launch of a new television series called Edifice and Us. We were invited by our old friend Steve Wolfson and his wife Penny Ward. It seems Saskatchewan is becoming a hotbed for television series. Corner Gas in its own slow prairie way has taken off and the new series Little Mosque on the Prairies will become a classic. Little Mosque was created by Zarqa Nawaz who is from Regina.

Edifice and Us is an interesting series in that it explores the interplay of architecture, culture and society in the Saskatchewan landscape. The preview we saw made it very clear that architecture was a very special way of communicating - ideas, history, sense of place, behaviour, etc.

Professionals, like architects, learn to communicate on many different levels and in many different ways. Their buildings and other structures, speak to us. But before that level of communication can take place there needs to be many other types of communication - between architects and other creators, with the users of the structure, with the builders and tradespeople, and on and on.

It seems to me that teachers' work is parallel to architects in many ways. Often we only see the results - lessons delivered, students who know and can do certain things. But underlying that level of communication are many other levels and types.

One of these types is communication between professions for the purposes of increasing their professionalism - their professional skills and abilities and understandings.

To that end we have conferences, workshops, conventions and professional journals.

We also have internet based discussion groups.

For many years I ran a listserv called BUSED-L. Each discussion group has its life cycle and I believe that the original BUSED-L ran its course.

But there seems to a renewed need to communicate and discuss fundamental issues in Business Education once again. So I am beginning the process of rejuvenating BUSED-L. In a later entry here I will explain how to subscribe.