Anticipating a risk

On Thursday of this week, the staff in the Merton Community School District will be having its own "EdCamp style" of professional development at little cost to the district.  The staff will have two and a half hours to learn from one another while the students are having fun in supervised activities (structured for our Primary School 4K-3rd graders with speakers, Jump Rope for Heart, and other activities and a little less structured with a DJ we hired for our Intermediate School 4th-8th graders).  The principal of the Primary School will have a number of volunteers available to help supervise the activities at the Primary School while the superintendent and I will supervise at the Intermediate School.  The cool thing is that we are not even telling our kids what will happen on Thursday.  The TILT (Teachers Integrating Learning Today) team has organized the day for our teachers and they are excited.  It's amazing what a group of teacher leaders can do when given the opportunity to think like there is no box.
We know the kids will have a great time.  We know the staff will have a great time, too.  But this leads to the title of my blog- anticipating a risk.  I am anticipating a great learning experience for the staff based upon the great teachers we have and the variety of topics they will be discussing but it is also a risk that is fully supported by the administration.  Shouldn't we allow and support all teachers taking a risk in their classrooms?  Shouldn't these risks lead to greater learning opportunities for our students?  Like most school districts, we struggle with providing time for teachers during the school day to collaborate with one another.  I'll follow up with a reflection of the day this Friday.