Sometimes the smallest actions can have the biggest results — especially when those actions add up over time.
That lesson was proven this week when educators from Baldwin-Whitehall were honored to take part in the first-ever Forge Futures event, where more than 200 superintendents, policymakers, and educational leaders from around the world came together to discuss the future of education, all hosted right here in Pittsburgh.
Why Pittsburgh? Because the unique way our teachers, districts, and communities collaborate has created an inspiring blueprint that national and global educators are now excited to learn from and adapt for use in their own regions.
This underscores a key lesson that we try to impart to every student, teacher, and administrator at BWSD: working together creates greater opportunities and outcomes than anything we could achieve on our own.
Many of the programs and initiatives that were spotlighted at Forge Futures reflect the importance of collaboration, including converting the former Suburban General hospital into a community learning hub, immersing high school students in the cutting-edge Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy, and brainstorming dozens of “Moonshot” ideas designed to expand access to future-driven learning opportunities for young people — and each Moonshot concept has the potential to be brought to life with funding from the Grable Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and other philanthropies.
As you can imagine, none of these projects could be accomplished alone. Each one required buy-in from dozens or even hundreds of participants. And everyone who got involved in turning these ideas into reality did so because they were motivated by a vision of what could be possible if they applied their time and talent in service of something that would benefit the entire community.
When we teach our children important values like dedication, resilience, and reliability, we’re helping them prepare for a lifetime in pursuit of their dreams. As we do this, I believe it’s absolutely imperative that we also encourage them to connect with others, find commonalities, respect differences, and work together to leverage their strengths while learning from others’ wisdom and experience.
The future of education is collaborative, and the world we’re preparing our students to thrive in is a world where their greatest gift of all may be their ability to unite others in pursuit of shared success.