My mom is insane about her competitive bridge.  When she shares her scores with me it is like trying to converse with someone speaking a foreign language.  While I try my best to follow her excited descriptors of the gold and red points, I clearly, I lack the cognitive capacity, and/or passion, for her 'sport' to attempt to understand the game of bridge.  What I have deduced is that I am so grateful that my parents have been able to successfully navigate countless on-line international tournaments during the pandemic and to stay super stoked about their 'sport'.  What I have also noticed is that they just 'bring it' to the digital bridge table and despite the many challenges of playing virtually, including crazy different time zones at strange hours of the day/night, they have pushed their game forward.  I love hearing the excitement in my mom's voice when she shares her gold, red, silver point status with me - while it makes me miss her like crazy knowing that I have no idea when I will next be with her 'in-person' but I find great comfort and inspiration in her ability to just 'Bring-It'.

A slight bird-walk into this week's post but there is something contagious about the capacity to 'Bring It'.  Competition is not something I naturally gravitate towards, but I am realizing that my mom must have instilled something in me.  I appreciated Hargreaves (2017) perspective on collaborative with competition.  "Collaboration and competition can and do work well together in productive ways" (p. 68).  Co-opetition is something that I see driving a lot of our work in my school district, we certainly do have a culture of yes that pushes us, which frequently this rides alongside of the culture of "yes... but'.  While "yes... but" can stall educational transformation, if leveraged properly the 'yes... but' can push our thinking in to critical, differentiated refined spaces as we question what we do and why we do it.  Making informed decisions and navigating complexity based on the combo of research and relationships is essential to lasting educational change.  

We need to feel the pressure of healthy competition to stay on top of our thinking and practices in education, this is especially true now in the heat of the ongoing global pandemic.  "The fusion of competition and collaboration" (Hargreaves & Humphrey, date, p. 78) is both striking and essential. Our children and communities deserve edgy thinking above complacency.  We need to push and to pull as we engage and inspire the best in our staff and students alike.  So, it is time to 'Bring It' as we focus on the educational game while ensuring the noisy details and stop gaps don't distract our committments to inclusivity and academic excellence for all in our schools.