ABSTRACT
School communities in which members collect dots within silos may be good, but school communities in which members connect the dots between silos can become great and eventually break down the “silo mentality” completely. For teachers, dot collecting often starts with the teacher certification process and ends at retirement, with hundreds of dots collected along the way. Some teachers collect the National Board Certified Teacher dot and others collect the Gifted/Talented dot or the Advanced Placement training dot. An unfortunate outcome of status quo dot collecting is the idea that school becomes a race, a race that many students and staff enter only to finish. Students, teachers, and administrators who not only have, but are on, a mission are invested, committed, and future focused. They are also connected: to the school, to each other, to networks of people on social media, and to the world around them.
