No one, except your team, sees the meetings, shared notes, or quiet compromises—but they feel the outcomes: community, consistency, safety, and belonging. The invisible work is the real work that builds trust and community.

When leadership stops being something granted and becomes something grown, the culture of a school shifts. In our final years at the Western Academy of Beijing, our team gave up our individual spaces, blurred the lines between roles, and built a community office where every voice mattered. That’s when shared leadership stopped being a structure—and became who we were.

In a true learning community, professional development isn’t an event — it’s a way of teaching and learning together. Discover how everyday collaboration transforms teachers into continuous learners.

Note to the reader: This post is part of a series using the People, Parts, Interactions  thinking routine from Harvard’s Project Zero . Last week, I wrote about People  as the heart of a learning community . This week, let's zoom in on the Parts . Looking at schools through a “parts” lens helps shift the conversation from “this is a great idea” to “this is actually manageable—and here’s how to do it.” Every school already has a lot of moving parts. The key is to make them vis

Teaching alone is exhausting. In a learning community, trust, alignment, and shared agreements allow educators to distribute responsibility. Students benefit from multiple mentors, teachers support each other, and even crises are manageable. Sharing the load creates a sustainable culture where collaboration and care multiply impact.