Stitching a new garment....Part I #the100thdayproject

On April 2, 2020 writer and activist Sonja Renee Taylor wrote, “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”

I wrote her quote on my notebook and for months and months, I read it over and over again. I savored her words because they were not only full of wisdom but also full of hope. That’s the way I saw it. It felt hopeful to me because of pre-pandemic life in education didn’t include ALL of our students. In our pre-pandemic life in education, the Humanity of our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students were not validated. So when I read this quote, I felt hopeful about being in education because I have agency to do and change things within my sphere of control. For months, I kept asking myself, “What would stitching a new garment in education would look like?” especially who that fits all of humanity and nature. I didn’t have answers but I stayed and lived my beautiful question for a long time.

Then on December 6, the former Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder wrote on her Facebook a post that spoke to my soul and the soul of many of us teachers doing the work. You can read that powerful post here.
I printed that post. I pasted on my notebook. And I repeated the same process: reading it over and over again. Thinking and living my beautiful questions. Both, Teresa Thayer Snyder and Sonja Renee Taylor writing stirred in me curiosity, reflection and it also propelled me to do some serious forward thinking. We are in midst of a unique opportunity to redesign education and co-create with our students the kinds of learning environment that makes every student feel seen, feel validated, feel loved. On February 12, our district held a Professional Development Day for our teachers and it allowed me to share some of my thinking as we move forward.

The beautiful question that helped shaped my thoughts and action was “What would stitching a new garment that fits ALL of humanity would look like in education?” After much reflection and thinking, I thought of 5 Lenses as to which we will need to focus as we slowly move forward co-creating better worlds for our students. Today, I will share ONE of those lenses.

Pause: to observe and listen

It wasn’t until a Global Pandemic hit which forced all of us to slow down that we realized the ridiculous fast-paced lives we led. And the worst part is that we carried this rhythm into our classroom where we constantly obsessed about covering the standards and teaching skills, skills and only skills. We are different humans beings after this pandemic. Our students lived through many different experiences. We can’t anticipate every situation that we will face in the classroom but we need to go back to basics of human relationships: observing and listening with grace. This would require us to pause in our teaching days to observe & listen to the behaviors, questions and insights our students bring to the surface. And once we observe and listen to them, we need to give ourselves permission as educators to let go of our perfect and beautiful lesson plans and listen to our students. Let those stories be told. Let those questions occupy space. Hold space for curiosity. We don’t have to have the answers to those questions. There are other students and teachers in that learning space. This is what co-creating a better reality looks like: doing this work in community with our students, other colleagues and families.

Teresa Thayer Snyder wrote, “The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post pandemic world.”

Some teachers reading this post would say, “But Stella, I already listen to the kids.” And to those committed educators I would say, “More. Please. and Thank you.”

This is not a checklist.

We are stitching a new garment…it will be built one experience at a time. I don’t know all the stories that our students will bring. I don’t know what the future holds. I do know that I don’t want to return to normal…normal never was.

To be continued…

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash