Ripples to Create Change
Chapter 6: Everything in relationship
Happy Sunday!
Welcome to our fall book study of
’s Becoming and Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School. If you’ve missed any of our previous posts, I’ve linked them below. Leave a comment and help us keep the conversation going!Each post will provide a brief summary of the week’s chapter, a reflection, and a series of discussion questions designed to spark conversation in the comments. Feel free to jump in at any point! You can also find our entire fall reading schedule and vision.
Chapter 1: Messy Scares Me (And That Might Be a Problem as a Teacher)
Chapter 2: I'm exhausted!
Chapter 3: When SMART Goals Aren't That Smart
Chapter 4: What if?
Chapter 5: A Space Between Fear and Hope
Summary
Chapter 6 focuses on the importance of forming relationships in the change process in order to create a vision of true community in schools. Venet explains that often, leaders implement top-down change in an effort to “fix” a broken system. Having a saviorism mindset can trigger more trauma and reinforce feelings of a lack of control and agency. Those interested in creating real change, must for critical connections with members of the community. Change leadership is more effective at fueling change when it is relational. Venet provides reflection questions about our web of relationships, and ends with an activity to help us practice community relationality.
At the beginning of this school year, our district surveyed students, grades 3-5, regarding their mental health, well-being, and social-emotional learning. Questions ranged from emotion regulation to growth mindset to students’ sense of belonging. We received our results this week. They were not good. In every area, our school scored lower than the district’s average and the average of other elementary schools.
The goal of this survey is to give us valuable information regarding the mental health and well-being of our students. As I looked at the results, I thought of Chapter 6 and the upcoming change process our school building and district will undoubtedly face.
I have been teaching for 22 years, and in that time, I’ve experienced many shifts in mindset. Early in my career, armed with a university education, I jumped eagerly and enthusiastically into teaching. I learned quickly that the gap between theory and practice is wide, and filled with self-doubt. I threw myself into professional development during that first decade, hoping to be the best teacher possible for my students. I learned curricula and pedagogy and did my best to implement all of our school district’s initiatives. I grappled with the cognitive dissonance of being expected to control my students using authoritarian methods while eliminating the predictability of achievement gaps in my students’ of color. I fell prey to saviorism.
I make no claims to be an excellent teacher. I still have to make a conscious effort to not teach as I was taught: using the banking model where teachers are seen as the depositors of knowledge into students who are passive receptacles.1 I certainly do not believe that I am the best teacher. I work to be a better teacher every day, making many, many mistakes. However, there is one area I take great pedagogical pride in as a teacher: building a classroom community and forming relationships with my students.
As I analyzed our school’s data, I was heartbroken. How could so many students feel like they do not belong at our school or have a supportive adult in the building?
It was during our debriefing meeting I realized that as much as I work to form authentic connections with my fifth-graders, and other students I see in the hallways, our staff, as a whole, is not centering critical connections. Oftentimes, students come to me feeling disconnected from their teachers and the school because many of their previous classrooms were structured as efficient bureaucracies, not relational spaces.
Working alone in my mobile classroom, separate from the main building, is doing nothing to promote the interconnectedness of our entire staff. Venet’s Rest Stop pushed me to think about my relationships with other staff members. Am I cultivating caring and collegial relationships? It is no secret that year after year, I receive some of the most challenging students in the building. I wonder if I’m seen as a separate entity, not prone to the same level of respect as other teachers. When I advocate for my students, are my concerns taken seriously? When my students of color are in the hallways, are they treated with the same care as other students in the building?
When my students are disciplined by other teachers, I am called in to mediate and advocate. Often, the offense is trivial: not walking on the right side of the hallway, talking in the hallway, etc. Disciplining students as a measure of control does not cultivate relationships. Teachers may believe that they are holding students accountable to the greater school community, but all this does is fracture a students’ sense of belonging. If only three-fifths of the students in our building feel like they do not belong, that is a huge problem. How can I help change the culture of my building so that all students feel cared for and have a sense of belonging? Like Drew at the opening of the chapter, I feel overwhelmed with such a large and tangled problem.
This doesn’t mean that I stop forming critical connections with every student I see. Small acts of kindness form ripples that create change. I’m not going to stop throwing my pebbles into the pond. I’m going to keep my focus on student relationships. I’m going to emphasize care and compassion over competition and standardization. I’m going to create a mindmap of the relationships that are connected to my change vision. I’m going to strengthen my network with staff in the building, sparking other connections that will help strengthen our community.
Everything that is worthwhile is done with other people.
Mariame Kaba, summarizing a teaching from her father
I may only be one teacher who cannot shift the culture of an entire building, but I can tap into the collective power of our interconnectedness of all things: people, land, waterways, plants and animals, and all living things. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “Through reciprocity the gift is replenished. All of our flourishing is mutual.” I strive to teach my students that we are interconnected. Our individual gifts work together to better our collective learning and the world outside the classroom. Practicing relationality is what will inevitably change the culture of our building.
Now it’s your turn!
Share your thoughts, questions, or anything you’d like about Chapter 6 in the comments. The above discussion questions are just a guide. Feel free to share how this chapter resonates with you and your own experiences as a changemaker.
will be sharing his thoughts from Chapter 7: Slowing down. See you then!
Love this post and love these questions (and, of course, love this chapter).
One of the things I'm really excited about in my own context this year is how they have created an opportunity for a group of teachers to take more leadership: facilitating connections and learnings across classrooms; participating in and leading learning walks across the building; surveying teachers and then creating the type of professional development they say they want with much more choice + flexibility than we typically get.
It has taken a lot of work and forced me to operate a bit more outside my own "comfort zone" of the classroom, but I've had way more conversations with way more colleagues this year than ever before around our work, and this chapter makes me appreciate the conversations themselves rather than seeing them as means to an end.
Relationships are key in schools. In England, I think (hope) there's a shift towards this realisation, moving us away from punitive behaviour systems. I can't remember where I read it but I've seen somewhere that teachers should aim to have 7 positive interactions for every negative interaction. For example, those small acts of kindness you mentioned. Saying thank you to a child for opening the door. Ringing home to tell their parent/carers how well they've done today etc. Building up that deposit of positive emotional currency is crucial. I think this is something you seem to do really well, Adrian.
Thank you for the post, as always!