"We need educators who are alive and awake..." Please join us!

By Terry Chadsey, Executive Director 

I did my student teaching on the south side of Chicago in 1975. I'll never forget that first time my mentor teacher left me in charge of the classroom and chaos quickly descended. I had carefully observed her every move and was able to articulate the strategies that served a successful classroom. How hard can this be, right? Yet there was clearly something she had that I didn't. Remember that moment in your own teaching?

I'm thrilled to announce that we are launching a Courage in Schools blog to actively engage educators who are hungry to explore and nurture the inner resources we bring to teaching and leadership. Working in schools will always require vision and passion as well as strategy and technique. All are important but without continuously cultivating our own internal resources, we will be as lost as I was years ago with a set of newly minted tools and techniques but an underdeveloped human container to hold them.

There is a startling finding in the 2011 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: "Teacher satisfaction has decreased by 15 points since the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher measured job satisfaction two years ago, now reaching the lowest level of job satisfaction seen in the survey series in more than two decades. This decline in teacher satisfaction is coupled with large increases in the number of teachers who indicate that they are likely to leave teaching for another occupation and in the number who do not feel their jobs are secure."

To me this says that our profession in crisis. To quote Parker Palmer and Tom VanderArk's introduction to the book Teaching With Fire, now more than ever "...we need educators who are alive and awake, who own and relish the most important work in the world, who understand what it means to 'teach with fire.' We need teachers and administrators who are listeners and learners, poets and storytellers, people who can draw out, lift up, lead, and follow. We need professionals who can move the debate about education reform far beyond test scores toward a vision of human possibility."

Every young person who walks through the doors of our schools or universities deserves such educators waiting to welcome them. Every community deserves such lively centers of learning that only courageous and awake educators can create. The future of healthy communities and a healthy democratic society depends upon it.

The lessons of that morning many years ago (when I was left understanding the limits of tools and techniques) are that the most important part of any classroom is a teacher who brings his/her full self to the moment-by-moment challenge of life in classrooms and that the most important part of any school is leadership that understands that the very best strategies to improve learning for students depend upon building a trustworthy human community. After 20 year of leading programs for educators, we at the Center know that this is not easy and that it requires ongoing, explicit intention and support.

Visit and subscribe to our Courage in Schools blog. Keep in touch as you tend to your own fire and to those closest to you.

Habits of the Heart of Healthy Congregations

By John Fenner                                    

Why is it that many of us are surprised when conflicts arise in our churches and communities of faith? Is it because we think that a common call to worship will overcome our individual differences? Do we think that we have a special ability to leave our difficult and sometimes wounded personalities outside on Sundays? Do we believe that divisive political and social issues shouldn't and won't surface in the pews and fellowship halls?

I've been interested in the formation (and deformation) of church communities for a long time, and have a perspective shaped by membership in conflicted churches and as a mediator of church conflict. As a church member, I have shared the surprise that conflict "is happening here, in our church! After all, we're a community of faith!" As a mediator, however, I am not surprised. I know that we carry our gifts and shadows, our hopes and fears, our wholeness and brokenness wherever we go...including into our communities of faith. As the saying goes - "wherever we go, there we are!"

Conflicts can, and do, divide congregations and disillusion its members. Churches, however, as Parker reflects in his new book, Healing the Heart of Democracy, are one of the most important institutions in which we learn about getting along, building healthy communities, and even forming strong democracies. Healthy churches do this by helping its membership develop "habits of the heart," those "deeply ingrained ways of seeing, being and responding to life that involve our mind, our emotions, our self-images, our concepts of meaning and purpose in life." These habits are:

• An understanding that we are all in this together;
• An appreciation of the value of "otherness";
• An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways;
• A sense of personal voice and agency; and
• A capacity to create community.

Recently at a conference for Episcopal parishes, Courage & Renewal facilitator Nathan Kirkpatrick and I led a session for wardens (lay leaders) during which we explored the connections between these habits of the heart and the health of their congregations. We invited participants to form small groups and then to reflect upon each of these "habits" and its presence or absence in their own congregation. It was interesting to hear initial responses change as the conversation deepened around questions like "how do we appreciate and value otherness, while still holding true to our traditions?" and "what are the limits of our appreciation of difference?" On area of general agreement was that the "ability to hold tension in life-giving ways" was one of the most challenging habits. Time pressures and a culture of "getting things done" often push church leadership to resolve difficult issues by voting, often at the cost of alienating many.

What do you think about the role of these "habits of the heart" have in creating healthy congregations?

John Fenner is director of Courage & Renewal programs for Clergy and Congregational Leaders. For more information about these programs, click here.

Compassion and connection

by Courage & Renewal Facilitator Jeanne Strong                    

Ed: Jeanne has been leading large Healing Democracy Action Circle near her home on Whidbey Island in Washington.  This post was inspired by that experience.

The Quakers speak of seeing that of God in each of us, of the willingness to seek that seed of the divine in everyone, even when they are your oppressor.  Soon after my mother had returned from China and her experience of being held captive by the Japanese, she was living, after her repatriation, in the college town of Oberlin, Ohio.  She was in need of a babysitter. 

The college, knowing she had just returned from Asia, sent her an Asian student, a young Japanese-American woman.  My mother took one look at her and was flooded with emotion and memories of her suffering at the hands of her Japanese captors.  She somehow found the courage, the fortitude and the presence of mind to move beyond those feelings of powerlessness and was able to explain the cause of her initial double-take and physical withdrawal. 

The young woman, whose family had also suffered what Japanese-Americans in this country experienced, had enough personal grounding and knowledge of what had transpired during the war, to understand.  They almost fell into each others arms, with a new found compassionate understanding of the hardships both had endured as a result of war - a moment of healing for both. 

As Rabbi Arthur Waskow writes: “If I treat my neighbor’s pain and grief as foreign, I will end up suffering when my neighbor’s pain and grief curdle into rage.  But if I realize that in simple fact the walls between us are full of holes, I can reach through them in compassion and connection.”         

What's happening in your Healing Democracy Action Circle?

You don't, actually, know exactly how I feel

by Courtney E. Martin           

You know the feeling: you're at a dinner party, talking to someone about something that you've just experienced, and they exclaim, "Tell me about it! I know exactly what you're feeling. Back in…" Suddenly, you are on a long, winding road down their memory lane, wondering what happened to your still unfinished story.

As you begin to explore the "value of otherness" I invite you to witness and reflect on your own instinct to relate to people's stories and feelings. It's such a well-intentioned reaction--a way of normalizing, creating intimacy, volleying vulnerability back and forth. And sometimes, don't get me wrong, relating and/or being related to in this way can be really healing. Much of the second wave feminist consciousness raising work was built on the idea that relating allowed women to explore the ways in which their personal struggles were actually collective, political issues.

And yet, too often, we rely on relating rather than taking a moment to honor the uniqueness of each person's story. While relating can be a transformative experience, it can also be a painful one. Some of the most destructive group dynamics I've ever been a part of were a direct result of someone's instinct to relate constantly, even when it was clear that the storyteller badly needed to feel like she was being understood as completely unique, that her experience was being honored and given space to live separate from everyone else's ideas, thoughts, and histories. 

This is the microcosm of the macrocosm that we face today; it's not, after all, a melting pot that we really want, but a beautiful fruit salad where all kinds of different people with truly idiosyncratic and wondrous experiences can mingle while holding on to what makes them uniquely them. Perhaps if we honor the intermingling with the boundaries in our interpersonal interactions we can get better at honoring that in our national discourse.

What do you think?  

 

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal).

 

Reclaiming the sacredness of stories

By Courtney E. Martin                       

As you gather in your groups once again, we point you towards one of the contemporary masters of creating conversation: Story Corps. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 40,000 interviews from nearly 80,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to their weekly broadcasts on NPR's Morning Edition.

What is so amazing about their work is really its simplicity. They recognized that people desired to have deeper conversations. They created a container within which people could value, legitimize, and even historicize those conversations. A beautiful movement has emerged--from Grand Central to airstream trailers, from the Library of Congress to people's living rooms--stories unfold in intimate interactions and are archived forever.

In some ways, they are reclaiming ancient wisdom about how much testifying to our experiences, sharing our wisdom, connecting one-on-one has been a sacred art. It is a way for us to explore friendship, to define our values, to integrate our experiences, to parent and to love. Check out this incredibly inspiring video in which a 12-year-old kid interviews his mom:

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal).

Rethinking gossip

By Courtney E. Martin                   

What do you think of when you hear the word gossip? A coffee klatch of older ladies, leaning over their game of bridge, eyes wide as they trade pseudo-secrets? The infamous Gossip Girls--a hyperbolic television show about wealthy Manhattanite adolescents embroiled in all kinds of drama? Or perhaps "telephone," that old childhood game where you lean into your neighbor's ear and whisper what you heard? 

Whatever your image is, chance are that it's not particularly accurate or positive. And yet, as we think about interconnection this month in our ongoing adventure in healing democracy, consider an alternative view of gossip. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes: 

 

"Many species reciprocate, but only humans gossip, and much of what we gossip about is the value of other people as partners for reciprocal relationships. Using these tools, we create an ultrasocial world, a world in which we refrain from nearly all the ways we could take advantage of those weaker than us, a world in which we often help those who are unlikely ever to be able to return the favor."

In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt explains that we get beyond kinship altruism--just looking our for those who possess our same genes--via the intricate web we weave with gossip. It creates the phenomenon of reputation, for example, by which we know that our behavior, even when observed by strangers or seemingly powerless people, matters because word could travel about our actions, and in turn, our character. It's not the most rosy picture of humanity--that our morality is kept intact by the fear of a bad reputation--but it is an interesting one. 

Leave me wondering--is there a more positive way to perceive of, in Haidt's parlance, "gossip"? Are you part of webs of accountability, strung together by subtle communication between members of your community, about who behaves with integrity? What is the most responsible way to hold folks' accountable who aren't acting according to the infamous Golden Rule? 

 

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal). 

What's your hunch?

by Courtney E. Martin                

There is perhaps nothing that will drive home the significance of Parker Palmer's first Habit of the Heart--"An understanding that we are all in this together"--more readily than considering how knowledge gets created. The ecosystem of information, ideas, and communication, especially in this time of global social networking and new media, is so complex it's hard to fathom. 

And yet, there are these old and universal truths about where good ideas come from, and how many of us it takes to build them over time. I love this video by journalist and big thinker Steven Johnson for just this reason:

Whenever I watch it, I am inspired to tune into my own quiet knowings that I've been walking around with, my, in his parlance, hunches. I've been thinking, for example, about the ways in which my friends and I don't religiously affiliate, but seem to be really making a grand effort to create communities that experiment with ethical issues and deep, meaning of life questions. I read a bit of David Brooks' recent book, Social Animal, and that seemed to confirm it in some ways, and then I met an amazing young woman at a dinner party who ended up talking a lot about her spiritual identity--a true masterwork of her childhood Catholicism and her current work in social entrepreneurship, and then I attended a Sunday service, myself, at St. John the Divine and noticed all of the things that were coming up for me as I sat in such a grand, beautiful space and mourned the loss of that kind of experience in my life on a daily basis. There's Robert Putnam. There's this very work we're doing with Parker's writings. There's all kinds of little gifts from others confirming and complicating my own hunch every day. I'm heartened that Steven Johnson says it can take years for a hunch to mature, as I'm still figure out what it is, exactly, that I want to say about all this in the wider world.

So what's your hunch, as of late? What have you been walking around with, thinking, contemplating, feeling? In what ways have others been clarifying or complicating it? 

 

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal). 

 

Reclaiming the heart

by Courtney E. Martin              

On this Valentine's Day, it seems fitting to revisit one of the most salient parts of Parker Palmer's writing--the reclamation and reframing of the heart itself. Palmer writes in Healing the Heart of Democracy:

"In this book, the word heart reclaims its original meaning. ‘Heart’ comes from the Latin cor and points not merely to our emotions but to the core of the self, that center place where all of our ways of knowing converge—intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, experiential, relational, and bodily, among others. The heart is where we integrate what we know in our minds with what we know in our bones, the place where our knowledge can become more fully human. Cor is also the Latin root from which we get the word courage. When all that we understand of self and world comes together in the center place called the heart, we are more likely to find the courage to act humanly on what we know."

In a world of 24-7 news media, constant obligations, social events, and the noise of everyday life, it can be difficult to tune into your own knowing. In fact, George Lackoff, cognitive linguist, writes about how each of us has a very rigid moral frame through which we perceive the world. If something doesn't fit, we tend to simply discard it entirely, all but denying its existence. This is why people so rarely change their minds about issues they've taken a position on when they read an opposing op-ed or have a heated discussion over the dinner table. 

But what if our frames were wider, more generous? What if we listened to our knowings with more intention, with more willingness to be surprised? As we celebrate "the heart" this week, what can you do to honor the knowings that converge in your heart--regardless of party line, past debates, or ego? 

 

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal). 

 

Gardening Hearts in Korea

by Terry Chadsey, Executive Director    

The first foreign language translation of Healing the Heart of Democracy will be published this spring in South Korea, a nation that has struggled mightily with democracy over many decades. This has come about thanks to Professor Kim Chanho, the translator, and Sunsook Shon, Director of Samsun Learning & Sharing Foundation, both of whom (together with a growing Korean team) have partnered with the Center over several years to develop Korean programs allied to Courage & Renewal called "Gardening People's Hearts." 

So many continuing struggles across our globe remind us that the deeply human yearning for democracy is universal. Of course this is nothing new but widespread social media makes these struggles harder to ignore. It should come as no surprise then that there is a growing global following of the Center's online resources related to Democracy: the archived October webcast with Parker and our invitation to organize Healing Democracy Action Circles.

Parker ends his forward to the Korean edition as follows, "Again I greet you as fellow citizens of the world, a world whose crowning political achievement is called “democracy.” You and I share a hard-won and precious political heritage: may we be worthy of our inheritance. I hope you will find value in this book as you work to help Korean democracy survive and thrive. Please know that I am deeply grateful for our shared human and political bond, and for the chance I now have to learn from you."

Are we not all together in this larger struggle to claim the political inheritance we call democracy?

What was your first lesson in citizenship?

As you might guess, kids--when given the power--resembled grown-ups in lots of ways. Some acted like proverbial sheep, doing whatever their friends were doing without going through the process of soul searching required of them as individual citizens of the classroom. Some blindly followed authority, wanting to get the gold star or the good grade regardless of other, less measurable, considerations. But some, and this is where I think the adults have a lot to learn from the kids, paused, became perplexed or distraught or both, and slowed down the momentum of what was going on around them. I urge you to listen to the podcast to pick out these captivating moments; you can almost hear the kid's heart, shouting loud enough above the fray. 

This month we're exploring our own origins as citizens. It might have been heading to the voting booth with your parents. It might have been participating in a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop. It might have been singing in the church choir. But perhaps, and this is what is so evident in this masterful radio program, it was the first time you listened to the leadings of your own heart about what was right and wrong in your little community, stood up, and said something about it. Perhaps this is the version of citizenry--the original form--that we are all trying so hard to get back in touch with in these turbulent times. 

Listening deeply in a distracted world

by Courtney E. Martin                           

Dr. Ralph Nichols, one of the founders of the field of listening, once said, "The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them."

When we read these words, we know them in our bones, and yet so much of our daily lives is structured -- not around listening -- but around doing, talking, producing, consuming. In this overwhelming world, it is easy to lose sight of the power of slowing down, gathering in community, and exploring the power of silence and the wisdom of others. When we listen we reap such deep reward, and yet we must insist on it, create spaces for it, counter the speed and tenor of the culture that surrounds us in order to make it an absolute priority. 

In many ways, the person we've become least accustomed to listening to in this loud society is ourselves. This month renowned meditation expert Sharon Salzberg is facilitating a 28-day meditation challenge. She's taking the most ancient wisdom -- that we must listen to ourselves -- and coupling it with the newest in technology -- blogging and tweeting. Check it out and join in if you're compelled. 

This week, as we begin our adventure together, pay special attention to your own listening practices. When and in what ways do you listen to your own thoughts and feelings? Are you conditioned to hit pause on a busy day and prioritize deeply listening to and trying to understand a colleague, a child, your significant other? What allows you to do that or what might allow you to do it more intuitionally?

Note:  Courtney is the author of our Healing Democracy Action Circles guide.  We hope you'll sign up to lead a circle! Learn more here, and be sure to follow along with us here on the blog, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter (@couragerenewal).

Sustaining a democracy

by Terry Chadsey, Executive Director                      

As the Center launches Healing Democracy Action Circles into the world, I'm eager to share this story about a remarkable man who's accomplished remarkable things.

Bill Bolling is Georgia Trend's 2012 Georgian of The Year. His story is remarkable first because he's made a life of doing important and humble work: building communities and systems that feed the hungry. His story is also remarkable because he and his work embody those habits of the heart that Parker Palmer describes as critical to sustaining a democracy. 

Thank you, Bill Bolling. In this time of political attack ads, let's lift up what works and who's doing it.  Please share your stories of lives and work that exemplify sustaining a democracy.