Week 3 2024-2025 in Review
Dear TCC Families,
Week three is already behind us, and we are deep in the ongoing process of building our culture. We've begun sharing offerings with one another (Theater and Improv Games with zee was a HIT), and continue to make intentional space for pure play. We honed in on what values we want to hold as a community; what makes us us? Especially when conflicts arise - as they do in every community and every relationship (yes! really!) - what values will guide us? We have navigated a bit of conflict in these first weeks - navigating conflict is something we regularly do. These conflicts have all been typical matters of various needs and feelings pressing up against othersβ needs and feelings. More conflict appears after long breaks and other changes and transitions, and we anticipate it. We receive all of this as signs of a healthy, normal part of doing community. We hold these conflicts for what they are - opportunities for reflection and growth.
One of the principles of agile learning communities we return to again and again is that "people learn more from their culture than from the content they are taught." If we know that in every community and relationship, conflict will be present, what kind of culture do we want to establish so that we are held and affirmed when it arises? What are the aspects of a culture that would teach us that conflict is not only normal in healthy relationships, but that it can be an opportunity for growth, and actually nurture trust and deepen bonds? That it can be generative? This beautiful piece about the qualities of regenerative and liberatory culture articulates a beautiful vision. During one of our conversations about values here, a young person inadvertently referred to them as "vitals." And indeed they are - this word brings to mind the living nature of this work, and how integral everyone's voice is to that life.
The topic of conflict resolution in Self-Directed Education (SDE) comes up frequently among facilitators. The reasons for this are many, but at the heart is that we know learning is happening all the time. Supporting conflict resolution isn't something that happens off to the side in the way that many schools, for example, implement "Social-Emotional Learning" as its own specific curriculum, separate from subject-based learning, to "teach" social and emotional skills. Conflict and its resolution and the learning that happens throughout the process is just another aspect of what we do together in our SDE practice - just as important and integral as discovering and studying a monarch emerging from its chrysalis, sketching asters and goldenrod we notice growing together, or pulling a book about lichens off the shelf to answer a spontaneous question. It happens emergently and in relationship. It cannot be pre-planned. The connections we build and emphasize offers a sturdy ground from which to move through the pain and discomfort conflict can bring. These connections serve as a steady, reliable platform to which we can always return.
Communicating about what we do can be challenging - both speaking to the broader structural and philosophical underpinnings of how we do SDE, as well to the nuts and bolts of our day-to-day time together. How can we share about this work in clear and meaningful ways (especially about a topic like conflict, that's so fraught)? The over-culture has brought us many messages about conflict - one being that it's something to be feared, or at least avoided. When conflict arises, we often try just about anything to make it stop. And - it doesn't have to be that way. SDE offers us an alternative to dominant culture; a return to ourselves and one another, and ways of being that bring us into right relationship. Learning to navigate conflict and resolve it in ways that are empowering takes intention, skill, and active practice - SDE alone won't create these shifts. As Kelly Seacrest writes in her piece Self-Directed Education and the Role of Care, something that links many SDE spaces is an awareness that, "...learning is joyous, that teaching is reciprocal, and that community is vital. And from my personal reflections I believe one of the foundations to all of this is care."
How can we communicate our practice of care, and place it at the center of conflict resolution work - all of our work?
We are hopeful that when we write about what we do, when you hear your children share about their time here, when you see us engage with them, that care is what you see and feel. Our relationships with your children are sacred to us, and we are responsible to those relationships. We have a responsibility to be a safe landing spot, to be trustworthy, to affirm and protect young people's autonomy. To communicate in word and action that they are enough, just as they are. Paradoxically, sometimes when we know we are loved and accepted exactly as we are, we feel a new sense of freedom to make mistakes, to hold ourselves accountable when we (inevitably) cause harm, to stretch and flex and grow to remain in right relationship because we're accepted in all our complexity and messiness. We are responsible to our relationships with your children to reflect on our own practice with humility, and ensure these are the conditions we are creating. We are messy and make mistakes, too, of course, and will continue to. It's in the act of repair that we build trust and emotional safety. We know this work can feel slow and messy. It is! As Daniel Lim shares in the piece above - "We move at the speed of trust." This is not a pace most of us are accustomed to.
Our own learning as facilitators is happening everywhere, all the time, and we also pursue more formal learning opportunities to support us in our reflection and practice. The Radical Learning Through Relationship facilitator support program has generated incredible growth for us. What a gift it has been. We're excited not only for continuing to partner with Sari and Becka at Radical Learning in hosting The Shift, but for other possibilities that have yet to take shape. This summer we also attended two workshops to grow our skills. We attended an education session titled Pathological Demand Avoidance: Across the Lifespan and in the Therapy Room with Tara Holmquist, PsyD, to learn more about how as facilitators we can support young people with a "persistent drive for autonomy" from an affirming, empowering, strengths-based, and justice-focused lens. We also experienced a session called Transformative Justice Embodied: The Somatics of Accountability, Generative Conflict, and Repair, and explored ways embodiment work can transform our approaches to resolving conflict in community. Our learning will be ongoing.
We invite you to ask any questions you may have about our work. We try to paint a picture of how it looks, and, because we are in it every day, we know we miss some things that would be meaningful to share. We'll end on this note about care and care work, again from Kelly Seacrest: "Care is the antidote to violence; donβt mistake the word care for something trivial, light-hearted or superficial. Care comes from profound reflection, deep commitment and responsive action. Self-Directed Education is this kind of care, a kind that is urgently needed."
We believe that this work has the capacity to change the world we're in and to build new ones. Thank you for sharing in it all with us. Thank you for trusting us enough to place your children in our care.
With gratitude,
Emily, Sarah, and Zoey