It’s the weather that tells me,
reading your diary, this is the same place.
Your words leave prints like isobars
marking the touch of rain and sun.1
Close your eyes. Hold that stanza in your mind. What are you seeing and feeling?
_ _ ^
_ _ _ *
_ _ _ _ ~
_ _ _ _ _ / \ - > < | > > >
Me? I see things that can’t be seen: traces of connection across time and space, maps of the invisible. I feel a sense of nourishment and strength.
If you “help” individual trees by getting rid of their suspossed competition, the remaining trees are bereft.
…
Some individuals photosynthesise like mad until sugar positively bubbles along their trunk. As a result, they are fit and grow better, but they aren’t particularly long-lived. This is because a tree can only be as strong as the forest that surrounds it. And there are now a lot of losers in the forest. Weaker members, who would once have been supported by the stronger ones, suddenly fall behind.2
Growing up, I loved listening to my Nana as she told me about her past; our past. Each yarn tightened the connection I felt to what had been and helped me see and feel my place in it.
And although it was all invisible, it was tangible. I knew where I had come from. Looking back, I know now that I felt nourished by this, and it’s weird because from a very early age I knew that I had a role to play in that story. I had to keep it going, I had to be in it. I had to honour what had already been.
The great unknown was where the story would go. But that was ok because I knew I wasn’t the only tree in the forest.
Working with Others
Dare I state the obvious and say that we are a social species, therefore helping students understand how to ‘be’ among others is a central concern of education? This is one of the aspects of a learner-led approach to education that I really like: it provides multiple occasions for students to be among others.
All forms of connection begin with this implicit, or sometimes explicit understanding: we are here, doing this.
You do…, so I can…
When we are here, doing this, we have the opportunity to cooperate. We can decide what needs to happen and when. We can work out our roles. This process helps us work out how we will be accountable and reliant on each other. If we are so inclined, we can even turn this into a plan.
You do…, so I can…
This can work really well, especially in contexts where there is something fixed: eg, a sport (the roles and rules); a project (outcome and date due).
More often than not, the point of this is to be successful. The cooperators will win the game (or at least play well) or complete the project. This is made probable by being focused, clearing the way, and making sure the things that are needed are to hand.
But things come unstuck when you don’t do… because it means that I can’t… When that happens, it’s hard for me to care about why. I just need you to get on with things so that we can get the thing done.
Can you feel it - the obligation, rush, and rigidity inherent in this? The pressure to produce?
I had lots of unhurried time with my Nana. We didn’t have to get through anything which, of course, meant that in the fullness of time we got through so much that is important.
Things could unfold, as we discovered them together: her, anew, tracing those lines from the past into the present; me, for the first time, as I found myself within them.
It was such a rich world she mapped out.
Being with Others
We know that relationships are important for learning. When they are warm, they help to create a culture of emotional safety. This can’t be manufactured, but it can be cultivated. Doing this takes time.
Think of a good relationship you have with someone that is free from the pressure to produce something. I bet there are things that are created from it. I bet you are often surprised and excited by the possibilities it affords, the doors it opens. I bet you relate on equal terms while drawing on the different strengths you each have.
We could…, so this might…
I think it is in relationships such as these that we find the opportunity to truly collaborate. They are dynamic, fluid, and open to possibilities. Our conversations often explore the unknown, seeking to find a path, and while the implicit understanding that we are here, doing this is still present, the way we orient ourselves in relation to it shifts.
We could…, so this might…
It’s a significantly different way of plotting ‘what next’, isn’t it. It’s one that draws on what people have so that it can be harnessed to transform what is.
Theoretically …
Is it possible to collaborate with someone without also caring for them? I don’t think so. Buber’s ideas about our relational orientation towards others provides us with a useful framework to think about why:
“To approach another instrumentally means to treat that person as an object, as a means to advance one’s own interests.” You do…, so I can…
“To approach another dialogically is to enter into a relationship of respect, mutual concern and solidarity.” We could…, so this might…
It is my contention that we are more likely to cooperate within an instrumental relationship and collaborate within a dialogic one.
Nel Noddings:
Caring implies a continuous search for competence. When we care, we want to do our very best for the object of our care. To have as our educational goal the production of caring, competent, loving, and loveable people is not anti-intellectual. Rather, it demonstrates respect for the full range of human talents.3
We’re into unfamiliar territory here.
When we look at the day-to-day experience of students, can we truly say that this is what school is for?
Blueberry ice cream was my Nana’s favourite, and she loved to share it with us, her grandkids. Now when my kids eat blueberry ice cream my mind always floats back to an image of us all squashed onto her back doorstep, licking the cones with relish.
And the talk! The schemes we dreamed up! The adventures we had!
We were a tight-knit family then, siblings and cousins busy together, doing what kids do best in provincial towns.
We didn’t have to do anything, so of course, we did heaps. Together.
We could…, so this might…
Those memories are like isobars, drawing a map of what can’t be seen, only felt.
I Wonder
Does it feel to you like we’ve fetishised productivity in education? I’ve lost count of the number of times a teacher has conflated the Key Competency ‘Managing Self’ with a student meeting deadlines and fulfilling their role as set out in the plan so that others aren’t ‘let down’.
Kids are certainly encouraged to cooperate on things at school; I wonder if we’ve forgotten about the power of collaboration. This raises a question:
How can we bring collaboration into schools?
I think the answer lies in providing time for people to sit, together, with wonder and imaginative thinking, even fantasy, and act on it on their terms. Just think of the statement, we could…, so this might… It’s one that puts people into the realm of what might be but isn’t, yet. It’s one that brings people together and allows them to draw on their strengths.
We. Not you, not I.
Being in that realm requires unhurried time, but that’s ok because, really, what’s the rush?
For education to be about care, for it to place relationships first, the answer lies in allowing opportunities for collaboration. We need to slow things down so that the urgent can be replaced by what’s important: people, and their connections to their past, present, and future.
For what has been to nourish what might be.
There is plenty of place for learning in that.
From the poem ‘Weather Report - Fine’ by John Horrocks.
From the wonderful book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.
From ‘Teaching themes of care’ by Nel Noddings.