Introduction to Educational Change Work
[This article and the several that follow are about educational change. Many thanks to Marilyn Robb, editor of Classroom (the RC journal about educational change) and her team, for collecting these articles, editing them and making them available to Present Time.]
What is our educational change goal? That all schools and learning environments be free from oppression and be joyful places of teaching and learning.
About teaching and learning: Schools must be places where young people are supported to grow in knowledge, develop their creativity, and nurture their intelligence. They are then empowered to create the lives they want and to contribute to building a rational society.
About oppressions: Many of them operate in school. They affect all the different groups in school—teachers, students, social workers, administrators, parents, and so on. So working for educational change is not just for schoolteachers.
Educational change work is thus about making places of learning joyful and supportive of young people by eliminating the oppressions that interfere with teaching and learning. It is important to everyone. Here are three important points:
1. Each person can reclaim their own intelligence. Most learning experiences have been accompanied by hurts. We all need the opportunity to discharge those hurts and reclaim our intelligence.
2. RC Communities must be welcoming and safe places for all who are working in schools—to discharge, to reenergize, to be supported, to reclaim their own joy of teaching and learning, and to be able to help in the liberation of educational systems.
3. We need clear minds to make rational policies for the effective functioning of school systems. Many non-RCers are making efforts to implement changes in schools. We can support their efforts by listening and introducing the discharge process.
As things continue to change and to be difficult in our world, it is important for us to keep reclaiming our intelligence, to have clear minds to make rational decisions, and to think well about the world situation and about each other.
Every action each person takes contributes to the larger goal, and no action is insignificant. Giving a session to a young person, or a teacher, or an educational change activist makes a big difference. Being an ally to anyone in any sub-constituency [group] makes a difference.
Teachers need safe spaces to be listened to about how hard it is to survive being in a classroom day after day—listening time about what it is to be a teacher.
Allies have a great role to play here. Check in with a teacher regularly. Offer listening time for them to discharge their fears and hopelessness, discouragement and disappointment. Support them to not give up on their commitment to young people and to being a teacher.
Now would be a good time to lead discharge groups for educators—to listen to them; support them to discharge the grief, fear, helplessness that they constantly experience in their jobs. I lead a virtual classroom-teachers-and-their-allies support group every month, and all are welcome. However, more local groups are needed. Educators need more frequent opportunities to get support.
GUN VIOLENCE IN SCHOOL
There was another school shooting in the United States, in Uvalde, Texas, where nineteen students and two teachers were killed at an elementary school. Everyone is outraged. Violence in any form, done to anyone, is a cause for outrage. There is much work for everyone, not just Co-Counsellors, to do to end violence in this world. Violence has deep and wide roots and must be addressed by the entire society.
Allies can show support by organising whatever is needed to end violence and gun use in society. I would love for every Co-Counsellor to commit to continued work on their rage and helplessness until they have enough attention to decide and act against the distress patterns in the society that are leading to the violent actions.
Educators continue to push against the despair and hopelessness. Please reach out to all of us and to each other and share what is helping you to stay an educator. Allies, please support an educator to stay hopeful.
EDUCATIONAL CHANGE WORK IN INDIA
I recently had the good fortune of visiting India. While there I led a day-long workshop for the Pune RC Community. Thirty-three Co-Counsellors attended. We worked on several areas of reclaiming intelligence and early school memories. We had fruitful talks and sessions on the educational change work in RC and in the wide world and on what the folks at the workshop wanted to take on and lead in their Community.
While in India, I also led a class for the Mumbai Community, for twenty-five women. Among many highlights was the major contradiction for me of finally being in India and feeling a big connection to my heritage and my roots. Trinidad and Tobago and India share a history of colonization by the British and of its effects on our education systems.
Tim Jackins pointed out some time ago that discharge alone may not change the way things are in the world, but it will certainly free up our intelligence and ability to make decisions, to think, and to take action to make things better. Hearing him reminded me of the importance of reclaiming our intelligence and its significance as the heart of educational change work. At every gather-in and workshop that I lead, I focus on reclaiming our intelligence first. To work with Co-Counsellors on this direction, I ask something like, “What would your life look like, or what would you do differently, if you lived every moment of every day remembering that you are completely intelligent?” Watching clients discharge in response and reclaim their intelligence has been wonderful.
This work was quite new to these Communities. It was motivating to see their enthusiasm for it and their eagerness to reclaim their intelligence, discharge on their early school memories, and commit to using the RC process to eliminate the oppressions in the education system in India—a monumental task. It has been a special opportunity for me to connect with the Communities and plant the educational seeds. The task now is to keep the connection and the work going.
St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
(Present Time 214, January 2024)