Dignity Dialogues
Dignity Dialogues serves as an extension of the learning that happens both inside and outside of our school walls at Beaver Country Day School, allowing community members and outside experts to share their experiences, stories, and personhood.
By sharing the beauty and diversity of human experience, this podcast delves into the power of empathy, listening, patience, and openness as tools to honor and amplify the value of each member of our Beaver community and beyond.
Dignity Dialogues
Embracing Courageous Discomfort: Navigating Identity, Power, and Relationships with Rosalind Wiseman
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Renowned author, educator, speaker, and thought leader Rosalind Wiseman joins us for a compelling discussion on the first episode of Dignity Dialogues. Rosalind, the co-author of Courageous Discomfort, shares her compelling journey as a Jewish woman intertwined with a Spanish family, which informs her own perspectives on identity, dignity, and belonging.
Our conversation touches on shaken social contracts, leading us to examine societal responsibilities and how communities can rebuild trust. Her experiences, both personal and professional, offer rich narratives on navigating cultural intersections and the importance of empathy and accountability in relationships.
Together, we explore the crucial theme of dignity within power dynamics. From professional contexts to personal spaces, we reflect on how maintaining dignity can be challenging yet transformative, especially in imbalanced situations. Rosalind's anecdotes illuminate the importance of transparency and the courage it takes to honor others' dignity while advocating for marginalized voices.
Weaving in myriad principles from her book, taking ownership, listening to be changed, and extending grace, we underscore the importance of humility and the courage to apologize for missteps, fostering respectful and meaningful connections. The conversation also touches on evolving relationships, such as those with children as they mature, highlighting the need to see each other beyond conventional roles.
Join us for a conversation filled with genuine insights and a hopeful reminder that with humility, respect, and courage, everything will eventually come together.
Good morning. On today's episode of Dignity Dialogues we have a special guest, rosalind Wiseman, who's here at Beaver Country Day School talking to our students, our faculty staff and our parents this evening. Welcome.
Speaker 2Thank you, Jelante. It is an absolute pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 1Excellent To get us going. Tell us just who you are. What do we know about you as an individual, as a person, as your identity? What's important to know about you as Rosalind Wiseman?
Speaker 2As my identity. My identity would be all different kinds of things. It would be a sister, a mother, a daughter, a niece, niece, a teacher, a learner. I was raised jewish in a conservative community, conservative jewish uh background. I don't practice now in the way that I go to synagogue, things like that. I'm in a bicultural family. I'm married to somebody who is spanish and my children both of my children um well, one one lives in Spain and actually the Netherlands at this actual particular moment, and then the other one will be going to Spain. But we have a bicultural, bilingual family.
Speaker 1Can I ask which part of Spain?
Speaker 2Yeah, valencia, valencia.
Speaker 1Valencia Thoughts on what's happening there now recently with the floods. Valencia Thoughts on what's happening there now recently with the floods.
Speaker 2It's made quite an impression. Those pictures really were quite extraordinary. So apparently the floods from our friends and family did not affect the center city proper, but the small towns right outside of it and so where we do have friends, and I think the most important part of this is it feels like the social contract was broken with those floods, that people really felt like the government was supposed to be there and they were not. Yeah, but yeah, being a, being the wife of a person from a who also is raised multicultural.
Speaker 2And so being and having being a part of that culture for a very long time is also part of my identity, because it was constantly an opportunity for me to feel out of place.
Speaker 1I asked that because I'm doing my master's actually in Spain. So for the past two summers I've been down in Granada, down Andalusia. Long story short, because of COVID the master's degree has been delayed. But everything has its timing in life, right. So I've been there for the past two summers doing that, studying, and actually we're taking a group of students to Andalusia, to Cordoba, sevilla, granada at the end of February for our Beaver Accelerator. So I'm excited to go back.
Speaker 2Yes to this space as well and way easier to be there in February.
Speaker 1And I was there. I was there this past summer in July and I I learned this past summer in July and I learned very quickly that roads are empty. That is not good. Excellent, Excellent. You know you said something very interesting already. You used the phrase social contract. I don't know if you realize that I love that phrase and I'm glad to hear someone else use it in a different way, but in a similar way Oftentimes. So I'm an alum of an independent school down in the DMV Maryland area and thinking back to summer, uh, 2020, I have to ask where you went to school.
Speaker 1St angeles school, yes yes, yes, 16 12th grade, okay, and in thinking back to summer of 2020, our quote-unquote nation's racial reckoning I, in a group of black alum um starts them called the black alumni Collective, and I think similarly they're also simultaneously happening was Black at started popping up on Instagram pages across the nation, which really was many Black alums, I would say, sharing of their grievances, of their experience at independent schools across our country. I would say we did not have a page like that. We did not start a page. Actually, there was a page that was started that was called Injustice at St Andrews.
Speaker 1We took a different approach of saying how do we partner with the institution to move action forward? One of the pieces I highlighted in that work was this social contract that many I see from the eye perspective, actually, that many Black students or marginalized students quote unquote sign when they go to independent school, and that social contract being that there is great sacrifice that our families are enduring for this price of education in the hopes that it will then, in turn, lead to greater economic stability or fortunate X, y and Z in one's lifestyle, and so I would kind of throw that back to you is what do you think is that social contract that many people are signing, coming to our independent schools.
Speaker 2Well, I touched on it really briefly at the end of the presentation today with students, and what I was doing today in the presentation today with high school students was planting seeds of like so that the educators, the teachers, could talk later.
Speaker 2There was a moment and I have to trust myself when I'm doing a presentation of how much to push and it's just something I just sometimes I push harder, sometimes I push less and today I pushed less, which was interesting, because I don't actually usually push less and I and I trust myself about that, but I don't know why that happened.
Speaker 1Was there something in the space that indicated such Something?
Speaker 2There was something and I didn't know what it was, but I knew to trust it, and so I'll tell you what it was. That goes right to your social contract issue that you just talked about. One of the things and, by the way, I absolutely agree as somebody who went to Moray.
Speaker 1I went to Morayais. Good luck, sean.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah yeah, I graduated from Marais, okay, and Marais was recruiting Black students when I started when I was in high school is when they started doing that, yeah, and so, as a student, I went to public school in DC and then I went to Marais. Which public school? Public school John Eaton. John Eaton, who lived in apartments on Connecticut Avenue, and me, living in Cleveland Park.
Speaker 1Yeah, right, like in a house, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, but it was really an equitable place. My experience was is that? I really it was an extraordinary important experience for me to go to John Hayden. Then I went to Moray and things got really wonky. I mean great, great education, fantastic education. Very clear to me at the time and that was a long time ago that the Black students there was a recruiting process of bringing Black students to do athletics at Moray when I was long time ago, and that they weren't set up for success. They were successful in spite of not being set up for success. We didn't want to acknowledge the challenges that they were being brought into. That you know like, yeah, please come to my house, right. And they were like are you what? What's that? Right? And some of those people are still I'm in contact with today.
Speaker 2So, as a student, I I I observed the social contract you're talking about and as an educator, I have certainly not only observed it, but I've interacted with students who feel really like and I was asked today this is when it got pushed when I decided the first question I was asked is when do you decide to speak out and when do you decide not to?
Speaker 2That was the first question and so I had this moment and what I decided to do was say you know, there's different places and opportunities where you have to make that decision, in intimate relationships and with friends. And then I went to and if you are different in identity, religion, ethnicity, um race than the people around you, that sometimes it can be exhausting having to deal with, like, things that are seemingly small or microaggressions, and sometimes they don't seem so small but they're macro. So that's where I think I left it. What I usually do, what I usually do in those situations is I specifically name it and I say for people who are in the minority here, especially racially or ethnic or ethnically, to feel that there are friends of yours around you are saying things to you and you are exhausted having to put up with it, because if you say everything, it's not your job at the school.
Speaker 2Your job is to make this meaningful for you and, at the same time, how do you stay in relationship with people when you can't say what you really feel to them? How do you manage that? And I think my job in that moment is to create some space, because I say the very beginning like I might be wrong. I might be wrong, I might be wrong, so I don't want to speak for a young Black man in the audience. I obviously don't want to do that, so I have to be able to say I might be wrong, right.
Speaker 1Because I also might be. Um, is it a matter of right and wrong, or maybe lived upon, based upon your lived experience and the well I can say about my lived?
Speaker 2experience, my lived experience, is that it's schools that are independent, where there's a minority, especially of young black men in high school, where, from that, they are exhausted putting up with the racist comments that they're you, that you, their non-black friends, are saying. And how many times do you think I've been told by students and by parents the quintessentially things that people say of like we think that we hear these. You know the n-word in songs? And if you say it with an e instead of an r, like all of those things? Or or my favorite one, which is but my black friend gave me a pass, that's my least non, that's my favorite non-favorite one.
Speaker 2So I feel like it's upon me and my privilege of being in front of people in public and being female and white and saying in my experience, this is the pattern I have seen, and saying in my experience, this is the pattern I have seen, and it is exhausting having to tell you every single time when you say something that is a real problem. And so can we just take it from me right now that there is a possibility that you are saying things that deeply, deeply violate the dignity of your friend and they don't want to tell you, and let's have some understanding of how much pressure it is on that person to keep quiet.
Speaker 2I did get well, are we on? I have to say I got great questions at the end of the assembly at the end of the presentation I got great questions and the question of what do you feel about regret? What do you think about regret? Such a great example of why I love working with high school people, because who else but high else but are going to ask you questions that are that deep?
Speaker 1and what was your response?
Speaker 2I can barely remember. But but no, I mean I think that I talked about, as I've gotten older, what does that look like? As far as risk the risks that I want to take and why, and the risks I don't want to take and why, and that I'm really feel like to take the risks that I want to take I need to be with people who really have my back, and what that means is really telling me what they, what they think about what I'm doing, instead of just agreeing with me but to be opinionated, but not judgmental. And I also talked about self-compassion, that regret you have. You know it's impossible not to sometimes have regrets, but that I learned lessons from that.
Speaker 1How would you learn more lessons from that? Right, exactly like what is. If you can get to the root cause of what is the the, the cause of that regret, you're like, hmm, that, that's this. That's a body signal to me. Yeah, I made an action that doesn't agree with with who I am yeah, as a person, I think that student was named trey.
Honoring Dignity and Empathy
Speaker 2okay, yeah, and it was just really like an arresting question. Yes, you never know what you're going to get, but gosh right, and so all you can do is answer as honestly as you can.
Speaker 1I want to kind of go into the dignity portion, and this is dignity dialogues. I was thinking about our value as people, our pride, our worth, our value. Can you describe a time in which your identity was stripped?
Speaker 2Ooh.
Speaker 1And what'd you learn from that?
Speaker 2Well, I've had a couple of times I think we all have, where we've had our dignity stripped, and that's actually a really interesting for me question because I often think about and I thought about it during the presentation today of can someone take away your dignity, like even just that in and of itself is a really interesting question.
Speaker 1Yeah, because folks would say that it's inherent right it's essential.
Speaker 2It's essential. No one can actually. No one can actually, but it can certainly feel that way, feel that way.
Speaker 1yeah, so it's a better way of phrasing it. How do you describe a time in which you felt and which your dignity was stripped? But I understand.
Speaker 2Like I said something similar in the presentation and then I remember feeling like, is that the right question to ask? So I certainly have felt that way. I felt that way in high school. I had a really I mean I felt that way from friends. I had moments like that. I certainly did it to someone when I was in eighth grade. I mean I very much remember, like you know the person, if I could apologize I don't know this person but I don't know how to find them but if I could, I would definitely apologize.
Speaker 2And then, as an adult, what's interesting about the feeling of not have your dignity be taken away and isn't sometimes aware of how that power comes across? And I've really thought deeply about how did I get into a work relationship with someone where that is a part of it, because I work so hard to have authentic, like truly like clear, authentic relationships with people, regardless of where we are in seniority or experience or years or anything. And so I've been really thinking about that for myself. And so that's just recent right. So you know the experience of and I think that to answer your question, which for me is right underneath it, which is that when you feel the feeling of someone taking away your dignity. How do you respond? And that is where I have spent a lot of time for myself personally and also then honoring that in students.
Speaker 1I would say I talk a good fair amount with students about even. I think the hardest part is that when you feel that someone has stripped you of your dignity, you still have a responsibility to uphold theirs, and I think that is a big for students, adults, myself, myself included, yeah, and I think for myself I'm able to access that place from like a deep place, I would say not of hurt, but like a deep place in my soul of if you've gone through something that's very, very life changing, it maybe gives you that ability or that agility a little bit more to like access those deep places of your feelings so you then can carry that empathy forward for the other person. It's not easy.
Speaker 2No, and it hurts. I think that for me, what you're talking about is that it like when someone does that, it hurts. Less You're, more, you're more. I guess the practice.
Speaker 1Some people say you don't forgive people for others, forgive people for yourself. Yeah, you know like to let that go, to let that weight go, yeah, so that you're not harboring Resentment, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it turns into, right. Resentment, absolutely. Can you tell us a time? Or really, I would say two things when slash? With whom do you feel the most dignified? Where do you feel or with whom do you feel the most that your life, that your worth, is valued, honored and amplified as a human being?
Speaker 2My goodness Um my goodness.
Speaker 1I mean I.
Speaker 2I think that my closest friends I feel that way, um, and my marriage, I feel that way and my recently, I have older, young adult children and I one of the things I've noticed is that they are treating me more obviously that way. I think they respected me, but as they've gotten there in their early 20s, that I think they, you know they. I always commanded some degree of respect from them no nonsense household, but I do feel like there's a sense of knowing me as a human being. That is, as they are the benefit of life experience that they see me as. Oh, I see her more.
Speaker 1I see who she is. Yeah, you talk about. That to me reminds me of kind of the teacher-student relationship. I think as a millennial, I tell my students like, yes, I am your teacher, but also I'm a person, Like I'm Delonte Iguatu, Like before the title of teacher, I'm a person and so what you do does impact me as an adult. And because of that power differential, I do have a responsibility to make sure my actions are appropriate and I get annoyed and I get frustrated, but I can also sit here and laugh with you and be my full self. And so I think that's where you get to a piece of how do we honor our dignity? Not despite, but I would say even further because of those perceived power dynamics that could be mother, son or teacher, student, boss to you know, employees, so forth, so on.
Speaker 2Yeah and yeah, I absolutely agree. I'm thinking about last week and I told this to the high school students today that, as I introduced myself, that I threw up some pictures from my work last week.
Speaker 2And cause I don't think you should have, like you know, kind of a resume picture.
Speaker 2Like I want them to see what I'm doing and so I included a picture that someone took of me last week when I was in front of a grade level class in Panama and I was apologizing to them for not being the adult they needed me to be.
Speaker 2I'd given them a less like an advisory plan. That really didn't work for them and they got super defensive and they got sort of ugly about it and upon the first reaction, I think a lot of adults were like, oh my gosh, what's wrong with these children? And I thought you know what? I need to figure out why they didn't handle that well and get curious about it. So I went up in front of them and I said, like you're saying, I'm your teacher, like I'm a teacher to you and I'm an adult, which means that my responsibility to you is to do my best and that when I don't do as well as both of us want me to, I need to apologize and we need to keep working. So I'm an adult, I am in a position of authority, I am a human being. I made a mistake to do with you, I apologize, and we're going to keep working on it.
Speaker 1Totally, totally, and that's just transparency, transparency of the conversation, real transparency.
Speaker 2It's not someone saying I'm just being transparent, I'm just being honest, right.
Speaker 1I want to move into the crux of why we're here. We could have chosen anything from your catalog, but I wanted to focus in on Courageous Disconvert. I was mentioning to you earlier, I think that this book co-authored by you, I think that Donna Hicks Leading with Dignity, and I think that John Cronapple and Floyd Cobb Belonging Through Culture of Dignity to me it's like the trifecta of understanding dignity work and how to actually implement it. I think you know more. So, as I think this is really a tactical, this is real. This is real, like, how do you have conversation? You know what I'm trying to say Get away from like the fluffy academic stuff and just like, if you're in conversation, here's how you approach it. Yeah, and I would say, listen to it on audio book, cause I think that makes it that much better. There are some principles I want to really walk through in a moment, but I just want to hear, kind of like what was the impetus, what inspired you to go on this journey of authoring this piece of work?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, my very dear friend and colleague, shantara McBride and I have been thinking about writing something together for a long time, and then we did two podcasts about the issues of exactly what you've talked about, about not only diversity, equity, inclusion, but how, the how of it and being able to acknowledge the messiness of it. And Shantara and I you know she's a Black woman from Texas and raised Christian, still is, and we have been. This is not like black women and white women get together, write a book right, that's not what this is.
Speaker 2It is two women who are experts in the field of social, emotional learning and teaching, who have worked together for a very long time, informally and formally, who have a degree of expertise professionally and also, as part of that professional expertise, have had very difficult conversations with each other on these topics as an extension of, as a natural extension of the work that we have done, and that's why we decided to write the book. So, you know, we have a degree of expertise and we have a degree of personal and professional stakes in this, and we've been doing this work together for a long time so that when we get frustrated at each other, when one of us makes a mistake, when one of us does something that the other doesn't understand, we have had the hard conversations. So really, writing this book was an extension of the conversations that we've been having for 20 years and that was it's, you know. Yes, it was more by writing it. We had to be more, I guess, explicit or planned about the way that we spoke to each other, about what we included, but it was an easy.
Speaker 2It was certainly an easy conversation. It was an easy thing to write in that it was an extension of all the things that we've always talked, that we've just constantly talked about as co-facilitators, coleaders and friends yeah right, this might be too far of extension, but might you say that this was a, an example, uh, or a personification of love, and I say love in the sense of like she would absolutely say that, but love in in, not the romantic way, but love out in the very platonic sense of like I care, I show up, I value your life as a human being, that we're on this journey together and we've been through some messy, hard stuff and we learned from it and we love each other.
Speaker 1I think any good relationship is really defined by not by the great times, but by the hard times and your ability to get through the mess together. I care for you more deeply, because we've gone, we've been in the trenches together, but by the hard times, oh yeah, and your ability to get through the mess together, I care for you more deeply because we've gone, we've been in the trenches together, so to?
Speaker 2speak, yeah, and some of those trenches, especially when they're on issues of privilege and race and identity. You're going to have these moments and I'm pretty comfortable having uncomfortable moments with people.
Speaker 1I mean, I've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 2This moments with people. I mean, this is my job, I'm pretty good at it, but we had a. I mean, we had a moment during this writing this book that she got so angry at me. She got so angry at me and it was all about this. It was all about that when you apologize, that the person should at least say something like thank you or some physical acknowledgement that they have made this effort. So I was saying we were in the middle of writing this and I said look, you know you apologize. I'm not saying the person has to say, oh my gosh, like you're so welcome.
Speaker 2I'm not saying that I'm just saying some kind of acknowledgement, like the littlest kind of acknowledgement. It doesn't mean they agree, it doesn't mean anything except for I hear that you have done this, that's it. And she. Her response to that was I absolutely disagree. And I was like what do you mean? You disagree, she's like I, I she's. And then she said to me I think, if you apologize to me, and I said this is how she did it, she said okay, it's like, what do you mean? And she said I think that if somebody apologizes to me and I say, okay, just like that, and you and you know, since it's a podcast, you can't see my eyes going down enough but that is fine the inflection yes, and
Speaker 2we got into it. Oh my goodness, we got into it. We got into it. She, she. Later she told me she was so angry at me that she was actually going to take like a lift and spend the money to go to the airport. She was in my house at the time instead of like me, driving to the airport. She didn't really talk to me until like three quarters away to the airport, and I live in boulder, so there to the airport, that's a long time. So the reason I'm saying this is because, yes, exactly, it was a moment of it brought us closer and I really did actually understand eventually.
Speaker 1She said to me yeah, where is she coming from?
Speaker 2yeah, she was saying to me as a black woman, I am am so tired of taking care of your. Your want to contribute to the message of that a Black woman or a person who's in some kind of identity right where they do not have as much privilege that they have to take care of the emotional right experience of the other person. I mean, when you say it like that, you can't really refute it, right. And then I have to say and this is a big like what was it October? So six weeks ago I was at Penn state doing a keynote and I talked about that in this in the speech and I said when you say you know what I messed up, when you've realized you've messed up, and you and we talk about this in the book, when you mess up and you say thank you for telling me you know, it's taking a risk to tell me and I'm really going to do better.
Speaker 2I'm going to try, excuse me, I'm going to try really hard to self-reflect and do better. And if I have some questions for you, may I ask you. But I really, most importantly is I really want to apologize. I'm going to work on it and I really appreciate you telling me.
Speaker 2And then I said at the Penn State speech and that's it, because no matter what anybody does on the other side, it doesn't matter. There are like there's no expectations on this other side and they're not being rude if they say nothing. And so there was a group of black women in the audience who came up to me afterwards and said they'd never seen a white woman do that, and it was really really powerful to hear that.
Speaker 1So that is the learning taken from that experience that you all had it out, right?
Taking Ownership and Dignity in Relationships
Speaker 2And Shantara was right, I just it just took me a minute to get to that place. But the benefit of having relationships with people that are really grounding you in dignity is that not only will they disagree with you, but they will wait with you. They will go on the journey with you.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Of like they will go on the journey with you. Of like I am angry in this case, I'm super angry with you right. Of like they will go on the journey with you. Of like I am angry in this case, I'm super angry with you right now and she was to me, Super angry with you right now, but I'm going to go on this journey with you.
Speaker 2I'm going to take care of myself, I'm going to take care of you too, and we're going to do this together. And both people, I think, can learn from it, and I certainly learned from it. You know, two years later, a year and a half later, I'm able to go in front of a group of people and wow, did I?
Speaker 1have this group of women who like really felt seen.
Speaker 2Yeah, and affirmed Affirmed, and it was me as a messenger of Shantara's voice and her experience. I'm reflecting that back so that other people can be heard, and I think that is a very, such an important thing to be able to do if you can, if you can.
Speaker 1Let's dive into the principle, shall we? Okay, and I love how you all actually even just that language of principle like choosing intentionally calling them a principle not a norm, it's a principle that we should strive to act into and to live into.
Speaker 1I want to start us off with really a quote that will ground this conversation. Each person's truth is of equal value. No one gets to speak for anyone else or dismiss an opinion because it's not shared by the people who have the most power. And I think, right there, you're trying to actually what were you trying to center in that piece? Right there, I can guess.
Speaker 2but I think it's an incredibly important life message that it's so easy to forget who's speaking and why.
Speaker 2The why, the why, piece, the why, and that certain people feel that they have the right to speak for others, and that, for me, literally, is like if we could take what is what does privilege look like? To me, it's a person who feels they have the right to speak for others and act on behalf of others, and what's so frightening about it is the lack of thinking about it, because it's so in their bodies and in their nervous system that they just get to do this. And then all of the power dynamics, that sort of domino from that where people don't feel comfortable speaking out and saying actually I disagree, and let me let me tell you why. It's like we've broken another social contract when we speak out, and so that's, for me, just an incredibly important thing to put words to.
Speaker 1I want to acknowledge that we're skipping around principles in the book in a particular order, principles in the book in a particular order, but in the sense that if you read the book you'll get the whole entire full story, I would say that these ones really stick out to me as a individual. That's how I try to, I would say, lead my life and do my work as a professional. So principle number one is, or principle starting off with, is demanding that all people are treated with dignity takes courageous discomfort. Where did that come from? What does that mean? How do you correlate, how do you connect dignity with courageous discomfort?
Speaker 2You correlate dignity with courageous discomfort. Because often affirming someone's dignity means that you have to speak out against somebody who's in a position of respect. So because people who are in positions of authority and have power and have power, yeah Can often, with or without realizing it, take away the dignity of other people, their experiences are not seen, their right to be at the table not seen.
Speaker 2I think that it takes courageous discomfort yourself to be able to speak out, to say no, not only does this person need to be at the table, but they have the right to speak and not do the work of like heroing and like coming and saving the day, but to say like this is what I, by practicing dignity everyone has the right to have this essential worth. Have this essential worth and I think you oftentimes doing that you're going to go up against the system that is really demanding that we see respect as actually a display of power.
Speaker 1And as I'm thinking too, I'm thinking about maybe those two keywords right there courageous and discomfort. I think about discomfort. I think it's about it is a bodily response. So you feel, you know, when you feel discomfort right, whether it's emotional, whether it's physical, and then the courageous piece is around. How do I act? In spite of fear and so matching those two things together to your point. Right, I'm acting in spite of possible retribution from this person in power.
Speaker 1I'm acting in spite of my body telling me no right, Like nope, I'm not going to write that email, I'm not going to speak up, and so. But the dignity piece says, in spite of that, even right, Because this person has value in the world, in my life, in my workspace. I actually have a responsibility to them to speak up when I know that something is going against the grain. A little bit right when I noticed that. So the next principle I want to pick your brain on is take ownership, especially when it's hard. How do we go about doing that, Taking ownership of our actions, especially when it's hard?
Speaker 2I think we have a moment and it's going to happen whether or not we can't control this. Something happens to us and you don't want to take ownership. It's natural sometimes, when something bad happens and you're associated with it, that the natural reaction is to say no, that's not me, I didn't do it. Or the person that I'm connected to didn't do it, or they were having a bad day, or they were hungry or some excuse some reason that takes the responsibility, or just acknowledging what happened, and that is a natural thing that we all do.
Speaker 2And then the thing that I'm asking people to do is, when they have that moment, to notice it and then to pause and to say, oh, this is the moment I need to take ownership when it's hard.
Speaker 2Because if we're going to take ownership when it's good, when our kids, for example, make us look good, or we're like so proud about something that's happened, we can't be selective.
Speaker 2I mean we can, but it's hypocritical to take, and not mindful to take, responsibility or ownership and celebrate the wins and then, when it's something you don't want to, you're like, no, no, that didn't happen Right, or you minimize it.
Speaker 2Minimize it. So the principle for me is to be mindful and to say, oh, I'm going to take ownership of my own behavior when I'm, you know, when I've done something that's not great, and I'm definitely going to do that as a parent. And I'm going to say, or as a community member, that our children are developing and in the process of developing, they will make mistakes. They're not going to be like X way forever, like these bad people that we do these very binary things of like this is I just had this happen to me recently with somebody who referred to their students as good kids. That that language is really difficult because that then assumes that there are some people out there that are bad kids, and when that happens, that means to me that your brain is going to start making does make decisions based on your bias, that you're not aware of, that somehow you are sorting people into good and bad.
Speaker 2Categories Right and so you can't. It's harder to take ownership in those moments if you already are sorting people constantly into good and bad and now students will say to me well, you know you can't help it, we have this bias. That is true, we all have bias, but we meet. When we are mindful of it, then we take ownership of it. When we own it, then we can live a mindful, reflective life.
Speaker 1And I think, additionally to that, if I'm in conversation with you this is my hope, this is my suspicion right, if we're in conversation, I'm trying to repair the harm that I've done to you, I'm trying to apologize. My taking ownership, then, I would say one, disarms you in the sense, allows you to be open to that apology and that pathway forward. So, thank you for acknowledging Like, yes, you hurt me, you harmed me. I say to me, I'm like, yeah, you did that, own it, thank you, it can move along, but you try to skirt around it. You're trying to make excuses and I'm like, well, you actually don't see that you impacted, it had on me.
Speaker 2Yeah, back that it had on me. Yeah, can I also? I think one of the things also because I'm watching the amount of hypocrisy coming from people who who use words like trauma and harm and things like that.
Speaker 2I think that I just I also want us to be mindful. Let's talk about it, yeah, yeah, let's be mindful. I want to be mindful and I want people to be mindful of the wording that they're using. That is either lost its power words have meaning right, Obviously they do, and so, but if they get co-opted or get or they lose the power that they have, I want us to be mindful of that. And also I have been, you know, I work in all different kinds of cultures the most you know labeled themselves conservative to the labeled most liberal that they themselves identify that way. And one of the things that I've been really mindful about is, I have to say, like I'm more careful, I'm more worried, I'm more self-monitoring of what I say in so-called liberal communities than I am in conservative ones, because the question do we live up to that?
Speaker 1Yeah, well, I mean the ideal.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean. And also, if you say I mean the experience of like, if I say quote, unquote the wrong words, right or that, so the word harm is like a very. It's become like this loaded topic, this loaded trauma and harm have become loaded terms.
Speaker 2Triggers, all those things and Trauma and harm have become loaded terms, triggers, all those things, and then people make fun of them, right? And so just for me to be in meaningful conversation and real conversation what it's all about, and regardless of how one votes, regardless of how one sees the political landscape and yourself in it, I think it's really important because, on both sides of how people perceive themselves, I have seen behavior and had to interact with and negotiate and navigate around behavior on both sides that are hypocritical, difficult. I mean, I had a conversation with somebody in a position of leadership last week who defines himself as incredibly progressive, who was incredibly patronizing and condescending to the people that were around this person and used all different kinds of the right words, but their behavior was absolutely inconsistent and that I think we have to create space for to be able to have to acknowledge that, on sort of, all of us have this as vulnerabilities, all of us are in situations where we need to take ownership, when it's hard.
Speaker 1The next principle I want to move to I'm deciding, I'm deciding, they're all good, they're all good.
Speaker 2I'm glad it's hard. I wish Shantara was listening now.
Speaker 1Listening is preparing to be changed by what you hear. Yeah, and listening is one of these changed by what you hear, and listening is one of these dispositions of dignity.
Speaker 1Listening is the act of listening, and I say that in the sense of, I think, especially working with young people, I try to impress upon them the power of the period as a punctuation mark. Yes, you said it period, take in the silence, hear it, reflect, manifest, but don't be so ready to jump and respond to that next person or respond to the person of what they said. And so that, to me, is what I hear about listening of that power, of that Cause. If I'm able to listen to you, I can say, hmm, I'm just I'm in the process, right, huh, I haven't thought about it in that way, or I haven't heard that. And we can actually just pause the conversation right there, put a bookmark in it and come back to it when we're ready to resume. But tell us more about what did that principle? How did that principle come about?
The Power of Listening and Grace
Speaker 2Oh gosh, I mean, I've had that principle in my life since, I think, the second version of Queen Bees and Wannabes, the second edition. When I wrote, I was like I need to do better on the listening thing, because I think listening is one of those words that we say that we assume that we know what we're talking about and we really don't. And you just added right to my definition of the pause, of how important the pause is. I think, in particular in my experience with some schools, some educational institutions, and not just independent schools like this one, there's so much social power connected to verbal ability and to be able to dominate people with words, and I think that that goes Even art. Yes, yes, right, yeah.
Speaker 2That exactly that the pause is really countercultural and it can feel like you don't know what to say or what to do when you stop and pause. I know that. I feel that way because I grew up with valuing a lot of words and I have learned, as I've gotten older, of words, and I have learned, as I've gotten older, exactly what you said, which is the power of silence, is profound. So I really work on that a lot and not that is a growth area for me.
Speaker 2But I think listening is being prepared to be changed by what you hear. I think the most important part of that is that you don't necessarily have to agree. This is not agreeing and it's not listening for understanding. It is walking into a situation with the possibility that you might be changed by something that this person shares with you. And I believe that and I know that when you have that in your body, when you walk into and space with somebody, when you're listening, that they pick up on that and it changes from the very beginning the energy in the room.
Speaker 1Oh, I love that there's two more. I want to get through end off. I think these two are actually my favorite. I have to say this next one is speaking your truth doesn't have to be all or nothing. I love that too. Speaking your truth doesn't have to be all or nothing I love that too. I think it also applies to our young people, because it can feel that way. Right, it can vary. This kind of goes, I think, to the scarcity mindset. It goes to the zero-sum game, that because what I say and maybe someone who I'm in a relationship with doesn't agree with me, doesn't mean that I have to damn them. You know, or they are stupid or evil. So yeah, tell us more about that principle.
Speaker 2I think that speaks actually to what I was talking about, about the verbal domination of what we, that we value verbal domination, and that the success in a conflict is either you are best friends afterwards or you've destroyed the other person yes, yes. And I. So I think that this thing of that it's true, it's your truth and that it's all or nothing really speaks to, are connected to the values we have about if we're going to confront somebody. That's the way we define success in a confrontation totally best friends or complete destruction.
Speaker 1Add some more space to that, to that middle, to that gray, to that gray area.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and so I really what's important for me when I'm working with young people is to say I mean, you talked about the very beginning of. You know, this is my truth. No one can take that truth away. But and that is my right, but I also have a responsibility in community with other people that I recognize the other side. Now, with young people, they really, you know, are going to come at me really quickly with, like, well, what happens if the person has believes and is telling me their truth? And that truth, fundamentally, is what I absolutely to my core disagree with. And you know, I love, I love and.
Speaker 1I'm like that's OK. I think I'm going to I love. I'm like that's okay, I think I'm going to put my life I'm like that's okay, like to your point. I'm not well, I'm really not trying to change it. I've expressed the way that I've experienced life because of X, y, z things. We can't change those things. I can honor what you say, that's true, and I just keep going along my day, you know like, because I think that is actually where sometimes the conversation ends.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that's okay. Yeah, it is, and you can also talk another day. That too right. Live to talk another day.
Speaker 1Because in the moment it seems so, it seems to wait. Right, you have to, you have to resolve it in that moment and to your point. No, this can be an ongoing conversation.
Speaker 2Well, I think and I again, like I struggled with this hugely, like until yesterday and I still find it right it's like this isn't something I don't struggle with, but there's this I think the feeling in the moment is that if you don't win, then somehow you it's shameful, or somehow if you don't convince this other person, then that person in that moment is now not worthy of your regard in any way.
Speaker 2And um, and that is what I am really worried about when I talk to young people because we're making such assumptions about people so quickly that we so we believe that we've made an assessment on their entire character and they made an assumption about that and then decided that they are no longer worthy of being in the same room with us and they're only worthy of our contempt. We got to check ourselves on that, because we are making some very quick assumptions with very limited information about as someone's entire character, and I mean, I know young people enough to know that that is the one thing they hate about people doing to them. So let's call it. Let's call it because it can't go both ways. You don't just get the right to have somebody you know understand you and take the time to like understand you without you affording the same grace to them.
Speaker 1That's the word To end this off with our last principle.
Speaker 1And I think, if there, without you affording the same grace to them, that's the word To end this off with our last principle, and I think, if there's any of them that I try to live by in my own personal journey in life and my professional work, it is extending grace, because I think this might actually kind of I'm no longer kind of, you know, practicing religion every single day as a Christian, but I was definitely.
Speaker 1I grew up in the church and so practicing religion every single day as a Christian, but I was definitely a group in the church, and so there is these words of mercy and grace that came up a lot and those definitely landed upon me as a person and, I think, for, you know, in a position of power and a leadership at a school. Although I can call people to power, so to speak, I am not immune of making mistakes, and so that's kind of my mindset that I say, like if I were to have done that, how would I want someone to respond to me right, with care, with compassion, with love, with understanding. So I think that's why it's easy for me to have that mercy right, because mercy right isn't actually deserved, that's the thing. But we still extend it by giving grace. So this last principle is realize our ways may be different. Extend grace to each other along the way. What does that mean?
Building Belonging Through Grace and Accountability
Speaker 2Yeah, it's a good one, right? I'm listening to that, I'm like, ah, that's good. Sometimes I forget the things I write.
Speaker 1I think, by extending grace. I think it really. It's a reminder to see our shared humanity. It's a reminder that we can follow all the principles and we're still going to falter and slip and be messy along the way. Like acknowledge that, it honors that and it gives us yet an opportunity, when we have to have that pause, to come back to the conversation yeah.
Speaker 2And I would. What I would add is that extending grace is not letting people get away with bad behavior. It is being able to figure out what you really truly think and feel about what happened to you, because our first reactions to things are so strong and we need some time to be able, I think, to be able to really sit for just a minute to like what was it that really?
Speaker 1happened? Synthesize clarify.
Speaker 2Synthesize, clarify, exactly, integrate, like the things that happened. And so we are not giving somebody, we're not by giving grace, you're not letting them get away with something.
Speaker 2I think that's a really important part of this. And also, on the other side, one of the things I've just gotten like really focused on is that we tend I want to extend grace to young people Because we have, we believe in our wording, in our day-to-day wording to young people is a lot about mastery and competence, Like you're supposed to master this, You're supposed to be competent at this. Frankly, IB is. You know, I think it's a lot about that.
Speaker 2You know I have complicated feelings about programs and things like IB and because I see how incredibly stressed students are about them, but I think one of the things that can really I mean using as an example, but I think the thing I would like adults to do, and I try and do is to really focus on young people, that they are in the process of development, and so this is not about mastery and it's not about competence or core competencies.
Speaker 1When you go to your grave, there won't be a checklist of things you mastered in your life.
Speaker 2I can say that I do not like the words core competencies, because the way in which it comes across as if young people are supposed to like, have these masteries of these things, and then you look and see what those things are they're supposed to be masters of or have core competency around. It's like emotional regulation being able to talk to somebody when you're super angry, advocating for yourself appropriately and like. These are things that adults struggle their entire lives and yet the language in schools that we are talking to young people on this is about mastery and core competencies. I want to see the language change fundamentally. Do we have a shift Development.
Speaker 2We are in. All of us are in development. All of us are in a process of development. We are in a process. We are in. All of us are in development. All of us are in a process of development. We are in a process, we are developing. And so the process of what we learn about regulating ourselves, skills, with the understanding that if we really want to have a sense of belonging in a school, that part of the fundamental part of belonging is that you are allowed to make mistakes.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, I'm sorry, I went to. I went to class earlier today and was trying to talk about. It was really about our discipline policies at school and, you know, is too much grace actually extended.
Speaker 2And sometimes that can be the case. I think there's something to be of like too much grace where it signals to other people and to the child that the grace that you are extending does not fit the context and the situation and severity totally what it totally, and things are case by case.
Speaker 1I did share. Things are case by case. I think what I was ultimately trying to to land upon was our job as a school, no matter what that consequence, no matter what the action was that the kid did not, should be the mother of dignity, as a student, as a person. Um, and then to your point of like, how do we create a space in which students feel comfortable enough to make those mistakes and also within reason, right and also behavior not being motivated by fear? Consequence I think that's a big part for me.
Speaker 1That was kind of like my aha today about that piece of like, connecting it to belonging right and mistakes. I don't have the answer for it, to be quite honest. Um, but how do we kind of shift the feeling, the thought and the culture of that? Know that there's accountability happening. Sure, we may not be able to share the whole entire process out of you know, protecting that the individual absolutely. And I'm really worried about of like you use this kind of real world example when you go into the real world. This is the real world happening right here, right now, and I really this might be very utopian, idealistic I hope that the world is caring enough in which that, when you do falter, when you do make a mistake, that people are able to extend the love, the grace, so that you can once again be in community with others.
Speaker 2So I've been with a lot of schools when they've gone through disciplinary cases and there are patterns to them and those patterns are, for example, and it really speaks to like how you discipline a student, how that child learns from the experience. People do things and make mistakes where they literally look back and have no idea why they did it right in the moment. And usually that's actually about group dynamics, about, like, what happened that made them try to reinforce their position or prove their position to somebody else, or they could not stop what was happening because they did not want to make things uncomfortable in the relationship in that moment. And it is so easy for us when we are not in that moment, like that person was to blame and condemn and say like no, that was, that was absolutely wrong, when we would have done the same thing if we had been in that situation. What adult listening to this podcast has not been in a situation, especially when you were young, where you let something happen in front of you that you knew was wrong, because you did not want to make things awkward or take a social consequence with the person who was doing it. So we got to like take a step back. So if there is a mistake around that and the student really wants to understand how to take responsibility and repair their relationships in the community and what they have done in the community, if they really want to do that, I think those students can be some of the most valuable people in the community because they and they are to everyone of like I made a mistake and I'm going to work to earn your trust back and if that happens, that's an amazing learning opportunity where children should absolutely be a part of the community and to repair back.
Speaker 2If there is a child who is showing a pattern of behavior where they don't want to do that don't take it seriously, look for ways to undermine, ridicule these efforts Then that person in this moment should not be a part of this community. They need to go out into a different experience, learn the lessons, feel the discomfort of saying like the behavior that you're doing is just not, we can't have it and that is a boundary, and then they can go out and then maybe they come back in later, but it is in that moment to say the pattern of behavior exhibiting means that you don't want to be here and so because of that, we are going to make the decision that you can't be here until maybe until at all or certain criteria are met. That's how we make I think that's how we make decisions ideally about this really difficult thing of like what is the right discipline for a student who is caught up in a really difficult situation.
Speaker 1I want to end us off on one particular just note. If you think back to younger self, you think back to where you are in life right now. What would you tell your younger self of kind of just where you are in your journey and life in the world and where do you have left to go?
Embracing Faith and Patience
Speaker 2I think I would have. I mean, it's the same advice I would tell myself now. It's that take the risks that are the right risks to take, and that you don't always have to finish your to-do list. I am really, really challenged by that problem.
Speaker 1You don't have to always finish your to-do list. That's a good one.
Speaker 2Thank you, I actually just thought of that. How do I sum up how focused I can be on the next thing? And so maybe just being able to pause and to just really appreciate where you are and have faith that things will come and it's going to be okay that things will come and that you're not living from a scarcity mindset, that things will come, and that's been something I've struggled with my whole life.
Speaker 1Well, thank you for your time with us today. This was amazing and the conversation will continue. Absolutely Bye.