I’m going to be a little deep with you today. I hope that’s ok. After all, I’m a Victorian and the gloomy pallor of coronavirus descending on us has driven quite a few of us toward some deep contemplation recently.
For me, I’ve also been driven toward some reading with more home time and less ferrying of teenagers to sports and social events – a silver lining perhaps. I’ve lately been meandering through “Sand Talk – How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World” by Tyson Yunkaporta.
The title was what got me. I like being challenged to think differently or to view my world from a different angle.
There’s a passage in there that I’d like to share with you:
“Our knowledge endures because everybody carries a part of it, no matter how fragmentary. If you want to see the pattern of the creation you talk to everybody and you listen carefully. Authentic knowledge processes are easy to verify if you are familiar with the pattern – each part reflects the design of the whole system. If the pattern is present, the knowledge is true, whether the speaker is wearing a grass skirt or a business suit or a school uniform.”
It got me wondering a handful of deep and meaningful questions that might be worth leaders and educators just occasionally contemplating. Questions like:
- Do your students feel like a critical a part of your school system?
- Or do they feel like the system of your school merely does things to them as the helpless individuals forced into to it?
- And what about your staff?
- And then what about your parents?
Finally, I wondered what the pattern is of your school. How is the experience of going to your school imprinted upon your students as an identifiable, verifable feature?
Deep eh?
It’s good to go deep occasionally. It stops one thinking about viruses for a bit anyway.
Warm regards,
