2024: The Year of the Wood Dragon, the Year of the Gentle Revolution
While the Year of the Dragon comes every 12 years, the Year of the Wood Dragon only comes every 60 years! What an auspicious year 2024 is, marked by the rare combination of the dragon’s power and the wood’s creativity! It is a year of innovation, vision, and growth. It is a year to pursue your dreams, express your ideas, and expand your horizons. (https://www.thechinesezodiac.org/year-of-the-dragon/)
Let’s seize this year we have been given! What a perfect year for our gentle revolution! What a perfect year to create or confirm a vision for a familycentric approach to schooling, to work innovatively to develop strategic plans and practices that hold promise for high impact, to continue to grow in our knowledge of what it means and what it looks like for parents and educators to walk alongside one another in the teaching, learning, and development of our children and youth.
As we pursue our dreams, express our ideas, and expand our horizons, let’s continue to do it with gentleness, with care and concern for one another and for respect for others on this journey. The heart of this revolutionary work is LOVE! While Dragon people are ambitious, adventurous, and fearless, they are also generous and compassionate. Let’s be all of that in 2024!
The Wind and the Sun
Were you introduced to Aesop’s Fables as a child? Debbie remembers watching an animated version of the fable, The Wind and the Sun, on television as an elementary school-aged child. It is a story that stayed with her and one that often re-emerges in her thoughts in times of conflict. In this fable, the wind and sun challenge one another to see which one of them will be successful in removing a stranger’s coat as he walks on his journey. The wind goes first, raging and blowing with all of its strength. The more fiercely the wind blows, the more tightly the traveler holds his coat to his body. With the wind defeated, it is then the sun’s turn. The sun shines, getting brighter and hotter with every passing moment. As the sun’s rays encompass the traveler, he unbuttons his coat, then loosens it further, and finally removes it completely. The moral of Aesop’s fable, then, is that persuasion is better than force and that a kind and gentle manner will sooner lay open a person’s heart. Let’s each of us be a sun as we make our way in this important revolution, one that will be more powerful when its lived out with gentleness.
Proceeding “Bird by Bird”
But, if you’re new to the gentle revolution, where will you start? If you are on the journey already, what might your next step be? It may feel overwhelming to think about a gentle revolution as a whole, so think only about it one step at a time. The term “bird by bird” is commonly known among Debbie’s graduate students. (Just talk to Jillian Vancoughnett about this!) It’s advice Debbie often gives her students in the face of the challenge to write an entire chapter, or book, or dissertation, and it is wisdom borrowed from by Anne Lamott’s (1995) book entitled, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Lamott’s title for her book comes from simple advice her father shared with her brother:
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’
Imagine if each one of us courageously contributes to the gentle revolution, and proceeds creatively “bird by bird,” how much change we will see on school landscapes almost instantly?
Acting with “Radical Generosity”
So what might that first bird step be that creates a greater sense of welcoming and hospitality for parents and family members in schools? What might that first step be that builds greater trust or a stronger sense of relationship between a parent and an educator? What might that first step be in asking a parent to share what they know about their child in order to help the teacher teach them well? There is an interesting Ted Talk featuring Asha Curran, called, Why Helping People Makes You Happy. A concept we love in what Curran speaks about is the notion of “radical generosity.” While she explains that the word ‘radical’ may sound scary at first, all it means is “at the root.” Generosity, then, becomes the driving force at the root of all of our behaviors, decisions, and actions – big or small – that shift our schools to being familycentric.
Remember that 2024 is the year of the Wood Dragon? A year to be courageous and generous? A first step, one ‘bird’ step, may be to:
Greet parents and family members at the door as they enter the school, at entry and exit times – every day, all year long.
Change the sign from, “Visitors please report to the office,” to “Welcome! We are so glad you have come!”
Have coffee, tea, and a comfortable and inviting place for parents to be in your school.
Phone a parent, just to get to know more about them and their family. (Or make a family visit for this same reason)
As we have rooted our actions and thinking in generosity – in love and care for the parents and family members of the children we teach and walk alongside, we have witnessed the countless ways that one act naturally and authentically leads to the next. Watch for our upcoming articles featuring Kathy Robson, Deputy Director of Chinook School Division; Vicki Moore, Director of Education with Sun West School Division; and Wendy Keiver, Executive Director of Alberta School Councils Association as they share their steps and their progress in the gentle revolution in their particular role and location. Each one has demonstrated both courage and creativity in their parent and family engagement efforts; each one is in a unique place and stage of their revolutionary journey.
Knowing It Won’t Always Be Easy
There is a reality to this work – it is critically important and it is needed urgently. We are all familiar with the current state of education, the gaps in opportunities and outcomes for students and families, and the comprehensive evidence that demonstrates parent engagement is a proven, yet often overlooked strategy, to improve this educational situation, for students, staff, and parents. There is another reality to this work too – it can be hard. It can offer us challenges, and challengers both. I’m sure each and every one of us has been knocked back, or knocked down, at some point in our parent engagement journey. But, this is the year of the wood dragon! It is a year to be courageous in the face of challenge and adversity, and innovative in the face of obstacles. It is a year to get up when you get knocked down, and to try again. I think of a teacher who was told by her principal that she could not do home visits. She was given permission, though, to drop by a student’s home who had been away from school for a while to take some materials to him. That first ‘drop by’ was the initiation of what became her ‘drop by’ practice! She was courageous and innovative in the face of an obstacle!
Remembering that Each One of Us is a Leader
While there are defined leadership roles in schools and school divisions, each of us, in whatever role we are in, as parents and/or educators, is a leader in our own right. Max DePree (1989) wrote about the concept of “roving leadership,” leadership that falls to the individual most able to lead at any point in time. I think of parents who planned and developed PD for a staff of educators on Indigenous ways of knowing. I think of teachers who planned and facilitated parent engagement conferences. I think of two principals who modeled their belief in family by designing a job share assignment and prioritizing both their own families and their careers. Leadership is an act, an action, that each of us can assume.
On September 21, 2023, Greg Berge posted on X (formerly Twitter) an interview with Peyton Manning on leadership. Manning outlined three steps to lead others:
1. Choose to lead
2. Lead by example
3. Lead out loud.
Choose to lead – be courageous, adventurous, and fearless. Lead by example – be innovative, generous, and compassionate. Lead out loud – share your beliefs, knowledge, and vision. Remember, it is not a revolution if others don’t know about it!
Reaping the Benefits
Sometimes we know that we believe in something, but we ask ourselves: Do I have the strength … or the energy … or the time? What do I have to give up in order to do this? Let’s return to Asha Curran’s Ted Talk and to another thing she has to share. Generosity – radical generosity – alleviates stress, it doesn’t add to it. It enhances our feelings of wellbeing. It is an antidote to fear, anxiety, outrage, indignation, isolation. We know this to be true. So many teachers share stories of what they gain from family visits – relationships, trust, support, even friendships, and families who become a part of their own families’ lives. Their teaching life becomes easier when they know that others share the load with them and support them in all that they do. Their wellbeing is enhanced.
Moving to Action
Saturday, February 10th kicks off Chinese New Year. Let’s use this date as a marker in our creation of a year of strategic (and revolutionary) planning and practice to extend and deepen the meaningful and authentic work that we are either starting or have underway to provide place and voice for parents and families in their children’s teaching and learning on school landscapes. As you engage in your courageous and creative work, please submit a short piece to us that we can post, sharing one thing you are doing, one thing you are planning to do, one ‘bird’ step you’ve taken, one courageous and/or creative act to engage with parents and families. By creating this networked map of connection, we will all get a bigger picture of the expansiveness of the gentle revolution and none of us will feel alone or unsupported in our actions.
We are so excited to hear from you!