FRAMING OUR COLLABORATION WITH PURPOSE

A few months ago, I listened to a group of four and five year olds in an international school, early years setting. They were engaged in dialogue about the experience of finding a dead bee in the playground. It was close to the beginning of their school year and this discovery had opened some new thinking about bees, belonging and change. 

Sanjay             Hey everyone, look, there is a dead insect!

Anya               Oh poor bee, he can’t go back to where he belongs now, back in the hive.

Sanjay             I think they miss him at the hive… How will they know he is not coming back to make honey?

Anya               What will they do without him? They can’t make honey together anymore.

Sanjay             I don't know, but it’s sad he can’t be where he belongs, with the bees in the hive. Now he can’t go back. So sad.

Angus             Sometimes you actually can’t go back … even if you are not dead. Sometimes you just move to a new place and you have to find a new home, like me, I moved and had to find a new house and a new school – all over summer break. I didn't die, but I can’t go back, it is too far.

Anya               Do you still belong in the old place … or… hey… do you belong in the new place? 

Sanjay             Would this bee still belong? Maybe, if we took it to the hive? 

Angus             I don’t know. Before I came here (started at this school) I belonged to a different school, but it was very different there.

Anya               But now you are with us, at our school…. 

Sanjay            Hey, what did it feel like to be at a different school? Did they have a big slide like ours does? How did you play there? Did you even have dead bees in the playground too?

Angus             It felt good, like being with your friends everyday, which is fun, it felt sort of normal. They didn't have a big silver slide though… and no dead bees, that was sad.

Anya               Was it like a beehive? (laughs) Did you make honey? (laughs again and then pauses) ... Hey, how did you know you belonged?

Angus             You know when you belong, it feels good, like when people know you, and they say hello to you. You know that if you get stuck, you can ask for help, they can help you.

Anya               Oh yeah, like a team, people are a team ‘cos they help each other, you know, team-WORK! And bees are a team too. WORKER- BEES! You are on our team now Angus, we can help you when you get stuck. Maybe the bees can help this dead bee so he feels like he belongs again, come on let’s try to put him back…

As I listened, I was interested to hear the natural parallels between the human experience of belonging and change and the children’s evolving theories about how socially oriented honeybee colonies work. Reflecting on this conversation brought me back to Anne’s last post and the ideas of initiative and agency as a ‘self-renewing resource’. 

I watched this group of capable inquirers constructed connections and theories about belonging and change as their conversation grew. Perhaps initiative is the ‘currency of agency’ - a self-renewing, circulatory resource which sustains our sense of self-efficacy. There is much we could unpack about the children’s theories and this conversation, however, it also offers us a useful moment of analysis for our own processes of collaboration.

Taking a cue from the children’s explorations of bees and belonging, and Anne’s writing about the way initiative shapes the way we meet and work together, we are prompted to think about the way our intentionality and initiative shapes our collaboration and belonging. In a wonderful book (recommended to me recently by a colleague) called The Art of Gathering, the author Priya Parker reflects on the ways we engage in everyday moments and how we choose to initiate and participate in these moments. 

Engaging with others with exuberance, curiosity and joy is something that children inherently do. All day. Everyday.  This open-ness and joy fuels the boundless social energy that sustains their friendships, play and inquiry. Yet I wonder about our work as educators, do we bring the same sense of intention, open-ness and curiosity to the moments when we meet with one-another?

With ‘gathering’ on the radar, I am beginning to notice more and more how consciously, and unconsciously, we frame and co-construct our moments of collaboration with others. It is there all the time; be it in a scheduled meeting, an impromptu conversation, a structured professional learning experience, a web-chat or simply in causal dialogue shared with colleagues at the end of a busy day. These moments hold great potential for connection and collaboration. 

Meeting with educators in Uganda and Turkey last month, I had the opportunity to witness some exceptional school leaders at work. I watched as they 'gathered' their teams with authenticity, consistency and honesty in all of their interactions; grounding all of their communication in shared purpose and respect. Observing the way these leaders engaged with their teams in everyday moments, I noticed how the presence of respect and intentionality transcended traditional hierarchical boundaries and brought a sense of belonging and purpose to the forefront of everyday experience.

Priya Parker’s book opens our eyes to the responsibility of participation, as an active space rather than a habitual reflex. She suggests that each of us has the power to increase the level of meaning in our gathering by finding meaningful ways to declare purpose and sustain participation. Often when talking about participation we read the meaning as ‘to take part in’ something,  but I wonder, how differently would collaboration feel if we understood our participation in another way? Over the years we have listened intently to this word whilst in study tour groups in Reggio Emilia. Hearing the pedagogisti explain their understanding of ‘participation’, to be more than merely ‘taking part’, we have come to know its meaning as ‘to be part of’ something. Participation is a social action that comes laced with responsibility and belonging.

How might our sense of purpose and collaboration change if we understood our participation in this way? 

Changing the way we connect and collaborate takes courage, it begins with small but deliberate steps. It might be with a more intentional and invitational pre-event communication, or maybe entering the gathering moment with an enriched sense of purpose, wonderment and joy, or taking time to reflect and share reflections of learning and gratitude with others after the meeting or event. Gathering others with energy and enthusiasm, sharing both integrity and purpose offers a contagious air of positivity and hope. Humble and honest, these interactions generate a shared space of meaning-making, allowing everyone to connect and belong. 

It is in these moments that Anne and I have both noticed how educational teams respond to new ideas with a deeper commitment to collaboration, leaving us with many new things to consider:

How might gathering with purpose help us to honour the past and frame the future?

How does the way we choose to engage help us to trust one-another and our process?

What new possibilities might emerge if we engage with a deeper sense of purpose?

How might our individual and collective growth be changed over time if we hold ourselves accountable to acting with integrity, respect and purpose?

Framed with positivity, these ideas have great potential to increase meaningful connections and trusting relationships, but we have to remember that engaging in this way is always a choice we make. In both Anne’s blogpost and Priya Parker’s words we can find important lessons for engagement that can be applied to our everyday relationships, interactions and participation. The best part for me is that acting with purpose doesn't cost a cent. Perhaps all it takes is awareness, intention and courage. By listening more intently to these moments and modes of our participation, we reveal important clues to the quality of our social cohesion - the fabric of our own learning communities. 

And, like all good learning encounters, this leaves us with more questions than answers…

What are we willing to do differently, in order to leverage intentionality in our collaboration? 

How will we keep 'purpose as our compass' as we travel forward together?

Fiona