Feeling Stirred

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By Aleta Margolis , Founder and President

There’s something about the end of the year - holidays filled with dazzling light, reflections on months gone by and the new beginnings that lie ahead - that stirs our emotions. This stirring can be complicated, but also awe inspiring. I find that it’s in the mixing, that strange swirl of highs and lows, initiated by experiences and memories, planned events, and spontaneous connections, where wonder happens. We can’t always pinpoint the exact thing that stirs us up, but I had occasion recently to try.?

A few weeks ago I wrote about?Stirring Up Curiosity. Days after publishing that piece, my longtime mentor and friend Judy White engaged me in a conversation about "stirring," a word that caught her attention.

As usual, Judy asked me thought-provoking questions. (She is, after all, an Inspired Teacher!) Our conversation went something like this:

Judy: What does stirring do?

Me: It mixes things together. It can change the consistency of ingredients. It makes disparate parts interact with each other. It can activate or catalyze.

Judy: Can you come up with an example of a way stirring can activate?

Me: Stirring baking soda together with other ingredients, like vinegar, activates the baking soda, and starts the process that causes batter to rise.

Judy: What are different tools for stirring?

Me: A whisk, a spoon, a fork, an electric mixer…

Judy: What kinds of tools might Leonardo da Vinci have used to paint the Sistine Chapel? How might he have stirred and mixed his paints to get the colors the way he wanted them? What kinds of preparation might he have needed to do before he was ready to stir the paints together? Can you imagine a group of students sitting together and pondering these questions?

Me: Oh yes, I can.

Judy: What kinds of tools might a teacher use to stir?

Me: Questions. A film. A field trip. A conversation between two classmates...?

As always happens when Judy’s questions launch me into creative thinking, I kept going. I wondered...

• What could we shift in our understanding of the work of teachers if we liken their planning process to Leonardo da Vinci’s?
• What does it take to craft questions, like Judy’s, that activate creative thinking like baking soda and vinegar? What if asking those kinds of questions is the most important thing we can do to prepare our students for an uncertain future??
• Is?time?also a tool teachers use to stir? After stirring, what happens when you let a problem or idea "rest" or "rise" overnight? New insights may occur, deeper understanding too!
• What other?meanings does?stir?have? (Think... "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.")

Feeling stirred, by provocative questions from a friend or the glow of the season’s candles, connects us with what makes us uniquely human. Our capacity to feel, to try and understand the unknown, to puzzle through problems just beyond our reach, and to do these things in community - this great swirling mix of possibilities - is what keeps us moving forward.

May you feel stirred this week. And may you seek that feeling in new and interesting ways when you head back to school in the New Year.?

Resources

Invite your high school students to join us for a special?Speak Truth?session.

Talking Across Dividing Lines?

Featuring Guest Speaker?

Helanius J. Wilkins

Changemaker, Choreographer, and Performance Artist?

January 26, 2023?| 6 PM ET?| ONLINE VIA ZOOM

This Speak Truth Seminar will feature opening remarks from changemaker, choreographer, and performance artist Helanius J. Wilkins who has spent the past few years traveling around the country hosting discussions across dividing lines. He will open the session with a short description of his work “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging,” a multimedia community-based experience designed to prevent the “erasure of silenced stories.” In his words: “as we travel to make and share this work, we will stitch together a dance quilt to broaden our understandings of what it means to be American and sew ourselves together anew.”

After opening remarks from Helanius, our student-facilitators will lead the group in a conversation guided by questions, including:?

• What dividing lines separate us as Americans today?
• Do you see those same dividing lines here in the DMV?
• When do you have conversations with people whose views are very different from your own??
• Why is it important to have these conversations??
• What role does conversation play in activism??
• How might talking across dividing lines create a brighter future??

In Speak Truth seminars, students run the discussion. But adults are invited to?listen and learn. At the end of the conversation, adults are welcome to participate in a Q&A with the student-facilitators and Helanius.?

Register here.

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