Reframing Managing Parents and Decisions to Caring for Parents and for One Another, Together

The news is an understandable flutter with parents and teachers upset about the myriad of possibilities of what school will look like when our students need to return in just weeks here in the US.

I’m wondering if schools and school districts might consider ‘caring for parents’ versus ‘managing parents.' I’m wondering what open dialog about cares and concerns look like on all sides and how discussion might unfold by just changing our lexicon.

I’m wondering how all involved could shift partnering by viewing care for one another — administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents and all involved for envisioning what the academic year holds. If dialog is only happening on one side and decisions are being passed down then we’re missing the opportunity and message of the times — listening to one another and moving toward solutions together.

Listening is our most under developed, trained skill. We’re trained to speak and write yet our listening is most important. Listening for understanding involves listening as a goal, not a strategy for how we will immediately respond. The key to moving forward is asking what our stakeholders needs, wants and concerns are and forming solutions — together.

This pandemic and the tipping point for racial healing co-occuring offer plenty of opportunity for working toward solutions and cocreating the environments necessary for healing, thriving and moving forward together.

We keep missing the opportunities. We gather data and put forward the solutions that those at the top extrapulate as the best way forward. Feel free to think on it and share your thoughts in your communities. Our report card on listening and forming solutions together are the metrics I’d love to see movement on by getting a head start on curriculum strategies and needs analyses hearing every voice in the room. Listening to the concerns and allowing solutions to come from the bottom up is a powerful strategy. We can only rise by lifting one another, only then are we raising human?kind together.