Several years ago, Susan and I were leading a workshop in Vancouver, BC. We asked the teachers to engage in a thought experiment: What is the nature of teaching for democracy - and how might that be different than teaching for autocracy?

One of the common threads in the response was in the nature of relationships between adults and children: Teaching for democracy would be filled with warmth and caring; teaching for autocracy, cold and harsh.

After hearing this response multiple times, two people in the room rose to speak against the trend - and did so from their direct experience. Each had been raised in autocratic systems (one in Romania and the other in Iran, I think, but I may be misremembering) and said that they ALWAYS felt the warm embrace of their teachers: they never doubted their love.

Hand-in-hand with that love was black-and-white certainty around what thoughts and behavior were permissible. Safety depended on a narrow field of what could be said; what territory could be explored.

As we’ve inquired into an ethic of love over the last month, we’ve been inspired by Valarie Kaur’s encouragement to be guided by curiosity and wonder. That curiosity opens doors that matter when considering whether you’re teaching for autocracy or teaching for democracy. That openness to attentive listening moves us from a concern about how to follow rules into a sense of co-creation as we ask about each other’s experiences and dreams and hopes and how we might grow something new together. David Bohm writes that dialogue “make[s] possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding. It's something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all. It's something creative. And this shared meaning is the 'glue' or 'cement' that holds people and societies together.” I hear that idea echoed in something a teacher shares in one of the books we are reading in our Leading for Playful Inquiry group: “Every time you propose something to children you need to appreciate that anything can happen.” I hear it also in the work of Debbie LeeKeenan and John Nimmo, who will be joining us for this month’s Guide Line conversation: In their film “Families Embracing Anti-Bias Values,” for example, a school director turns to parents at a potentially tense moment and offers, “Let’s unpack it together and talk about how we want to move forward as a community.”

Dialogue - a practice of presence, of wonder, of love - is our Studio Through Line this month. It will be advanced by our conversation with John and Debbie, our continued reading of See No Stranger, the Revolutionary Love course, and Kathryn Ann Myers’ invitation to work with clay.

Folks who work with children have an opportunity - every day - to create a world in which people turn to each other in open dialogue. As Carlina Rinaldi writes, “To be open to others means to have the courage to come into this room and say, “I hope to be different when I leave, not necessarily because I agree with you but because your thoughts caused me to think differently.” I hope stories of dialogue in your settings emerge from our time together: we need your stories from these practices in order to advance that courage.

I hope you'll join us in The Studio so we can unpack them together and talk about how we want to move forward, with an openness to change.

In solidarity,