Dear Reader,

A couple of weeks ago, Matt shared the NPR interview in which Ada Limon said the above. It has stuck with me, and I can’t help but read her new poem, Startlement, as an effort on her part to live into what she’s saying. (Listen to the interview - where she reads this poem.)

I think the poem is, maybe, the product that came after she worked on this intention to hold onto tenderness and vulnerability, and paid attention to the world through that lens, and wrote poetry about what she found there. I wonder if she was writing for her own soul and self - and I wonder how that influenced the poem. Regardless - now we’re reading it together. And her work of art, that she may have done for her own self, as a practice (and a result of the practice) of attending to something beautiful, is now itself something beautiful to attend to. And so we can choose to pay our attention to what happens in us when we read it. How we are confused, inspired, or seen.

These lines in particular earn my attention:

To think, perhaps, we are not distinguishable

and therefore no loneliness can exist here.

AND

The world says, One type of dream has ended

and another has just begun.

These lines encourage me to hold on to tenderness and vulnerability and hope. They encourage me to stay open and to love and to pay attention to beautiful things. I'm encouraged to know that Limón, an artist so well known for her serious attention to wonder, also has to fight the urge to let her vision succumb to the narrow reality of violence and horror. Her lines remind me of something that adrienne maree brown said:

Maybe, when we attune ourselves to feelings of tenderness and vulnerability, we are more able to see the violence for what it is, and not be so afraid that it is all there is.

What we pay attention to grows. If we focus on what we are losing, we’ll have so much more to lose. We’ll grow our fear, and we’ll struggle to stay open. How might we begin this new dream? In so many of the most important ways, we’re indistinguishable - from one another, from the planet that sustains us. We want to love and be loved. I think that’s the dream I want to work for: that we find a way to navigate and seek balance in that true equation.

In her new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, Randi Weingarten points to the work of Horace Mann who believed that school could become the “balance wheel of the social machinery”. As long as that means schools take seriously their opportunities to create and explore the balance of loving and being loved - dreaming and creating a new “social machinery” that produces a steady stream of beauty and justice - I’m all in. How about you? What do you choose to pay your attention to? What’s an investment you can feel good about making?

In playful solidarity and with gratitude,

Up next in the Studio TIME There is always enough time for the right work. How do we make the time and how do we know what's right? We're eager to discuss with the Studio community. Join for the month or the year! ​ more information

We'll be guided by Lisa Goddard Lisa is a PhD Fellow in Reggio Childhood Studies at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. Her doctoral research explores play in early childhood education in the context of the Anthropocene—the current geologic era defined by human impact. She is an educator, pedagogical coach, curriculum developer, and inquiry group leader, and holds a master's degree in Early Childhood Education as well as in Applied Linguistics.

And we'll be reading 44 Poems on Being With Each Other by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Pick up the book at your local library or independent bookstore. Buy on Bookshop

We are thrilled to announce a new opportunity to work directly with Pam Oken-Wright and a small group of colleagues to explore and document the use of the flexible protocols in Embracing Challenges in Early Childhood Education in your setting. This invaluable small group coaching experience with Pam will support and help you refine your teacher research and documentation strategies and practices.

WATCHING, LISTENING, READING

Good things:

Artist and educator, Wendy MacNaughton, has a series about creative action on her Substack that is worth exploring.

An important post on rethinking our response to harm by our friend, Loretta Fernando-Smith

Matt and I are looking forward to presenting at the San Diego Reggio Roundtable early next month - if you're in the area, we'd love to see you!

We've entered into strategic partnership with Exchange Press. Studio members are able to join the All-Access Exchange membership with a 50% discount. Join the Studio to find out more. In December in The Studio we'll be reading Reimagining Heartbreak. Exchange has offered us a 20% discount on this title for Studio members.

Enjoy this stunningly beautiful video essay "Seasoning a Kid" on Emergence Magazine's website.

An interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama about the book we'll be reading in November.

“You can try to explain how far these birds have traveled, and how much farther they will go. What they’ll eat, where they’ll sleep, and how they find their way. You can try to describe how the salmon’s physiology changes as they leave the river for the sea, their years in the ocean, how they’ve come home to die. But the facts only make comprehension even harder. How can this be happening? ”

— Adam Amir

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