Different perspectives. Different Understandings.

In a world that sometimes feels like it is full of conflict and division, I always feel refreshed when I'm able to have a respectful dialogue with someone who has a different view than I do on a topic. I know that varied perspectives always expand my thinking and push me to grow, plus I don't think we do enough of really pushing on ideas in education, so I try to welcome these moments!

Last week, I wrote a blog about going into classrooms as a "district person", and making a plea to make that room a welcoming place for everyone who passes through. My post drew an interesting response from a fellow teacher on Twitter:

How's that for a thought-provoking question? Luckily, we were able to tweet back and forth to chat about this subject. It became clear that we had very different experiences with visitors to the classroom, which contributed to our thoughts. A Newcomers class welcoming a string of board members is a very different thing than an ed tech coach coming in semi-regularly! Chatting about these different perspectives definitely led me to a deeper understanding of what "welcome" in the classroom means!

I was further reminded of this topic in my own work this week. While working on communications for a project, I was not shy in expressing my opinion about what we needed to do, and I struggled to understand why others were so gung-ho about doing things a different way. Finally, in a lunchtime conversation, a co-worker made a comment about how the project worked, which was completely different than my understanding! After checking around a bit, I realized that I had a very different idea of what this project was...and that informed my idea about what our communications needed to look like. Once I understood the full perspective of the others, it was much easier for us to come to a conclusion and feel good about moving forward (and I'm so glad they didn't listen to me the first time)! Different perspectives led to a different understanding, and this time, I had the "fun" opportunity to humble myself in the process.

Finally, I went to a memorial service today to support some students who have spent time in foster care. Often, I think that people associate foster care with having a "bad parent". No one who was at that service today could have left with any doubt that this was a mama who loved her kids, despite her own struggles. Different perspectives. Different understanding.

As I have pondered these interactions, I've started wondering...how can we teach our students these meta life lessons that don't necessarily show up in the curriculum? How can you teach empathy? Listening? Walking in another's shoes? Taking the time to seek to understand before being understood? And how can we, as adults, continually relearn these lessons to ensure we are making this world a better place?

I know that there are some amazing teachers and resources out there that focus on this very thing. But it starts with modeling and creating a classroom culture that values true dialogue, not just talking over each other to prove a point. How do you incorporate this into your classroom?