One of the themes that seems to tie my three main areas of interest together is that of letting go. Letting go of control and replacing it with trust. Letting go of worry and regret, so that we can pause and enjoy the present. Letting go of consumer desires and finding contentment and new potential in what we already have.
Trust can be so liberating, but it’s not always easy to practise. Humans do let each other down, and trust can easily be betrayed, leaving us to pick up the pieces, but it’s rarely intentional. When placed in a position of authority or responsibility, such as teacher, manager, or parent, it’s not unnatural to want to control certain conditions and variables. Sometimes, we need to do so to mitigate real risks – to the welfare of others, to our reputation, to our legal position, absolutely. But our attempts to control or manage the behaviours of others can also deprive them of valuable learning opportunities, which in turn increases their dependency on us, and thus increases our burden of responsibility.
Jesse Stommel, a prominent voice on critical pedagogy, has said that we should ‘start by trusting students‘. This means rethinking how we grade, how we address plagiarism, letting go of learning delivery systems so that students can explore ideas and make their own meanings. My undergraduate experience actually reflected many of these ideologies, but I was among a privileged final few to experience the radical pedagogies of Dartington College of Arts. Our experiences of trust – received, denied, affirmed or betrayed, set a personal baseline point for our trust of others. It is possible that a climate of risk-averse policies and surveillance/anti-plagiarism technologies might develop and reinforce an unbalanced picture of the people we teach, lead, or work with. The most human thing to do would be to let go and reconnect with them, but we often rely on the artificial systems in place. I’d say I take a trust-based approach to management, which I think makes me the “laissez-faire” type, although if my translation serves me correctly, I’d say there’s much more to it than “letting do”. I have a mantra, which I think came from my head, but I probably heard it elsewhere – if you lead effectively, you rarely have to manage. This approach, which is also grounded in trust, has similar benefits to the trusting of students. Leading others means sparking interest, asking the right questions, and nurturing confidence, which I find far more rewarding for everyone in the long-term. Sharing out and devolving responsibility actually strengthens teams and communities; they are more resilient when things go wrong, and are more confident to step up if their leader is absent. Something else, too: they start to trust themselves. My position as leader is not defined by the dependency of others upon me, nor is it undermined by their ability to act on their initiative, or challenge my ideas.
There’s another parallel I see here, in parenting. I see it as my job as a parent to prepare my child for life without me. I take comfort in the confidence and adaptability that will give him, rather than trying to protect and monitor his every move until he finally escapes flies the nest. We’re still in the preschool years, so things could change. Another pedagogy saying I like, but I definitely heard somewhere else, is that we can’t complain that learners want to be spoon-fed, if we won’t let them hold the spoon. And from a parenting perspective, I actually took this literally – I never spoon-fed my child and really glad I didn’t (wait what?). This isn’t parenting advice (not jumping into that snake pit!), but it’s interesting to see how philosophies of life and work overlap.
If we truly start to trust in others, our burdens and achievements are shared. But our busy minds will still find other things to worry about, if we aren’t all equipped to take care of our mental health and that of others. It was refreshing recently to hear Dr Stephen Brookfield talk openly about his mental health at his participative workshop on Becoming a Critical Educator. He reflected on how he’d handled periods on mental illness and demonstrated how a critical lens uncovered new, deep-rooted personal and cultural narratives – patriarchy, hegemony, and repressive tolerance. These are the sorts of things that likely affect many of us, but we aren’t talking about them. Despite the efforts to improve mental health awareness over the past decade, progress seems to hover just there – awareness. Pretty much Blooms taxonomy level 1. Staff workshops, signposting to external support, and fundraising events are certainly happening, and that’s great to see, but they aren’t even a sticking plaster, or a drop in the ocean of what’s needed. When so much of the work is led by charities, despite their efforts to promote mental wellbeing for all, there’s still a tendency to focus on mental illness and how it might be understood or managed. For many people, it’s still not seen as an issue that directly relates to them. Unfortunately, individuals, families, colleges and workplaces often don’t actively “tackle” mental health issues until a crisis arises. Due to a lack of resources, that is sadly the case in the NHS too, as many people struggling with their own mental health wait months or even over a year to access services like cognitive behavioural therapy. By the looks of it, the waiting lists aren’t coming down anytime soon. So what do we do?
I mentioned cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) because it’s a practical, non-chemical intervention, which I had some 7 or 8 years ago. It introduces mindfulness, an ancient practice which has roots in Buddhism that can be practised at any time, anywhere, without disruption to daily activities. It’s not surprising, then, that it is gaining popularity and respect among professionals and it is even being introduced in schools. Mindfulness is about acknowledging but also letting go of thoughts on the past or future, and redirecting our focus on the present. It even has application within critical pedagogy and therefore other critical practices. Other aspects of Buddhist philosophy, such as the relationship between suffering and our attachment to desires, are also interesting critical conversations to be had around learning, work and sustainable living. Beyond ancient philosophy, there is plenty of scientific evidence that the way we live, learn and work today, is bad for our mental and physical health, not to mention the planet. All this could benefit from critical inquiry, as Johann Hari’s 2018 book, Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope reveals. I will do a whole other blog post on those connections and how critical approaches might enable reconnection. Right now, we need to prepare ourselves for letting go and hopefully, through critical practice we can ensure that we let go of the “right” things.
