Slow reading of “Becoming an Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School” by Venet (2024), Part III

In preparation of the next meeting of our book club, here is my summary of Part III of Becoming an Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School by Venet (2024) (summary of Part I here, Part II here)!

Part III is about “sustainable structures for lasting change”. I really like the “don’t set goals, set systems” idea, so discussing this chapter with colleagues, and hopefully implementing some of it right away, is going to be super useful! Structures can help make things more predictable, more transparent and lest mystical. They can ensure equal access to opportunities to everybody instead of relying on networks and thus encourage more participation. In the next three chapters, Venet (2024) gives suggestions for structures in three areas: Care, anticipation of change and crisis, and community.

Chapter 10: Building a foundation of care

One point that really stuck with me: “I think the biggest deal in education is how we show up for each other as people“. And I agree! How we show up for each other as people is crucial, and also how the institution shows up for its members. Marlis said the other day that “anxiety is often about the inaction of powerful actors”; showing care as a powerful actor is so much more important than people seem to believe, and definitely than how those powerful actors usually act!

We need structural conditions like living wages, health-care, child- and elder-care, liberty, equity, justice, that address the “root causes of unwellness and the barriers to healing“, and work places that make it easy to actually access them (for example making it easy to take time off to go to an appointment for physical or emotional wellbeing, “to maintain the level of privacy they desire“, or to ask for support).

Some ideas for how care can be integrated in structures, already before they are needed in a change process or some other crisis situation, are

• switching up communication formats (for example instead of normal in-person meetings, whoever is fastest gets to speak, have a typed-out conversation read out by screen reader, and you can only start typing once you have listened to everything that the person before you wrote). Would be so interesting to see the dynamics change and also the proportion of “air time” and where the ideas come from!
• observe who is usually at the margin of events and approach them to get their input on reimagining and redesigning when planning the next one
• regular, scheduled 1:1 check-in meetings with the line manager that include a more holistic “how is it going” check-in in addition to work

Some of the question in this chapter, for example “How easy is it to take a moment to talk to someone about what’s going on for you? […] How easy is it to spend time with people you enjoy? How easy is it to find time and space to collaborate? How easy is it to get support with conflict resolution?”, are really confronting for me. One sentence really stuck with me: “Choosing our own wellbeing is reason enough to leave an environment where we don’t receive care“. Venet explains that this isn’t selfish or egoistical and failing everybody in the place we are leaving, but instead quotes a teacher that says “kids are amazing everywhere”, meaning that we can do meaningful work anywhere, and that we can choose to do it in places that do care for us. Taking care of ourselves, of our own physical and mental health, putting on our own oxygen mask first, is necessary to being able to continue the work, and there are many different ways to contribute in a meaningful way. As Venet writes: “you are not abandoning the greater project of equity, justice, and healing when you stop working with a particular group of students. You deserve to be cared for and valued, as an educator and a changemaker, but also simply because you are human.” Wise words to think about…

Chapter 11: Anticipating change and crisis

This chapter is about preparedness for crisis, not just in a “fire drill” sense, but in a “how could the work continue if the school was lost in the fire” sense, what would be the priorities then — for example care for students? We can do the groundwork for that now already, so if a crisis happens, there is established trust, the structures that give space for care are in place and everybody is already practised in working in the structures, for example

• check-in circles! Example here is “roses and thorns” of highlight and lowlight of the day so far
• morning meetings for teachers, for announcements but also to coordinate on how to react to events or plan support for each other
• learning communities, not just on the typical, loud, urgent topics, but on the topics that are often forgotten or downprioritised
• critical friends groups
• harbour days, to “make and mend”, flexible days to catch up on what needs to be done and prepare for the future, sharing skills and resources. Venet presents it as something to be done with and for the students, and as a time for meetings, and I would love to have that as part of my own and my colleagues’ work routine!

All these structures work to proactively create predictability, flexibility, connection, and empowerment.

Chapter 12: Staying in community through the challenges

It’s so interesting to see how now, reading this book for the second time, very different quotes stand out to me than the first time round. While the fist time round I mostly saw the call for collective urgency, now I am seeing permissions for me personally to slow down, for example “Believing that everyone deserves care doesn’t mean that I, individually, need to be the provider of that care for every person in every moment.” and “Remember to lean into your relational web. Just as you are not the lone savior of your students, you also are not responsible for changing the hearts and minds of your colleagues by yourself. Spend your energy on those who are willing to show up as your “ally in struggle.””

Or, to use the reflection prompt “Fill in the blanks: I used to think ________. Now I think _______.” suggested by Venet: I used to think if not me, then who?* Now I think “We may not get it right, but practicing community is the point.”

*to be fair, I still think that. But with a lot more compassion for myself!

And with this, I really want to encourage you to read the full book yourself!

In other news, some pictures from this morning’s dip (not even really cold any more)!

Venet, A. S. (2024). Becoming an Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School. Taylor & Francis. (online access for LU!)