Do you have your own yearly cycle of internal seasons?<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019m realizing I do: spring is a time of anticipation, lengthening light, new growth, and inspiration.<\/p>\n
Summer finds me kicking back, slowing down a bit (I\u2019m not a hot weather person), sitting still in rivers as the water flows around me, and ruminating.<\/p>\n
Fall is energizing time, getting back to routine, a time of new beginnings, my own personal New Year. (Maybe yours too, educator?)<\/p>\n
And winter: winter both invigorates me and sees me draw inward a bit.<\/p>\n
Sometimes at the same time; my happy place is alone on my skis in the woods. It\u2019s also a time for connecting: long cold nights call for warm food and a kitchen full of friends. As part of my winter greetings, I am grateful to report that I\u2019ve been able to do a good bit of all of that this season.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m especially invigorated by the workshop I went to last week on the Compassionate Systems Framework<\/a> at MIT. This approach blends systems-awareness and systems-thinking with something called systems-sensing. That is, tending to the social-emotional aspect of people and relationships in our work to improve and transform (school) systems.<\/p>\n It was amazing, y\u2019all! I mean, this kind of stuff is totally my jam (is it yours, too? Get in touch, I\u2019d love to share what I learned!).<\/a> We were introduced to systems-thinking tools to help us analyze events and get at root causes, we explored our own responses to events by looking at the Ladder of Inference<\/a>, but what stood out to me most was the caring and connected way we developed as a community.<\/p>\n