Greetings community!

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, mostly because I’ve been engrossed in writing the proposal for my second book. This next project will dig into the concept of street data (which made a cameo in Book 1) and its connection to educational equity. I am thrilled to be collaborating with the brilliant Dr. Jamila Dugan, my closest colleague in the equity work, who helped me do research for The Listening Leader. Here we are at our recent Brave Spaces Institute in Stockton, California.

From left: yours truly; Charly McKenzie, teacher leader; Dr. Dugan; and Rex de Guia, my first teaching partner from the Balboa High School Law Academy in the late ‘90s!

I want to share an experience I had in April that I’m still unpacking in my own heart and mind. I was honored to attend a convening of the Deeper Learning Dozen (DLD), a collaboration of 12 school districts spanning from Vermont and Massachusetts to Jefferson County, Colorado (the district including Columbine High School), California, and British Columbia. The DLD is the brainchild of scholar Jal Mehta, who recently published a book called In Search of Deeper Learning with his colleague Sarah Fine. (Get your hands on it if you haven’t already. They studied 30 high schools across the U.S., searching for where, how, and why powerful learning occurs.) Jal and his team, including my longtime colleague John Watkins, have built a network of districts that are grappling in real time with how to deliver on the promise of equity and deeper learning.

Roughly 40 of us spent three days together in Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, engaged in experiential learning around the local history and context. Each district brought and reflected on their unique equity challenge, and I witnessed deep engagement across the teams. It was all incredibly powerful, but what stuck with me the most were the experiences led by First Nations elders from the Hul’q’umi’num (Coast Salish) community.

Our main teacher was an elder named Tousilum who shared his story, his language, his music, and his healing journey with generosity and whole-heartedness. On the second morning, I was asked to facilitate a keynote session on listening and leading for equity. At the end of my talk, Tousilum gifted me this handwoven cedar bracelet and explained that the cedar is the tree of life—often associated with prayer, healing, and dreams. I was humbled.

I learned so much in these three days that it is hard for me to shape the right words, but I will attempt to share some lessons and questions that the experience stirred in me.

A Sense of Place and Connection to Nature

The elders’ teachings illuminated both the cultural wealth and the historical pain of First Nations peoples in Canada. Many of the rituals they shared had a connection to nature, from canoeing to weaving to a simulation of pre-colonial village life in which each “child” (all 40 of us were asked to role play different social positions in the village) chose a gift from the natural world that represented his or her unique talents.

On the first morning, we were invited to participate in “waking up” two traditional canoes as we learned to row across the placid waters of Cowichan Bay. An elder and his son opened the boathouse and explained to us that the canoes are like people that must be honored and gently awakened each spring. They taught us how to properly carry, enter, and row the canoes—hips hugging one side or the other, staggered right and left with fellow rowers, mindfully mirroring the cadence of the person in front of you.

Once we were on the water, I felt a sense of peace and calm spread over me. Our guide allowed for moments of silence punctuated by his warm affirmation of how “beautifully” we were rowing, how he saw us “working together in harmony,” how “thankful” the canoes were to be awakened from slumber. He invited us to “leave our troubles and distractions behind in the water” as we glided through the bay. As we returned, he played a traditional drum and sang us a song inspired by his granddaughter. It was a magical and deeply grounding experience.

 

Territorial Acknowledgement

One of the simplest and most powerful rituals I observed in Cowichan was territorial acknowledgement. At the start of each group convening, as well as at the opening of our local school visit, someone stood to publicly acknowledge the legacy of the land. In the Cowichan Valley School District, a territorial acknowledgement sounds something like this:

School District 79 respectfully acknowledges that we are learning on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Malahat, Lake Cowichan, Quw’utsun, Halalt, Penelakut, Stz’uminus, and Lyackson people.

This public recognition and naming ceremony felt right on many levels. It acknowledged the colonial history of appropriation. It acknowledged the persistence and cultural wealth of First Nations peoples. And it modeled humility toward both the people and the land. After observing this practice, I am committed to researching the traditional and ancestral origins of the land beneath any school I visit, and incorporating this ritual wherever I travel.

Truth and Reconciliation: Trauma and Storytelling

Did you know that Canada convened a Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2008 to 2015, with the purpose of documenting the history and impact of the Canadian Indian residential schools on Indigenous students and their families? This process provided residential school survivors an opportunity to share their experiences during public and private meetings held across the country. Can you imagine the U.S. investing in a process like this around the Jim Crow era or Native American boarding schools?

Our elder teachers disclosed heartwrenching stories from the residential schools of their childhoods to the Truth and Reconciliation stages of their later years. The men spoke of being ripped from their mother’s arms at age five or six and deposited in a cold, terrifying “re-education” facility. They spoke of their hair being forcibly cut, of being denied the right to speak their native tongue or play their music, and of being abused by adults charged with their care. One elder reflected on the unspeakable pain that he could only imagine his mother feeling when her precious child was stolen from her.

They also facilitated a three-hour learning simulation of pre-colonial and post-colonial life that was mind-blowing. (I’ll save that story for the next book.) During the simulation, the elders spoke of many people feeling retraumatized by publicly sharing their stories during Truth and Reconciliation—in auditoriums and on stages, faced with hundreds or sometimes thousands of anonymous faces. Rather than engendering healing, this process often left people feeling exposed and hurt all over again. It struck me that, despite good intentions, Truth and Reconciliation seemed engineered more for white folks’ emotional healing than that of First Nations peoples. I was left wondering what a healing process could look like that centered the hearts, hopes, and interests of those who were historically harmed.

At the close of the simulation, several elders shared that their more recent experience of facilitating this learning module with small and diverse groups across the province—actively teaching their own and their country’s painful history—was infinitely more healing than the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In this pedagogical endeavor, they had found a voice and a space to reframe the collective narrative and challenge non-First Nations peoples to rethink their assumptions about society and history. I keep wondering what it would be like to support this kind of learning and healing process across the U.S.

Centering the Voices of Elders

I left these three days moved, buoyed, heartbroken, connected, energized, and hopeful. The entire experience felt intimately tied to our American context: a growing conversation about reparations for slavery, the rise of white supremacist and hate groups, and the profound need to heal a country built on a foundation of racism and colonialism. I am struck by the similarities and vast differences between the American and Canadian stories. We have much to learn from the courage, vulnerability, and teachings of First Nations elders in BC, and I plan to stay in touch with Tousilum, his wife Deb, and the other leaders I met.

I’ll end with a Coastal Salish word we learned in Cowichan that roughly translates to “thank you, with deep gratitude”: Huy tseep q’u. I am thankful for this experience and all it left me thinking about and feeling. I am grateful to be a part of a growing community of educators who are committed to the journey toward equity and justice. Huy tseep q’u, to all of you for the work you do every day.