Readers, Moles, and Data

As I’ve mentioned multiple times, I’m new to my role and new to my school district. This past week I was facilitating a meeting with teacher leaders to gather feedback on possible revisions to their supplemental job descriptions which have not been revised since the early 2000’s.

When you are still learning names and getting to know people, leading work like this can be pretty intimidating from the standpoint that you don’t know if this well-intentioned meeting will trigger a trauma-response from people. You don’t have the historical perspective going into the work. But this is also an opportunity. Not having that historical perspective can be beneficial if you truly focus on being a good listener and remain curious about how we got where we are in this now moment. Understanding this more deeply can often enrich the work and lead to more thoughtful and sound decisions and implementation strategies.

As people entered the room, I had music playing, snacks, tabletop decorations. I work hard to set a tone that I care about you, and I value our time together. I want people to see that, “This work is so important that I took the time to set the table for us today.” The first couple of teachers who arrive engaged in small talk as I greeted them. One teacher was talking about how he thought he had a serious problem with his vision, so he recently went to the eye doctor, and it turns out, he is just needed readers. This made us giggle because this is a very relatable experience for people of a certain age. That story led to stories from others. It made me think to share a story about a recent dermatology appointment. I asked my doctor what caused a new mole that had formed. He told me it wasn’t cancerous, but in my vanity, I didn’t like how it looked and didn’t want more to pop up. This question of, “What causes this?” gave him pause. This pause had me very curious about what he was about to say next. He explained gently, “Time on this earth.”

We all laughed about how this was a polite and creative way to call someone old. Another teacher shared that her young doctor told her that the cause of something was “number of birthdays.” This also gave us a good laugh.

And suddenly, we were reminded that we are just people, titles set aside, people who were sitting in a circle, no power structure built into the format of our meeting (by design), and we were simply there to figure something out together.

The next day I was with a team of educators who are on a district culture and climate team. I told this story about the reading glasses and about doctors making us feel old. A teacher in this space shared a story about how her mom passed away a few years ago. When she was going through her mom’s belongings at the time, she found an old box. Inside of this box, there were tons and tons of different colors and styles of reading glasses. She thought to herself, “Now what do I need all of these reading glasses for?” But she saved the box nonetheless. Fast forward to now, she woke up one day and suddenly needed some readers. Now she enjoys digging through that box of glasses and wearing different pairs. Every time she wears a pair, she carries a piece of her mom with her.

I think that’s so beautiful. And if I had not shared the stories from the previous meeting, the door would not have been opened for her to share her meaningful story with us. This all started from a seemingly small, boring story about reading glasses.

Do not minimize your story. Your story is not too small. You are not too small to tell it. We need your stories. We need to make space for storytelling and story listening in our schools and organizations.

My good friends, Sean Gaillard and Lauren Kaufman, recommended a book that I’m enjoying, The Perfect Story by Karen Eber. As she explains in chapter one, “The brain responds more to storytelling than it does to information.”

Stories give us access to oxytocin, the trust hormone. By making space for story in our work, we make space for humanity. Stories can help us experience safety, belonging, and connection which are all needed in the learning process.

Too often, we are leading our work with data instead of leading our work with story. Humans don’t make decisions instinctually with logic. We make our decisions with emotions. This doesn’t mean we don’t utilize data to make sound decisions, but what it does mean is that we don’t start there. If data alone changed behavior, so much about our world would have already changed for the better.

I try to remember that every number has a name and every name as a story. So, if you are leading a “data meeting” maybe start by not calling it that. Bleh. You aren’t tapping into the emotional side of our reasoning as human beings. Perhaps kick off your meetings with a story or ensure pictures of kids are placed on the tables when you’re looking at numbers.

I told the culture and climate team this week that we will continue working on academics in our schools but what we can’t ignore is that emotions are not separate from learning. This does not necessarily mean we halt learning to talk about how we feel. What it means is that neuroscience indicates that we enter learning and reasoning through our emotions not through facts. Understanding this allows us to deepen learning by centering our humanity in the learning process.

And while that might feel heavy, a great place to start is by making a little more space for story.

In doing so, we make more space for humanity and ultimately learning.

It won’t be the nuts and bolts of academics that take us to the next level in this profession. It will be the human element of the learning process.

Let’s keep humans at the center. Science tells us it is what is right and good. But you didn’t need to know that, did you? Because it’s emotions not science that engages our brains first. 🙂