Micro-disharmonies

About six months ago, I learned a term from a place where a lot of us seem to be getting our education lately: Instagram. Ha!

The term is micro-disharmony. Essentially, this concept is exactly as it sounds. Small disagreements about topics that are seemingly low stakes to both individuals.

I wish I could remember where I saw it, so I could credit the source, but we talked about this concept at our quarterly culture and climate team meeting this past week.

It seems that in the field of education, many of us fear (at varying levels) disagreeing with others. We worry about appearing not to be a team player, or that people will judge us. We fear that we will look like we are unwilling to take risks or try new things. Some of us worry that disagreeing will keep us from getting to be a part of initiatives and opportunities in the future.

We seem to have a lot of “artificial harmony” in our profession. We smile, nod, and agree during the meeting and then head to the parking lot to tell a friend how we really feel. I’m not sharing this make anyone feel bad. I’m guilty too, and if you’ve never done this, I’m genuinely impressed!

Our culture and climate team is comprised of teachers, and administrators, and parents. When I shared in my small group that I think we struggle with artificial harmony in education, a parent in my group noted that it’s not just us. It happens in corporate too.

So, we decided to practice disagreeing about low stakes topics. Cities, foods, sports teams – groups had an opportunity to find a topic that felt low stakes to everyone at the table. Then, they had a chance to rumble using Brene Brown’s rumble starters sentence stems. Examples: Tell me more about that…or…the story I’m telling myself is…

What was super interesting during our practice with micro-disharmonies and with rumble starters was how even low stakes topics became a little triggering to people. We had a good laugh about this. People who didn’t love our city the way we love it and then compared it to states that we don’t identify with found us struggling to accept this point of view. We laughed about how we couldn’t pinpoint why we even cared this much. I think likely we cared this much because somewhere in this seemingly low stakes conversation, something about our identity came into question. Are we like that other state? But we don’t want to be like that state! What assumptions do we make about that other state? You get the point.

And if silly conversations about favorite things can strike a nerve, imagine how vulnerable we all must feel in higher stakes conversations.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have those conversations. It means we need to practice having them more. The more experience we have with something the more competent we become and the more competent we become, the more confident we become. We need to be confident in our ability to hold two opposing views at the same time. We need to be confident in our ability to keep an important relationship in tact even when we aren’t seeing eye to eye on an important issue.

So many of us want to avoid imposing in anyway. We don’t want others to be uncomfortable in anyway. But if we keep operating in silos without real conversations centered on a common purpose or goal, we will never reach the kind of transformation we desire in our communities and schools.

Priya Parker explains in her book, The Art of Gathering, “So widespread is this desire not to impose that a growing number of people report not wanting any funeral at all when they die.”

Think about that. So, it’s no wonder that we don’t engage in needed and uncomfortable conversations. Many of us so desperately don’t want to impose that we don’t even want people to gather and mourn when we die.

I worry that we are trading a deep sense of care for indifference. This indifference may be eroding our sense of humanity. The one thing that makes our species truly magnificent.

We don’t have to be overwhelmed by this reality. We can start small. A notion that I emphasis in Legacy of Learning.

We simply need to start. To be brave enough to show up and try.