Reflections on Community as a Scene for Lifelong Learning

Personal Introspections in response to studies in Classroom Management coursework

Could it be possible that alongside collective awareness of the reality of our world, there's also the collective narrative for community.

There are values of accountability, conflict resolution, deepening of relationships, conscious connection with nature and ecology around us in a beautiful, empowering positive way. I want there to be thoughts between all of us about how this experience of life is beautiful. Worth it. Enjoyable. Of course, there is the pain and suffering, and to acknowledge that we all have that is important.  but I also want us to feel into the power that is an equally existent, grassroots sustainable vitality. I want us to see the livelihood in what we experience each day. Each encounter with our community members at the grocery store, at the post office, on the sidewalk. They all build a collective feeling of comfort, trust, and interest in one another.

There are times that I've thought about this. I've tapped into the idea of community global community, small-scale community, and collective thought. Notable times include 2012" the end of the world as we know. It" 2017 when I saw posters for global community ideas on coffee shops across the country in 2020, when we all spoke about resilience. The power of doing things with our hands, the power of connection, the power of our own lives, and the ability to respond to the pain that happens in our society.

And now, there are murmurs of the aftermath of the pandemic. In my studies of education there seems to be quoted studies of before times and the awaiting of the studies of during covid and the anticipation of studies summarizing the effect educationally of this pandemic of disconnection of isolation. And during this time, I Dove head first into Waldorf as the attempt to answer a prayer for connection. And through some rather painful experiences, was actually taught some core concepts of what connection and community truly mean.

It is not always the beautiful picnic experience where we are all together eating ice cream... It is also what we do when someone is behaving poorly. It is also what we do when someone is hurting, crying out for love. When someone is processing with the skills they have readily available, their experience of life. It is our job to equip others with more skills simply enough. Perhaps it's the teacher in me that wants to do that, and others perhaps don't. But I also believe that with everything we do, we teach others how to be. Through our own mastery, we show what we've gathered in this lifetime.

But again, we need to pay attention to each other. We do not only need to have our nose in a newspaper, or the current equivalent, only taking account the perspective of our choice journalists. It is also in our power to speak, to write, to share. Though not in an arrogant way, not in a prescriptive way, or condescending, or all the various ridiculous ways humans can be, but just in a sharing way. To have interest in each other's sharings, interest in storytelling, I wonder, could be the power of our time. All times really, but there is something about this time specifically as well.

Reflections brought to you by a studying break. Photos above features my yoga mat, and a video of the hawks that accompanied my porch yoga and journalling session. The final photo is a stock photo from the Wix website.

by Kim Purtle