Sunday, May 19, 2013

A Thin Line Beyond Silence and Voice | Cooperative Catalyst

A Thin Line Beyond Silence and Voice | Cooperative Catalyst:


A Thin Line Beyond Silence and Voice

A few days ago, David Loitz, Imagining Learning’s Seed Steward, posted a rough cut of a new film he is making about the Voices of the young people (and some of the adults) who have been involved in Listening Sessions.  In watching it, in listening to those familiar faces and voices that I met just once during the 3 hours that we were together, I was moved to tears. Since then, I have been asking myself what those tears were about and then tonight, an answer came.
My intuitive voice within said, “For most of our young people, there is a very thin space between their inner light and the dimming of it.”
SharingPerhaps more than ever – in watching that wonderful film – I realized that today the greatest gift we can give our young people is to create a larger space between their inner light and the dimming of it. Not just a larger space, but the largest space our hearts can possibly conceive.
This, to me, is why the transformation of education is so important. There is no greater gift we can give our future generations, than to co-create – with our young people today, a learning journey that turns their light into a bonfire.  As I watched that film and saw the glowing light in their eyes, as they spoke about their visions for changing education and about the empowerment they felt, I got, at an even deeper level, the power of listening as a way to begin.
Asking young people to step into a circle of trust and authenticity and share their inner wisdom, a wisdom they often don’t know they actually have sometimes, is a