Words That Encourage #9

Welcome to the Words That Encourage newsletter. I’d love your feedback – just hit reply! Today’s words are about how the best communities make space for learning to occur.

i) The wisdom of learning communities

True communities are learning communities. We learn how to live with each other. We learn how to speak kindly, when to listen closely, who to care for, and why we are made for connection. We grow and change thanks to the care of community. We discover ourselves as a fruit cut from the tree of belonging. We respond with gestures of love and care for other people, people just like us.

Teachers at their best make room for a learning community to emerge among students. In my own teaching, I invite each young person to grow, learn, and be changed by what they learn. I hope they will be:

• freed from a “grasping coldness” (poet Peter Steele SJ) to embrace this world in all its variety;

• moved from overwhelmed apathy to heartfelt responsibility for the earth;

• drawn out of self into a balanced engagement with friends and others alike.

Learning communities have wisdom inherent to how they go about things. At their best:

• questions are revered and answers are grounded in wonder;

• learners are invited to go deeper in their thinking, reflection and action;

• there is a freedom present with people not clinging too tightly to their own ideas;

• each person respects the learning and experience of all the others;

• leaders guide without getting in the way of each member’s journey.

And the learning never stops, or does it? The practice of learning requires that we remain vigilant about the intellectual laziness of a closed mind or fixed mindset. True learning empowers us to free ourselves from the prison of rigidity. It offers us the opportunity to recognise the tentacles of the unhelpful “I’m right, you’re wrong” accusation; and untangle our ego with good humour and grace.

All told, learning communities value each person’s dignity above all else, helping her to discover the world as good and life as worthy of her time. Because those two discoveries – that the world is good, and life is worthwhile – are solid ground on which we can flourish in time and place.

ii) Music of impassioned dialogue

I invite you to listen to La Bohème by the wonderful French cellist Gautier Capuçon in his 2023 album Destination Paris via YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music. As played, the piece is an impassioned dialogue of cello with piano, dancing from note to note with sensuality and deep emotion. Well worth a listen, along with Capuçon’s 2020 album Emotions – which I’ve had on repeat for weeks now.

Have a great weekend,
James