Ubuntu

It’s that time of year where our employers treat us to a Professional Learning Day. I don’t see it so much as professional learning, more a day to entertain new perspectives and be invigorated by other people’s experiences of life, the universe and everything.

Thank you TMET.

We’ve had some amazing speakers over the last few years, I’m not going to be specific here, but some of the themes that are common to many of their experiences are echoed.

An idea that I find common in many stories is that ‘we are people because of other people’. What we (people, you and me) do, are, think, and become, is influenced significantly by how other people around us behave.
The African philosophy of ‘Ubuntu’ “I am what I am because of who we all are”, emphasizes interconnectedness and humanity; “I am because we are”. It suggests that our identity and well-being is deeply tied to our community, belonging and a shared humanity.

As well as the excitement of igniting curiosity, an educator’s role is to ensure that children sense belonging, are safe, seen and stretched; that ‘reaching further’ is always a possibility.

Maya Angelou wrote “…people will never forget how you made them feel.”

One speaker shared how “Mr Pickering changed my life”. “Educators changed my life” she emotionally recalled. Given a chance, people will always seek the light. She remembers how while in a dark place, people around her lit embers inside her, created values, created opportunity, suggested an alternative soundtrack for her life.

Another speaker recalled how in moments of adversity “it’s not the event that defines us, it’s the view we take of things”, this is of course coloured and fed by our privilege or indeed lack of privilege, and again, the support and care networks around us.

We are and can become people, because of other people and how they make us feel.

Being people is quite a responsibility.