Daring Classrooms Collaboration
Brene Brown, a Storyteller, Research Professor, Author, Public Speaker with a Licensed Masters in Social Worker recently released a companion called “Daring Classrooms” to her book “Dare to Lead.” Rolland Chidiac created a “Daring Classrooms Collaboration” to join likeminded educators together who wanted to learn and share about this work. I immediately jumped at the chance to work with Rolland again.
The first thing I did was log online to complete the Daring Leadership Assessment. Completing the assessment felt pretty uncomfortable. It drives straight into vulnerability, shame and more.
My assessment showed my skill sets out of 10:
6.3 Rumbling with Vulnerability
5.0 Living into your Values
5.9 Braving Trust
6.4 Learning to Rise
Looking at the scores I think I’m going to focus my work on ‘Living in my Values.’ Brene gives us some examples of what our values could be in her book ‘Dare to Lead,’ but even with a huge list of examples I am struggling to figure out mine. I even asked my husband what he thought my values were. How can I live in my values if I’m not even sure what they are? I guess thats my first step.
After my assessment, I ran out to the store and bought the book ‘Dare to Lead.’ I just love reading Brene Brown’s work. I can hear her voice in her writing and stories. Some of the reading I felt pretty uncomfortable with so I took breaks from the book but kept on reading because I know it’s such important work.
Some of the main questions I had when reading this book were:
Teaching and the relationships we make with our students are so personal that it makes our ‘job’ even more difficult because we are emotionally invested. How do we keep boundaries but give students what they need to succeed?
We need our schools and classrooms to be safe places where students know they can enter and take their armour off but unfortunately with the increase of violence in our classrooms in Ontario, students and staff aren’t always safe. How can we ask our students to take their armour off if even the staff are feeling unsafe?
I’m really looking forward to diving into this learning together.
