1: Creating brave spaces
One step to shift from transforming the culture to transforming the climate of a school is to create brave spaces. For Edmondson (2018), psychological safety or “radical candor” is essential and corresponds to the in-the-moment experiences of feeling secure and daring to take interpersonal risks, unlike trust which is concerned with expectations about how someone acts (such as whether they are reliable). Psychological safety bridges the gap between surviving and belonging and is vital for people to express their true selves. When school environments are psychologically safe for everyone, there is space to explore the conflicts that naturally occur. While it may not be comfortable, people can speak freely about issues concerning them or give opinions without fear of repercussions, knowing the goal is to learn from different perspectives, but also to take responsibility from (un)intended impact. When a classroom environment feels low-stakes, students are more willing to experiment and be playful. When this mindset extends to the whole school, it creates space for passion projects and ambitious learning goals where failure is part of the process, rather than a system focused on compliance and consequences.
However, the term safety can be challenged as it can be limited when it comes to social justice since it elicits the idea of feeling comfortable. When creating and holding space for psychological safety, it is important to ensure that we are not prioritizing some people’s safety over others. Such selective use of psychological safety can be harmful, creating conditions for some to feel comfortable while others need to take greater risks or remain silent, thus reinforcing the privilege of the dominant group. One way to push this concept further is discussed by Boostrom (1998, p.407) in their distinction between safe and brave spaces:
“By turning the classroom into a ‘safe space’, a place in which teachers rule out conflict… We have to be brave because along the way we are going to be ‘vulnerable and exposed’; we are going to encounter images that are ‘alienating and shocking.’”
The parameters for holding brave spaces also lie in recognizing that dialogue is not neutral and that to ensure everyone’s right to speak and be heard, we must acknowledge the existence of systemic injustice that can show up in explicit and implicit ways within our schools. It is essential to notice such patterns, and structures that center white, able-bodied (or non-disabled), neurotypical cis-heteronormativity. As brave educators, we need to embrace vulnerability as hooks (1994, p.21) reminds us.
“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students...empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks.”
Try it…
2. Listening with all our senses
“The body sometimes experiences things that go beyond the physical confines of the body and that cannot be expressed in words. (...) Feeling things in the body or doing things without ‘knowing’ why at that moment but trusting in the understanding that can only emerge afterward, can be a valuable and added way of learning.” -Cairo et al. (2023, p. 18).
Our listening patterns say a lot about the quality of our presence (Scharmer, 2016; Passeport & Ahmed, 2022). Listening is not located in the head and must go beyond cognitive techniques by embracing our body-knowing. This embodiment is relational and goes beyond a practice, it is also a stance of resistance and radical openness which creates knowledge and wisdom. In practice, embodiment can manifest by pausing, listening deeply to others, breaking patterns of habits, co-sensing (collaboratively observing with all our senses), and co-creating with others. It can also be about building new classroom rituals that are intentionally inviting to all students, greeting students at the door with compassion, engaging in mindful exercises to slow down, letting students co-own the classroom space, etc. which are all practices of noticing (Murdoch, 2015). Within and beyond the classroom, such relationship-rich approaches come with the responsibility of acknowledging one’s positionality and the plurality of voices, being wary of existing power asymmetries, for example, who is repeatedly heard or listened to, versus who is quiet.
Genuine embodiment is the alignment of our attention and intention and is tacitly and somatically expressed. It is implicit, and sometimes almost invisible. This is why surveys on school’s climate, especially those that are quantitatively expressed and only look for empirical data, might be lacking. To move from raw data to wisdom, we need to also invite non-conventional, or street data (Safir & Dugan, 2021) and accept that not everything we value is measurable.
In these micro-moments of presence, a certain climate is generated, which contributes to the “hidden curriculum” (Jackson, 1968) corresponding to the implicit messages that are conveyed to our students reflecting our norms, values, and beliefs. These messages are crucial as they represent a mode of socialization (Biesta, 2020) and create the mental models that are embedded within a school’s culture. To counter the negative effects of the hidden curriculum, we need to listen through all our senses, acknowledge plural voices, be curious (not as an inquisitive observer-voyeur), dare to ask questions and be ready to make changes in our frame of reference (Mezirow, 1991). A counter-power approach may also be to engage in storying with one another, a form of community-based listening practice that is connecting, inductive, and emerging. With storying, we engage with emancipatory practices that create openings and human connections.
Try it…
3. Entering into true dialogue
A next step might be to engage in a dialogue, yet not all dialogues are created equal. The dominant definition of dialogue within the school context may claim to be neutral and democratic, yet still encompasses certain normative beliefs and, often unconsciously and unintentionally, tends to erase certain expressions and voices. For instance, people subject to micro-aggressions may raise this issue to an administrator and then be told that they experienced a misunderstanding (gaslighting) or that they need to be more resilient. Such “dialogues” of only hearing and still operating from a place of power and comfort further reinforce asymmetric relationships and silence the most marginalized community members. These patterns may manifest in one-way communication (e.g. from teacher to student, from admin to teacher) or in superficial “dialogue” that claims equality despite power imbalances. For example, if a supervisor is tasked with giving judgmental feedback to a teacher, their relationship is not equal, reinforcing a climate where certain voices dominate over others.
The mode of dialogue must be explicitly discussed to move from a banking model, whereby we deposit information in other’s heads, and adopt a problem-posing approach, whereby we sit at the same level and learn from one another (Freire, 2005, p.63).
“How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others… How can I dialogue if I am close to –and even offended by– the contributions of others?”
Try it…
4. Focusing on structures that enable or hinder agency
Often based on Bandura (1986)'s Social Cognitive Theory in the psychology domain, agency is often framed as being located within individuals and therefore being released when people have motivation and (self-)efficacy, through intentional engagement. While this definition is useful to examine the individual achievement of agency from a psychological point of view, it presents some limitations when used within an institutional context, as it assumes that everyone is equal and has the same opportunity to exercise agency. Only relying on this definition for all things agentic is problematic from a social justice perspective since it maintains a context-free status quo that ignores inequalities and disparities between students (or teachers). We need to be aware that the achievement of agency will vary depending on individual efforts in conjunction with limiting factors in this context, for example, available resources and structural factors (Biesta & Tedder, 2007).
A final step in the shift from culture to climate transformation is building appropriate structures that leverage agentic engagement. What does this transformation look like in practice? Transformation is often envisioned as linear, with top-down, time-bound goals and behavior expectations. An alternative approach could be to approach it as an iterative process with space for co-creation and design thinking, voice and dialogues, as well as fluidity to adjust to align to the specific context and stakeholders. Transformation can be viewed as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. In order to make the shift from linear and ‘universal’ models to iterative and plural approaches, we can consider what structures we might need to adopt that work within our unique context and community. One transformative possibility could be to use a gradual release approach, with slowly decreasing levels of structure over time. Alternatively, there can be aspects or areas that may have negotiated elements while others may be more set structures. Often there can be a gap between our vision and our current reality which can make us feel that our aims are unrealistic or too ambitious, or that we lack resources, however, it can also be an activating source of change, a Creative Tension (Senge, 2006), that motivates us to act.
Try it…
Conclusion
Spaces can be real and imagined. Spaces can tell stories and unfold stories. Spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed.” -hooks (1989)
In our attempt to do the work and decolonize ourselves and our system to align culture and climate, we must be brave, listen, dialogue as equals, and create supportive structures for the realization of agency.
Reflect and Discuss
As we examine where we might be now, what might be some of the values and habits that need to be protected, challenged, or dismantled to achieve a climate where all our community members can be free?
How might we create opportunities to embrace practical wisdom and plural ways of knowing and being?
References
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2020). Risking Ourselves in Education: Qualification, Socialization, and Subjectification Revisited. Educational Theory, 70(1), 89–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12411
Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.2007.11661545
Boostrom, R. (1998). “Safe spaces”: Reflections on an educational metaphor. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30(4), 397-408.
Cairo, A., Roseval, W., van Stapele, N., Ona, B., Bouzaggou, S. (2023). The Inclusivity Pathway Training: Bright spots on the inclusivity pathway. Aminata Cairo Consultancy. https://www.inclusivitypathwaytraining.com/resources
Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated.
Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. The Continuum International Publishing.?
hooks, b. (1989). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. 36, 15-23.
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Jackson, P.W. (1968). Life in Classrooms. Rhinehart and Winston.
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. Jossey-Bass.
Murdoch, K. (2015). The Power of Inquiry: Teaching and Learning with Curiosity, Creativity, and Purpose in the Contemporary Classroom. Seastar Education.
Passeport, S., & Ahmed, E. (2022, May). Breaking our Downloading Habit to Really Listen. International School Services Blog. https://www.iss.edu/blog/insights/breaking-our-downloading-habit-to-really-listen
Safir, S., & Dugan, J. (2021). Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. Corwin Press.
Scharmer, O., C. (2016). Theory U: Leading From the Emerging Future (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.
Senge, P. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning (2rd ed.). Currency, Doubleday.
Emma Ahmed (she/her/hers) is the instructional coach at Kaohsiung American School. She is a British international educator, instructional coach, and curriculum coordinator with over 16 years of experience across Colombia, China, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education, a Master of Arts in technology, education and learning, and a Master of Arts in international education and development, alongside coaching and advanced cognitive coaching certificates.
