Learning Circles
If your experience of the past few weeks – with the upswelling of attention and focus on racial inequities in our country – has been anything like mine, it’s been filled with a combustible mix of emotions like rage, fear, shame, hope, fierce love, worry, confusion, inspiration, and about 37 other things.
The messages have been coming in from all directions, and sometimes they’ve been contradictory. Speak up! Set your voice aside so others can be heard! Buy from here! No wait, don’t buy from there, buy from HERE! Follow this person, and this person, and this person, and this person! Look over here! Now over there! And back over here!
It has felt like a deluge. Trying to sort through all the information, all the emotions, all the directions, all the actions, all the places to donate, all the things to read…at some point, it all blended together and I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.
And after some time to reflect (and away from my screen), I decided that the bottom line is: there is so much to learn and so much to do. Start anywhere, and get going.
And so, I am. It took me a little time to work through all the initial feelings and focus in on how I want to do the work. Which, for me, is a combination of doing the work on my own (reading, watching, listening, reflecting) and in community with others (through discussion and dialogue).
So I decided to start a Learning Circle. I don’t know why I’m capitalizing that, it just feels like it deserves some capital letters! :-)
To me, this is like a blown-out version of a book club. Where some book clubs tend to meet once a month after reading one book, I wanted a more frequent commitment, and a wider variety of sources, to include books, documentaries, articles, movies, shows, etc. So I built this Circle, designed exactly the way I want to learn. With consistency, accountability, and built on common commitments and shared agreements.
One thing that feels certain as we uncertainly embark upon the necessary learning is that we are bound to have awkward and / or difficult conversations. And I don’t just mean conversations with those who hold different opinions than us. I also mean the tough conversations with others as we work through looking at things we haven’t looked at closely enough and simultaneously coping with the flood of emotions and reactions that will come along with that examination.
Knowing this, it felt important to me to have some very clear, and shared, agreements within the Learning Circle so that we all knew what we were signing up for, and how we would be together in the learning process. It also mattered to me that we were making a mutual agreement about how we were going to learn together, as well as a commitment to ongoing donations, so that the impact of our Circle would not just be our own learning, but in promoting the bettering of the world around us.
For those of you who might be reading and feeling at a loss about where to start, or overwhelmed at the prospect – consider creating a Learning Circle with some friends or other people who are interested in doing the work. To me, it was just too daunting to think about doing this work alone, in a vacuum. I need a learning cohort. Knowing how you want to learn (the frequency, the types of content, etc.) can help you find or create the right group for you.
For anyone who wants to start a Learning Circle but needs some support – I am happy to share with you the commitments and agreements that I put together, as well as the resources I’ve gathered from the information out there (there is no shortage). If you’re still feeling uncertain but interested, I am also happy to offer 20 minutes to anyone wanting to start their own Learning Circle to help get you going. Email me at aleneg@blueskycoachingLLC.com
Let’s do this, folks.
