Relationships…are not only the foundation of our work with students, but also our work with each other. Like any family, we are an assortment of unique individuals – different experiences, perspectives, biases, interests, challenges! At this late stage of the year, as the normal and expected fatigue gets ever closer to the surface, we can look around and know that we have people going through the same struggles – and we can help each other in small ways to move through them.

A few years back, therapist Polly Ells gave a Parent Ed talk; one point she brought up struck me deeply, and has become something I reference all the time in my work with kids, adults, and my life at home. We are, in all our relationships, always oscillating between three zones: Attunement, Rupturing, Repair. As we look around our professional, interpersonal landscape on the last day of May, all of us have the opportunity to think about those ruptures we all have – with students, families and each other. 

Now is an opportunity to move towards repair – to offer closure to whatever tension or misunderstanding has emerged between you. This doesn’t mean agreement on all things – disagreement is a fundamental part of any healthy human mechanism – but it does mean that we can give others, and ourselves, the gift of attunement and mutual respect as we move into the open space of summer.

Clouds courtesy Sierra Nevada foothills, Memorial Day weekend.