Becoming a Group: More than a Collection of Individuals

05/04/2023

Becoming a Group: More than a Collection of Individuals

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.
H. E Luccock (1885-1960), professor at Yale Divinity School

In Pursuing Bad Guys, Donna King explains how following and supporting the children’s poignant interest in ‘bad guys’ ultimately sparked a revelation about community:

At [our school], …the well-being and development of the individual is our primary focus, and each individual’s sense of belonging and whole-hearted participation in the community is our primary goal. That’s why, for instance, each child chooses a sign—a visual symbol—that becomes a key part of their identity as a member of the Children First community, one which will be theirs forever; no sign is ever used twice...

[Our mentor] Pam [Oken-Wright] understands that the individual child sits at the center of our mission, our imaginations, and our hearts. But she is saying, “Look, each of those individual kids needs to be part of a group with a coherent identity, a shared vocabulary, and a collective purpose.” Listening, I have an “aha” moment:

“Pam, maybe you’re telling us that we need to think of the Group as our 13th Child, one that deserves the same attention and respect that we give the other 12.”

She says, “Exactly.”

And over time, as the Bad Guy Research unfolds, we see that Pam is right. The Group develops through collaboration and communication, and collaboration and communication require shared language; so, the deeper and more precise the shared understanding of terms, the better the shared work. The more we speak of ourselves as a Group of Bad Guy Researchers, and the more we work on developing a shared vocabulary about Bad Guys, the stronger the Group becomes—and ultimately, then, the Group has more to offer each of the 12 children who make it up.

What a powerful and grounding piece of guidance this was—a “call to action” that would shape much of what we did with children over the next few weeks.

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