Hierarchy of Care
Once, long ago, I was at a
party.
It was at Stanford University, and it was for graduate students (of which I was one).
I found myself talking to someone from the Stanford Business School. I decided to ask him a question I’d been wondering about, given my own doctoral research on the role of emotions in teachers’ knowing-in-action. I asked,
“What if our economic system were based on care?”
Like, what if we placed value on care? Saw it as something that requires resources and labor and contributes to the GDP? I don’t know. I’m no economist. What would an economist think?
I have no idea. Because that guy disappeared in the blink of an eye.
I haven’t given up on the idea of care as currency, care as a necessary force that requires investment and focused attention. In fact, I have come to think of schools as places of care — otherwise known as holding environments — because care is required for healthy growth, development, and learning.
I’ll say it again: If you want healthy growth, development, and learning,
not caring is not an option.
Most educators would, I hope, agree that students require care. But what about teachers? What about administrators? It is my fervent belief — my dogged claim — that teachers and administrators need care, too.
Which makes schools a tiered holding environment. A hierarchy of care, as it were. Where each level cares for the level below it (maybe?) and where the people at the tippy top of the hierarchy (principals? superintendents? executive directors? heads of school?) get cared for by devoted others — coaches? Psycho-coaches?
Lots of question marks because I don’t rightly know how schools as hierarchies of care can work. What I do know is,
especially right now,
as we begin the second school year under the cloud of COVID, there doesn’t seem to be enough care to go around.
So I ask you:
Who does the caring in your school? For whom?
Who cares for those caregivers?
Who cares for those who care for the caregivers?
What kind of care and support are required for all these people, these tiers of caring?
Where will that care and support come from?
And,
super importantly,
how is care defined in your school? Does it include limits? boundaries? honesty? respect? owning one’s own shit? holding others accountable for their shit?
You interested in thinking about these questions? Get in touch with me. I’d love to think through them with you.
Mantra: This year we need some creative caring. For everybody. The whole shebang.