Working with High School students on mental health and voice.
It was an absolute privilege to work with 10 students from Hopkins High School in CT. And I had the pleasure to collaborate with Emily Eisner as my assistant for the first time. My collaboration with her left me inspired and excited for what is coming for us as collaborators. Thanks Emily!
As I reflect on this program, I have the most sincere respect to all the students with whom we worked. From the inception of this project, I was moved and impressed by the clear commitment and vision they had. The organizer found me on the Dartmouth website and was intrigued and interested in the work so she wrote to me and we connected. Listening to her made me realize the urgency she felt to create spaces for communication, dialogue and community building in her school, addressing the delicate issues of race, class, gender and mental health.
After a lot of back and forth in the organizing of the workshop, which showed the determination and power of this young woman, the group finally met over a period of two intensive days. We spent our time listening to one another, connecting, playing, sharing personal stories and finding that powerful and profound place where we feel we are all in the same boat- we realized we were not alone. We were empowered by the joy and pain and it felt good to be there together. We built hopeful spaces where the voice of every single participant was important and courageous.
Emily and I invited participants to be with one other in the effort to build community, and we invited them to listen and speak while withholding judgment. We also invited the group to embrace difficult ideas and to practice challenging the status quo. For example, we asked the students to try not having an expectation or agenda, but to have the discipline and courage to build the agenda as we go and taking leaps of faith with one another, an incredibly challenging way to be at this moment in history and in their position as high-aptitude high school students. These ideas are almost contrary to the educational approach we implement these days as a way to be “successful” in the world. And I was moved and humbled by their hunger I saw in all participants to try something different and the ability to embrace those ideas in such a way that the whole process felt it was moving forward by itself. Mutual trust grew as we continued to collaborate and embrace the idea of taking a leap of faith with each other. We were all empowered by the experience.
I personally felt the beauty and rewarding feeling of being able to lead from behind while I witnessed the group organizing itself to make sense of their voices- a moment I will never forget….
At the end, participants shared moving testimonials with each other in our enclosed group. We held one another with grace, generosity and beauty- and we felt good. I was left with the questions “why do these moments have to be extraordinary when we need them and want them so badly?” “What really stops us?” I keep thinking….. and I am left with the energy to keep pushing the TMS platform to be an effort that is extraordinary and ordinary at the same time. That is when I see real and meaningful power and the possibility for change.
Participants also shared with a tiny audience of their choice a short presentation that included a Talking Wall, which is a graffiti wall made of stacked up cardboard boxes. The wall had 40 big boxes and it was built in a two hour period. Voices poured out and ideas were fluently generated and celebrated by everyone. There was an easiness that was created in that space; an easiness I am hoping the participants can recreate because they were the ones that created it in the first place.
And together they wrote a powerful manifesto which they shared with the tiny audience and planned to share it with the rest of their school community. I am honored and grateful to have been part of this effort; and I am excited to keep developing this different version of the program to be able to respond to different needs from the communities. Onward together!