This is my sixth piece exploring what it means to lead with love. See the other pieces at the links below:
#1: learning love: a beginning
#2: what does it mean to be love?
#3: how do we lead with love through our mistake?
#4: what is wrong with urgency? what is beautiful about patience?
We need urgency when student safety is at stake. We need urgency when staff safety is at stake. We need urgency when a world-historical event happens, such as COVID-19 or the war in Iran, when children need quick and responsive structures. We need urgency when a child is crying over a bruised knee or a bad day or a fight with a friend. We need urgency when a fabulous external opportunity comes up and we need to arrange the logistics to make that opportunity possible. We need urgency when trust is violated, like a book from the library is missing or a backpack got switched, or a child is late for their bus ride home.
To a teacher or to a student, not choosing urgency in the face of something that demands it can feel like apathy or a dismissal of their real needs and emotions. Young people feel time differently than adults, in part because they have just been around for less of it. As educators, we have to be attentive to that and be mindful of what our responses communicate. Asking a student to breathe deeply before an important exam, for example, is different than asking a child to take a deep breath before doing a group project with their bully. There is a difference between saying that we need to wait and go slow before changing the school uniform and saying we need to go slow before reacting to a child who is crying because she no longer fits into her old uniform.
We need urgency, often, to show a child that we can see their humanity and honor it. And in those moments where we are being invited to be human together, patience can be, well, dehumanizing.
sruti teaches 