Every happy classroom
Hi everyone,
“Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
This is the opening line of Anna Karenina, the masterpiece of the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It is one of the most powerful opening lines in the history of literature.
Tolstoy’s statement represents a general sentiment that could apply to life as such: that there’s one proper way to do things that are true, good, and personally rewarding, but an endless variety of ways to fall short of those goals. That the path of goodness, of joy, of virtue, of beauty is narrow, whereas the potential points of departure are many.
This past year, as the threat of covid ebbed and flowed, I’ve had the chance to again start visiting our schools. I’ve also had dozens of conversations with guides, school leaders, central team members, and parents across our network. I’ve seen the ways we’ve succeeded, the places we’ve struggled, and everything in between.
This opportunity to observe and listen to so many of you recalled me to the fact that in the end, as much as I love it from a literary perspective, I just really strongly disagree with Tolstoy's sentiment.
At least in the realm of education, my experience has been the exact opposite: that it is precisely the happy classrooms, happy communities, happy adults, and happy children that are happy in their own way. It’s the good that is endless in its variations. Each of us individually, and together as local school communities, create our own expression of the deeper Montessori vision.
It is not the singular vision that I love most, it is the infinite multiplicity of expressions of that vision. What makes the good life good is not the abstract perspective we can take on it, but the concrete, specific tangible instances, each a wholly individual expression of particular human beings. Not children, but the child. Not schools, but each particular school. Not all of you collectively, but each of you individually.
Looking at the people in our organization, we have distinct approaches to how we address challenges, how we maintain the stamina and drive and curiosity to conquer obstacles, how we exercise creativity and pursue big ideas, and ultimately how we contribute to and help shape the culture and success of our shared mission. We serve children who each have their own story to tell, their own strength of personality to share, and their own creativity to exercise. While there are underlying principles at play, and common truths to be discovered, the different instantiations are each of them their own irreducible unique source and expression of something wholly individual.
It is only in the case of the bad, the broken, the dysfunctional that the similarity seems more important than the difference. The difference exists here too, but our focus here is not on honoring and celebrating the individual—it is on understanding, diagnosing, and fixing the recurring. We seek a common analysis as a tool, in order to unblock individual flourishing.
So I’d turn Tolstoy's quote on its head: I believe that it is the unhappy classrooms and communities which all seem alike, which feel like they’re variations on a few simple themes. Because it is the good, the growing, and the happy that matters, my experience is that all unhappy situations can generally be boiled down to a few categories, and are addressed through a few principles which, if practiced, eliminate the problem over time. It is happy classrooms and communities (and individuals) that are manifold, because they are happy in their own singularly unique and fresh and interesting ways, and it is those positive differences that are worth holding sacred.
Going into 2022, what I look forward to most about our shared community is the sheer variety of individuals I get to interact with who are deeply interesting and worth knowing. The thing never-to-be-betrayed in our work is the extraordinary variety of people coming together, in a classroom, a school, a region, and our organization as a whole, to live full, rich lives, each in their own manner. What unites us is our individuality, the fact we bring to our shared work different personalities and styles and goals and dreams that are unique to each of us, and that we embody and express the good in ways that cannot be repeated.
I treasure the opportunity my job gives me to see, to learn from, and to love the individually beautiful and human in so many of you. It is a gift, I would not trade it for the world, and I look forward to making the most of it in 2022.
Happy new year!
Ray Girn
Chief Executive Officer, Higher Ground Education