Safety: Habits and Attitudes

It is true, our small school atmosphere will present us with challenges to our personal privacy at times AND offer us a wealth of opportunity for meaningful personal contact and relationship that should lead to stronger feelings of safety.

Strong schools and communities, if you ask me, ought to be a place that we feel safe and secure first of all. When we feel safe and secure we can then become curious to learn more about ourselves and other people around us. I think its fair to say, we each really want to discover our potential and become wildly successful people - whatever that may mean to us. I believe that its also true that often others around us can see our best and unique potential far more clearly than we may see it for ourselves.

So, while we do need and in fact deserve some space for our personal privacy, at some level, I imagine that we each also long to have our own life experience valued and to be understood and respected for the person that we are...and the person that we are becoming? Genuine understanding and recognition from others is a powerful and comforting thing to experience. When others acknowledge us and take the time to recognize our feelings and potential contributions we begin to feel like we matter...that we have some meaning or purpose in our life. When others don't recognize this or dismiss our value, it can hurt...it can hurt alot!

So if we want our community to be great and we do not want people to be hurting, what can we do? Does this kind of community just happen? Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit." Perhaps, together, we can identify the healthy habits and attitudes that will help us be great for one another. As we develop positive habits and attitudes about what makes us feel safe and secure enough to take risks, we might ask ourselves what we should do when we are made to feel unsafe and not valued by others. How can we hold each other accountable to the very best behavior that is necessary in any safe, successful, and healthy community? What do you think...