As head of school, I want the members of the school community to have a corresponding awareness of the sociocultural climate of the school and the environment itself as a place where diversity, inclusivity, and social justice are emphasized and where any ensuing or resulting challenges are met with an open and exploratory dialogue as the best conduit for meaningful next steps. We provide the groundwork for these conversations by engaging with each other in a continuous discourse around diversity, inclusivity, and community from manifold points of view. By sharing and exploring our personal perspectives on these matters, we hope to inspire each other to discern the lenses through which we view the world and assume responsibility for forwarding the inclusivity of our community.
I see Montessori community as inclusive - an affirmation of human differences and the real connection, communication, creation, healing and love that come from living in such an intentionally prepared environment. Montessori community promotes as an attitude and as a practice the suspension of judgment, of preconceived expectations and of urges to ‘fix’ one another. At its best, Montessori community truly and honestly invites us to engage in being who we genuinely are while honoring others as they do the same.
For me as a school leader, this approach to inclusivity suggests that we ever aim to accept and embrace each other, revering our individuality while learning to move beyond our differences. It beckons us to coalesce around a myriad of perspectives to better understand the greater good and to exercise compassion and respect. We self-examine to be conscious of and attentive to the relationship between our internal and external realities. We give each other permission to share our vulnerability. We learn how to make peace with each other and welcome that process. We receive each other – gifts in tandem with limitations - we strive together. We are obliged to each other and commended to one another through mutual dedication to furthering the spirit of Montessori community – a spirit of truth, amity, peace, acceptance and growth.
"If it is so channeled, life in community may touch upon something perhaps even deeper than joy... what repeatedly draws me into community is something more. When I am with a group of human beings committed to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word. I almost hesitate to use it. The word is "glory”. Scott Peck
