Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Like 126 million other people around the world, I camped out in front of the television with my family on Sunday to watch Super Bowl 59. I have always loved football, especially the excitement and can-do spirit that surrounds the Big Game each year (along with the commercials and the halftime show, of course).
This year I was struck by a new theme that began with Brad Pitt’s pre-recorded message prior to the game. Wandering through a library, Pitt extolled a message that often gets lost in our individualistic culture, but is historically part and parcel of the national DNA: the importance of the true huddle.
“When we are bound by a common goal, we’ve reached heights, authored achievements, pushed progress. Not alone, but together, in ways that have lifted the world and one another,” he said. The football huddle, he noted, “is a metaphor for our history, for the power found in our shared purpose. It’s there in our unity that we form hope and find strength.”
For me, this message landed as a combined history lesson and call to action at a time of great upheaval in our country and around the world. We are better together, our fates are shared. We are not just achievers on individual paths to success, but also – and perhaps more importantly – barn builders who lend a hand to our neighbors and strive on behalf of the common good.
A similar theme was echoed by the winning team at the end of the game. When a reporter asked Eagles Quarterback Jalen Hurts what it felt like to be a champion, he acknowledged his own personal victory but quickly pivoted: “I couldn’t do any of these things without the guys around me.” Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni expressed a similar sentiment: “You cannot be great without the greatness of others,” he said. “This is the ultimate team game.” These athletes, representing the epitome of masculine strength, are not afraid to say aloud that the caring connections among them matter the most for their success.
It’s not lost on me that “the Huddle” is a circle. Pythagoras said the circle is the most perfect shape; it withholds all and everything emerges out of it. Every point of the circumference is the exact same distance from the center. The circle has no beginning and no end. There is no better side; there is no hierarchy.
We often say that when done well, education is a team sport. We need one another and do our best work when we put our heads together, work in partnership, and collaborate. Power of Place aspires to create a necessary “third space” away from the tumult of daily life in schools that allows educators to support each other as lifelong learners, and grow as professionals. When educators learn deeply, so can students.
When we make a circle, we commit to creating a space together that is richer and deeper than anything we can achieve as solo practitioners. This is our goal every time we bring educators together. Last week we were disappointed to have to postpone our Winter Gathering due to the weather, but we are working to reschedule for sometime early this Spring.
Stay tuned – and we hope to see you all in our huddle soon.
In connection,
Jane