Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman
Adjunct Lecturer on Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Staff Facilitator, National SEED Project
I’m an educator through and through -- when my family goes on vacation we often spend an evening writing and sharing haikus about our trip highlights. I love nerding out and analyzing the “lesson design” of anything I’m part of, and SEED lesson design continues to blow my socks off. A deceptively simple lesson plan of deep listening and reflection in the context of healthy relationships allows people to lead their own transformation. That kind of learning continues long beyond the end of an activity.
I went through my first SEED training in the late 1990s (so long ago that I don’t remember the exact year!). After we watched Lee Mun Wah’s amazing movie, The Color of Fear, my take-away was a determination not to be “David”, the well-intentioned white man who doesn’t see the ways his words and actions negatively impact his colleagues of color. Twenty years later I went through SEED New Leaders Week again and I realized ways my learning has continued. I’ve come to see the ways that I am “David” and my need to bring greater humility to racial justice work. As a result, I’ve been shifting much of my professional focus (in coaching, writing, and consulting) to gathering with other white people to explore and understand our role in perpetuating racial inequities and our responsibility to continually work to change these behaviors.
One of the most valuable aspects of SEED for me is witnessing all the different models from individual facilitators about how to be in just relationship with each other. I need these models; I think our world does also.
