Greetings all. I wanted to reach out and say hello before May gets too much underway with end of fiscal year tasks and Summer program planning. I continue to find your updates and tips motivating. It's just real good to know you're out there, or, rather, across there in rural, tribal and remote communities. As this porject evolves I realize part of our task is to establish models for building relationships through small steps. Knowing the nature of our communities means risking extending that simple handshake, cup of coffee, Girl Scout cookie or piece of chocolate. We cannot do everything in one year, but, we can definitely help this project succeed by paying attention to how we overcome our own hurdles of engagement. There's no time to feel anxious about the rigor of relational leadership fundamentals. I'm wondering if as a group we've stalled out in mutually supporting each other and cheering each other on to the next plateau of our community engagement. Give a shout if you are in the quagmire of second guessing, reticent sharing, or bashful pursuits. We are the ones to pull each other out, through, across and up to the place of empowerment, because we're the ones who know the challenges of serving rural, remote and tribal communities. Keep it simple!
I like to think about cultural circles and channels of communication. In remote communities, while geographically we are distant, the family trees, circles of friends, and, interconnection between students, teachers, parents, employers, and leaders are deep and broad. So I doodle many circles that reflect the following:
1) People who've already shown some interest in the engaged role of the library in middle schoolers' lives;
2) People with clear shared interests .....;
3) People with a need the library might meet ........;
4) People with possible shared interest ........
For the purposes of FRwtL, the people who land in circle 1 and/or 2 are the people with whom I am cultivating relationships. This means I am not looking to be in charge, to be perfectly polished, or, to be the one with the answers. I am looking for the person who can drink a cup of coffee or chat on the phone for 15 or 30 minutes with me and recognize that we are doing significant work individually that can have greater, compounded impact if we collaborate. I am figuring out the context of layers that make up the middle schoolers' community-- I am not judging it, changing it, or, wishing it were something different. I am taking this year to sit in it, listen, and ask questions based on conversations that are already happening at school board meetings, in parks, around library, in grocery store, etc.
looking forward to chatting with cohort members this week, Katie