Meanwhile, I was looking for a bright and colorful family space where the kids and their parents could spend time together during their visit. As a teacher, I was used to bright colors, photos of kids and families, child sized tables and chairs and educational materials for each family to use during their time together. Instead, we were ushered into a dismal looking room without toys. I understood the value of designing family gathering spaces that promote interaction. The kind that families have access to at Children’s Museums, Science Museums and Aquariums.

As I stood in the doorway to the Family Visitation Room I wondered, “Does anyone else notice the lack of resources here?" That’s when I began Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America. I was an educator, a business woman and a seasoned mom. I wanted to understand everything about our public foster care system so that I could become an outstanding Everyday Mom (aka Foster Parent) and knowledgeable advocate for the kids placed in our home.

I began reading everything I could get my hands on about our child welfare system. Then I reached out to social workers, teachers, parents, foster care alumni, lawyers, researchers and others who had frontline experience with the kids, youth and families the system was designed to serve.

What I learned first is that we have set our child welfare system up to fail. We have given it a mandate to keep all children safe saying, “Here are some of the most vulnerable children and families in America. Watch over them. We’ll pay attention when something goes wrong.” Then, we consistently underfund the work, turn our backs and walk away

When there’s a crisis, newspaper headlines slam the adults in charge. When outcomes are positive they rarely make the news. I also learned that most Americans think there are only two ways to support a child experiencing foster care: become a foster parent or adopt a child. This is too much to ask of most people.

The result: millions of Americans are not connected to the kids in their communities who need them the most. We all pay the price for this disconnection. Every year in this country nearly 25,000 youth “age out” of foster care without a family and/or community resources. They are at risk of becoming homeless, unemployed and incarcerated - our next generation of poor and homeless Americans.

There are three things that we can do to change this foster care narrative: 1. Consider the nearly half million children & youth living in foster care worthy. 2. Ensure they are rooted in permanent, loving families and communities. 3. Invest in their hopes and dreams, their lives and futures.

These three actions require us to change the national conversation about our kids placed in foster care. Language is important. Let's begin by erasing the stigma that families needing help from child welfare face.

Instead of calling their kids "foster kids", let's refer to our nation's youngsters in foster care as kids, children, young people and youth: Kids living in foster care. Children placed in foster care. Young people experiencing foster care. Youth who have spent time in foster care. Let's honor their lives. Lift them up. Give them the dignity they deserve.

Next, we must invest in the success of our child welfare system. Our child welfare system belongs to us. Our tax dollars fund it. We know that it can only be successful when it is engaged in a variety of vibrant public/private partnerships. The kind that invest in foster care innovation and help us better serve kids in communities from coast to coast.

This requires an engaged citizenry: Americans standing together under the Banner of Social Responsibility alongside social workers, mental health professionals, educators, pediatricians and child welfare leaders. In addition to foster and adoptive parents, we need non-profits, state legislators, colleges, universities, civic groups, business leaders, philanthropists, educators, mental health professionals, faith based organizations and the federal government to step up to the plate to help create a compelling new menu of engagement options so that it’s easy for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to support kids in their backyards until being a resource to kids experiencing foster care becomes a new national norm.

Once we have an array of options for becoming connected to kids, we will get to know them and care about them. Then it will be much easier to invest in their hopes and dreams for their lives and futures. I’ve seen this over and over again over the past 20 years. People want to help. They want to be of service. They just don’t know how.

Giving them something concrete to do makes all the difference in the world. Over the past two decades, the Treehouse Foundation and our partners have created opportunities for people of all ages to become resources to kids, youth and young adults. Some examples are:

1. Become an honorary grandparent in an intergenerational Treehouse Community.
2. Spend time in our intergenerational community garden.
3. Volunteer in our summer enrichment programs.
4. Be a Homework Help tutor.
5. Host a holiday gathering. Improve Family Visitation spaces.
6. Teach photography, cooking, piano, dance, art, baking, knitting, financial literacy, etc.
7. Celebrate life: birthdays, graduations, adoptions, dance recitals, sports events, new jobs.
8. Volunteer to be a camp counselor.
9. Collect brand new suitcases and duffle bags for The Suitcase Project.
10. Host an Infant Clothing/Diaper Drive.
11. Be a Gift Card Donor.
12. Lead a Winter Coat Drive.
13. Become a Visiting Resource.
14. Be a Birthday Party Host.
15. Send a Kid to Camp (summer, horseback riding, school vacation week, computer, drama.)
16. Make Comfort Quilts for kids of all ages.
17. Help furnish a young person's first apartment.
18. Host a Back To School Backpack Drive.
19. Be a Computer Angel.
20. Provide iPhones and data plans.
21. Donate a first car.
22. Offer a job internship/training.
23. Create a college scholarship fund

There are many ways to become a resource to our nation’s kids and help ensure that they are rooted in family and community so they can thrive. Making sure there are small, medium and larger size options is key to engagement.

Reach out to a local non-profit organization that serves children and youth living in foster care in your region. If you don’t have time to spend with a young person, you can always make a meaningful donation to support their ongoing programs.

Join Us! The Treehouse Foundation is inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. Sign up to make a difference in the life of a child who needs an Everyday Hero. Thank you for your time and consideration.

This is an article I wrote for Spiked online, a British publication I contribute to sometimes. I have been grappling with  origins of our hyper individualist culture and how we might rebuild a sense of common purpose for a while now. My book about parenting culture turned out, quite unexpectedly, to be a book about how we lost the ability to raise children with a sense of being part of to something greater than themselves. As I was thinking it all this though, and trying to imagine what a connected society would look like, I kept casting my mind back to the Frank Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life. It wasn’t history by any stretch, but there was something about it that rang true. With the book finally out of the way, I decided to spend more time looking at the film and trying to figure out what it is about it that seems to resonate so strongly.

The responses to the article on social media were predictable. There were people who didn’t read it but wanted to express their belief that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, and there were those who see the small town America of the past as entirely beyond redemption or even consideration. But there were also people who sent me little notes though the magazine because it struck a chord with them. They were the people I wrote it for.

It’s so easy, with the pandemic and our extremes of polarization to lose hope of every being able to do anything. When I’m feeling that way, I watch It’s a Wonderful Life and feel gratitude and hope again. I know it’s not Christmas but if you know the film, maybe this will add another dimension to it.

Nancy

It’s Still a Wonderful Life

It is a strange Christmas, a corona Christmas without guests or parties or carols. And yet there are some things that will remain the same. There’s a Christmas tree decorated with several generations of handmade ornaments. There’s the music: Etta James singing ‘Merry Christmas Baby’, and ‘Winter Wonderland’. And, in the run-up to the big day, we as a family always make a point of sitting down together to watch our favourite Christmas movies: Home Alone, Elf, Die Hard. But of all the films we watch there is one favourite we reserve especially for Christmas Eve: Frank Capra’s 1946 classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Each year, we watch George Bailey’s rise, fall and redemption. We scowl at Mr Potter, feel a lump rise in our throats when George finds Zuzu’s petals restored to his pocket. We laugh and cry with relief as the well-wishers crowding George’s living room break into song and a jingling bell confirms that Clarence the angel has finally earned his wings. Truly, it should be the most schmaltzy movie ever made, but somehow it manages to deftly skirt the edges of light and dark, veering from the hokey slapstick of Uncle Billy to the utter despair of wishing – not for death – but to have never been born in the first place. It is unlike anything in contemporary culture. George Bailey is definitely not living his Best Life. He is at the mercy of fate: his father’s death, the run on the bank, and Mr Potter – who never gets his comeuppance. In the end, there are no promises of easy solutions. The building and loan will squeak by, the finial on the bannister will remain broken. George will never build skyscrapers. But it is still a wonderful life because he has friends.

No matter how many times we see it, or how many years have passed since we watched it with our own parents, it never grows stale. If anything, it seems to resonate more deeply as we grow older – especially now when we cannot be close to our friends and families. It is as American as can be, and yet people the world over watch it and understand. Perhaps this is why it is regularly listed as one of the best films ever made. But It’s a Wonderful Life is special to our family for another reason: we live in Bedford Falls.

I don’t mean this in the sense that all Americans live in Bedford Falls. I mean we literally live 15 minutes down the road from Seneca Falls, New York, the most likely model for the Bedford Falls of the movie. We know the bridge over the canal where George contemplates suicide and the lock keeper’s house where he and Clarence dry off under blankets. We know the glass factory referred to in the movie, and we know how long it takes to drive to Elmira where the bank official is eager to return for Christmas. The divided Main Street with its trees and shaded benches looks just as our own did before it was widened to make room for more cars. The Brignalls, Wileys and Pietrocarlos who people our town are the close cousins of the Gowers, Wainwrights and Martinis of Bedford Falls. There are even still a few Mr Potters – everyone knows who they are – pushing their weight around, just as there are still Baileys defying them.

The story the film is based on is somewhat different. In The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern, the protagonist George Pratt stands on a bridge wishing he had never been born. A mysterious stranger grants his wish and allows him to see what the world would be like without him. Though the story is set in Bedford Falls, there is no building and loan, no Mr Potter, no Italian immigrants and no angel. Mary does not remain a spinster, but marries a different man who treats her badly and chases George (who is pretending to be a brush salesman) from the house. In the end he runs back to the bridge and begs the stranger to give him back his life.

As compelling as the story was, Capra, who bought the rights to it in 1945, understood that it would need work to become a film. In order for Bedford Falls to be everyplace, it first needed to be a real place with real people. Seneca Falls in the Finger Lakes region of New York seemed to fit the bill. Perhaps the name reminded Capra of the story, or maybe he felt an affinity for an area where thousands of Italian immigrants like himself chose to settle (Capra’s aunt lived in a neighbouring town). Whatever the reason, the imaginary town of Bedford Falls bears more than a passing resemblance to Seneca Falls. Most poignantly, it was the scene of a tragedy in 1917 when a young Italian labourer, Antonio Varacalli, jumped into the canal after a woman threw herself off the bridge in an attempt to commit suicide. He saved her but was himself drowned. The people of town were so moved by his sacrifice that they renamed the bridge in his honour, and, in an effort reminiscent of the final scene of the film, they came together to contribute enough money to realise Varacalli’s dream of bringing his family over from Italy. Though most of this is conjecture, it is still great fun, and Seneca Falls has made It’s a Wonderful Life its own, with a museum, an annual festival and a ‘George Bailey’ award given to honour an individual for improving the lives of his or her neighbors.

And yet, driving through Seneca Falls and surrounding towns today, it is sometimes hard to imagine the scenes that inspired Capra. Like so many places in America, the downtown areas seldom bustle with anything approaching the energy of the fictional Bedford Falls. There are a few shops, tobacconists, a craft brewery or pizza place, but lots of empty storefronts. The pharmacy with its apothecary jars and soda fountain is long gone, replaced by a tattoo parlor.

There are a few factories left, but most of the old mills have been converted for other purposes, or left to the pigeons. The rolling farmland near Seneca Falls has given way to a great stinking landfill and mountains of trash have replaced orchards and cornfields. There is a new casino, and a prison. Mobile-home parks have sprung up on the edge of town. Many of the once-prized, bricks-and-mortar homes closer to the centre have been bought up by slum lords who rent their ramshackle properties to anyone who qualifies for the federal section-eight housing assistance programme – a more reliable source of rent than their tenants’ meagre wages.

Opioid addiction has left its mark on the region, too. Overdoses are frequent and deadly, and everyone knows of someone who bounces from one rehab centre to another, between brief fits of sobriety. Families, especially those with young children, have become so fragile that the local elementary schools are locked up, not for fear of school shooters, but because of the problem of noncustodial parents slipping their kids out the back door. It is, in a word, ‘Pottersville’.

How did this happen? The economy changed but the local economy did not evolve alongside it and towns found they could no longer shape their own destinies. Rural communities became expendable to the people born in them and to the nation as a whole. In a strange way, It’s a Wonderful Life foreshadows the fate of America’s small towns, and perhaps the fate of the nation, because it shows what happens in a world without Georges.

It’s a Wonderful Life was made when America stood at a crossroads. When ‘the cataclysmic aftermaths of war’, wrote Capra in his autobiography, were breeding ‘gnawing doubts in man’. GIs returned to sweethearts or wives they married in haste and to children who scarcely knew them. Couples lived with their in-laws in fraying Victorian homes, or depression-era bungalows where family members rubbed elbows but felt worlds apart. It was as if all the time-worn obligations and duties that bound people together, that sketched out the parameters of individual lives and gave them meaning, were falling away. Americans were beginning to ask themselves if their sacrifices had been worth it.

Frank Capra understood this disillusionment all too well. Capra joined the army after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and spent most of the war making the ‘Why We Fight’ series of propaganda films. Though lauded – Winston Churchill praised the first, Prelude to War, as the ‘most powerful statement of our cause’ – he returned to Hollywood to find that his reputation had faded. ‘It was disconcerting’, he wrote, ‘to be introduced to an upcoming actress or director and have them ask “Frank Who?”‘. To make matters worse, the Cold War was ramping up to what would eventually become the witch hunts of the McCarthy era. Even by 1945, it was becoming difficult to work with old collaborators, like the screenwriters Dalton Trumbo or Clifford Odets, who were under investigation for their involvement with the Communist Party. Capra was especially sensitive because, in addition to having been born in Italy, his film, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, which took a stand against government corruption, had come under attack from none other than Joseph P Kennedy (the patriarch of the famous Kennedy clan). Kennedy claimed Mr Smith had caused ‘inestimable harm’ to American prestige. Even with his war record, Capra knew he was not immune to investigation.

It was against this backdrop that Capra began work on It’s a Wonderful Life. He seems to have intuited that how Americans would answer the question ‘was it worth it?’ would change the destiny of the country. The worst thing, he thought, would be for them to draw the conclusion that their sacrifices didn’t matter. The film was his answer.

Capra offers up two visions of America’s possible future. In one, George is thwarted at every turn, but comes to realise that in spite of all his troubles, he is the richest man in town because he lives a life connected to others through sacrifice. The other is a world without George. No one is saved because George is no longer there to change the destiny of other people so that they (like his brother Harry, who saves his fellow airmen) can save others. There is no ripple effect. In Pottersville it is every man for himself.

In reality it happened slightly differently. After the war, Americans decided that their sacrifices had not been worth it. They began to resent the obligations and connections that once made life meaningful. Instead they shook the dust of their crummy little towns off their feet. They let the building and loan go to the wall, went to college and never looked back. The ethos of connectedness, of being part of a ‘We’ that animates It’s a Wonderful Life, gave way to an ethos of ‘Me’.

Still, It’s a Wonderful Life gets us in the gut every year. Maybe living for ourselves isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be. Maybe we’re just tired of Pottersville. Or maybe on some level we understand that life may not be perfect, but when we are deeply, hopelessly, inconveniently entwined in the lives of other people, it’s still wonderful.

© Nancy McDermott 2020

As Weave: The Social Fabric Project has highlighted, there is a crisis of community in this country. More than ever, Americans feel lonely, disconnected, and lack robust relationships with their neighbors and coworkers. As a result, we are more distrusting of each other, stressed, and less likely to have support systems for life’s ups and inevitable downs.

At first glance, a modern-day college campus is bursting with community: Thousands — if not tens of thousands — of young people are gathered together. Campus is filled with “third places” like libraries and coffee shops. Students’ lives are woven together through overlapping classes, extracurricular clubs and activities, meals at communal dining halls, and (at large state universities like mine) a passion for collegiate sports teams.

Campus “third places” are where conversation, community, and social integration should flourish. But take a slightly closer look and you will find that the outward appearance of community is not quite what it seems, with real impacts on students’ well-being and ultimately the ability for society to function at large.

I am a rising senior at the University of Michigan, and after three years of school, I am deeply concerned about a lack of community among my generation. 63% of students reported feeling very lonely and that was before COVID-19 moved classes and extracurriculars online.

Why, despite all of the seemingly built-in advantages of a college campus, are young people struggling to truly connect with each other? Three reasons stand out to me.

(I should take a quick moment to say that I, of course, do not speak for all 40,000 young people at the University of Michigan or on college campuses elsewhere. There are many students who, like the individuals Weave has highlighted, are fighting against the current and developing caring relationships and communities.)

1. A hyperfocus on career success and material goods: A graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in business will certainly be prepared to analyze market trends and evaluate the economic impacts of inflation. But that is because, from the moment students step foot on campus, they are surrounded by a highly pressurized, competitive environment that rewards transactional relationships and temporary commitments. Academics and extracurriculars quickly become insular. Freshman students, at the expense of joining community-oriented clubs (the Michigan Backpacking Club, intramural sports leagues, or the Michigan Cooking Club to name a few), hop from investing/consulting club to investing/consulting club in hopes of padding resumes. By the time graduation arrives, one’s entire college career has been spent in competition with peers and in pursuit of a singular goal: analyst at fill-in-the-blank consulting firm.
2. The omnipresent nature of smartphones and electronic device: Allow me to paint you a picture: a large college auditorium filled with 200 students in the few minutes before their class starts. Except, instead of the audible buzz of chatter as they talk about each other's lives or the course content, the auditorium is silent. Students sit alone as we ‘arm’ ourselves with electronics. Students open laptops, put headphones in, and take smartphones out of their pockets. The same phenomenon occurs in dining halls and residence halls. After being raised with electronics our entire lives, (devices that are optimized to take advantage of deep-seated human psychology to grab attention) even the shortest moment of inaction in the physical world triggers a knee-jerk reaction to grab the nearest screen. In the electronic world we are being raised in, as Anne Applebaum recently wrote in The Atlantic, “conversation is ruled by algorithms that are designed to capture attention, harvest data, and sell advertising. The voices of the angriest, most emotional, most divisive—and often the most duplicitous—participants are amplified.”
3. A lack of counterbalancing classes, speakers, and spaces: University of Michigan students are passionate. They routinely fill auditoriums or Zoom rooms to hear from invited speakers and guest lecturers. Yet the vast majority of those speakers and lecturers, while discussing different topics, are speaking the same language of career advancement. We regularly hear from consultants about how best to prepare for case interviews, but not from local nonprofits about ways to get involved in our community. We hear from partners at law firms about how best to get a head start on preparing for the LSAT (early and with private classes!), but not about mentoring programs with local elementary school students.

Of course, a central goal (maybe even the primary objective) of higher education is to graduate with the skills needed to be an employable adult. But, of equal importance, is learning to be a compassionate and engaged member of society. The balance is off.

What is to be done?
As the Weave project has sparked nationally, we need an ongoing and extensive conversation about the best ways colleges can equip students with the skills to build community and repair our social fabric. Ideas can be directed at any level, from individual students reaching out to each other, to a wholesale, university review of curriculum requirements. I certainly don’t have all the solutions, but here are a few ideas to get that conversation started:

1. Display discussion prompts at the beginning of class: As mentioned above, the few minutes before a college lecture are often completely silent, without conversation between students. But what if professors were encouraged to display a “discussion prompt” on the whiteboard for students to engage with? These could be related to course content, or not at all. Are you at a life crossroads? What is it? What is a talent that you have that most people don’t know? What historical figure would you most like to have dinner with? Students can, of course, choose to ignore the prompt and have the few minutes to themselves. But the presence of the prompt (and the underlying endorsement and normalization of sparking up a conversation with your neighbor) might encourage many to turn and talk to the student sitting next to them, behind them, in front of them, or maybe even after class — it might change a student’s habits and develop a skill for life.
2. Foster common spaces at dining halls: Coming together for meals has long been a key way to build community. College dining halls could have designated “conversation tables” where another student — even a complete stranger — can sit down next to you and have a casual conversation. There might be discussion placards sitting on the table or themed tabletops (e.g., the outdoors, sports teams, book and movie covers) that encourage commonalities. Small changes to a student’s everyday environment will incrementally build a new kind of campus community.
3. Connect students with local organizations and nonprofits: College students are a transient group, jumping back and forth between their hometowns and school. One activity that has provided me with an unconditional sense of community is volunteering with an Ann Arbor nonprofit — my only regret is that I didn’t discover this wonderful organization and make that outreach until the end of my second year. Beginning with freshmen orientation, universities should promote off-campus volunteer opportunities for their students. Starting this practice early on will build upon or further strengthen the habit of volunteering and community service — a skill that will serve us and our communities for life.
4. Bring in speakers and organizations that speak to rebuilding our social fabric: Michigan students do not hesitate to attend speaker series or Zoom events. The University should make a concerted effort to bring in speakers and organizations who speak to building worthwhile relationships and resilient communities. We will always have career fairs for financial services and computer science, but we should also have fairs for nonprofits and community service organizations. In addition to job opportunities, these fairs would speak to weaving as a way of life.

This is a unique time to have this conversation and act. As students return from over a year of online school, many will be yearning to reconnect with their peers and to rebuild and improve their communities. Now is the time to try some new ideas and strategies to encourage students to put their phones down and see their peers for who they are. Just as students have gotten used to ‘6 feet for social distancing’ signs around campus, they might be more open to ‘Sit here to meet someone new’ signs. The ideas I have laid out might not be perfect or even the right answers… but let’s 'sit at one of those tables' and discuss.

In this post I want to talk about how we can regain our national sanity. It starts by making a conscious choice to stop reacting in fear.

We know from studies in neuroscience that threats to our strongly held opinions and beliefs can trigger our fight/flight/freeze survival drive. The reason for this, says the late physicist David Bohm, in a mind-blowing little booklet called On Dialogue, is because we identify with our opinions and beliefs, and therefore defend them “as if we are defending ourselves.” He goes on:

“The natural self-defense impulse, which we got in the jungle, has been transferred from the jungle animals to these opinions. In other words, we say that there are some dangerous opinions out there — just as there might be dangerous tigers. And there are some very precious animals inside us that have to be defended. So an impulse that made sense physically in the jungle has been transferred to our opinions in our modern life.”

Now, we can all agree that some opinions, beliefs, perspectives can, over time, become dangerous to us physically. The mistake we make is assuming that the self-defense impulse we learned “in the jungle” to avoid physical harm from an attacking tiger, can also help us avoid physical harm from an attacking ideology. An abundance of evidence suggests this is not so. Dangerous ideas, unlike dangerous tigers, cannot be trapped, caged or killed. Trying to do so seems only to make them stronger.

Let’s take the anti-vacine movement as a case in point.

According to a recent article, the anti-vax movement really got going in 2014-2015, following the swift and rather vicious public reaction to a small outbreak of the measles (125 people). The outbreak was traced back to “mostly unvaccinated visitors at Disneyland in California.” (Note the use of the word “mostly.”) Of those unvaccinated visitors, 28 of them — 18 children and 10 adults — were intentionally unvaccinated.

28 people. That was enough, apparently, to “[wake] up the nation to the threat” of those who questioned or were resistant to getting vaccines. Fearful of what might happen should this anti-vaccine mentality spread, a campaign of public humiliation soon followed, “with everyone from soccer moms to late-night television hosts lambasting parents who refused to vaccinate their kids.” And in California, nonprofits and state legislators worked together “to push for a bill that would remove all non-medical exemptions for school vaccine requirements, which had grown in recent years to allow pockets of low vaccination coverage to spring up.”

In other words, an aggressive, all-out attack on those who questioned vaccines had begun.

So what happened next? Now under threat themselves, those “pockets of low vaccination coverage” transformed into a mobilized national movement. They organized, fundraised, grew, developed sophisticated and targeted messaging, and formed alliances and political action committees to help elect politicians sympathetic to their cause. Everything the pro-vaccine folks most feared.

Did it have to be this way? Might there have been a different reaction back in 2014-15 other than drafting laws and engaging in public humiliation — which Amanda Ripley in her book, High Conflict, calls the “nuclear bomb of emotions” and the driver of “all manner of conflict”?

What if in 2014, instead of “waking up to the threat” of those resistant to getting vaccines, we simply “woke up” to the existence and consequences of people who had chosen not to get vaccinated, and then, without fear, got curious and made an effort — before everyone’s defenses were raised — to understand their mindset so that we could come up with creative, respectful and effective responses?

Would that have made a difference? Well, I don’t know about you, but personal experience tells me the answer is yes. It’s just common sense that people are more receptive to talking and listening when humiliation bombs are not being dropped on their head.

So what can we do now? For starters, we can refuse to act out of fear, refuse to take part in the vilification of the other. None of that helps. It just feeds the conflict. Another thing you could do is help spread this meme:

“Fear ends where conversation begins.”

Our culture seems to be caught up in an epidemic of rudeness: Fights on airplanes, belligerent diners raging at stressed-out servers, school-board meeting attendees outraged over mask mandates, bullying bosses, a quiet comment that escalates into a red-faced, clenched-fist exchange of insults. I’ve been lucky so far, just an observer to the incivility, but the questions keep nagging: What to do about this? How to respond?

Research shows that being on the receiving end of incivility, or even witnessing it, amps us up and makes us want to respond in kind. That might give us a momentary sense of satisfaction – repaying rudeness with harsher rudeness so that we’re not bested in this toxic contest – but that’s like tossing a match in a gas can.

A friend here on the hub, Ashwin Budden, recently tipped me to Hidden Brain, a podcast that explores why we do what we do and probes the hard questions that ride the deeper rhythms of our lives. In a recent episode, How Rude!, behavioral scientist Christine Porath speaks about her research that offers an effective way to keep incivility from hijacking our minds and our behavior. It’s not reactive, but rather preventive.

Instead of waiting to experience rude behavior and then figuring out what to do about it, she suggests that we focus on ourselves and engage in whatever activities help us develop a sense of thriving, of moving forward; activities that build hope, vitality, and resilience. The point is to strengthen in us a kind of immune system, she says, so that we’re far less likely to be triggered when others are uncivil and either respond in kind or simply leave the encounter feeling shaken.

So I’m curious: Have you found effective ways to respond to public incivility and perhaps calm the other person? Do you confine your actions to yourself and employ self-calming techniques? Do you just walk away, or does that simply give license for more bad behavior? What’s our responsibility if our goal is weaving a more life-giving culture?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Hi All. I am an American therapist, living in Sai Gon (Ho Chi Minh City) Vietnam on diplomatic mission with my partner. We have to move every few years for his job, so creating community is always a priority as soon as get to our new place. I see there are some consultants & other therapists who seem to be also using their skills and knowledge of humans to build community. I have a private practice and I just started dabbling in consulting, which focused on improving well-being overall (increasing community, inclusion, and conflict skills). I'm super excited that more people are recognizing the power of community and finding ways to create it. Community is a priority in my house and work. I do some structured events and some less structured ones. We host open hours every Tuesday where any of our friends are welcome to stop by.

I'll be going back to Washington DC in a year or so, for a year or two and then we'll head to a new country. I'd love to find ways to deepen my community building skills and to bring community everywhere I go. I've signed up for a circle, and I'm excited to get more involved with WEAVE as I move around. I've never lived in DC before, so I'm super excited to be able to connect with that chapter while I'm there.

Image description: Downtown Sai Gon at sunset. There is a river and some foliage in the foreground and skyscrapers with lights on in the background.

As a newly minted, fifth grade social studies teacher, I was determined to use project-based learning, where students work together on a challenge. I gave each team a few “resources” — sticks, straw and twine — and asked them to invent something to carry three rocks from one side of the room to the other without the rocks touching the ground.

Children leapt from their desks to get to work building and testing. They cheered each small success and groaned with each failure. But in one group, students were arguing and getting impatient as the deadline neared.

Jamie, a student who struggled academically and rarely spoke in class, was quietly explaining his idea, but his teammates brushed him off and told him it wouldn’t work. He kept at it, tying three pieces of twine to a stick and then tying a rock to each dangling end. As I walked over, he held it up slowly, anticipating the pushback, which followed. The others all looked at me. “It doesn’t work,” one student said. “Right, Ms. Kraft?”

“Does it use only the materials you were given? Does it transport three rocks across the room without touching the floor?”

“Yes!” they shouted in unison. 

“Jamie,” I responded. “It’s brilliant. It’s a solution I hadn’t even dreamed of when I created the challenge.”

The group cheered their hero and followed him back and forth across the room several times as he proudly walked with his creation in hand and then passed it to others to share the success. His group members bragged about him to the rest of the class and then to the rest of the grade at the bustling lunch tables. This student who didn’t see himself as smart and whom others discounted, was seen in a new light by others and even himself.

Unfortunately, humans, even teachers, can tend to see people in terms of their deficits and define them in terms of their needs. Once the sorting happens, we may lose sight of each child’s unique gifts and fail to see strengths and successes.

Tech and social entrepreneur Trabian Shorters points out that we do this with whole groups of people and entire communities. We label them by their problems, using terms like at risk, impoverished, homeless, or a school-to-prison pipeline. We think we are serving people by seeing their needs. But doing that, says Shorters, makes us, and them, blind to their own power and aspirations.

He suggests an alternative way of seeing, a framework he calls Asset Framing, and explains in a recent On Being with Krista Tippett interview. You look for the assets and aspirations of a community, its value, instead of the places where it may be broken. Then, you can work to unlock, or unblock, the aspiration. The approach, says Tippett, “is in and of itself dignifying and renewing.” Aspiring communities are made up of aspiring people. So if we learn to see the spirit in a community, we see the spirit in its people, too.

Shorters says when people learn to asset-frame, they engage more people, have higher impact, make people more willing to work on systems change, and raise more money. Since 2013, communities trained by Shorters’s BMe Community have raised about $300 million.

Jamie’s aspiration was to be an engineer. I don’t know if that early dream became a reality, but I expect his moment of being seen as an inventor that day in our classroom, and not as a struggling learner, was the start of writing a new story based on his strengths. Who wouldn’t want that for ourselves and our communities?

Dear Weave Community,

In our Community Hour dialogue this week, we were talking about how our political divisions play out in our small towns and rural communities. Another weaver was interested that my step-father is reluctant to share his political affiliation, because he values his relationships with other farmers who vote differently. I mentioned how in my parents' town, the one thing that opened dialogue was when I shared my novel, Sweet Burden of Crossing, at the library to spark conversation about interracial friendship. Mary Ellen, an  89-year-old woman, talked about working at the Woolworth's counter as a young woman and learning from her Black customer about enforced segregation.  The customer has asked for coke in a to-go cup, but Mary Ellen served it to her in a glass. "I can't have that," the customer said. "I'm not allowed to sit here with you." Mary Ellen responded, "Of course, you can sit here with me."

It's heart-warming when these stories surface from talks and readings with book clubs.  In his book,  Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again, author Johann Hari tells about a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Raymond Mar, who studies the impact reading has on our consciousness. With his mentor, he did a three-state process to measure how good readers were at capturing the subtle signals that reveal another person's emotional state and the ability to read social cues. When they got their results, it was clear: the more novels you read, the better you are at reading other people's emotions. Reading non-fiction books, by contrast, had no effect on your empathy.

Now consider this: between 2008 and 2016, the market for novels fell by 40 percent.  In one year, 2011 paperback fiction sales collapsed by 26 percent.

There are very few books on interracial friendship, but all kinds of non-fiction books about anti-racism to engage our intellect. What then happens to our hearts?

As a fellow weaver, I humbly invite you to read my work. Perhaps it might spark some interesting dialogue in your own community. In this era of Zoom, I can easily join you anywhere around the country/world to talk about its themes which include:

• What it means to honor—and find reciprocity—in a relationship with someone whose ancestors and family live with historical trauma and marginalization.
• The day-to-day things that allow women to deepen their friendship, born on a Twin Cities college campus.
• How our historical blindness to suffering still impacts and hurts both descendants of people who were enslaved and whites today.
• The challenges current teachers-in-training face as they piece together our authentic cultural history.
• How this blindness leads to the sanctioned incarceration of innocent and caring people.
• What it means to have a friendship before cell phones and racial justice terminology such as white privilege.

It would bring me joy to help surface these dialogues in your own community.

Yours in weaving solidarity,

Kate Towle

We are honored to have Triston B. Black, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and community member of Tsaile, Arizona, share his thoughts in our newsletter and blog for National Mental Health Awareness Month.

Ashinéé’ shiyázhí, or “I’ve missed you my grandchild,” are the first words you hear when your grandparents see you. The love and comfort of our elders give us strength, warmth, and a sense of belonging. Our elderly women hug us and talk about how much we have grown, and our elderly men are glad to catch up with us and see what we have been up to. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect in our tribal communities.

It has taken parents, grandparents, and extended relatives. It was heart aching to hear of loved ones taken from us, but now is the time to take care of our mental health. Now is the time to reconnect with our family, friends, neighbors, and continue to be a good relative to all in our community.

In the Navajo language, our relatives tell us, “Nitsíkees baa áháyą́” which means take care of your mental health. After a good conversation or a chance meeting at the store, we always hear “Ádá’ahwołyą́”, or “Take care of yourself.” Self-care is very important to be a good relative and nurtures our mental well-being. There may be things we are going through or times we need to talk to someone, and it’s always good to hear our relatives out and take the time to listen to them.

Every time I leave home, my grandparents and mother remind me to keep in touch with them and always pray for a safe journey. As Indigenous people, we are always being watched over by the Diyin Dine’é or the Holy People. Everywhere we go, we are constantly protected and blessed with emotional, social, physical, and spiritual strength.

We breathe the sacred breath of life and acknowledge our surrounding environment. For instance, when we go for a walk, we may cross paths with birds, plants, trees, and the natural elements. All these essential beings greet us, sing to us, and weave throughout the landscape. They are happy to see us, just as our elders are happy to see us.

One of the first steps in improving our mental health is taking care of ourselves. I encourage you to take time and breathe. Call or video call an elder, parents, or an extended relative. Take time to remember that our community members are our relatives. You may not know them, but you may make someone’s day by giving them a smile.

These past two years have been tough, but now is the time to heal and continue to be a good relative. Our Indigenous youth prioritize their mental health and build our communities up. What is your call to improve mental health for your community? I say to you, - Ádá’ahwołyą́ - take care of yourself.

Artwork by Joelle Joyner (Meherrin, Cherokee Nation, and Blackfeet) Creative Native Call for Art Category Winner.

I have recently interviewed Stephan Helary, founder of Terres D'Afrique, a cosmetic brand based on rare African botanicals and care for these indigenous plants and the communities that live among them.

Stephan tells us how the Himba tribe in Namibia behaves, how they are connected with nature, and how they "think together" when answering questions or proposals.

You can find the podcast interview with Stephan here.

It's worth listening, since Stephan has direct experience with the tribes, and share some of their wisdom and culture.