Oriented towards the West, we find the change educator-leader. While all of these positionalities involve leading for change, this one is especially concerned with how change is experienced by participants, in particular the challenges entailed by uncertainty, risk, discomfort, disruption and loss. One of the greatest barriers to change is fear and the retreat from pain; thus, change educator-leaders seek to help people turn towards and move through fear and pain into new possibilities of growth and flourishing. At the collective level, this requires the creation of safe-enough spaces where participants are supported to share their pain and grief, learn from past failures and disasters, experiment with new self-understandings and practices, and articulate their evolving understanding of their needs, desires, and possibilities.
As change educators, educational leaders must start by recognizing their own grief and culpability, and the forms of resistance, distraction, and denial present in their own struggle to become more attuned to land and place. Without compassion for themselves, they will find it hard to extend compassion to their staff and students and families as they, too, struggle to shift old habits and engage in new ways of being. There is a balance to be held along the East-West axis, between the brightness of new insight and the letting go of old assumptions, between the clarity of critical thought and the depth of emotional anguish—for we are now all fated to live in an age of great loss and upheaval. Pacing, rhythm, and humility are of vital importance, for no one can flourish under conditions of constant stress and trauma. Spaces of peace, calm, slowness, and stillness are essential to the work.
Examples of some pedagogical competencies, capacities, and capabilities of change educators:
- Trickster wisdom. Acknowledging the role of nonconformity, unknown, mystery, resisting and questioning the status quo, enjoying the process of trial-and-error, developing comfort with problem-solving and transformative change.
- Storytelling, collective offering. Understanding individual/community stories within socio-historical-political context; co-creating counter-narratives about individual/community resilience; reinforcing place-based connections.
- Encourage innovation. Possibility offerer and generator. Re-imagining diverse and radically new futures while recognizing our individual and collective capacity to realize positive change. Create a culture of welcoming openness, abundance, emergence. Commit to meaningful, equitable, transformative change.
- Identity change. Recognizing that change work means substantive change at the cultural and systemic levels but also at the individual level. Developing the tool set of skills that can better support individual and group transformative change.
- Risk taking. Instead of pressuring to conform, leverage diverse talents, ideas, and contributions. Create safe-enough spaces to encourage risk-taking, learning from failures, and responsiveness to changing needs. Promote collective skills, mindsets, and stories about addressing risk, adversity, or change. Allow for different forms of resistance in response to uncertainty.
- Revitalization wellness strategies. Provide allyship, support, guidance, and opportunities to rejuvenate individuals and groups who are engaging with and resisting external or larger system challenges and injustices. Collectively share or celebrate successes.