Do you believe in Divine intervention?

Often when we think of “Divine intervention” we think of things that are blessings, and when I say “blessings”, of course the mind instantly goes to GOOD things.  So if divine intervention is always at work, how can it explain the shitty things that happen to good people?  Moreover, what happens when multiple shitty things happen, all at the same time, all to a good person?

I believe I am a good person.

I have also always been a huge believer in karma.

That all being said, 2016 has yet to throw me a bone.  Literally, it has been one really crappy thing after another, happening in rapid fire succession.

For personal reasons, I won’t go into too many of the “whats”, but I won’t be shy in saying I have been consumed by the “whys” in the last month and a half.  This has literally been since I watched the documentary “The Secret” over the Christmas holidays…. you know, the one that says you can manifest any thought or dream in your head as long as you put it out to the universe with intention.  Well, it’s a little too early to call B.S. on the Law of Attraction, but what should have been a turning point for me in bringing GOOD things into my life has brought exactly the opposite.

Or has it?

I guess it is all about how your frame it, and it wasn’t until Creator literally knocked me upside the head that I was able to see that, yes, even shitty things happen for a reason.  It may not be ideal, but there is always some lesson we can take away from grief and loss.

The past few months I have experienced a great deal of sudden loss and grief.  In fact, I was beginning to think that colleagues might start running in the other direction when they saw me coming in case my bad luck were somehow contagious.  All along I kept thinking “I don’t think I can handle one more thing… maybe I need a stress leave?”  Nope, said I.  I can handle this mountain of tragedy myself.  “Stress leave”?  Pshhht… that’s is for amateurs…

Enter Divine intervention.

I was in gym class last Tuesday afternoon with my students who were warming up for floor hockey.  I literally turned my back to the gym floor for a second to set something on the stage when I felt a massive blow to the back of my head.

My first sense was panic, it literally felt like someone came up behind me and swung at my head with a baseball bat.  I turned around in shock, trying to see the baseball that hit me.  There was no baseball… it was just your average floor hockey ball, which doesn’t seem that heavy or large until it is drilled into your skull.

Recently I heard an analogy around stress management, likening it to a pressure cooker.  You literally need to let bits of steam out from time to time, because if too much pressure builds up inside the cooker it will literally explode very dangerously. Well I really underestimated how much stress had built up inside the pressure cooker in my head, because ever since my head injury,  it has been like a giant faucet being turned on.  I probably have cried more in the last week, that in the last 2 years combined, so much so that I even Googled to see if the spot that got hit was that part of the brain that controls emotions.  Needless to say, I was diagnosed with a concussion and have been off work since, although I am very hopeful that tomorrow I will be able to return, at least for part of the day.

Now let me tell you that my normal ways of coping with stress are A) running B) playing hockey and C) throwing myself into work.  I have not been able to do any of the three in the last 10 days.  With no distractions, I have had nothing to do but do what my good friends Theo Fleury and Kim Barthel call “sitting with my shit”.  They tell me in their amazing book “Conversations with a Rattlesnake” that sitting with your shit is an absolutely necessary part of the process when dealing with any type of trauma.

So what have I learned in 10 days of “sitting with my shit”?

1.  Forget the 600 Facebook friends one may have, it will be the small handful who will literally answer a text day or night that matter most.  Thank you J, J, K and R
2. There will always be those two or three friends who will be promoted to “family” in times like this.  (see #1)
3. There will be little random acts of kindness come your way from people you don’t think are watching or noticing.  The little “get well soon” thoughts from people from school and acquaintances on Facebook have been heartwarming.  I have also had amazing kindness from both of my kids’ schools.  Unexpected, but very appreciated.
4. You can’t just “shake off” or ignore a head injury.  Forget about being my normal tough-girl self.   It could very well be one of the hardest injuries to hide.
5. There will always be people who accuse you of faking or attention seeking, because, quite frankly, there will always be people who will pay admission to see you get beaten down for any reason.  Then there are those precious people who see you stutter, struggle to remember a familiar name or recall what you did on the weekend and won’t make you feel stupid about it. Trust me, as someone with a job that is almost 100% mental, not being able to retrieve words that are normally automatic is humbling.  Thank God the right people help to make it less embarrassing.
6.  The “stuff” that led up to my head injury, in the big picture, when put COMPLETELY into perspective, really isn’t that Earth-shatteringly bad.  I forced myself to think of my “best” and “worst” case scenarios moving forward, and the best case was amazing, while the worst case was definitely survivable. Why was I so worried then?
7. I worry WAY too much!

So this morning as I drove my daughter to school, I smelled that familiar “maple syrup” smell from the heater that tells me that, on top of EVERYTHING else, I likely have an expensive car repair bill coming my way.

More significantly though, this has been the first time in over a week that shitty news hasn’t levelled me.

It took a little Divine intervention to get this girl to slow the heck down and remember who she is, and that her kids are watching and taking their lead from how she handles life’s crap.  I’m my dad’s daughter, one tough cookie who has survived 44 years of struggle so far.  No way any little coolant leak, or anything else, is gonna ruin my day.

I’m a Michaud, I’m built for this stuff.

 

 

 

 

Addressing the elephant in the classroom…

Today I am at one of my happy places, the Faculty of Education at Western University.  I feel at home every time I am here because I am always surrounded by like-minded individuals and I have always felt safe to be me, to speak up, and express my own vulnerabilities.

So interestingly, I am here on this day with a group of educators I have been working with since this summer.  We are taking on the gargantuan task of finding ways we can address mental health issues in education.

By this, I don’t just mean the mental health of students.  For the first time in my 20 years of teaching, I am engaging in frank and open conversations with other educators about the mental health and well-being of educators.

For those of you just starting out, you are in for a wild ride.  Twenty years into my career, I can readily admit that teaching is still, and will always be, unbelievably hard. 

There is a reason we get that seemingly generous bank of sick days.  When you are acting “in loco parentis” to 30+ students every day, students who come with a variety of mental and physical health issues, students living in poverty, students who have behaviours that are so extreme that there isn’t a single strategy in your toolbox that moves them any closer to being productive or empathetic towards their classmates, it changes you.  These are the moments that can render you exhausted, frustrated and with a severely eroded self-esteem.  Then the self-talk will sound something like this…

A better teacher could “handle” this class.

A better teacher would inspire that student to make better choices.

A better person could turn it all off at the end of the day to focus on her OWN kids, not the adoptive ones she sees more than her own kids.

Why do we keep going then?  Because we LOVE these kids.

They are never my students… they are “my kids.”

Twenty years into this career, I have been privy to so many mind blowing student “back stories”, that if the general public only knew what we were trying to do with so many broken little souls every day there might be a lot more compassion for, and support of teachers in general.

I was recently reminded of an experience I had a few years ago while scribing a “What did you do this weekend?” themed journal for a student. The student was excited to tell me that his mother sold his PS4 because they could now have food in the house.

He was EXCITED.

I remember the one 13 year old girl who I went to visit in a group home after both parents disowned her.  I had known her for many years and over this time I had seen her decline from being a happy, enthusiastic little girl who was motivated to learn, to being completely disconnected, very angry, and void of any empathy.  Because of the latter, it was difficult for others to have any empathy towards her.

The person she had become, through circumstances beyond her control, was not a very nice one.

Talking with her at the group home was emotionally gutting for me.  She wasn’t sad, she wasn’t mad.  She literally didn’t give a shit about anything.  During that conversation she casually showed me the cutting scars on her arms, caused by vacant gouging at her skin.  It was like she had been looking for any signs of life, any proof that feeling was still possible.  Without giving too many details, I found myself, for the very first time in my life, unable to provide a student something good to think of, something positive to keep her motivated.  Instead I simply said,

“You have gone through many shitty things… and not one of them has been your fault.  I’m so sorry you have had to go through this.  You have a right to be angry.”

Sometimes, when you feel powerless to change a situation for student, all you can do is validate their pain.  You know what?  I would hazard to guess that at least 95% of all behaviours from kids spring from the shitty things that they are exposed to from the adults in their lives.  There is no household, no school, no community or country that is immune to this.  It is the reason that we have the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  No kid is born with a broken spirit- spirits are broken along the way.

I felt privileged to have been in a position to have the time in my system role at the time to have this very important game-changing conversation with this girl, whose spirit had so clearly been broken.  That being said, I would be lying if I said that conversation was one that I left at work.  Instead it became one of the hundreds of stories that have shaped my work as a teacher.  It is tucked away in a backpack I wear daily, a backpack that now weighs so much it  becomes hard to bear on days when I don’t feel my strongest.

No matter how long you have been teaching, we ALL have those days.

Recently I have been blessed to work with an administrator who recognizes the emotional toll that it takes on your mental health when you are working daily with little people with adult-sized problems.  If I had a group of administrators in a room and could tell them one thing it would be to “front load” every school year with that message- “If you need to take a mental health day… take it.”

This fits with my own philosophy of working with children who are struggling.  I often tell my wobbly students, “If you need a time out, just give me a signal and I’ll know you are making a good choice to take care of yourself.”  Just the knowledge of having that “out” when needed more often than not results in these same students not ever NEEDING it!

Simply knowing that you are in an environment where you know you won’t be judged if you do take the occasional mental health day, cry in the staff room, or express that you are stressed and you need help is a HUGE game changer.  In our school I believe this message has done much to proactively prevent teacher mental health issues. 

I am blessed to work with the people I do.  The level of synergy, support and safety between us has been at a level unparalleled with anything I’ve ever experienced in my twenty years in teaching.  Nobody in our building can deny that what we have as a team is pretty darn special, and unfortunately something very rare across the system- a whole building of people who have each others’ back unconditionally.

How have mental health issues changed the educational landscape for you?

How do you balance compassion with emotional self-preservation?

What are the ingredients for an emotionally “safe” school?

How can you remind yourself that, in every given moment, you are doing the best you can, with what you have at the time?

In teaching, we are never “done”, “caught up” or feeling completely on top of everything going on around us.  If I were to give first year teachers any advice, it would be to accept this as your new reality, to actively find “your people” who will be your greatest supports, and enjoy this long, imperfect, bumpy yet beautiful ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a season, turn turn…

For many of us, ’tis the season of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Whether you have been formally diagnosed or not, it is not unusual to find yourself with less energy, and more stress and anxiety around this time of year.  I myself felt it the minute the clocks fell back November 1st and have been wobbling in my day-to-day life ever since.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is essentially a form of depression that is triggered in late fall/winter months, thought to be caused by a lack of daylight hours.  The fact that it begins as we start to gear up for the holiday season is probably not a coincidence either.  This time of year often serves to remind people of their lack of money to provide a Christmas for their children, and even more commonly, the grief they feel when a loved one is no longer there to share the holidays.  These feelings are further exacerbated when your depression lies in sharp contrast to the  joy the Christmas brings to other people.  It intensifies your grief.

I myself am extremely affected by the lack of light every year.  The difference in my energy levels from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time is like night and day.  I play hockey year round in Hamilton, and last night I was leaving in the cold darkness on the 403 around 6:30pm thinking how I much rather be at home on the couch under a blanket.  I rewound my brain to June/July when I would be leaving for the exact same destination at the exact same time, windows rolled down and sunshine on my face.  Yes, I have no doubt that the darkness impacts my energy, motivation and overall mood.  Mindfulness about these aspects of being is so important in order to understand your own feelings of depression and anxiety.

Exercise has to be one of my most effective antidotes for seasonal depression.  Every October I run the Chicago Marathon and then from October til December, my body is screaming for a break.  For the past few years I have indulged that inner voice that says “You can take a break for a few months” but then have subsequently felt the ill effects of this decision.  Finding time, making time and INSISTING on time for exercise is now non-negotiable for me.  I forced myself to go to hockey last night even though I was feeling rotten before I left.  I ended up channeling all of my stress into my game and left feeling the most incredible natural “high”.  My mind, body, spirit and emotion were all on point- a stark contrast to just a few hours earlier.

If you have always thought you don’t “have time” for exercise, I would urge you to make time as an investment in your own mental and physical health.  Even a 20 minute walk can boost your mood and put you in the mindset to continue facing your day with a renewed sense of calm.  It is not selfish.  If you are like me and have to always rationalize decisions while weighing out the guilt factor, I have come to the conclusion that a healthier me is a better mom, partner, teacher and friend.  Therefore, I exercise not just for me, but for everyone around me.

We got on this very topic of self-care last night at hockey, and it is amazing once one person mentions it, it sets off a firestorm of others saying “Me too!”  Synergy is another form of medicine.  Find yourself a safe group of friends to start this important dialogue with and you will be amazed at how much less alone you feel.

I happened to mention investing in a “Happy Light” last year for SAD.  Instead of teasing, I had a group of women all asking me questions and bravely disclosing that they had always wondered if they too should try it, and wondering where they could buy one, how much it was, and how to use it.

I also mentioned that I found comfort in using essential oils in a diffuser to boost my mood and productivity.  I started using lemongrass oil in a diffuser in my class this year, at first wondering if I might have complaints about it.  On the contrary, my kids LOVE walking into the room with the smell of citrus, which has been shown to boost mood.  Whether this is true or not, I have seen first hand this year how much my students have responded to this small shift in their environment, often asking me to turn on the diffuser during the day, realizing they miss it when it isn’t on.

How do you get yourself through the winter blahs?  How can open this conversation such that people know they aren’t suffering alone?

 

 

 

Life Lessons Learned from Running- 2015 Chicago Marathon Edition

4:52:09.

So I trained like CRAZY… literally like never before this summer. I shocked myself with a new PR in the half-marathon a few weeks ago so had high hopes for a PR today for my 7th marathon. 4:45 has been my goal time since I started this madness 3 years ago and was SO sure I could do it this time.

Well… I didn’t. 🙂

You learn little things as you do each race, usually the hard way. It’s Creator’s way of keeping it real and knocking you down a few pegs when you start to think you have this thing called “life” figured out.

There is probably no athletic endeavour more humbling then running long-distance races. You haven’t “made it” until you have lost a toenail, puked or peed yourself a little before the finish line, and nobody in this beautiful community of runners will every judge you for it.  It’s all a part of this big unpredictable game.

Temperature, I’m learning, is HUGE game changer. My best marathon was 4:49:53 in Toronto in 2014 and it was REALLY chilly the entire way. I think I was moving fast to keep warm. Today was hot… beautiful day for spectators, not so much for runners! I’ve been lucky that all of my marathons have been cool…. EXCEPT for today and Paris. In Paris, I finished in 5:46… by far my WORST time ever.

So what is 4:52:09?

It should have been a massive disappointment given how hard I trained.

What it IS, is my best Chicago Marathon time in four years running the same race. That it was significantly hotter than any other year makes me very happy about my course PR.

It’s also my second fastest time yet. When you figure my last marathon was an hour slower and I seriously doubted my ability to do this distance again, getting back to a sub-5 hours time makes me feel good.

So I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes you just have to let go of disappointment, especially when it happens due to things far beyond your control.  I think that this is why I keep coming back to running because there are so many life lessons you learn with each race. In no other sport I play does the physicality make me more mentally tough than physically tough. I took up marathoning in the WORST period of my life, and I as much as I think I hate it and will never do it again when I am ACTUALLY running (today included), I keep coming back because I NEED what it has to teach me.

This brings me to the VERY best part of the race today, by far.

It came about 30 or so kilometers in, I wasn’t exactly sure, but it was a time where you are “so close and yet so far” from the end and tend to feel mentally defeated.  It was at that point that I turned to my left and caught a glimpse of a couple of runners, standing at the side of the street in the signature white, grey and orange Team REACT jersey who were excitedly waving and smiling my way. It was at that point I remembered that this was so much bigger than a race, it was about raising money for and awareness about a horrible disease that has touched the lives of many people I know.

A few kilometers down the road I saw another whole group of spectators wearing Team REACT jerseys and they too, did not know me, yet were cheering very excitedly for my as I ran by.

The REACT Thyroid Foundation founder Michelle LeBeau sadly passed away from the disease in June, and we were told before the race that there would be a group of family members at the race to support Team REACT runners. Thinking of how hard it was for her family to be here today, yet seeing how much they were committed to carrying on Michelle’s legacy brought tears to my eyes.

There were many emotional moments in the race, but seeing my “team” and remembering why we were here was exactly what I needed to get through the last leg.

Thanks again to everyone who supported our fundraising efforts this year. I very much appreciate the generosity and moral support. ❤

Until next year, Chicago!!

You know what they say about assumptions…

In early July I went to my daughter’s school to pick up her report card. I was in a bit of a grumpy mood, that had nothing to do with my daughter, or her report card.  I was just in one of those moods.

When I got to the school, there was a sign taped to the glass door of the main office “Will return at 1pm”.

I looked at my watch.  It was 1:15pm.

There were a couple of other moms there waiting to pick up report cards and they too were also wondering why there wasn’t anyone around.  The difference was that they were both in good moods and, together, seemed making light of the situation.

I remember specifically not being angry, but just slightly annoyed.  I honestly wasn’t even annoyed at anyone in particular- it was one of those unreasonable-type annoyed feelings you get that you would never actually articulate because you know you are just being ridiculous. I clearly remember even thinking to myself, ‘Hmmm…good thing I don’t have anywhere to go.  What if this was someone’s lunch hour and they were relying on the office being open?’

Tick-tock, tick-tock….

I passed the time by checking out old staff pictures on the walls when suddenly the main doors to the school opened and in came several women who I recognized from the office and guidance areas.  I had made the assumption all along, since the entire area was empty, that they probably all went out for lunch together and lost track of time.

As it happened, they were all just coming from a funeral service.  With that little bit of information, the whole tone of the scene shifted to one of compassion.

In my mind I couldn’t help but think how my assumptions led me to completely misread the situation.  Moreover, I was thanking my lucky stars that I kept my assumptions to myself.  I knew that if I had been openly angry at these ladies it would have had nothing to do with them being late back from lunch.  The REAL truth was that  I was fully aware of my grumpiness before I had arrived on the scene.

I wonder how many interactions we have daily would be completely different if we were all a bit more compassionate and a little less quick to assume?  I wonder how much easier it would be to be compassionate if we stopped to take our own emotional temperature every morning and made a conscious effort to separate pre-existing malaise from our subsequent interactions with people throughout the day?

As a teacher, I am constantly aware of how the things I say and how I say them can make or break a child.  That being said, I am human, and as the story above illustrates,  I am not above being unreasonable or making assumptions, especially if I’m having a bad day.  It puts our professionalism in a whole new light when you realize how important it is to keep it together at all times, despite being human.

In every school, in every classroom, every single individual is fighting a hidden battle.  I know this because ever since my very first year of teaching I have been “that teacher”- the one who gets all the disclosures, the one who people confide in.  As an empath, people often sense that I already know, which I usually do, so I hear the stories that nobody knows about.  I’m sure if we were all aware of everything that others around us were facing, we’d be much kinder to each other, all day, every day.

I recently took part in a very important working group at Western University, made up of education professionals sharing stories about surviving the mental health challenges of being in education.  I went to sit down for my video recorded blurb without having even prepared anything in particular, when one student’s story just came to me.  As I was retelling the story in the vaguest way possible to protect the identity of the student, I got so choked up I had trouble speaking.

What people assume about teachers through the media is that we are all “lazy”, “entitled” and are “only in it for the money”.  Although I can’t yet show you the video, the truth of thousands of teachers across school systems across the country is reflected in the one story I struggled to articulate on camera.

This was a story about a boy who my own kids came to know only by his first name because every morning I would make an extra lunch for him- just to do one small thing to make his life easier.

On the day that my principal came to me during a class change to tell me that this boy had been apprehended and the family of children split up, I was devastated.  You come to know the personal struggles of students and families so intimately that you cannot help but be affected. This is called humanity, and trust me, the teachers I know have not lost it.  We often struggle to stay afloat because we are overwhelmed with reminders of our humanity.

So as we head back to school in the coming weeks, I am making a new pact with myself.  I am going to make it my mission this year to “assume” that anyone I come into contact with who is less-than-reasonable is doing so because they need my humanity.  As my friend Theo Fleury often reminds me, “Hurt people hurt people.”  The people who are the most unkind, disrespectful and inconsiderate are often the most needing of our compassion. The hard part is bringing ourselves to give it to them unconditionally.

I’m not kidding myself that this will be easy, but any effort to be a kinder and more patient self is always worth it.

All my relations.

Reinventing my run… (with a little inspiration)

OK… complete shift in gears.  I realize my posts are sometimes (often) kinda heavy.  A lot of what I write is catharsis for me.  When I bare my soul and people connect, it feels like me taking that risk has been worth it.  When its followed by crickets?  Ugh… talk about facing your vulnerabilities!  

So here’s a happier topic, my other catharsis- running.

Let’s be real- does anybody actually LIKE to run??  Seriously.. running is tough work!

I’m currently training for my 7th marathon.  I will be running the Chicago Marathon on Thanksgiving weekend, my fourth year in a row doing this race in my favourite city in the world.  For the fourth year in a row as well, I am running to raise money for REACT Thyroid Foundation, which raises money for thyroid cancer research.  Just this week I even scored hockey tickets for my favourite team, the Blackhawks, for the night before the marathon.  So life is pretty good.  I try to keep this thought in mind when it is time to hit the pavement… daily.

I will admit, I NEVER train properly for marathons.

I ran my first with only about 8 weeks of training.  During this time I went from running 3 kilometres a day, to my first 42K on October 7, 2012.  As crazy as it sounds, before that day I had never ran more than 21 km, and suddenly I was jumping to a full marathon.  It was a train wreck, but I finished in 5:14.

I vowed that day I would NEVER do that again.

Hahaha…

Marathons are seriously like childbirth.  In fact, in every single one I’ve been in I’ve thought to myself, “What have I done?  What was I thinking?  Is this ever going to end?  I think I’m dying…. ahhhhhrrhh!!!”

But the minute you cross that finish line is very similar to the very moment you bring a new life into the world.

You feel RELIEF.

You feel EXHAUSTION.

You feel SORE.

You feel and incredible sense of PRIDE in yourself for enduring what, just hours before, seemed like the impossible.

Then, after sharing pictures and reliving every moment on Facebook with your fellow marathoners, you start looking ahead to when you can do your next race.

It’s an addiction…. a crazy, wild and ridiculously empowering addiction.

I just ran the Paris Marathon in April 2015 and, although it was an amazingly scenic experience that truly will be a “once in a lifetime” thing, it was the most BRUTAL time I’ve had running any race thus far.  It’s supposed to get easier, right?  No, this one was pretty bad.

To give you an idea, my best time for 42K is 4:49 (Toronto, 2014)

My worst time was my first marathon- 5:14 (Chicago, 2012)

I finished Paris in 5:46.

Yes, it was a bucket list race and thrill of a lifetime, but I couldn’t believe how bad I crashed.  I’m smiling in these pics because it was over!

It made me question my future as a runner in earnest.  I have several serious issues with my spine that, I’ve been told by my specialist will get worse if I QUIT moving… I’m not quite sure she was thinking marathon training though (on top of year round hockey and soccer).

Just when I thought I would resign myself to another half-baked attempt to do another marathon this fall though, I saw something that shifted my mindset.

I was introduced to a new role model-  Ronda Rousey.

I know I must have been living under a rock, but I really didn’t know who Ronda Rousey was until her recent UFC 190 victory.  I won’t repeat the story as you can click the link if you’ve also been living under the same rock as I have been.  🙂

Ronda Rousey is an absolute beast, yet emotional.  She trains fierce, yet celebrates her femininity.

And FINALLY I have a positive body image role model!

I have always been a “thick” girl.  I have very muscular tree trunk legs thanks to my dad who was a former elite hockey player.  Even when I was anorexic in high school I would point to my legs and go “Eww.. look how big they are!” to which the doctor would say, “That’s muscle, girl!”

  
I am literally built like a tank.  In baseball, I once collided with a guy over 6 feet tall on a baseline so violently that I went backwards AIRBORNE and landed on my back.  I not only was fine, I was laughing hysterically about it.

Until I found out the guy broke his leg.

Being a “thick” girl however isn’t really often celebrated, even in sport.  Some people go as far as to say it is “masculine” to have muscle. There are styles of clothing I steer clear of for that very reason.

But now, here was Ronda- someone who was not only being held up as the best athlete in her sport (without the “for a girl” tag!), but also for her strength and…. wait for it….. beauty!   (without the “for a thick girl” tag!)

Let me just say, being introduced to this new role model has transformed my training.  I have been so inspired and so motivated that I have been running 60 km/week since.  Thanks to this new jolt of confidence and inspiration, I am actually following a REAL marathon training schedule for the first time and think that this one could be my best marathon yet!

Now, I have a new goal….  to be the Ronda Rousey of the (middle-aged, slow) marathoning world!

Who are your role models?  What inspires you?

A glimpse inside the “Stolen Sisterhood”

As an anti-racist educator, I’ve always preached the importance of providing reading material where students can see themselves in the characters, and in the storyline.

This year I “saw myself” on the cover of Maclean’s magazine.

 

This sensational headline drew me in: “Canada has a bigger race problem than America”.   There above it, was a face just like mine.  Although a great number of personal stories shared in this issue were about racism towards Aboriginal peoples in the city of Winnipeg in particular, the article really centered around how the recent murder of 15 year old First Nations girl Tina Fontaine provided the catalyst to bring the issue of race relations in the city to the forefront.

Tina’s body was found in the Red River, wrapped in plastic, exactly a year ago.  She had been sexually assaulted before her death.

Only a few months later, 16-year old Rinelle Harper from Winnipeg was also sexually assaulted, with her body tossed in the Assiniboine River in such a similar fashion that police wondered if the two crimes were linked.  Rinelle, however, survived the attack that left her for dead.

Both girls had been just thrown away, like their lives meant nothing.

Stolen Sisters- Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (#MMIW)

If you have been following the news regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report (2015), you likely have also heard of the campaign to have the federal government launch an inquiry into the approximately 1,200 missing and murdered Indigenous women. There are many different sources for these numbers, which of course cannot be 100% accurate given the number of crimes that go unreported, but essentially in Canada, Aboriginal women are 4 times more likely to die from violence than non-Aboriginal women.

The two reasons that I have heard cited most in explaining why this phenomenon isn’t being probed further are:

A) according to Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Bernard Valcourt, most of these incidents are family-based and committed by Aboriginal men, presumably partners of the women (although he stops short of providing evidence of this), and;

B) the over-representation of Aboriginal women in the sex trade (up to 50%), as if that somehow validates their demise.

In other words, there is a presumption that if you are an Aboriginal female, and you are physically/sexually assaulted or killed, you likely did SOMETHING to contribute to that outcome. 

As a First Nations woman, I struggle when I read stories of how our Stolen Sisters, no matter what their situation, are treated as “less-than-human” in the media and the eyes of the justice system.

How do some disappearances or murders capture the attention of the nation, while most Canadians have never even heard of Tina Fontaine or Rinelle Harper?  What does that say about the value we place on the lives of Aboriginal women?

#AmINext?

Recently I “reposted” something from the Facebook page of a former student of mine who is also Anishinaabe.  She now has several little girls of her own who were helping her with a “Stolen Sisters” project she was doing for her university course.  One of her girls wondered if she should cut her long hair, because she suddenly struck with the realization that being Anishinaabe put her at a higher risk for being a victim of sexual or physical violence.

When I posted this, another dear close friend also confided to me that she and her husband have had to have talks of safety with their young daughter for the very same reason.

It reminded me of the concerns that many parents of young Black males are going through in this post-Trayvon Martin society.  It is SO important for others to understand the very real fear that these parents live with every day.  How do you prepare your children for this type of unjust world?

Nobody “asks for it”…

I myself was 19 when I was sexually assaulted.

I was assaulted by a former “friend” at a party surrounded by other friends.  The parents of the girl hosting the party were home at the time.   These were all people I had known for years.

Like every single other young person at the party, I had had too much to drink.  I vaguely remember excusing myself to go lay down in the tent.  When I came to some time later and realized what was happening, I instantly turned over and threw up, which is how I was able to escape.

I was confused and in shock.  It was a cold evening and I was in no shape to drive yet so I spent the rest of the evening asleep in a chair by the fire.  When I woke up in the morning, the sole of one of my shoes had actually melted right down to my sock from having rested it against the metal fire pit trying to keep warm.  I left before anyone else got up.

It would only begin to really sink in in the days and weeks that followed.

To this day, I refuse to believe that there wasn’t at least ONE person who saw what was happening and refused to do anything about it.

For years I tortured myself with the “whys?”   Why did a so-called friend do this?  Why did other friends let it happen?  What was it about me that make it OK for this to happen?  Why did nobody protect me?

The fallout from this one incident was years having very little trust in anyone.  I isolated myself from friends, refused to date, and wrestled with the ongoing feeling that I DESERVED what happened to me.

Nobody deserves to be the victim of violence.

The stark reality is however, Native women, by virtue of being Native women, are at a higher risk of being victimized.  Just as young Black males are at risk because of societal stereotypes fueled by the media (think Trayvon’s hoodie), young First Nations, Métis and Inuit women must navigate minefields of dangerous assumptions in their daily lives, particularly that they “ask for it” when it comes to victimization.

Facing racism: Visual artist KC Adams first photographed her subjects reacting to racist insults and taunts, then asked them to label the shots. For the second photo, she asked her models to think of happier times. KC Adams/Urban Shaman Gallery.

I recently read statistics from Justice Canada that Aboriginal girls are twice as likely than non-Aboriginal girls to be sexually abused as children.  This means that approximately half of all Native women have been sexually assaulted by the time they reach 18.

From the perspective of an educator, think about what larger impact that statistic has on overall health and well-being outcomes for our Aboriginal girls in particular.  I keep wondering how, and why, we are only identifying and treating surface symptoms at the classroom and school level while there are deeper, more insidious cancers affecting the lives of our FNMI students.  Exposure to violence causes trauma, and trauma devastates individuals and families in ways that no pedagogical approach can cure.   We need to shift our focus to  healing from trauma.

This is why these stories must be told.

“Shedding the shame..”

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently attended a trauma and healing conference given by my friends Kim Barthel and Theo Fleury.  It had been about three years since I had the opportunity to have a really in-depth “catch up” session with Theo and one of the things that struck me the most was his level of peace surrounding Graham James, the former hockey coach who was later revealed to have repeatedly sexually abused Theo and other young junior player for years.  At this conference, Theo recounted how, on his “Conversations with a Rattlesnake” tour with Kim, there was a young man who stood up to speak, and what he shared shook Theo to the core.

The young man said he just got out of jail from the same facility as Graham James, and while he was there, he had made it his mission to do whatever it took to do James physical harm.

The man went on to describe how he has waited for a long time for the right moment when the guards wouldn’t be present so he could carry out his plan.  When that day finally arrived, and the man finally had his chance, he approached James in his cell and what he found made him stop short and change his mind.

Graham James was curled up in the fetal position in his cell in a state of obvious mental torture.

The man suddenly was struck by how pathetic this sight was.  How far Graham James had fallen from grace.

Theo recounted this story as an important part of his own healing.

“Graham James is sitting in his own hell, every day of his life.”

With this, Theo came to the realization that there is no punishment more horrific for Graham James, than to be Graham James.  This epiphany has brought him a new level of peace he previously did not think was possible.

For me, I went through many years feeling haunted by my secret, and dehumanized, like I deserved what happened to me.  Although I wouldn’t think of my assailant, the effects were always there.  Only recently did I do a search for his name on Facebook and found that he was living in another province, and of all things, he is now apparently working in education (which makes me sick to my stomach actually).

That being said, do I feel the need to “out” him?  No.

What I do know about him is that, although he was in our circle of friends in high school, he never had a girlfriend up until that point.  We all kinda felt sorry for him to be honest.  Although it will never excuse what he did, the explanation is that he was a relatively unattractive guy whose self-esteem was so low that he was driven to sexually assault an unconscious friend in order to lose his virginity.  This in itself is pathetic.  When I think about how he will be spending the rest of his life thinking about his “first time”, I am comforted by the fact that he will be reminded that he committed a sexual assault.

This is his own personal hell he will have to live with for the rest of his life.

The key to healing, thus, is taking back control.  It can’t always be about justice, because justice is not always “just”, especially when we still, as a society, rush to victim-blame.  This process in itself only serves to retraumatize.

Instead, I have grabbed the pen in this story and taken control of how it ends.

Writing this piece has been extremely risky on my part, but also extremely empowering.  Chances are this might get back to the guy who assaulted me 25 years ago, or the classmates who were at that party and saw what was happening and did nothing.  The shame is no longer mine to bear.

People who always assumed all those Aboriginal women who were being assaulted were high risk sex-trade workers will have to examine their own assumptions.  Again, the shame is no longer mine to bear. 

Most importantly, like Theo’s story has done for me, my story might perhaps help someone who has been hiding a secret for way too many years.  This is particularly true for the one in two Aboriginal women who have experienced this type of trauma.

It’s time to shed that shame- it is no longer yours to bear.

All my relations.

Vulnerability is the new black….

Months ago I had the “awakening” of reading an amazing new book by two people I am blessed to consider my friends.  These two friends are hockey legend and trauma and healing advocate Theo Fleury, and one of the greatest names in counselling and therapy, Kim Barthel.  The book is Conversations with a Rattlesnake, and if you haven’t picked it up, you should consider doing so in the very near future.

This was a book unlike I had ever read.  Essentially, it was on a topic near-and-dear to my heart:  healing from trauma.

It was, however, written completely as a dialogue.  The entire book is literally Theo and Kim having conversations- deep, meaningful interactions between therapist and client (turned good friend).  I could talk for days on how mind-blowing these conversations were, but I’ll focus here on one specific point that really influenced the direction of my blog- the importance of making yourself vulnerable.

A certain amount of shared vulnerability is the key to the most transformational and therapeutic relationships, and Kim’s ability to share her vulnerabilities with Theo in sessions is what led to this amazing mutually respectful methodology where all individuals present are freely allowed to not be perfect.  To be scared.  To not have the answers.

If you have ever met Theo for more than 20 seconds you can actually hear him say, like he did recently at a speaking engagement in Brantford, Ontario that I attended,

“If you aren’t going to make yourself vulnerable to me, I ain’t telling you sh#@!” 

I have to say that it was Theo’s own vulnerability, sharing his personal story to millions years ago in his best-selling book Playing With Fire that endeared him to me and so many others who connected to his experiences. This no-nonsense approach to life does not change when you meet him in person.  By the end of a two-hour first encounter with Theo three years ago as we drove him from Toronto airport to our engagement in London, Ontario, I felt like I had known him all my life.  He holds nothing back, and he inspires others to do so as well through his candor (and often colourful language!)

My good friend Jennifer Riley, Theo Fleury and myself, at a Trauma and Healing event in Brantford.

So taking a page out of Theo and Kim’s proverbial playbook, I’m going to get a little vulnerable here…

I have struggled my whole life with self-esteem.

I was picked on constantly in elementary school for my weight and my looks.

Thirty years after it happened, I can still hear those three girls talking in the middle school bathroom about me while I was in a stall.

“You know Robyn Michaud… the girl whose nose is as wide as her face.”

I spent 8 years secretly battling anorexia, then bulimia.

I am no stranger to severe bouts of depression and anxiety.

I am no longer that extremely neurotic, shy and self-conscious girl I used to be in school, but let me tell you, the ghosts are still there, and occasionally one will visit to rattle the chains of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by a lifelong battle against bullying.

My historical experience being bullied is long, but an important journey.  As painful as it was, the silver lining is it now has made me a more empathetic teacher and parent.  People who go through any type of trauma often aren’t ready to tell their story.  Sometimes their story comes out in rage, self-harm, depression, anxiety with no perceptible cause.  I spoke in an earlier entry about having a gift of “just knowing” where people are at emotionally and spiritually, and often that allows me to look straight through a bully to see the insecure person beneath.  I don’t harbour anger… I often literally want to hug them and say, “Tell me your real story… because believe it or not, chances are I’ll get it.”

I’m ready to get vulnerable over the next few posts.  Stay tuned… you might just be surprised how much our vulnerabilities have in common.

And that’s when we actually begin to take the shame out of exposing our vulnerabilities.  It certainly might take some HERculean strength for me to share my own with others, but I”m ready for the challenge.

Are you ready to join me?

Why birthdays make me sad…

Yesterday was my son’s 13th birthday.  He is my “baby”, so I now officially have two teens in the house.
When my son was little, his birthdays were like a national holiday.  He LIVED for his birthday.  He started planning it in December.  Having a summer birthday meant nice weather and a yard full of kids all over for a dip in the pool.

I was just thinking about how expensive his birthdays have always been.  There was the friends’ birthday party with at least 10 kids every year, my family birthday party with my parents, sister’s family and my godmother (our family tradition) and the ritual trip up north for my ex-husband’s family birthday party.

My daughter has always been much more low-key, like me.  Her birthday is in September and we always celebrated it up north at the end of August in a joint birthday party with some other family members, and then in a quieter get together with my family.

I don’t know if kids every stop and realize though what birthdays mean for parents. I can’t speak for dads, but I know every birthday that rolls around has me reflecting back to the day, and even the moment, when the birthday child came into this world.

Damon was due on July 23, 2002.

On Thursday July 11th my ex was in Tillsonburg playing golf with a friend and I decided to take a 22-month old Peyton to the GoodLife club with me so I could cram in a step class. Yes, at 37 weeks I was still doing aerobics class.  I had had an amazing nap with my toddler that afternoon and felt like a million bucks (or at least as great as you can at that stage of pregnancy!)

After my step class I took Peyton through the drive-thru at Wendy’s.  I ordered a taco salad and got her a chicken nugget meal We went home and I flipped on my summer guilty pleasure “Big Brother” while Peyton played with her dolls.

It was just at the end of the episode when I felt a jolt like I had never felt before.  Did I just have an accident, or had my water broke?

Sure enough, it was the latter.

This was 9pm.

It’s funny how, with your first child you go into labour having very set ideas about what you want and how it is all going to go down, and then when it happens, NOTHING goes as planned.  I had had these delusional ideas with Peyton that I would be able to do drug-free during labour.

Hahaha…  🙂

As soon as I got to the hospital with Damon I was asking for the epidural.

It was a beautiful summer evening, and they had to call someone to come in off-duty to do it.  It was all moving fast but I was buoyed by the certainty that I was getting pain relief soon.

When the epidural guy showed up in sandals, a golf shirt and shorts I was shaking and sweating.  I waited and waited for that pain relief to happen as I was hunched over with my back toward the doctor.  When it was clear the doctor couldn’t get the epidural line to work, I started yelling at him (as labour will do to a woman!) and the nurses quickly ushered him out- perhaps for his own safety!!  Luckily for me, this was quickly followed by, “Let it go Robyn… it’s too late.  This baby is coming now!”

Literally two pushes and it was done.

1:08 am.  Friday July 12, 2002.

As crazy and insane as it sounds, I couldn’t have had an easier birth experience.  I had had just enough time to get to the hospital, get checked in without rushing, and then he arrived.

There are only two people in the world who will remember that moment with any clarity- myself and my ex-husband.

And this is where birthdays can get sad.

Now every year, the kids alternate their birthdays between their father and I, and yesterday happened to be dad’s turn.

I woke up yesterday morning literally aching to have my son at home with me.  It sounds so stupid, I see him almost every day- way more than his dad gets to see him. I don’t know why it hit me so hard on this particular day.   It’s one of those moments that really brings back the grief of divorce.  It just sucks for everyone.  Before it happened to me, I had no clue how horrible divorce was to go through.  It is so easy for an outsider to say or think that you “just gave up”.  This is a very skewed view of what actually happens.  Its just rotten in every sense of the word, in fact, I read an article just last night that likens it to a death.  You don’t just divorce the person, you divorce a family, you divorce friends.  Two years later, the sense of loss is still there.  It’s not about regretting the divorce, but there is certainly a lot of regret that things can often go very bad, very quickly and subsequently become irreparable.

I miss my nieces and nephews the most.

I miss my two sisters-in-law, who still “like” my pictures on Facebook, even the ones of my new partner and I.

My ex and I have both moved on to new relationships and are both happy.  I do hope this will begin a process of healing.

When my partner’s son got married in Jamaica in November there were professional pictures taken with he and his ex-wife and their two kids.  I thought this was so awesome, and so important. I told him afterwards how I hoped that my ex and I could get to that point some day.  This is the way it should be.

The moment a child comes into the world, for better or for worse,  it binds those two parents together for life.  When those two people go on to not speak, days like birthdays magnify the feelings of grief, and a sense that the kids are now forever caught in the middle of two worlds, and two adults who couldn’t set aside their differences for them.

I don’t regret my divorce, it needed to happen.  I don’t regret my marriage though either, because it brought me two beautiful children.  I do regret that it simply wasn’t meant to be for us.  We made a decision to split for the benefit of the kids, but no matter how you look at it, the kids lose.  When birthdays roll around, I find my mind always goes there…

Zaagi’idiwin- How can we love one another if we are scared of each other?

Zaagi’idiwin—Love: To know peace is to know Love. Love must be unconditional. When people are weak they need love the most. In the Anishinaabe language, this word with the reciprocal theme /idi/ indicates that this form of love is mutual.

The Seven Grandfather Teachings

In my last blog post I talked about how Native people often “know” things, and how this view of knowledge often does not mesh with how the education system views knowledge.  We are always asking students to “prove” or explain their thinking.   When I did my M.Ed., and later as a student work study teacher I would come to understand that things that I just knew to be true were worthless unless I could cross-reference them with findings from other research.  Where was my collection of “data” to support my findings?

My mission in the past two years as Student Work Study teacher was to unlock the mystery behind the lack of FNMI student success- one student at a time.  The assignment was to study student work “at the student desk” and determine ways to move that student along with their achievement.

What I have determined over these last two years is not any different than what I knew to be true two years ago, except now I am more convinced than ever.

The single greatest factor affecting FNMI student achievement is intergenerational trauma from residential schools- hands down. 

So many of our families are hurting so badly that, until we deal with the big stuff, we can’t really solve any mysteries “at the student desk.”

In fact, every single First Nations person I know has been impacted by intergenerational residential school trauma.  It has either undermined their sense of self-worth and self-efficacy, put them in a permanent state of “speed wobble” between strong and vulnerable , or it solidifies their resolve to push against this overwhelming force that has destroyed so many of our communities over the last century.

Most people who know me through my work would guess me to be in the latter category.  In reality, I struggle almost daily with self-doubt.  Working with FNMI families experiencing trauma in my SWST role has been both rewarding and retraumatizing.  Experiencing broken families, racism, substance abuse in the family, violence (against women in particular) are not problems of the poor.  Every single FNMI person I know, from those living in poverty to those with Ph.D’s, has either experienced one or more of these either directly or through their families.  As a professional, seeing these things every day literally eats away at your sense of agency.  You work so hard and wonder if there is anything any of us can actually to do rid our communities of these types of traumas.

There have been many moments where compassion fatigue has completely enveloped me, and others like me.

But we don’t give up.

Sometimes we have to hang on to the little stories that provide some sort of evidence that things can get better.

I want to share a story about a family I met in my work- a family living in constant chaos.  This was a family of 4 children and a single mom, who struggled off and on with substance abuse issues.  She routinely would not send her children to school with lunches, and almost every day the school had to provide these kids with food.  The boys especially were ravenous, and the school, as quite a natural response, began to look at this parent with disdain.

What kind of mother doesn’t feed her babies?

I heard this same conversation in the staff room over and over again about this same family.  One day, the teacher of the youngest boy approached me asking for help with this family because the children weren’t being fed, and the mother was “impossible” to deal with.  As much as I was happy to help, my heart was heavy at how much the relationship between this family and the school had broken down.

The teacher began explaining how the grandmother had started to become openly hostile to her as well when she picked up the children.

She then explained the precipitating event- that she had done a math lesson, explaining everything in great detail with exemplars as any good teacher would, and she gave out materials for each student to complete the task. A little while later, the boy came up to her with his work and he had completed the task incorrectly.

“I was so frustrated!  He obviously didn’t listen, even though I had explained it over and over,” she vented, “So I threw it in the garbage and gave him new materials….”

Inside I winced…. and even she too, in the retelling, caught her mistake.  Let’s be real- every teacher out there has made mistakes in moments of frustration.

“Well…” she said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown out his work…  I was just so frustrated that he hadn’t listened and I had so many other students to help…”

I didn’t have to say a word, she instantly knew what she did.

Now to any other child/family, a minor little blip like this might have been forgotten about very quickly.  The hurt would last all of five minutes and then be gone. To a family living in a constant state of chaos, one from a culture with such a deep mistrust of education, those little moments are the ones that can break you.  I have had the conversation with many administrators about this this year- when you are First Nation and something like this happens, your mind ALWAYS “goes there”.  Whenever we are treated unfairly, or endure differential treatment that isn’t made transparent, we are ALWAYS reminded of who we are, and where we see ourselves in schools.

I decided to call this mother to introduce myself.  I was warned “be careful…. she will yell at you.”

I called, introduced myself as a “First Nations resource teacher” at the school.  She was tentative at first, and then there was a distinct moment when I felt she finally trusted me.  Then yes, this mother spent a good twenty minutes straight in a heated monologue about how she thought our school system was “racist”.

“Nobody cares about us!!!” she vented.  “They just think we’re just a bunch of dumb Indians living in London!”

I listened.

She touched upon the incident about her son’s work being thrown in the garbage.  That one little action from months before had obviously planted itself in her head and festered.

“You know what the worst thing is?” her voice filled with with both anger and emotion. “It wasn’t another kid who done that… it was an ADULT who did that to MY CHILD!  He was devastated!”

She went on to explain, “I am so mad I can’t even bring myself to come in that school.  I know if I come in I’m going to lose it on someone.”

I walked away from that phone call with a new clarity.  What the school thought was a lack of care, control and engagement with the school on the part of the mother was exactly the opposite.  This mother was obviously very protective of her children, was very upset that her child’s feelings were hurt, and she made a positive choice in removing herself from the situation as not to make it any worse.

What the mother perceived as racism was also completely different than what the school was intending to communicate.  An unfortunately teacher blunder that could have been committed by any of us under stress, because there wasn’t transparency, was deemed to be racially motivated because that is simply where the mind goes with most First Nations families.  The school’s fear in communicating with the mom because it would upset her only bolstered the mom’s feeling that the school simply didn’t care about her, her family or First Nations people in general.

This was a recurring theme I saw OVER and OVER again this year- fractured relationships and misunderstandings between First Nations families and schools because we are simply AFRAID of each other.

There was a happy ending here however, one that I think can really model the type of practice that can really begin to transform relationships with FNMI families and the school system.

The teacher involved, took the uncomfortable and gut-wrenching feelings associated with being unfairly labelled as “racist”, and instead of becoming defensive, became deeply committed to learning more about FNMI cultures and communities.  Throughout the year she would ask me if I thought it would be appropriate for her to attend community events, even including ones at our school!  She was so worried about causing any further upset, but at the same time pushed past every fear she had to learn more about FNMI.

Probably the biggest pivotal moment however came a few months before then end of the school year when I got an excited email from her saying she wanted to share a HUGE breakthrough she had with her student’s grandmother.

As it happened, the mother who had been very angry with the school ended up becoming ill and the children were sent to live with their grandmother.  Attendance suddenly dropped off for a good part of the first week and when the child returned to school, it was evident that he no longer had a backpack or lunch bag.  The teacher, very discretely sought out a filled backpack from the School Support Counsellor’s stash and quietly hung it in the boy’s cubby.

When the grandmother saw it, she turned to the teacher and said, “What’s this?”

The teacher replied, “Well I understand that things are a bit difficult right now and I noticed (the boy) didn’t have his backpack.  We have lots of extra ones here so I thought maybe he would like a new one.”

The grandmother, paused, and then began to cry.

The teacher then went over and consoled her by giving her a hug.

As the two women embraced, they both began to cry.

The grandmother then said through her tears, “I am so sorry….  I have been so mean to you…”

The teacher smiled and reassured her, “It’s ok.  Let’s start over.  My name is **Sarah…”

The grandmother told the the teacher that her daughter was very sick, and that she had to take in all of the children.  Every morning she had to drive them from the reserve into London to get to school, and it had proven to be a very difficult transition. The teacher, realizing just how much of a struggle it was now for this family to get to school, and for this grandmother to suddenly inherit four new dependents with no extra money, reassured the grandmother that everything would be okay, and that the school could provide lunches for the children for as long as she needed to get settled with the kids.

How we take the small things like sandwiches for granted!  For some families, these are the big things.  What a huge eye opener this is for teachers, who more often than not, have never had to struggle with poverty.

I don’t think there was any one story that more clearly illustrated the importance of releasing judgements of each other, and pushing past the fear and getting to know one another when it comes to First Nations families and education systems in general.  I felt I played a very limited role in this transformation, save from reassuring both sides that mutual respect and understanding through honest dialogue is well worth the risk.

This was all the work of these three brave women who pushed past their vulnerabilities.  I doubt any of them know to what extent they have transformed my own thinking.

This is why I wanted to share this story with you, because these women are the game-changers.  They modeled how we can begin to actually TALK to one another.

How do we start this dialogue?  Let’s begin focusing on leveling playing fields….

1.  Hire more First Nations employees in the schools:  Even the presence of ONE First Nations employee in the school can be a HUGE game changer for families in how they view their location in the school.

2.  First-name basis:  The teacher in the story had no idea of how powerful her words were when she said “Let’s start over… my name is **Sarah…”  Parents are already acutely aware of hierarchies of power.  First-name basis instantly diffuses this feeling of power imbalance.

3.  Identify and push past your own vulnerabilities:  I have witnessed a recurring “sigh of relief” reaction on numerous occasions when speaking with First Nations parents when I relate to my own challenges in parenting.  There is nothing that creates a feeling of safety and eliminates the fear of being judged better than creating spaces where it is OK to be vulnerable.

So parents and teachers- are we ready?

All my relations.