Last April I was able to enroll on the course “Community Connections” by Compass Education. The opportunity came while I was in the middle of the third semester of my master’s degree in Education, Innovation and Sustainability at Universidad del Medio Ambiente which ended up being very fitting, helpful and inspiring.
For a while, I have been getting more familiar and interested in testing tools and methodologies that allow me and the people I am working with understand better what our purpose is and how to go about it.
Parallel to my work with other colleagues in education, last year I came back to the classroom and rekindled my teacher experience to attempt to teach with a new lens and perspective.
Therefore, the “Community Connections” course came at a time when I wanted to do both: learn how to share and communicate with other teachers and colleagues in a systemic language and incorporate the systemic perspective in middle and high school education, where I currently teach.
After going through the contents, examples and uses that the Sustainability Compass offers, I started imagining where I could put it all to use and see it in action. I will share my two experiences over the last couple of months with sharing and using the tools with teachers and students hereunder.
Teaching a class on Triple Bottom Line Entrepreneurship
This semester I have taught a class to the seniors in highschool about making their community projects into social entrepreneurship endeavors.
In the process we have established different elements that a social entrepreneurship entails and over the last few weeks we have pinpointed the “essentials” that go into having social, economic and environmental value/impact. With the Sustainability Compass we opened up a new value/impact we had not discussed in class yet, which was the personal wellbeing of the human behind it all. How is personal wellbeing impacting the outcomes, design and overall sustainability of the initiatives we have reviewed as examples and their own initiatives as well?
The Compass helped build a new essential into this perspective and it allowed a more realistic discussion about what kind of projects they could be leading in the near future, sustained not only by their triple impact models, but also with their wellbeing balanced into the equation.
Facilitating a Session with Teachers in a Mediation Community
I have been participating with a mediation teaching community for the last three years, where a diversity of educational leaders gather in courses, masterclasses, trainings and certifications in mediation tools, techniques and methodologies called Comunidad DIA, which belongs in the Instituto DIA, the institution that houses all the aforementioned initiatives.
As a graduate in their specialization diploma in Linguistics and Mediation, I was able to facilitate a session for whoever was interested in the community. The topic was Education’s Caleidoscope: Learning to observe and understand education from new perspectives.
The reason I signed up to facilitate this session was to put into practice the Sustainability Compass tool with other educational leaders and to put into practice the mediation skills that I learnt in said community and was also reviewing in one of my master’s seminars.
The session’s objective was to explore Systems Thinking through the Compass Education tool in order to observe, and understand the place from which we make our contribution to education.
The session was very fruitful and the way the teachers started speaking from the different perspectives felt natural, but unfamiliar. Even though the participants were open to see from the four directions, truth was, most of the teachers’ comments were: “This is useful, but not simple”. And the thing is that Systems Thinking can get pretty complex. But complexity does not need to sacrifice simplicity.
The teachers chose a subject to discuss from the four viewpoints, and ended up selecting “Parent’s participation in School initiatives”.
The discussion ran smoothly and with some meditation from the team accompanying me, ideas started flowing and most of all, empathy came alive.
Teachers left feeling empowered with the tool but mostly really aware of the viewpoints it allowed for them to see and put into words. Although it was only an introduction and all teachers belonged to different education projects, we definitely shared a commonality and a diversity that left me feeling like systemic thinking is indeed a tool that we can all benefit from in times where agreeing and learning to agree is the real challenge most of us face every day.
In conclusion, using the Sustainability Compass with both students and teachers presented its set of challenges. Sharing a tool that is more a mindset to delve into, rather than a series of steps to complete is a practice I enjoy and definitely think is acquired through time and practice. The more we practice the clearer the lens will get and the easier it will feel to share and inspire others to build their own lens as well.
Author
Patricia Cuevas Servín
Patricia is a student at Universidad del Medio Ambiente in the Innovation, Education and Sustainability Master's Program. International Business Bachelor by Tec de Monterrey. She currently coordinates the English Department at charter school “Escuela de la Palapa” in Todos Santos, Mexico. She teaches English and Social Entrepreneurship while accompanying students in the search for their identity as changemakers and in order to cooperate and collaborate towards solutions of social problematics in our community. Her motivation is education. She has over 7 years of experience as an English instructor and for 2 years was a Corps Member at Teach for Mexico in La Paz, Baja California Sur, teaching Math, English and Leadership in public schools. Co-creator of SerEs, an empowerment project for educators and co-leader of the first generation of the Access Microscholarship Program by the United States Embassy in Mexico. She believes that our infinite human potential can regenerate our worlds.
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