THE STORY OF US
'The Story of Us' was introduced to our attendees at the Elevating EAs in Education National Gathering, inspired by the book ‘Belonging’ by Owen Eastwood.
This narrative reminded us that shared purpose, values, and storytelling created a strong collective identity. These voices - your voices, shaped something profound: A narrative that reflects our passion, our challenges, and our calling.
To provide some context, a long time ago, an ability to form strong organised groups became the true advantage and the super strength of our species. As human beings, homeo sapies, we discovered strength in numbers, despite our obvious physical challenges in relation to predators. We gathered together, we formed tribes, we created communities, we protected each other, found food, fed our young, and sheltered our elderly. We built villages. Connections and bonds strengthened. Around a communal fire as evening and night crept in and the fear that went with it, our language developed, and stories were told about our world and unknown worlds.
A need to belong created an emotional story, the Story of Us. Our need for a shared purpose created a vision for the future, our need for shared beliefs translated into a code of how to behave, identifying what we truly valued.
The values are our super strength. They become a standard we aspire to. They become a code for how we will behave, live and work together. They provide answers to the challenges ahead.
Eastwood refers to values as ‘stones’ - the shorthand for our US story.
Now, imagine the stones, each stone represents a value, a focal point of the US story. The ancient Polynesian navigators took their stones on their doublehulled canoes to represent their tribal values.
I have been reflecting recently on what EAs in Education shorthand might be - that are our values, what are our stones? In understanding the members of our community, our servant heart, Eastwood's learnings and the data from the character traits of the attendees at the Gathering.
I am leaning towards these four stones.
Kindness
Empathy
Integrity
Respect
