Growing our skills to have difficult conversations is a core theme of Mindful Digital Life. How do we turn toward the difficult topics and open a space where everyone feels safe to share their questions, confusions, opinions, fears, hopes, and dreams? I’ve sought answers to this question since I was a young woman. And that quest led me to organizations experimenting with processes and practices to help people have deep and meaningful conversations in their families and communities. At the root, these organizations were all grounded in kindness and love.
I have been witnessing an abundance of organizations working hard at this skill building to empower us to address the hard challenges that face us today. My participation in Half-Earth gives me new skills to talk about the urgent issues of endangered ecosystems and species including our own. The Waters Center offers resources to build systems thinking skills. The Greater Good Science Center is doing groundbreaking research into the roots of compassion, happiness, and altruism. I did the CCARE Compassion and Altruism training there several years ago. Yes, we can deepen compassion through training. The Stanford History Project offers resources on civics, media literacy, and critical thinking in a time of massive disinformation. Facing History and Ourselves is an extraordinary group providing skills for some of the most difficult conversations we need to have.
If you haven’t already, schedule some time to explore these organizations this weekend. Appreciate the excellent work people are doing to build an informed culture of kindness.
Take care of yourselves and each other.
“…learning how to discuss the issues that divide us is one of the most important pedagogies for fostering critical thinking and developing informed and thoughtful citizens. These skills and dispositions are essential to the health of our constitutional democracy.”
~Emma Humphries, The Hechinger Report
Election Week Resources to help you support yourself, your children, teens, and students
Hechinger Report—How to Teach the Election 2020
Stanford History Education Group—Civic Online Reasoning
Facing History and Ourselves—Fostering Civil Discourse: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter?
Greater Good Science Center—Eight Questions That Can Help You Survive Election Stress
Mindful Digital Life—Nurturing a Culture of Kindness
