Understanding: A Path to Healing and Problem Solving

As members of the Beverly community, we have an obligation to ask the tough questions, conduct thorough research, stay informed, challenge rumors, and avoid supporting ideas just because they feel good. We have this obligation to our community and especially to our kids. We learned from our own teachers, when forming an opinion for a paper, to conduct extensive research, substantiate the theory, verify the sources, present both sides of the argument, avoid bias, and eliminate emotional reasoning.

With social media serving as the primary means of connection within our community, events surrounding the strike and budget process have demonstrated a tendency to accept unchallenged theories and rely on information or rumors that align with our own perspectives and beliefs. Our ideas and beliefs are our most valuable possessions. They run deep. It is tempting, even intoxicating, to connect with others that share these same ideas and beliefs. It’s an act of validation separating us further from someone who may think or feel differently. Social media is built to group like-minded people together and create tribalism, preying on the lack of human connection that exists in our society now. It creates a world of narcissism, where people believe their ideas or thoughts are better than the next person. And if your idea is different, you could be ‘defriended’, blocked, eventually silenced. We need to be aware of this in our community.

When the educational community leads the way, we can challenge false narrative, incomplete data, vague information even if this might not support our goals or mission or advocacy. True and effective advocacy is based on honesty, courage, a delicate balance between open-mindedness and respectful challenge, a thoughtful critical and decision-making approach based on complete and factual information. It is not based on selective information using alarmist methods claiming everything is broken, resulting in an inability to identify the source of the problem. True and effective advocacy is the only way to solve complex problems.

Some of us have asked tough and unpopular questions, going against the grain. In a time when differing ideas cause animosity and everyone seeks a hero moment, we must respectively challenge perspectives, even if it’s alignment to our values. And conversely, we must find common ground on perspectives different than ours.

We need to have more in-person discussions and less discussions on social media. We all have a responsibility as we owe it to each other and to our kids to be as well informed as possible. Being informed helps us find common ground, leading eventually to a path of healing.

With the education community's leadership, we will be able to ask the difficult and unpopular questions, to be practical in decision making based on evidence, to analyze data, to eliminate emotional reasoning, and to be open without judgement to ideas different than our own. Without this approach we cannot solve the most complex problems, particularly in schools where it’s needed the most. Unfortunately, social media reverses all the above.