And by "love” I mean care for them as a gardener cares for his roses, as an artist cares for her medium, as a friend cares for the well-being of the other.

How should we be properly concerned with who they are now and with how they turn out relative to their time in our classrooms, our hallways, our gymnasiums, our schools?

I propose we take a page out of the work of Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908-April 14, 1986), the philosopher whose Diary of a Philosophy Student (public library), written when she herself was only 19, speaks to the love she has for her friends

She writes:

When you love beings… not for their intelligence, etc., but for what they have in their very depths, for their soul… you love them equally: they are entireties, perfect inasmuch as they are (to be = perfection). Why then is there this desire to get closer? To know them, and thus to love them more perfectly for what they really are. This is a love for souls, from all of me towards all of them in their entirety.

When you love beings, not for their intelligence, but for what they have in their souls

Isn’t that the crux of much of the lack in modern schooling?

That we merely “love” or meet our students solely for their intelligence, and not “for what they have in their very depths, for their souls”?

That we do not meet them perfectly for what they really are?

At the school I lead, Odyssey Leadership Academy, we make it a weekly practice to put this love into action in what we call "Community Shout Outs”

Every single Friday, we gather our Mentor groups together to shout out, celebrate, and praise each other for the Good we catch one another doing

We go around the circle for about 30 minutes honoring one another as “souls”—not for what we wear or have or our grades or tests scores, but for the rich, authentic, wonderful humanity we see in each other

Our students know that this is a sacred moment, when our 11-18 year olds speak life over one another, calling out what we see in them and why they matter to us

We snap together after each shout out, making sure we call out the praiseworthy in the person we are celebrating

It is such a powerful thing to see teenagers sharing what they notice, what they “love” about their peers

It is one of the many ways we work to weave together a culture of kindness, generosity, celebration, respect, and gratitude in our community

As de Beauvoir writes:

When you love beings… not for their intelligence, etc., but for what they have in their very depths, for their soul… you love them equally: they are entireties, perfect inasmuch as they are (to be = perfection).

That is our hope at OLA: to love our students not merely as brains on sticks or to only celebrate and honor their academic (or extracurricular—sports, band, drama, e.g.) achievements

But, far more importantly, to honor them for the human beings they are, for their stories, for who they are becoming, for the Good that already exists in them

It really is a powerful way to shape a community of care, and it is one of the deepest ways we communicate to one another that everyone matters here, everyone belongs here, everyone has a place, and everyone’s story matters

Blessings on the path

Scott

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