By mid-year, the spark of a new school year may feel distant, yet it's the perfect time to revisit the strength of connection and the power of community in sustaining educators through challenges.

In the second episode of this three-part series, New Year's Energy for Midwinter Teaching, Arlène draws from her experience to explore how curating intentional supportive communities can rejuvenate and sustain both personal and professional growth. She offers insights into moving away from isolation toward collaboration, recognizing signs of draining versus uplifting communities, and intentionally curating spaces aligned with values, passions, and goals. Arlène begins by reflecting on the words of bell hooks, reminding us that healing doesn't happen in isolation, it thrives in community.

Arlène Casimir:
 

Beautiful ancestor bell hooks says that healing doesn't happen in isolation, healing happens in community. And I recognize that educators often feel isolated, especially when facing systemic challenges. But bell hooks reminds us that we need each other to heal and grow. It's not something that will happen on your own. And in our society that's very individualistic. It could be easy to say, "I'm going to retreat and work on myself," or, "I'm going to cancel everyone who's not aligned to the inner work that I'm doing," or, "I'm going to be this teacher on this island who's doing what I can do with my kids." And the whole idea is that's not sustainable. There's no accountability because there's no mirror. Every person in our lives is a mirror of how much closer we can get to our authentic selves. And so if we're not in conversation, dialogue, experience with others, then we're not really healing.

And so this idea that healing happens in isolation or individually is the biggest lie, I feel, that we've been taught. Because communities provide a space for connection, validation, and collective problem solving. So if there's a problem impacting someone, it also, this goes back to the idea of Carl Jung's work, again, I study his work a lot, but he talks about the individual consciousness and the collective consciousness. And what we find is that oftentimes when someone's having an individual problem, nine times out of 10, they could look in their community and 20 other people are having the same problem. There is power in numbers. Why not hold space to get together and come up with a solution with the diverse minds that are present? Because the way you, Edie, might solve the issue, I may have never thought to solve the issue that way. And so by us being in dialogue and community, we can marshal our collective resources and respond to the issue in a way that heals the whole community as opposed to one person saying, "These are my best practices in how I've dealt with peace problems."

It's like, I wasn't on the journey with you, I don't know how you arrived there, and actually I feel really bad that you got there before I did. How did you figure it out with this same demographic? I often say and recognize that we're moving out of the culture of celebrity worship, like, "Here's this person who figured it out and had the answers." And we're moving more in this collective way of solving problems. How do we get there as a team? Or how do we work with this expert shoulder to shoulder to get there together?

And I'll give you an example because I have a teacher that I worked with, a middle school teacher. I worked with her for three years and she moved to a new school and she's trying to get me to come and work with her school to support them. And she's such a huge advocate of the work because she's naming like, "Oh, I see where this school is and that's where I was three years ago. And these are the things that helped me. And I'm willing to be a liaison with you all and Arlène to do the inner work to realize the changes that we want to see in our community." But I don't think that she would've been able to do that if she hadn't had that three year journey of her own.

Edie:
 

Right.

Arlène:
 

So it's not like she did it alone, she's like, "Look, I can continue my inner work here alone, but it will not be a sustainable place for me to stay in. So I would rather us do it collectively with someone who was a facilitator of that process for us, who's going to go with a shoulder to shoulder. And I want to be honest that it's not going to happen in one semester. I'm still on a journey myself." And so I say all of that to say that this person recognizes the power of finding a supportive community that helps us know that we're not alone in the work. And that is incredibly powerful.

Edie:
 

Yeah. Let's talk more about finding that community and educators are in different scenarios all over. And what can that look like to create a community with intention?

Arlène:
 

So choosing people who reflect our values, people who reflect our needs and our goals, and recognizing that that's not always your family, that's not always your current list of friends, and that's not always your colleagues. So for example, creativity is very important to me and I have been doing The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron as a spiritual path to creativity. So I have some friends who have a weekly check-in about our creative process. Does that mean everyone in my life does that? No. But you want to be intentional about who are the people who are on board to become better at whatever it is that you're trying to do. How do you lay out all the different life areas where you want to be supported and where you want to support others? And really check to see if your cup is full in those areas.

Edie:
 

It shifts. It's not static. The communities that you might need to curate shift in your life depending on circumstances, what you bring to the forefront to value. And I just really appreciated you saying that.

Arlène:
 

Absolutely. I think it's so important to recognize that when we curate community based on our values, needs and goals and where we're constantly checking in with ourselves the way we check in with students meeting benchmarks and students meeting their goals, we're able to say, does this community align? Is this community filling my cup or draining me? And what kind of professional networks, creative groups or self-care spaces really inspire my growth? And sometimes people value loyalty and so they stay committed to communities that aren't bringing out the best in them just because it's been 20 years since we've known each other. But if we could redefine community as the groups that reflect our values, needs and goals, and if we could honor the seasons that we're in and know that whatever's real can't be threatened, we can have fluidity in how our communities change and evolve over time.

Edie:
 

I was thinking about how you said sometimes there are signs that it's not the right community. Could you talk a little bit more about how educators can be aware of those signs?

Arlène:
 

Thank you for bringing that back up because it's always helpful to talk about what we've talked about before that really was the catalyst for this episode even. And I think about it like when you enter a space, for example the teacher's lounge, and you think to yourself, okay, this is my teacher community or this Facebook group, and you think, okay, this is my teacher community. And yet when you leave, you feel drained, you feel resentful, you feel angry, you feel overwhelmed. I don't know that that's very helpful in terms of your community. Because we're all a part of communities that do those things to us and that's a part of the human experience. But what we're talking about here is how do you curate a community that helps you heal? How do you curate a community that helps you grow? How do you curate a community that helps you to transform?

And that's where intention comes in. So even though I know I'm a part of this teacher lounge, I know that I'm a part of this group, I know that I'm a part of this network of people that can be negative. Where can I go to be filled up? Where can I go to be supported? Where can I go to feel seen and uplifted? That becomes the question. Because it's not like you go into this with these people that you really appreciate and love and that's it. No, it's about being intentional about when I'm choosing who I spend my time with, when I'm choosing what I want to focus on, what is that world like? And I do have the ability to create that for myself.

Edie:
 

Could you go further into how this intentionality around community and being intentional about filling up contributes to sustainability within the profession?

Arlène:
 

When we align, for example, the communities that we're curating to our passions, I think that it's important to pay attention to where we want to grow and what we need. And when you think about that, for example, do I need professional support? What professional support networks can I become a part of? Do I need emotional connection? Who can I spend time with that will support me emotionally? I think getting clear about what we need allows us to be clear about the spaces that we need to be in and the kinds of people that we need to surround ourselves with. And so I think about my own life and I know that, for example, my herbalism community has taught me the importance of being connected to my ancestors, to the Earth, to myself, to recognize the power of herbs. And it's so grounding because there are people who do that 24/7. And I'm not one of those people, I have a variety of interests. So there's something so grounding about my herbalism community because it just reminds me of that part of myself and allows me to let that part of myself flourish.

The same thing with my writing circle community. It's like I love to write books. That's a part of me. And so I recognize the healing power of storytelling, the healing power of making meaning of life through writing it down, using the page as a mirror. Who else values that? And that community of having a writing circle, having a writing community, it's not just supportive, it's transformative. Because for people who don't value that, who might diminish that, who don't know the value of that, then that's going to be draining for me to be around those people.

And so people who do know the value of that, that's going to propel me to create my next book because the energy is lighter, they're ready to write, they're ready to reflect. This is how they make meaning of life. And so I have to recognize what do I need and what helps me to show up as my best self in all areas of my life? And how can I be intentional about having those various communities so that when I'm in a particular school or space, I don't become resentful because those people are not there? And I could recognize that's a part of my life, that's not all of my life.

I really would like to invite educators to avoid spaces that center negativity. Because it will really burn you out. I think there's no other way of saying it. Spaces that center negativity are very draining. And I think it's constructive to look for groups with shared values and a focus on growth, a focus on solutions, a focus on instead of complaining about the world we have, becoming the world we want to live in. And what that looks like to join a professional development circle, a wellness workshop, or even an online community that's being who they want to be. And I think it's important to curate those spaces where you can collaborate, where you can recharge, where you can feel inspired. And I would really encourage people to explore that and to recognize that they could even do that within their school communities. Who here values this? And how can we be a community in this space and outside of this space?

Edie:
 

Thanks for tuning in today. If you haven't heard the first episode in this series, you can find it at blog.heinemann.com. This is where you can also read a full transcript, learn about upcoming free events with Arlène, and for a 30% discount on any Heinemann professional book, use code PROFBKS30P. Until next time.

Arlène Elizabeth Casimir is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, herbalist, healer, and writer. Her experience teaching middle school and elementary school in New York City and New Orleans awakened her purpose of drawing on culturally-sustaining and trauma-responsive teaching practices to nurture the inner genius and inner teacher in others. She founded, designed, and implemented a healing-centered curriculum for her students post-Hurricane Katrina. As a first generation Haitian American, Arlène recognizes the power of community, equity, literacy, and spiritual resilience to help others live with personal integrity, transcend their circumstances, and author their own lives. She enjoys working with teachers, families, schools, and community organizations to do the inner work for socially just outer change. She is currently studying Clinical Psychology and Education with a concentration in Spirituality Mind Body at Teachers College, Columbia University; and leading her educational consultancy, The Awakened Collaborative, LLC where she works as a staff developer and partner to various institutions that are aligned to her mission, vision, and values as an educator.