Header Image: Melissa Butler, 2023
By Melissa Butler
One of the many things I appreciate about the Simple Interactions tool is how it supports a slow release of judgment. How it frames a space for adults who care for children to take a breath, relax, and settle into a deeper kind of noticing where curiosity has room to play and grow.
The words “bring curiosity over judgment” and “trust what you already know” are beautiful to speak and believe, but they take practice to live into. We all need space to notice and dissolve where judgment lodges itself in our bodies, our logic, and our language.
Something I notice about caregivers (in any role or context) is that when asked a question such as, How was your day?, How’d the lesson go?, Can you describe the interaction?, the response typically consists of a summary assessment woven from threads of interpretation, and frequently includes language about what was “good” or “positive” and what they “wish” would have gone “better.”
The logic of individual “improvement” takes time to dislodge from how we see and talk about our practice. And this is only one of the implicit logics that influence the stories we tell about children and ourselves.
As big and daunting as it may seem to unlearn our habits of judgment, I trust that we always have exactly what we need, exactly where we are, in the small ordinary moments of our lives. And, it is so, that small ordinary moments are in abundant supply to everyone, everywhere. All we need to do is turn our attention to them.
Although video and audio recordings can be helpful to frame scenes for collaborative noticing, I’ve found that NOT using video/audio opens an even wider landscape for noticing what happens in scenes of practice and how we frame the stories we tell.
Through facilitation in a range of contexts—communities of practice, one-time workshops, small group conversations, community experiences—I’ve found three layers of process to be especially supportive for learning conversations that deepen participants’ trust in themselves:
Small is immense
It doesn’t take much to find a small moment worthy of attention. Our memories of ordinary daily happenings are fertile ground for us to notice. Simply pause and let yourself linger on something that comes to mind. Who was there? Where were you? What do you see and hear? Zoom in, further and further, until you find a small scene of about 5 minutes. A 5-minute scene from memory is more than enough material for engagement. And plentiful in the wisdoms held inside it.
Robust description
A focus on description and explicit practices to distinguish between description and interpretation (including thoughts, feelings, wishes, questions) allows for nuanced noticing of a moment and expanded awareness of what influences how we see and talk about the moments we remember. It takes deliberate and careful practice to stay in extended description when our learned habits entice us to make meanings and offer assessments quickly. This practice often feels wonky at first, but what it pollinates is well worth the effort.
Receive and be received
It is a beautiful gift to share aloud when a listener offers no feedback and attunes to the full receiving of what you share. It is also a beautiful gift to be present and receive, soft and open, as you listen to someone from your heart. Extended opportunities to listen and share—to see and be seen, to hear and be heard—shift the entire terrain of an experience and invite loving embrace of the (often hidden) wisdoms that live in our ordinary small moments.
I am grateful that my work lives and grows in the beautiful landscape of the small and the ordinary. And I am grateful for all I have learned, and continue to learn, through collaboration with others who also trust in what’s simple and good and already here.
Learn more about Melissa and her work. Click the images below to read other essays.
The words “bring curiosity over judgment” and “trust what you already know” are beautiful to speak and believe, but they take practice to live into. We all need space to notice and dissolve where judgment lodges itself in our bodies, our logic, and our language.
Something I notice about caregivers (in any role or context) is that when asked a question such as, How was your day?, How’d the lesson go?, Can you describe the interaction?, the response typically consists of a summary assessment woven from threads of interpretation, and frequently includes language about what was “good” or “positive” and what they “wish” would have gone “better.”
The logic of individual “improvement” takes time to dislodge from how we see and talk about our practice. And this is only one of the implicit logics that influence the stories we tell about children and ourselves.
As big and daunting as it may seem to unlearn our habits of judgment, I trust that we always have exactly what we need, exactly where we are, in the small ordinary moments of our lives. And, it is so, that small ordinary moments are in abundant supply to everyone, everywhere. All we need to do is turn our attention to them.
Although video and audio recordings can be helpful to frame scenes for collaborative noticing, I’ve found that NOT using video/audio opens an even wider landscape for noticing what happens in scenes of practice and how we frame the stories we tell.
Through facilitation in a range of contexts—communities of practice, one-time workshops, small group conversations, community experiences—I’ve found three layers of process to be especially supportive for learning conversations that deepen participants’ trust in themselves:
Small is immense
It doesn’t take much to find a small moment worthy of attention. Our memories of ordinary daily happenings are fertile ground for us to notice. Simply pause and let yourself linger on something that comes to mind. Who was there? Where were you? What do you see and hear? Zoom in, further and further, until you find a small scene of about 5 minutes. A 5-minute scene from memory is more than enough material for engagement. And plentiful in the wisdoms held inside it.
Robust description
A focus on description and explicit practices to distinguish between description and interpretation (including thoughts, feelings, wishes, questions) allows for nuanced noticing of a moment and expanded awareness of what influences how we see and talk about the moments we remember. It takes deliberate and careful practice to stay in extended description when our learned habits entice us to make meanings and offer assessments quickly. This practice often feels wonky at first, but what it pollinates is well worth the effort.
Receive and be received
It is a beautiful gift to share aloud when a listener offers no feedback and attunes to the full receiving of what you share. It is also a beautiful gift to be present and receive, soft and open, as you listen to someone from your heart. Extended opportunities to listen and share—to see and be seen, to hear and be heard—shift the entire terrain of an experience and invite loving embrace of the (often hidden) wisdoms that live in our ordinary small moments.
I am grateful that my work lives and grows in the beautiful landscape of the small and the ordinary. And I am grateful for all I have learned, and continue to learn, through collaboration with others who also trust in what’s simple and good and already here.
Learn more about Melissa and her work. Click the images below to read other essays.
