Category Archives: Leadership

Looking Back; Looking Forward with Hope and In Peace

Posted on January 3, 2024 by ivonprefontaine

It was a busy and eventful year. Retirement is thought of as a time to step back and slow down. I remain busy and choose to do so, as health permits. I had pieces published and presented at two conferences. If anyone wishes to read or browse the book chapter, two articles, and a draft, I uploaded them to Academia. A by-product of one presentation, Re imagining Teacher Education An Andragogy of Hope, was an interview with the Fig Tree Online Magazine, published in October.

The emerging themes are pedagogies and andragogies of hope and peace. Teachers are vital to opening spaces of hope and peace. For various reasons e.g. time, education, assignments, top-down authoritarian dictates, etc., teachers struggle to infuse pedagogies of hope and peace into their teaching. In a role as a field instructor for student-teachers, I observe teachers and student-teachers who lack the education, confidence, and support in these areas. Furthermore, there is interference from outside the classroom as to what can be taught and there is a risk someone complains if a teacher teaches something someone is unhappy with. In Alberta, the government changed rules about complaints going to school and district administration to a committee of largely non-educators and complaints increased noticeably .

In a world where civil discourse is at a premium and we often equate rhetoric to its colloquial meaning of bombast, we need faculties of education to educate and teachers to continue their education in ways that support pedagogies of hope and peace. Dialogue and the proper use of rhetoric, as eloquent speech and deep listening, are essential to make headway to deal with issues that polarize people into competing ideological camps.

Currently, I am preparing for a conference about teacher education as an andragogy of hope, peace, and non-violence. As well, I submitted a proposal to present at a holistic education conference where I hope to show how hope, peace, and non-violence tap into the spiritual domain often overlooked in teaching and learning. What is essential is to focus on what we can change and how we can each make a difference in our small corners of the world. Prudence can make small differences adding up to larger differences.

Several years ago, we were in Arizona and hiked in a regional park on an every other day basis. During our hikes, I took pictures of cacti that were blooming. Nature demonstrates hope even in challenging ecological settings. The contrast of the pink with a dull green and brown background serves as a beautiful reminder of hope in challenging times.

I share the Prayer of St. Francis as it has deep meaning in our family and it often referred to as the Peace Prayer. The word peace appears once and is the overarching message. Hope is an integral part of achieving peace.

Here is Sarah McLachlan‘s video of the Peace Prayer.

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Happy New Year – 2023 with Hope

Posted on December 30, 2022 by ivonprefontaine

2022 was an eventful year in terms of writing and publishing. It was also surprising as I the two published pieces, a book chapter and a peer-reviewed article, were about hope and had a spiritual component to them. I think hope is a phenomenon we each want in our lives. Those who have followed the blog for a while may recall that The Peace Prayer of St. Francis is an important part of my family’s life. We recite it at various ceremonies when we come together and Kathy and I have a small plaque my mother gave us many years ago.

The line that resonates most with me is “where there is despair hope.” I used the line in the introduction of a book chapter I co-authored. It commemorated the centenary of Paulo Freire‘s birth. Many would associate him with critical pedagogy and his seminal book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Later in life, he revisited many of the themes from this book in one called Pedagogy of Hope, which we used as our primary reference. Without hope, we are left with little. We are left with despair.

For me, Emily Dickinson describes the spiritual and paradoxical essence of hope in the following poem:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

Hope is spiritual in that what we each hope for can animate our spirit and make our lives more complete. We hear it song most clearly in moments of silence and stillness as we turn inward to listen to the tune without words. Hope is paradoxical as it is fragile and exists in the Gale and storm that makes it sore. We have to be alert to the challenges we face in bringing hope to life. Perhaps it is best expressed in moments where it intersects with the hopes of others who we come in contact with.

My taste in music tends to the eclectic and non-mainstream. Several years ago, I heard Michael Franti on a small radio station (they still exist) I listen to and loved his messages. His songs embody hope, the role the heart plays in it, the reality of hard times, and how we need others to live with hope.

Several years ago, we travelled to Jasper National Park and went on a day tour. As we passed the trees in this picture, the guide told us the tall one was about 300 years old. Due to the difficult conditions, the tree did not realize its fullest height. Despite the challenges, it still grew. Its growth is like hope.

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High recognition . . . Learn from the lotus flower

Posted on January 6, 2022 by ivonprefontaine

Jonathan provides short, insightful quotes with complementary images. This particular post brings to mind Thich Nhat Hanh’s book No Mud, No Lotus.

Without the mud, there can be no lotus. Too often, we try to avoid the mud and challenges in life. The mud can help ground us in those moments as we take time to rest and reflect. Laozi offers this advice in to deal with life’s challenges: “Do you have the patience to wait/Till your mud settles and the water is clear?/Can you remain unmoving/Till the right action arises by itself?”

Too often, the busyness of life sweeps us away in the rush of its current instead of pausing in the midst of the storm to regain our footing and following the example of nature. There is a universal quality in remaining grounded in the present. Matthew 6:28 reminds us  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Even the most pressing issues of our time require us to think about what we can do in our little corner of the universe each day, each moment. We should each remember, if we do what we can in our corner of the universe, we are interconnected or, as Thich Nhat Hanh might say, inter-are with each other.

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Apache Blessing Prayer — Dawn Pisturino’s Blog

Posted on December 30, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

Apache man, 1903, by Edward S. Curtis Apache Blessing Prayer May the sun bring you new energy by day. May the moon softly restore you by night. May the rain wash away your worries. May the breeze blow new strength into your being. May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all […]

Apache Blessing Prayer — Dawn Pisturino’s Blog

Dawn provides many beautiful posts and I thought this was one that was appropriate as we change the calendar from 2021 to 2022. It reminds us of the how we are interconnected with each other and Mother Earth. Thich Nhat Hanh refers to this as inter-being and we are inter-are with all matter, living and non-living.

As we begin and end each day, we might think in terms of how nature provides energy, restores us, washes away our worries, and blows new strength into our very being and brings new life to our spirit. For this to occur, we need to walk through the world gently and be mindful of the beauty surrounding us.

As we move into the new calendar year, I leave you with a Maya Angelou quote to help guide you through each day of 2022:

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The Real Riches — Find Your Middle Ground

Posted on August 3, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

This poem from Danna Faulds is a perfect reminder for what Summer offers. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com My wealth is wonder. True abundance is the delight I feel on summer nights as fireflies rise from the grass and Orion strides across the sky. I measure my wealth in birdseed and hummingbird feeders, in the […]

The Real Riches — Find Your Middle Ground

Val shares wonderful posts and often includes poems by Danna Faulds. This particular poem caught my eye with words wonder and abundance. Wonder is about being amazed by the world in unexpected ways. It is about experiencing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Wealth is not about material wealth. It is about feeling whole and well, It is about sharing with others what makes us feel a crumb of joy, as Mary Oliver would say.

In the ordinary moments that reveal their extraorindariness, we discover abundance. There are ineffeable, intangible qualities to abundance understood this way. Despite these qualities, abundance brings joy, which is not to be treated as a crumb per Mary Oliver.

I leave you with a Mary Oliver poem, Don’t Hesitate, which echoes the Danna Fauld poem about where I discover my riches and wealth.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

The last time we were in Pheonix we walked the paths in a local park. We noticed this cactus beginning to bloom the first day and stopped each day to check on its progress. It provided joy and abundance just by sharing with us.

By the last day, it had several flowers. Nature worked its magic.

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The Prairie — The Good, Bad and Ludicrous

Posted on July 13, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

*This post inspired by Teacher As Transformer post I read today I needed passion, beauty, and ‘idling’ while I pretended to learn new things, today. I’ve spent too long on the ‘work I learned long ago how to do/improve upon’ in databases, websites, clean-up of outdated data…… compilation of reports, checklists, etc., to aide my […]

The Prairie — The Good, Bad and Ludicrous

TamrahJo was kind and referenced that my post inspired her. When I looked at her post several days ago, I was inspired. I love her line of needing passion, beauty, and “idling.’ The word idling captures so much of what we need in our lives. We need the time to just be in each ensuing moment.

On top of the wonderful poetry and prose that reads like poetry, TamrahJo shared beautiful pictures of nature just being, in this case prairie scenes. Sometimes,beauty lies just outside our door and is right there for us to revel in on a daily basis. Many years ago on a beautiful day, Kathy and I were getting ready for church and as I stepped outside something move nearby. I looked up and a cow moose stood about 15 feet from me. I held my hand up to signal for quiet, as Kathy stepped out, and we stood and watched this beautiful animal eat shoots from a willow tree, watching us as we watched her. We stood there for a few moments and went quietly to the car. The moose continued to do what it was doing, being a moose. I turned to Kathy and said. “That might have been church today.” We still went, but the beauty and majesty of that moment remained with me over the years.

We lived in that small town for two years and our oldest son was born while we were there. Living in an isolated, rural setting in a mountain valley served to slow me down. Years later, I would find the same process happening at Gonzaga University in the summers. It took a week or two to bring myself back into the moment, to just be. The campus is a lovely setting and I walked in the river valley and on other trails on a daily basis.

Sometimes, things happen in serendipitous ways. We went to a concert and the main act was terrible, but the opening act, Corb Lund, was terrfic. We have seen him several times since and have a couple of CD’s. This song has become an anthem for opposing opening up coal mines in the southwest corner of Alberta where Corb lives. It has beauitful imagery in this particular version and speaks to the need to think about the actions of today and how they might impact the future. The song speaks to how often we overlook the extraordinary of everyday life and what is outside our doors.

I leave you with a Wendell Berry poem: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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Be the Peace in Your World — Life as a Garden

Posted on July 7, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

With so much aggression and turmoil in this world, try and practice peace everyday in your world.  If you can’t smooth that frown away and replace it with a smile, at least try and keep your anger down the best you can. Hard to do when you are not having a good day and feeling […]

Be the Peace in Your World — Life as a Garden

I came across this post about a week ago, accidnently closed it, and could not remember where it was located. Michelle shares a post that points to what we need most in this world: love and peace. The third paragraph resonates with me. Nature depends on diversity and cooperation to succeed. Without those, it falls into disarray.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes beautifully about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. We cannot have the extraordinary without the ordinary. We have to look deeper and understand there will always be mystery in what we are exploring.

I used phenomenology, specifically hermeneneutic phenomenology, in writing my disseration and it premised on mystery, making meaning, and a sense of wonder and awe as we explore particular phenomena. In many ways, each person is a phenomenologist as humans, by their nature, are meaning-making beings.

As a teacher, I used an activity called A Culture of Peace. In keeping with the Pema Chodron quote Michelle shared, I asked students for words and phrases to describe a culture of war and recorded answers on the board. It did not take long to exhaust the descriptions, usually no more than 10 minutes. I then asked them to desribe a culture of peace. The first time I used the activity, and it became a staple, I was left withy a sense of wonder how these junior high school students kept me moving for almost an hour filling up all the whiteboards. Even students who rarely shared, were excited. As we were borrowing someone’s classroom, we had to arbitrarily end the conversation and, as we walked back to our space, two young men commented they could have done that all day. The sense of wonder, joy, and fulfilment was palbable and extraordinary.

Several years ago, I used the same activity with an undergrad class of future teachers. It was surprised how unengaged and disinterested they were as a group. Perhaps, we become jaded in ways that are difficult to overcome, focused on end results and schedules rather than the joy of learning and sharing.

Below, is a picture of Mount Robson. We stop there on our trips to British Columbia and walk a bit. I am always left with a sense of wonder and, as we walk alongside the Robson River, I feel a sense of peace and gratitude for just being there.

I leave you with a quote from Gustavo Gutiérrez, a liberation theologist I am currently reading: “A gratuitous encounter is mysterious and draws us into itself.” Father Gutiérrez uses the word gratuitous to describe something we encounter, which is free and exists for it own sake for us to enjoy e.g., lilies of the field, a mountain, a loved one, etc. When I encounter the person, phenomena, event, etc. I am grateful for its existence.

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Speak Your Truth — LIVING IN THIS MOMENT

Posted on July 5, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”― Franz Kafka How often have we told people what they want to hear, rather than speak our truth? During the process of writing my second book, there […]

Speak Your Truth — LIVING IN THIS MOMENT

Karen writes about how challenging it is to speak one’s truth. We often conflate truth with opinion. Truth is about how we each experience a particular phenomenon. It always stands in relationship to others and how they experience that phenomenon. Truth comes from the Germanic word tröth, which is taking a solemn pledge or undertaking. We enter into a relationship with someone and/or something e.g., marriage vows. Each peson comes to understand the meaning of the relationship and the pledge slightly differently.

We live in a world which is sometimes referred to as post-truth.. In my view, this just moral relativism dressed up differently and allows people to ignore the humanity of others who may disagree with them or are different than them. It becomes easy to say whatever we want to and claim we are being cancelled when someone disagrees. When used in this manner, truth becomes irrelevant and a buzz word.

Truth has taken on greater importance with the recent findings of unmarked graves at or close to residential schools for Indigenous children who were taken from their families and communities. Canada has a Truth and Reconciliation report related to the way Indienous peoples and communities were mistreated and that is a gentle word to describe the process. This includes the residential schools set up by the government and run by several christian demoninations. It is important to note truth comes before reconciliation. It is acknowledging the wrongs of the past, which is essential to reconciling, making whole and healing.

The reports logo is based on the 7 sacred teachings found in some form in North American Indigenous cultures: Truth, Humility, Honesty, Wisdom, Respect, Courage and Love. Although these teachings form the basis for North American Indigenous traditions and dialogue, one can find them, in some form, in other spiritiual teachings. They should form the ground on which we enter into relationships with others, the world, and what we hold sacred.

What draws me to Mary Oliver‘s poetry is the humility she invokes in questions she asks in certain poems. My favourite is The Summer Day where she concludes her questions with “what is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Truth is preceded by humility and accepting their will always be questions we cannot answer. Truth needs the other sacred teachings as life opens up with questions we cannot answer and full grasp.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

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An Expression of Gratitude —

Posted on June 18, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos- the trees, the clouds, everything.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

An Expression of Gratitude —

Espirational provides short posts that are often accompanied by lovely images. This quote from Thich Nhat Hanh relates to my post, Deep, the other day. It was Bela‘s post I shared and expanded on a bit.

If we think of Earth and Nature as living bodies, we can expand this quote about health as an expression of gratitude to encompass more than just each of us individuals and human bodies. In moments of gratitude, we should ask who benefits from pillaging the Earth and Nature? We can also ask who is most harmed?

Currently, I am reading a book by Gustavo Gutiérrez and Paul Farmer. Father Gutiérrez is a pioneers of Liberation Theology and Paul Farmer is a medical doctor and medical anthropologist who helped found Partners in Health. Part of the reading is to write about leadership, education, and how hope can inform each of us as we emerge from COVID-19, if we actually do.

I hoped a crisis of this magnitude, plus the social and racial justice reckonings, might be a time to (re)imagine and (trans)form leadership and education. I am unsure this is what will happen, as the agenda of the very wealthy does not seek a “preferential option for the poor” and those most in need, inlcuding Gaia and Mother Nature. Yes, there is talk, but most of that is empty words and political theatre, posturing and peformativity for one’s constituents. It takes peope filled with courage and hope to stand up and say we need something different.

My hope rests in the next generation, the young people who are already making a mark. I hope they do not become disenchanged and discouraged. In this vein, I leave you with the following quote, attributed to Tasunke Witko (Crazy Horse) days before he was killed.

Upon suffering beyond suffering:

The Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world; a world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations; a world longing for light again.

I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.

In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom.

I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.

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Deep

Posted on June 16, 2021 by ivonprefontaine

When I saw this post several weeks ago, Mary Oliver’s name got my attention. I have followed Bela for several years and her poetry reminds me of Mary Oliver and her poetry.

Nature surrounds us, engufls us, yet many humans act as if we are separate from Nature and have command over it. What the last few years should show us is we do not control Nature. As I watch the increase in catastrophic weather events and the pandemic we are in midst of, I better understand how taking care of nature takes care of the human family.

The line that stood out for me in Bela’s poem was “human encroachment into nesting areas, refusual to admit error in bulldozing sacred spaces for profit.” Not only did the poem remind me of Mary Oliver and her poetry, it reminded me of John Prine and his song Paradise.

As Mary Oliver says in the following poem and Bela signals in her poem, humans have a place in the family of things. To think otherwise is foolhardy.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I leave you with John Prine’s words about bulldozing mountain tops to find those last seams of coal, all for profit.

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