Better together

Joe Webster, a member of the FGNA (Feldenkrais Guild of North America) communication team, interviewed me for the latest edition of In Touch newsletter, the Guild’s quarterly publication by, for, and about Feldenkrais teachers. Joe came prepared with thought-provoking, relevant questions. I especially appreciated how he listened actively, responded constructively, and prompted me to think deeply about where we came from and where we could be heading.

We covered a wide range of topics during our hour-long conversation, including learning from our students, understanding why doing homework matters, benefiting from the emergence of somatics in popular culture, rising to the opportunities and challenges of teaching online, recognizing the needs of both new and experienced teachers for support, and fostering a professional community of support, supervision, solidarity, and thriving. In retrospect, whether I was talking about creating moments of co-discovery with our students or developing our profession and Moshe’s methodology, the throughline was learning together.

Rather than summing up our dialogue or attempting to give you an overview, here’s a video excerpt about cultivating a collaborative learning environment:

At just under 14 minutes, it’s definitely more substantial than a snippet or a soundbite. If you’d like to listen to our entire conversation, please click here.

Speaking of developing community, I’m sincerely curious about your reflections, reactions, and responses to the interview. How do the ideas we discuss, the activities I report on, and the projects I propose line up with what you're doing and want to do?

While you consider what you’d like to say, may I ask a favor? Often, a blog inspires emails or messages, many of which are pretty personal, all of which I greatly appreciate. The thing is that this makes for private conversations. Given that I'm talking about building community and making that happen is going to take more than just the two of us, I wonder: Would you be willing to engage in a public dialogue?

In the 'Your Thoughts' section below, you’ll find a link to a page where you can respond, which I’ll read, publish, and respond to as well. That way, other readers will gain a broader perspective and, perhaps, benefit from our interaction.

• If you’re reading this in an email, clicking on the link will open the comments section almost at the bottom of this page.
• If you’re reading this post online, you’ll need to log in to your Mind In Motion Online account before you can make your contribution.
• If you don’t yet have an account, you can sign up for free (and gain access to ATM lessons and more, all free of charge) here.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Nino Sousa Nino from Brazil took the photo at the top of this page, which I found on the pexels.com website.

Jack Johnson’s sweet song Better Together inspired the title of this post. I am not making any comment, explicit or implied, on the 2014 campaign for Scottish independence and how this phrase appeared therein.