I was “Deep in the Heart” at the 2024 Elementary School Heads Association (ESHA) Head’s Retreat earlier this week in Austin, Texas. I gathered with fellow heads of school in that big state to consider the big ways that school leadership, the upcoming presidential election, and the post-pandemic state of the world intersect.
The four presenters—Ryan Holiday, Jason Craige Harris, Evan Smith, and Michelle Kinder—spoke about uncertainty, the importance of attending to one another’s well-being, and the increasing need for educators to equip students with the skills and empathy to engage across differences. Without revealing their political leanings, all acknowledged the feeling of anticipatory anxiety—the dysregulated feeling of waiting for an uncertain outcome—as something that everyone seems to be grappling with.
I watched a room full of school heads from across the country nod as one of the speakers offered strategies for regulating the nervous system when it starts to feel out of whack. At the end of this session, I opened my email to find the latest bi-weekly BDS Mindfulness Toolkit with exercises and tips from physical education teacher and mindfulness director Alex Tzelnic, school counselor Josh Sussman, and consulting psychologist Dr. Julia Martin Burch. I was nodding myself, knowing that many of the strategies to help in anxious moments now being taught across the country have been securely in place and nurtured at Belmont Day for some time now.
Also in focus was how, since the pandemic, we have experienced persistent disequilibrium. The disruptions to society triggered by the pandemic in March of 2020 have been slow to recover in the nearly five years since. And consider our evolutionary hardwiring to protect our clan. Thanks to the Internet and social media, that clan is 100 times bigger than the one our ancestors were protecting. Now, we carry the anxieties of far more than just our nearest and dearest.
All of which is to say that we hold more than our bandwidth may be ready for. Knowing that mindfulness practice has been there for students and faculty throughout this time has helped us move our community forward and reestablish the guardrails that allow us to inspire and challenge ourselves and our students.
So, as the days ahead are likely to bring more uncertainty, I encourage everyone to revisit the lessons of the Toolkit, embrace the power of simply pausing and taking a breath when you need one, and know that your community at Belmont Day is here to support you.
