"Feeling connected"

I have to agree that teaching relationship skills like conflict resolution and respectful communication are essential to the Quaker mission in the world. But, since my work involves such a project here in Michigan (the Michigan Model for Comprehensive School Health Education, a Kindergarten through Grade 12 curriculum) I also know that no single program or set of skills instruction is the key to "promoting more effective caring and relational skills as early as possible in our children's life journey."

The key, it seems, is feeling connected, being a valued member of a family and of a community. A major national study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, found that youth who felt connected to their families and to their schools engaged in fewer risk behaviors like substance use and violence and do better in school. "Feeling connected" was defined as knowing that their parents cared about them, and feeling like they were a part of the school. If you want to know more about the study, they have a website. Just do a search for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, or Add-Health.

Quaker education, like that at Scattergood, emphasizes community. Youth and staff work together, learn together, eat together, play together. The point is connection, feeling an integral part of a community grounded in awareness (and perhaps even experience!) of Spirit. That, I believe, is the strongest component of Quaker education. It offers a positive culture that is currently unavailable to young people in most large public schools and in most urban communities. It seems to me that there is nothing quite so powerful as this intimate kind of connection.

It is good to teach skills. It is better to practice them. It is best to practice them and teach them to people with whom we are willing to be meaningfully connected, wherever they are, and wherever we are.