Individual & Collective Norms

Your collective efforts to receive and care for your children early on Tuesdays enable most of our teachers and staff to gather for weekly meetings. These meetings include many tasks, from the logistics of planning community festivals to academic studies in anthroposophy and social justice. We like to start the school year off with a deep dive into our School Norms. Through deep listening and speaking, we come closer to a shared understanding of what ideals each norm invites us into. 

At Golden Bridges School, we engage with Community and Individual norms to help us guide our interactions. Norms are agreed upon standards of conduct. They help us know the interactions that are expected, and help us find the right action in uncertain situations. We engage with norms that are based on the work of SF-CESS, where the majority of our teachers and staff have become certified facilitators of equity-based meeting protocols. Based on the meeting notes from our faculty discussions, I’m sharing our living, incomplete, perpetually transforming definitions of how we understand each Golden Bridges norm.

Individual Community Norms:

Stay Engaged

When we stay engaged, we listen actively, challenging ourselves to hear questions without jumping to answers. Staying engaged can look different for everyone, but it invites us all to lean into boring or uncomfortable topics. To stay engaged, we each need to know our own stress responses, so that we can welcome them gently. We often need to circle back to topics after taking time to process, challenging ourselves to stay curious about complicated topics. 

Speak Your Truth

Speaking your truth comes from a place of mindful self awareness, where reactionary thoughts get processed before being spoken. Our first thought might not be our truth. The skin we are in will impact how we receive truths from others, sometimes regardless of how they are spoken, and we must call ourselves into awareness of this. When we are called in to speak our truth, we must extend the same liberation to everyone.

Experience Discomfort

To experience discomfort, we must first recognize that we are feeling it and remind ourselves that this is often the space where learning occurs. If you find yourself feeling apathy or fear during a difficult conversation, look for the path to find your way back to discomfort. So many of us are culturally socialized to alleviate others of their discomfort, and this norm invites us to unlearn that conditioning. We can practice the resilience we encourage in our students, that we can do hard things. 

Accept and Expect Non-Closure

There is always more work to be done. When we accept and expect non-closure, we push back against the white supremacist agendas of perfectionism and accelerated efficiency. This norm helps create space to ask more questions and develop trust in the process. 

Collective Community Norms:

Pay Attention to Patterns of Participation

This norm asks us to be aware of how much space we are taking up. Participation can look many different ways, and we will reach the most community members when we create diverse opportunities for participation. Patterns of participation are influenced by the skin we are in and the culture we were raised in; when we remember this we increase the possibility of belonging for everyone. We can find patterns in many places and many modes of communication, including work that is unseen. 

Contextual Confidentiality

Practicing contextual confidentiality requires us to keep the identifying details of specific conversations in confidence, while leaving room for us to share the lessons we learn more widely. It invites us to consider who needs to be included in each conversation so that transparency can be sought effectively. We are asked to find the appropriate space between gossip and learning.

Go to the Source (or Let It Go)

This norm empowers each community member to step into a proactive role of either working something out or letting go. It takes courage and humility, and always helps us know each other better. When we go to the source, we include ourselves as a part of the conflict. We can move away from the binary thinking of right and wrong and experience the liminal space where relationships grow. 

Recognize that We Are On Our Own Path of Inner and Outer Work

The idea of recognizing that we are all on our own unique path of inner and outer work emphasizes personal growth and the individual journey. This norm was added by the GBS community. The journey is not passive—it's active, and each person moves at their own pace. Determining how to hold someone accountable can be difficult, especially when their progress looks different from ours. Ultimately, this norm reinforces compassion, recognizing that we can’t control others, but we can connect with them in relationship, offering support along the way.

Hold Everyone in Their Highest Light

Another GBS original, this idea emphasizes recognizing that everyone is doing their best, even when their efforts look different from our own. It involves practicing grace and celebrating each person's unique capabilities. Checking our pride and staying mindful of how we hold others accountable can help release resentment and encourage understanding. Holding someone accountable is not about judgment; it's about seeing them in their fullest humanity. 

I Am Because We Are

This Ubuntu philosophy centers on the interplay between the collective and the individual, highlighting the interconnectedness of all. It calls for showing up as part of a community rather than as isolated individuals. Drawing inspiration from Buddhist teachings and Lakota blessings, it reminds us that all beings are interconnected. Practicing this involves exercising empathy, understanding, and a commitment to collective well-being.

When viewed together, our school norms invite us to build resilience, and lay out a road map for how to be here now. These norms are offered as tools for engagement and accountability among our adult community. Within our student population, norms evolve with increasing nuance as the children grow. Each class works with norms in their own unique way. Younger grades may create straightforward norms such as “be kind,” or, “raise your hand.” Upper grades may elaborate on community expectations, or even engage directly with our formal school norms. In every space where people come together at Golden Bridges, we are invited to lean into these ideals and practice them as acts of love for each other and the world.