Our school has invested in the ISACS parent series. The ISACS Parent Series is a year-long program offering 6 webinars designed for parents and caregivers in all stages of their children’s growth.
October’s speaker was Jonathan Haidt. He presented the findings in his book The Anxious Generation
Phones and Our Children’s Mental Health
In the presentation, he talks about how phone use is affecting our children. We are seeing increased anxiety and depression in young people. Those increases began with the release of the smartphone in 2009. He also cited the survey Monitoring the Future, given to 18 year olds. Starting in 2012, there was a significant increase in the percentage of 18-year-old respondents who agreed with the following statements:
- Life often feels meaningless
- I feel that my life is not very useful
He said that a “spiritual degradation” is happening. We are lacking things/rituals that bond us with each other, and stillness, silence, and focus are absent in a world that commodifies attention.
The Hope in Silence and Stillness
While this information is hard to hear, there is hope. At Friends School of Minnesota our hope for our students and our community is that we strive to better know ourselves and each other by sitting in silence and stillness together. We help our students build the skills necessary to sit and listen and be still WITH a community. We also help them build the skills necessary to listen deeply to other perspectives with compassion and empathy.
It is our hope that these things – thoughtful attention to knowing yourself, knowing yourself within the context of a community, and compassion for others, will help our students be more grounded and feel a sense of purpose in life.
No Perfection Needed
One of the beautiful things about building the skill of sitting in silence together is that we are all building that skill. It can be uncomfortable, there are days when we are distracted and wiggly. There will always be something happening – a door opening, a cough, a giggle. The dedication to the process (or the ritual) is what matters. The showing up. The returning of focus to reflection.
The Goal – An Embodied Experience to Come Back To
Many graduates of Friends School come back and say, “I didn’t think I would miss sitting in silence, but I do.” Our goal is for our students to have an embodied experience, something that they can remember and return to as a practice or a comfort.
It Is Who We Are and Always Will Be
Sitting in silence and centering purpose and action is not a response to our times; it is simply what Quakers do and it is what Friends School of Minnesota has done for the past 38 years. Together, our students, our staff, and our community are anchored in these important and enriching practices. Our hope for our students is that they bring these practices with them into the wider world and that they continue to find purpose and growth in the silence and stillness.
Curious about how we live our values and sit in silence to find our purpose? Schedule a tour or join us for our January open house.
We Often End Our Silence in Song
When we sit together as a school, we close our silence with a greeting and a song.
