Circles for teachers and their students
Angela (Ang) Coxen is a retired educator who first learned about circle work at an Art of Hosting training offered through her union. There, she was exposed to a number of hosting methods, but The Circle Way stood out.
“This one lands for me,” she says, and she “dug in” to learn more about hosting circles after she retired. The pandemic left her with time on her hands, and Googling led her to Healing Circles Global, where she participated in circles, and then began co-mentoring trainings. At the time, all trainings and circles were conducted online due to lockdowns and quarantines.
Do you know what else was taking place online at that time? School, and things weren’t going so well. The Annie E. Casey Foundation summarized the impact of the pandemic on students this way: “Many students experienced significant mental health struggles after the shift to remote learning. Students were increasingly isolated, spending more time on devices and getting very little physical activity — all of which contributed to increased stress, anxiety and depression.”
But the impact was even greater than that. Ang says, “Some of these young people’s safe place was school, their safe persons were school staff. But during the pandemic, students were confined to a home that had ‘extra activities’ they may not necessarily have wanted to participate in or see 24 hours a day.”
Teachers also struggled during the pandemic.
“At first, I found myself offering spaces to educators who needed the emotional relief that is often offered through circle practice,” says Ang. After educators got comfortable with healing circles, they asked her to hold circles with their classes.
“My immediate thought was ‘They’re not going to participate,’” says Ang. But when she asked the middle schoolers to turn their cameras on, they did. They muted and unmuted, used a virtual talking piece, and relied on the help of a technical guardian.
“It got to the point where teachers were saying, ‘Can we do this next week?’” says Ang.
Although Ang began hosting circles online, she now works with the same teachers in person. They’ve since turned the role of host and guardian over to young people. “We’ve got young people being guardians, doing grounding work, doing affirmations. We’ve got young people from marginalized communities stepping up and holding space for each other.
“We’re still in the room,” she says. “We’re still making sure protocols are in place. We still chime in occasionally and remind them of the agreements.” But circles are a peer-led movement, and with the support of respected adults, students are hosting them for one another.
Ang has learned that hosting healing circles isn’t a good fit for some people. “Not everyone has the gift,” she says. “I tell some teachers, ‘This is not for you.’ I have to remind them to have a caring spirit, not a nosy spirit, not a probing-around spirit. I have to remind them to keep their mouth shut, not comment, and dang it, not to fix things!”
Ang can host only one or two circles a week. “Once you hold circle, you need to go somewhere and sit down,” she says. “I held two yesterday, came home, and napped.” Those were emotional healing circles, though. Ang was moved to go to a specific school at a specific time and unwittingly arrived at a classroom shortly after the children learned that their classmate had been killed in an accident. The teacher turned her first two classes over to Ang, who hosted a circle in each one.
Ang has also hosted circles for staff when teachers died during the pandemic. She strives to end each circle on a note of hope–even when the circle focuses on the loss of a student or teacher. In those circles, she ends with: “Share a funny story about this person.” And “How can this person live on?”
written by Petra Martin
Please note
At Healing Circles, the foundation of our circles is built on the authenticity of those who host them—with each host bringing their unique voice, personal perspective, and lived experience to the space. Healing Circles hosts and guardians are independent circle organizers. Their statements, opinions, and impressions are their own and do not represent the views of Healing Circles Global or Commonweal.
