“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.” – Teach Different with Christian Morgenstern – Identity

Transcript

Dan Fouts  00:00

Welcome to the teach different podcast. Great to have everybody here listening in. We have a cool, cool episode tonight we have a guest from Boulder, Colorado, who has a very interesting pedigree works for, for the school system in Boulder, and as an author and a consultant. Ari is his name. I’m going to let him introduce himself once he, he weighs in on our quote tonight. But great to have him here from from Boulder, Colorado. And tonight we have a quote, interestingly enough, this is our Steve our second swipe at this quote, the first time we did this quote, was at a community constituent event with Representative Michelle Mussman, here in Illinois in Schaumburg, Illinois, where we got together about 18 constituents. Michelle Mussman, represents a district in the Chicago Northwest Chicagoland area. And we got constituents together at the Trickster Cultural Center. And we had a great conversation over this, this quote that we’re going to, we’re going to do tonight as well. And well, the quote is from a Christian Morgenstern, who is a German writer, and poet, and it’s going to be on the concept of home. Okay, which which I’ll get to in a moment. Our method, if people are unfamiliar, you know, we’re going to work through this, this quote for everybody, we’re going to look at the claim of the quote, you know, what does it mean? What does it mean to you? What stories can you tell to support the truth of what this what this quote is saying, and then we’re going to do that critical thinking piece, we’re going to push back on it and share another interesting way to look at it a different perspective on it, but still maintaining the integrity of the of the theme, as we do that. And in that way, we expand our minds and open them and become active listeners and see the world from a variety of different angles. And then we’re going to ask some questions. So Ari, I’ll just say this, as we’re listening in to each other and speaking with one another, if you have any questions that pop into your head, don’t wait. Just jump in and ask it. We like to think of conversations as very freeform, yet they have a structure to them, but mostly freeform. And we think they work the best that way. So we hope you agree. But I think we’re ready to go. I’m going to say the quote twice. And then Ari, you’re going to be the first to kind of weigh in on the quote, if you would, what you think it means. And then you know, before you do that, give a nice background of who you are and where you come from, and what you’re passionate about. And I have your book, I hope you can talk about this at some point, which is just awesome. I made my way through that as well. And I’m hoping that we can integrate your book into this conversation because I see a lot of overlap with what you speak about and this quote. So here we go. Christian Morgenstern. “Home is not where you live, but where they understand you. Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.” Ari, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. It’s great to have you here.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  03:47

Thanks, Dan. It’s great to be with you and Steve. Yeah, and I’ll just share briefly about my background. I was a former teacher and school principal. I’ve spent the last seven years leading the Family Partnerships department in the Boulder Valley School District. And the heart of my work is bringing together underrepresented families and educators to build stronger bridges between them. And I have a huge passion around social justice around project based and critical thinking as a part of learning relevant real life experiences, passion for travel, and there’s a whole lot more I could say. And the book I recently published, called On the Same Team– Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together. And it’s about these unique teams that I see a need for in all of our school communities across the country that allow for trust and relationships to be fostered between families that have historically been on the margins and still to this day off in our school communities, and partnering with educators who learned through these conversations once a month at these team gatherings, how to be better partners to families, and ultimately students benefit from it. So that’s a little bit of my background and passion.

Dan Fouts  05:01

Gerzon-Kessler, I didn’t say your last name!

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  05:07  Claim

Perfect. Yeah. And in terms of, you know, the quote really resonates with me strongly, because in my biography, when I look back, even to my life as a child, I think about in terms of “home is not where you live, but where they understand you” that I grew up going to schools, where I often didn’t feel a strong sense of connection to my peers, and my school community in middle school, I switched to my mom’s school for sixth grade. And the kids have been together for six straight years, same class, same cohort. I was one of two new, you know, newcomers to the class. And that just accentuated for me, in my sense of being an outsider in many spaces. And then each summer, I would go beginning at the age of seven, I would go to a summer camp in Michigan, and I felt seen, valued and I wasn’t from Michigan, I was one of the only kids from California, yet, I felt recognized and seen for my strengths there. In a way, feeling really understood and seen. And I’ve had that experience you know, even in my early years in high school, I also, you know, grew up with Jewish grandparents and knew my Jewish part of my identity should be important to me, yet, I was immersed in black culture. And my first job was at a black bookstore at the age of 11. And so my home ethnically was as a Jew, yet where I felt connected, understood, seen, was at NAACP meetings and, and other gatherings more in the black community. So there’s just even going back to those early days, this real reality of where I felt happiest and most authentic and comfortable and safe, was where I was understood, not where I should have felt at home.

Steve Fouts  07:05  Essential Question

That’s a really compelling way to put it, Ari, I had as my first question, What does home mean? I almost started this quote with the essential question. And I felt that I needed to clear that up, and then talk about what this truly means. And you’ve already offered some definitions here. A home is a place where you’re recognized for your strengths, you’re connected, you’re seen, you would think that your home is obviously where you’re seen, and where you’re connected. These people that you live with, all day, every day, you go to sleep in the house, you wake up, they’re related to you by blood, you think that that’s where you get these things, but it’s not always true, like you’re saying, so that’s really I mean, as far as the claim is concerned, you can’t think that the home is always where you’re living,  your physical body. You have to treat it as if it is a place that makes you feel a certain way

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  08:29

Yeah, I’m with you, Steve. And I was wondering too, is home you know, specifically your physical residence? Is it a reference to your neighborhood? Even your national origin. I remember as an eight year old playing some hockey game, USA against Russia and, and not feeling even, like a loyalty to the US as I was learning more about some of the American actions that weren’t very admirable overseas and within our own borders. So yeah, that question of how do we define home in a more broad sense, it’s something I’m also curious about.

Dan Fouts  09:09  Essential Question

Yeah, and I was struck by the word seen, home is where you are seen, and then where you’re known. I think both of those words have been used. And I wonder about the difference– a question that popped into my head is what’s the difference between being seen and being known? I feel like with the home it’s more with being known that your being is understood by other people, you are known not just for your physical body, but your personality and kind of like I’m going to say soul but not in the religious sense, but just kind of that non physical aspect to you. And I think that’s important. Thinking about the claim “home is not where you live, it’s where they understand you.” It’s where it’s where you’re truly known, where you feel like you can be yourself, no matter what, and you don’t always get that in your physical location. You get it in other places.

Steve Fouts  10:23

Which is confusing, right? Because when you’re with someone a lot, don’t you get to know them? I mean, not necessarily everything about them. How could you live with someone in a family and not know them?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  10:56

When you’re making me wonder, Steve, I’m thinking about that expression, like I feel so at home here, right? That’s uplifting, the connection between home and we’re one, you know, like you’re saying Dan can feel seen and understood. But on the other hand, be aware that many children, for instance, feel alienated from their parents, and begin to build distance between them. So they actually are not feeling especially as adolescents are not feeling seen and known and understood by their parents, if anything, they’re seeking that sense of being at home with their peers and others, right?

Dan Fouts  11:32

Absolutely, you took it right.  As a high school teacher, a lot of students do not feel known by their parents. They feel much more of a sense of comfort and authenticity with their peers. And this is, as you suggest, Ari, this is a source of strife, around the 15 16 17 year old ages, there’s this pulling away of your identity from the family unit. And sometimes that can lead to a division like this. So yeah, I agree. 

Steve Fouts  12:18

And the definition of known, I’m hearing known is a feeling of safety– number one. If you don’t feel safe, and understood, that can never be home. And those are feelings– that isn’t physical presence; that is your mental, emotional state, when you’re around others, which would explain why you can actually live with people, but not feel like it’s home at all. You can be, you can feel unsafe in where you are. And this happens in a lot of communities to a lot of students that I had in Chicago, on the west side of Chicago, in some of these underserved neighborhoods. School was a safe place. But when they went home, it wasn’t always safe, especially on the way home, which maybe is a conversation in and of itself. But it’s just something to acknowledge, home is not a physical place to many people.

Dan Fouts  13:42

Nikki just asked What does understand really mean? Nikki just chatted that in — very interesting. What does that mean?

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  13:55

When I’m thinking Dan, one piece of that is that people are seeing into your complexity, your depth and your your inner life a bit. I mean, I’m thinking, you know, and you guys are lovers of questions, I’m just remembering when I was in seventh grade, and then again, a senior in high school, my mom was a pioneer in social emotional learning and she did this practice that was really powerful, where she asked us as students to write what are questions of wandering we have about ourselves, about other people and about the world. And I remember so vividly that in sixth and seventh grade, I felt pretty disconnected from my peers at this new school. And it was the day where my teacher– my life skills teacher — read aloud our anonymous questions about our wonderings that I suddenly felt understood, connected seeing, wow, these are these other kids in my class who I’ve struggled to connect with. — they have some of the same worries, hopes, fears that I do, and that unleashed the sense of wow, maybe there’s there’s a possibility for community here, which I would you know, using that word, I would pose the question, how does community connect into home because some of our youth as well as adults, don’t feel at home within their house, but they go down the block, and they feel a strong sense of kinship in their community. So yeah, what’s the link there between maybe home and community?

Dan Fouts  15:28

And Ari, perhaps you could expound upon a little bit of your work with parents, and schools and the type of environment through the work that you do that really, when you think about it, you want to create a certain place where people feel understood, when a parent can come to a school and speak with the principal and teachers and feel like that this is a safe place where their child is being taken care of, and they feel a part of the mix. So I don’t know if you want to maybe go into that a little bit more.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  16:09

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the invitation to do that. I — you know-  the heart of my work are these families and educators together teams, which are the subject of, of my book “On the Same Team” And they bring together mostly immigrant families, but in general underrepresented families, that for decades, our school system, most school systems in this country, have guessed what families needed or wondered what the barriers are and haven’t necessarily centered the voices of family sat down, broke bread with them and really listened and then collaborated and co-created changes. So these gatherings of the families and educators together teams are once a month, they start with dinner, and are about building trust, better communication, more collaboration. And, as you said, for families to really feel safe and understood, and at every gathering, educators are working across linguistic, cultural, racial, other differences. So we’ve learned over seven years and 25 plus schools, how to really thoughtfully create a space where anyone, regardless of their cultural background, can ideally feel seen, understood and known over time. And you know, an example from just last week, I was at an elementary school. And we had a parent there that night, who literally had just arrived from Venezuela with her child, and her son had just had his first day at the school. And we fortunately, you know, carved out space for her to bring up anything after we had some great dialogue around a project we were co creating. And she asked a fantastic question. She said, I want to know what supports are in place for my child around emotionally navigating, being in a new school, new country, new culture. And typically, without that meeting, that parent is probably out of deference and other reasons, staying away from the school wondering about support, not getting communication, because perhaps most of the staff don’t speak Spanish. And so for her to be able to pose that question, bring other things that were close to her heart, and then find out what the school is doing and, and build a stronger connection right there in the moment, that’s an example of some of the deeper partnerships and now the fact she feels safe, seen and known. And we said, you know, thank you so much for bringing this forward. This is speaking to what other families need — that begins to build this community of support that’s so vital for all of our families to feel more connected and feel at home when they’re at the school, which often our schools can unintentionally be a pretty intimidating space for a lot of families.

Dan Fouts  19:04

Yeah, that’s great work. You want to weave into the counterclaim, Steve?

Steve Fouts  19:10

I don’t know where to go with it.

Dan Fouts  19:13

Well, Ari, I’ll give deference to the guest first. Do you have a counterclaim? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  19:22  Counterclaim

I mean, the main piece Dan was coming to my mind as I thought about it, was that you know, our identities ourselves evolve. And if feeling at home is contingent upon being understood and seen, then one moment we can feel in a certain space or school community, for instance, understood. And then something can shift. I mean, I’m thinking last night I held our inaugural Jewish affinity group for Jewish educators in our school system, and many of them felt four months ago or so at home in their school communities. And then as soon as October 7 happened, they were being kind of prompted with a bunch of questions they didn’t necessarily want to answer from colleagues and parents. Suddenly, they no longer felt as understood. They no longer felt as at home as a staff member at that school. So that actually, I think I hadn’t thought of it till now, like that might be a good example of where it’s a bit tenuous, to rely on spaces where you’re understood because the people around you and the events can sometimes rapidly shift.

Dan Fouts  20:38

That’s really interesting. And I picked that up as I read some of your prep notes. That’s really good. And that makes me think of a counterclaim that I think builds off what you just said. If it is true that being known and understood is more transitory and not as reliable, then, it seems like a counterclaim would be home should be something that is immutable– should be stable. Like, you know, Steve, you and I talk about this all the time. Ari, we were born in DeKalb, Steve and I, we lived in Duluth, Minnesota for four years. And then most of our childhood was in Lake Oswego, Oregon, on the west coast, from third grade to ninth grade, and even to this, and then we moved to Springfield, Illinois, and I’ve been there ever since. So I’m Midwestern. But when I think of, quote, unquote, home, my mind often gravitates towards my childhood experiences in Oregon, as being that sense of place that I associate with love and family and learning about who I am, and kind of really formative years. And that’s not moving. So I don’t know, that’s kind of my counterclaim, I think of a place, an actual place not being understood.

Steve Fouts  22:18

Yeah, I guess I would add that I do associate, Oregon. So we were what, eight years old to 15. Eight to 14. That was definitely not a time when I necessarily remember feeling understood. Or connected. You know, we were what it was like going through puberty, developing, playing sports, getting new friends. There was a lot of tumultuous time. But when someone asked me, Where did I grow up, where’s my home? I will be more apt to be associated with that because of –what– is it physical, is the counterclaim here that home can let’s not read too much into that word. It’s where you live. It’s where your physical body lives. It’s the roof over your house. It’s the driveway; it’s the nearby soccer field that you could walk to. It’s these things, and people come and go. But you form kind of an attachment to a place. I’m trying to get a good counterclaim. I don’t know if I’m making sense or if this if it’s even insightful to say it this way. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  23:56

Dan, just or Steve, just to build off what you sharing. I’m thinking about you know, that aspect of friends can come and go through various things in life. But we often come back to the security and strength of our families. I’m also thinking about you know, loyalties to even things like sports teams that I’m a I’m a Red Sox and Celtics fan because I lived in Massachusetts from six weeks old to seven and and that some of those places where I feel at home can be based on where I you know, spent those formative years so that there is this aspect of the things that often last a lifetime might be some of those loyalties to family, to teams, for many people to country or to their town, that there is a nostalgic and like resonant kind of power within the heart to those home connections. 

Steve Fouts  24:55

It’s funny you said country Nikki is chatting with us. And Nikki is from Jamaica, she says, “I live in Florida now, but Jamaica will always be my home. Home feels like something that should be fixed.”  You know, back to your observation, if we’re always developing, and we’re always needing to feel understood to feel at home, boy, maybe we’re chasing a dream that we will never reach, maybe what we should be doing is thinking about those things that don’t move. And acknowledging perhaps, that sometimes home isn’t a place where we’re the happiest. Maybe we are not looked at in the way that we want to be looked at, and we end up leaving because of that, and, and getting that from other people. But no one’s going to replace our home. And the place where, you know, there are people that love us, maybe sometimes mistreat us, maybe sometimes ignore us, maybe sometimes punish us. And think that tough love is the way that is, is what we need to help us become better. But these aren’t always places that are understanding us where we’re feeling seen. They are places where we’re treated, you know, in a way, that’s that’s, I don’t know, not always the tender loving care. 

Dan Fouts  26:51

It’s back to the physical. I’m thinking of also our cabin, Ari had a cabin for 50 years on Chequamegon  Bay in Lake Superior. My grandfather built it, you know, going to that place– that’s home, in the physical sense, the sights, the sounds, the smells, I think of the birch trees and the leaves blowing in the wind, there is a certain sound that you associate with that place. So I think, you know, back to kind of the counterclaim, anything you associate with your physical senses seems to push against the idea of thinking about home as understanding and something more of a mental thing. It’s just much more of a physical thing. And I guess, both ways of thinking about home get us a different kind of understanding.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  28:00

And what you just shared, Dan resonates with me, I’m thinking like, home might be the intersection of like geography, and where your heart feels most alive. I mean, what you shared the cabin is beautiful, because it reminds me of as an adult, when I would kind of look back to where was I happiest? It was the rolling hills and the lake. And the softball fields, that summer camp in Michigan. I didn’t remember rooms inside of homes in DC and Massachusetts in California. It was that summer camp in Michigan, which to me speaks to that blend of the senses you described and the geography of home, but also combined with that heart element of where do I feel connected part of a community, feel seen? So I appreciate that. That’s really helpful in me seeing why that location in Michigan has always been such a touchstone for me, as that place where I belonged. 

Steve Fouts  29:02

Nice. Nice. I have a poignant analogy that I’m going to just try on both of you because there might be something insightful about it. Think of dogs and cats for a second. If they could talk and you ask them the question, what is home? You know how dogs form attachments with people and do fairly well with moves to new places. Why? Because their master is still there. Their family is still there, and they know– their tail is wagging when they see the people in their life. But what do we know about what happens to cats when they move? There are stories of cats that have returned 20 miles away 15 miles away when the family moves, and where does the cat go? To the home– to the literally the place. I don’t know where I’m going with this. But it’s this idea of proximity and the physical place as being that level of comfort, maybe that a cat has, whereas a dog is much more connected and emotional with the human. Don’t know where that’s going. But it just is something that came to mind. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  30:42

Well, just a quick link to Steve’s point. I mean, you were making me think the cat is drawn back to the familiar. And then it hit me like that link between the word familiar and family, that for good or bad, maybe we keep coming home to our families, right? Because of that familiar quality. 

Steve Fouts  31:04

Right? Right. And we’re not talking about how our families treated us how we felt this, that or the other. They are our family. We can’t have 10 different families. We’ve just got one. Well, I don’t know. Just a thought, just a thought. I’m thinking about my cat now. I got a GPS collar on him. And it’s so fun to see him. He’ll go out a mile away on the GPS. And it’s just it. Invariably, he comes right back. I mean, there’s never a question. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  31:51

When Steve we have we have an air tag on one of our dogs. And she ran away for years and finally got one like four months ago. Unfortunately, she has been so well behaved the last few months that we took the collar off. And of course, yesterday was the first time she took off and she does fortunately come home or a neighbor notifies us of her being on the list. But but it is remarkable the way that ultimately animals find their way home.

Dan Fouts  32:23

Well, think of birds migrating. I mean, we could, in the animal kingdom, there’s a lot of examples of this. So there is something you can connect to the animal kingdom related to this. I thought of maybe a good essential question. What is it mean to be at home? 

Steve Fouts  32:48

Yeah. That’s straightforward.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  32:54

Connecting to that idea. And I was just thinking about, like, coming back to schools and community and especially like, we’re a country of immigrants. My question that’s emerging is, how do we create a reliable sense of home for many students and families that are adjusting to the reality of saying goodbye forever to what was their home? 

Dan Fouts  33:23

That is a responsibility of schools that is so important. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  33:28

Right, but if I mean, as I think about the families and educator together teams, if we’re playing some music at the beginning of dinner, and that’s bringing them back home; if we’re listening to them in their native language that makes them feel like they’re back home again. So these things we can do as schools and as communities, but often, we don’t — we privilege English and we privilege our status quo ways of doing things in schools that are more centered around our preferences or needs as educators. So to me that yeah, this is a challenge to like, how do we instill a greater sense of home but also make it inclusive, because in a multicultural setting, we’ve got to find threads that will make everyone feel comfortable, and at home enough in that setting.

Dan Fouts  34:22

And in that spirit, one of the things we can do is have conversations with each other. If we can create school communities and classroom communities, where if people feel heard in conversations, you do feel like you’re at home. I mean, I’m thinking — this is my 31st year, Ari, teaching and you have those special classes that by the end of the year, you think about your class and the way the students interact, and the seamlessness of everything, everything is so authentic and natural, it does kind of become a home. For a lot of kids, I mean, that’s the the Nirvana of this profession, when you’re able to somehow be part of that feeling where everyone is accepted. everyone trusts, there’s empathy, there’s active listening, there’s love. You know, that can happen in a school; that can happen in a classroom; it can happen whenever people are willing to be vulnerable and open up. 

Steve Fouts  35:37

Got a definition of home, how about this one? Home is where you can be yourself.  I feel like a lot of the important emotions and forces in your life have got to be right. If you can be yourself, you’re in a good place. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  36:09

Just to add to that, I’m thinking where you can be yourself, and where you’re challenged and stretched to grow. Because when I think about my best teachers, they definitely pushed in that way. And when I even think about this month, in my very physical home, my wife is regularly challenging me to grow in different ways. So sometimes just being myself isn’t, you know, enough. And I appreciate that, that piece of like we’re pushing on each other. So yeah, that blend of acceptance for who you are, and propelling you to grow into who you can become. 

Steve Fouts  36:49

I appreciate you adding in that. Home can also I guess, be a crutch, you know, you get so comfortable, you don’t see a reason to push your comfort zone or, or tackle your fears. And that can be not good. You know, home can be so loving, that you’ve don’t feel like you need anything else. And maybe that’s limiting you a little bit. But what a great problem to have. Let’s just start there. You know, I wish that were everyone’s problem. But Nikki key said something here. Dan, can you read that? 

Dan Fouts  37:32

“The author seems to be alluding to an ideal home, which I believe may be a balance between the familiar, (nurture) and where your understood (nature). Hmm. Interesting. I like that. That’s a good way to blend it. Nikki. That’s a wonderful idea. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  37:56

Yeah, I really liked that. And the link between the familiar and where you’re understood, and sometimes we’re lucky enough for those to be the same physical space of–  a group of old friends where you feel both understood, and that familiarity. And for me, and a lot of experiences. I’ve felt most understood at times in  other cultures that I’m visiting and so there isn’t not always that element of the familiar being parallel to where I feel understood. 

Steve Fouts  38:29

I’ve noticed the same thing Ari. I can be myself around others, sometimes much easier than I can around friends, and people that I would call, I guess, my family or my community or where I came from. I can’t explain it, but it’s true. And that’s okay. I cherish that. I feel that I can be lots of places and be okay. 

Dan Fouts  39:07

Well, this has been a invigorating conversation. I think we got I think we had a good equal treatment of the claim in the counterclaim– maybe we started slow with the counterclaim, but I think we sped up pretty quickly and built this very well and sought from from different angles and sharing our personal experiences. This one would be an interesting one to do, Ari, in your setting with parents and principals, administrators, teachers, and all coming together and talking about something like this. It would be I think, a very interesting thing to hear about. 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  39:56

Yeah, absolutely. Dan, and I mean, it makes me think a question I want to start Ask in every school that has a team next year is, how can we help you in this school feel truly at home? — when you’re here to make that explicit link between most people see it as home as the house that go back to, and this is a school community I have to navigate my way through. If we really shifted the way of looking at it, to how could school feel more embracing more welcoming, when that’s that’s really the heart of this work is how can educators connect with families so that there’s a seamlessness between a student’s house and their school house? And also, where they’re, they’re thriving because they feel at home everywhere they go. And ideally, that’s the same for families.

Dan Fouts  40:51

That’s great. And can you give your book title again for people who would be interested in this? 

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  40:58

Yeah, it’s “On the Same Team–Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together” and easy to find online, and really a tool for educators to learn pathways to build stronger bridges with families. And, yeah, I think it’s a resource that’s needed now and talks about teams that can easily be launched at schools that do something that’s rare today, and most of our schools is bringing families and educators actually together around the same table to have these kinds of rich conversations like we had tonight. . 

Dan Fouts  41:32

That’s great. Well, we’re, we’ve Yeah, you’re doing such such important work. And we really appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom. This is important work, you know, just to get these ideas out there and to think about these themes, these are all themes, we can have conversations over. And that’s what we do here at Teach Different, and we’re so lucky to have you as part of our part of our team, if we want to put it that way. And Nikki, you too. Thank you for for joining. Ari, thank you so much. Stay on after we cut the recording and we can kind of wrap things up, but really appreciate you.

Ari Gerzon-Kessler  42:16

Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure and the work you guys are doing is really inspiring and much needed.

Steve Fouts  42:22

Thank you. 

Dan Fouts  42:23

Okay, we’ll take care of everybody and thanks for listening in