Last week I spent several days hanging out in one of my favorite places in the United States - Santa Fe, New Mexico. I lived there for a little over a year a while ago when I needed a place to go to refresh my purpose and gain some clarity on who I wanted to be in my next stage of life. It is a great place for that and lots of folks use Santa Fe for that kind of rejuvenation and clarity-seeking.
This time, I was there to have conversations with people about the possibility of opening a second campus of Wayfinding Academy there in a few years. Since it is already the type of place that inspires purposeful thinking and exploration, it seems like it could be a good place to invite students to spend a couple years engaging in wayfinding for their lives.
I've been visiting Santa Fe about once or twice a year to get my own personal opportunities for growth and reflection. Nowadays I spend much of my time there learning about the culture of education in New Mexico and making friends with people who have dedicated their lives to helping young people get access to educational opportunities. This time, I met with a community foundation, with college counselors at a handful of high schools and programs for youth, and with people working to strengthen collaboration among the higher education institutions in the state. For 3 days I talked with people about the work they are doing, why they are doing it and what is happening in their city and state related to higher education.
During the time I was there, the state legislature was in session (Santa Fe is the capital city of New Mexico and most of my meetings were in walking distance of the state capital building) and they were considering passing a law to make it a requirement that all high school students in New Mexico apply to a college before they are allowed to graduate from high school. As you might imagine, many of the people I talked to had a lot of thoughts about this potential law and it is interesting to see what they do and don't count as acceptable "next steps" for high school students.
When I put appointments in my calendar, I often under-schedule them and don't allow for enough time to get to really deep conversations about what we are doing at Wayfinding and how it intersects with the work they are doing. It takes a while to get to the deeper whys behind our decisions to dedicate ourselves to transforming our education systems. For this trip, I made sure to give each appointment two hours and I am glad I did. In a couple cases, we spend more than two hours together in great conversation.
So many below-the-surface ideas and connections come out of sitting with someone face-to-face and talking about shared visions for the future and frustrations about how our education system is failing students. There is power in these sorts of conversations and they happen far too rarely. And for those of us who are introverts and want lots of quiet time to ourselves, it can be hard to prioritize spending a lot of time in conversation with others. But give it a try...the next time you are in search of a refresh or reflection, try seeking out someone doing work in the field you care the most about and have a conversation (be sure to allocate 2 hours in case you need it). I would love to hear how it goes for you.