Circle time taught me most of what I need to know about leadership — how to listen, how to share, and how to make space for every voice in the circle. Back then, the circle was a brightly patterned rug where small voices learned to take turns and big feelings found room to breathe. We passed a small stuffed teddy bear like a torch, a tiny flame of attention moving hand to hand. It was simple, and it was sacred: a daily ritual of belonging.
Fast forward fifteen years, and my classrooms look different. The rug has been replaced by seminar tables, leadership retreats, conference presentations — and the glow of a Zoom screen. My learners are no longer four-year-olds but thirty-, forty-, and fifty-plus year-olds — school leaders, educators, and doctoral students. And yet, here’s the truth I keep coming back to: inside, we are all longing for the same thing — connection.
Teaching preschool taught me that learning begins with belonging. Before colors and counting, children need to feel safe and seen. Neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino‑Yang puts language to that intuition: “It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about.” Safety and visibility are what let caring take root — so attention can deepen into thought, and thought into learning. That truth didn’t vanish as my students grew up; it has simply changed shape.
These days, when I gather on a weeknight with my graduate students on Zoom, I picture a campfire. There’s no literal flame, but the warmth is real — the glow of shared stories, the sparks of ideas, the quiet comfort of being together after long days working in independent schools across the country. We come for light and heat, but we stay for the connection and the ritual of gathering. A Zoom grid doesn’t crackle like logs, but it glows in its own way — faces leaning toward light, voices weaving across the miles. In person or online, the impulse is the same: to draw near, to share, to belong.
Designing that warmth has become my professional passion: How do we create psychological safety reliably, whether we’re around a table or in a virtual space? Titles and roles — principal, dean, professor — don’t vanish, but they soften when shared purpose leads. In my instruction I rotate who facilitates, invite quieter voices into the discourse, and use mixed groupings that shift from week to week. I ask about students’ sick parents and colicky newborns. I open class with collective check-ins to see what emotions folks are bringing into our learning environment that evening. I allow for silent pauses. I design brief rounds of group work to build momentum, and provocative breakout prompts that invite both evidence and experience — questions like, “What surprised you?”, “Where did you change your mind?”, and “What are we still curious about?” Taken together, these facilitation moves form the architecture of psychological safety, a precondition that drives cognitive risk‑taking and collective growth.
One evening, halfway through a doctoral seminar I was teaching on Zoom this fall, Maria’s voice broke through our digital quilt of faces. Tearful but composed, she spoke with that quiet steadiness people use when they’re holding themselves together: “I feel like I’m failing my teachers.” A longtime principal, she kept her eyes on the desk just out of frame; her square seemed to dim as she exhaled. For a moment, the screen felt frozen — not from bandwidth, but from silence. Then another voice unmuted: “Me too.” A third leaned toward the camera: “You’re not alone.” Hearts from her cohort mates bloomed in the chat — small, bright gestures of care. What followed wasn’t on the syllabus, but it was the most important learning of the night. Vulnerability became oxygen, and the campfire burned brighter— not because of perfect planning, but because the space was warm enough for honesty.
We often frame education as content delivery, but I believe it’s more like weaving. We’re not just transmitting knowledge; we’re stitching lives together — thread by thread, story by story. Whether the loom is a preschool circle time rug or a graduate-level Zoom screen, the pattern is the same: connection creates meaning. And here’s the paradox: the older we get, the more we pretend we don’t need it. Adults rarely admit they crave belonging, but they do. I see it in the way students linger after class, pulling their chairs closer — or staying on Zoom for a few extra minutes — just to keep the conversation going, even after a long day of teaching and coaching. I hear it in the questions that surface when the formal agendas end: Am I enough? Do I matter here? Am I valued for my contributions?
Circle time had answers for those questions. So does our campfire — if we choose to make it so. As an educator‑leader, I find my work is less about perfect syllabi and more about steady flames: creating structures that welcome, rituals that include, and a climate where curiosity outranks certainty. Projects will still wobble; glitter will still find a way onto our sleeves. But if the space is warm and the invitation is sincere, people risk being honest, and honest communities learn.
The truth is simple and stubborn: belonging precedes learning. It did on the cheerful rug with the talking‑stick teddy bear; it does at the seminar table; it even shows up on a Tuesday after 9 p.m. in the Zoom room. We keep coming back to the circle — to the campfire — because we remember how it feels to be seen, and we want that for our students, our colleagues, and ourselves.
