Critical Friends

 

As an adult, I accept criticism readily and even eagerly. I appreciate a challenge and like to have direct feedback on areas of improvement. I awkwardly accept compliments and move on quickly to how I can improve, especially when it comes to my work.

Recently, I was introduced to a new concept I was not so comfortable with: the role of the "critical friend". I was charged, at a staff development session, with surrounding myself with and acting like a critical friend during my professional meetings.

A critical friend is someone who challenges our beliefs and makes us consider our viewpoint with a critical eye. Sometimes this leads to a change of heart and sometimes it solidifies our position, but the purpose is to deeply reflect and commit to the ideas we so fervently defend.

This made me think. Do I have critical friends at work? Do I act as a critical friend? Do I have critical friends in my personal life? Have I always? What happened to my relationships with past critical friends? For this examination, I reached deep into my personal history for answers.

I grew in a fairly liberal household surrounded by extraordinarily conservative households. Our news was conservative, my friends' families (and therefore they also) were conservative, my teachers were conservative. I took pride in my liberal perspective and wore it like a badge of honor. My eighth grade lunch table regularly held debates about abortion which consisted of shouting across the table and ultimately led us to other friends with similar views to our own. I found critical friends and abandoned them quickly after the novelty wore off.

I was a senior in high school during the election of 2000. Although I was unable to vote because I would not turn 18 for another year, my school was a polling place and I got heavily involved in the election. A friend and I drove around town replacing Bush signs with Gore ones or painting red x's on the ones we did not replace. We were very proud and very disappointed by the results of the election. I went a full year without talking about politics with anyone because I was so angry. I had no critical friends at this time. I couldn't stand to.

I started college three weeks prior to the 9/11 attacks. I had just begun bonding with my dorm mates when the attack happened and we quickly became a tight-knit family. It did not matter what our political beliefs were. Like many places around the country, we were united... for a time.

The debates about the Iraq War and other post- 9/11 issues surfaced within months of the attacks. Many of my new friends had very different perspectives from my own. Some were from military families, others grew up in conservative religious families, some had Muslim backgrounds. Suddenly I had no shortage of critical friends, I just never realized they were critical. I got into heated debates and challenged not only their beliefs, but my own and those of my family. I found that some of my most precious values were naive and based on a limited life experience. I began, finally, to see things from my critical friends' point of view.

Somehow though, in my professional life, the ability to find critical friends has escaped me. I have colleagues who drive me insane. My husband teases me that I am not happy in class unless I found someone to "hate". Some of my bosses make me want to scream when they do not see things my way. I do not want critical friends at work. I want work to work my way.

This is a new professional goal for me. I plan to embrace my colleagues and seek out critical friends. I'd like to challenge my own pedagogical beliefs the way I once challenged my political beliefs. I'd like to do the same for others. As long as we all truly have kids at the forefront of our minds, I think the idea of critical friendship can do wonders for professional growth.

I dare you to criticize that goal!