Roasting cauliflower and thinking about the importance of leaning into conflict

 Most weeks I like to try cooking something new. Today it is roast cauliflower. 

I have seen many recipes for roasting cauliflower, all of them leaning into getting a bit flash for me. This one, however, I can easily hack and I suspect results will be a pretty dam delicious plate of cauliflower.

The recipe I am hacking is called Burnt Lemon Cauliflower

(I call it hacking because if I don't have some of the ingredients which is usually the case, I miss it out or add another, eg. who has fermented lemons on hand?)

	Click on the link below to see the recipe in detail.  Note, the picture is different, mine looked more like the image above.  I love scattering fresh herbs about the place. Also, note: there is also no way I have black sesame seeds, I just threw in Nigella seeds. (buy from your supermarket) Also, I left out the garlic. https://www.vervemagazine.co.nz/sunday-suppers/

Whilst sitting in our kitchen thinking about how I’m going to rearrange this recipe into something manageable, I’m also thinking about: DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press

And an article I read a few years ago Evans, R. (2012). Getting to No: Building True Collegiality in Schools. Independent School, 71(2), n2. there is something niggling in the back of my mind about both.

Evans, R. (2012)  highlights the importance of teachers moving away  from Congeniality, relationships that are based on getting on well, being warm and friendly and move towards Collegiality, relationships where its okay in fact encouraged to disagree it’s not because we ‘don’t like you’, we embrace the difference in ideas and approach, we lean into for the sake of improvement. I blogged about this some time ago.

http://exploriosity.blogspot.com/2016/09/getting-to-no.html

This article connects to DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press because if the purpose of ‘education’ is the development of intellectual capacity (Dewey 1938 & Whitehead 1939)  then as classroom teachers and educators in the broadest sense, we need to be doing everything possible to open up spaces for the improvement of ideas and an intentional capacity to listen to learn. I have known many colleagues who will do whatever they can to avoid conflict. 

In order to learn and to grow, I believe we must learn to sit in those uncomfortable spaces of conflict, (different values, differing knowledges, different attitudes and values) be courageous and lean into the discomfort, stay uncomfortable for a little bit longer than usual and learn. 

Yes, I really am thinking about this whilst hustling a cauliflower!

The cauliflower was ridiculously delicious. A perfect lunch for the next day. I will be inclined to top left over roast cauliflower with some roasted pumpkin seeds and maybe some precooked quinoa or rice.

Happy cooking - Happy reading - Happy thinking!

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education, / New York: Macmillan 

Evans, R. (2012). Getting to No: Building True Collegiality in Schools. Independent School, 71(2), n2.

Mordachai, K. (2017)    Simple Fare, A Guide to everyday cooking and eating, / Abrams, New York

Whitehead, A. N. (1929). The aims of education & other essays.  New York:Macmillan.

Getting To No

Tony Fomison No! 1971. Oil on canvas. 

Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1973.

Tony Fomison No! 

Tony Fomison Outer Spaces Christchurch

Exhibition: No Thats Wrong XXXXXX 

Saying No inside

Saying No outside

There is a difference...

When I first saw Fomison's art work, I instantly thought of Robert Evan's article titled

Getting To No Building True Collegiality in School 

I often wonder about who we are as teachers and who we are becoming. Both collectively and as individuals. That our 'Teaching as inquiry' although is about furthering success for students, it is  also about who we are and who we are becoming as teachers.

Robert Evan's discusses the role of collegial and congenial relationships in our schools. 

Collegial relationships: "... requires a focus on development and performance. It means sharing — deprivatizing — the work of teaching, and it means talking candidly, and being able to disagree constructively, about professional practice."

"The forging and sustaining of a truly collegial, collaborative ethos in a faculty means confronting deeply embedded structural and personal challenges."  Evans

Congenial relationships are: about getting along well, being friendly, warm, and supportive. "By itself, it fosters a culture of niceness and privacy, not a culture of growth." Evans

I'm wonder if it really is time we interrupted the culture of being nice in the staffroom and started setting the conditions for some thing a little bit more gritty. 

Like the Christchurch Outer spaces project. Fomison's No! was only said out loud, outside within the commons when an earthquake totally shook and disrupted everything. When Fomison's No! could no longer be seen indoors, it was taken outside.

What is it going to take for this to happen in schools?