Radical Hospitality for Learning

At a recent administrative meeting, our superintendent introduced the concept of radical hospitality. She described a personal haircut experience at salon which offered wine, shoulder/neck massage while waiting, and someone to warm her car up while she paid. Although wine and massages might seem a bit exotic at IEP meetings or parent-teacher conferences, the concept of radical hospitality is highly applicable to our work with the students and families we serve. In fact, many principals in the room immediately grasped the connection and began share their examples of their own "radical hospitality" - personalized notes & phone calls, rides to meetings, "We miss you!" postcards to truant students, etc. The room became flooded with strategies to make our families and students feel welcome, wanted, and valued in our schools. I left the meeting feeling proud of many of the examples and ideas shared.

I also wondered what practices of ours turn people away? What do we do that tells students they aren't heard, valued, or wanted? In what ways is our system stifling learning, individuality, and community rather than fostering them? I can’t help wonder about taking the concept of radical hospitality and applying it further…permeate our classrooms with it in way that truly transforms teaching and learning.


When I fuse “radical” with “hospitality” with “learning” I’m pulled to a depth of meaningful, personalized learning that is not yet common in our K12 world. It's exciting just thinking about it. I'm inspired by what's happening at Thompson School District's Innovation Lab (Be You House) in Loveland, CO and Lakewood City Schools' developing school Makerspace in Cleveland, OH. There are many more and their approaches have these common elements:

• Learning is sparked by individual passions and interests
• Learning is the focus (not content, not standards, not coverage)
• Authentic learning communities
• Meaningful and vital connections beyond school walls
• Structure but flexibility to foster freedom and remove learning boundaries  

To me, these scream radical hospitality for the mind, radical hospitality for community, radical hospitality for learning. And that's our challenge!