Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Is This the Most Radical School Ever Built?

When Sean Tevlin arrived at The Group School in 1970s Cambridge, he was a working-class dropout with a learning disability diagnosis and little hope — but the converted garage on Franklin Street operated on a radical premise: that students damaged by traditional education could heal when given dignity, voice and genuine partnership in their own learning. Between 1971 and 1982, over 600 teenagers graduated from this freewheeling experiment where weekly consensus meetings replaced top-down authority, where Kitchen Chemistry brought science into students’ kitchens, and where MIT professors tutored kids from housing projects because a moment in history made such unlikely collaborations possible. “Human beings know when they are being listened to, heard and respected,” reflects Steve Seidel, who taught there at nineteen and carried its lessons through decades at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Now, as alumni digitize yearbooks and curricula, teachers like Rosalie Fay Barnes are discovering what one Berkeley High student told her after watching footage of TGS: that when you show young people a school built on their own brilliance rather than their deficits, they don’t ask for less — they ask for more.

Be The Change

Today, notice a young person in your life-a student, neighbor, or family member-who seems disengaged or has been labeled as “struggling.” Instead of offering advice or correction, ask them a genuine question about something they care about, then listen as though they are the expert. As The Group School demonstrated, “human beings know when they are being listened to, heard and respected” — and that recognition alone can crack open possibilities that traditional teaching never could.

Real Leadership Lessons From Horses

Jennifer Schramm engaged with horses to lead behavior change. Along the way, horses led Jennifer to coherence. “Humans are predators by design. We focus, plan, and act. Horses are prey animals. They survive by sensing, attuning, and reading the field around them.” After failed attempts to control them led to frustration and anxiety, Jennifer realized the horses were mirroring her feelings. She did not need to change the horse’s behavior. She needed to change her own to coherence – to be present, aligning body, mind, and intention. “Presence is invitation enough. When we release the need to control outcomes, trust becomes possible.” The horses taught me, “Real leadership is not about control; it is about connection. It is about creating a field where others feel safe enough to be themselves,” whether horse or human.

Be The Change

The next time you are called to lead, perhaps feeling fear or anxiety, pause, take a deep breath, let go of the need to control outcomes, and let your body lead through presence and coherence.

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How Do We Rebuild Trust?

Abby Falik explores trust beginning with the very young who learn to trust authority, test scores, and approval “to override our inner knowing before we even know it’s there.” Modernity tells us we can control and trust the certainty of metrics, titles, credentials, authority, instant answers – what’s legible, the map over the territory. But trust is fraying such that the world around us carries “a low hum of suspicion: Is this even real?” “And control is what we reach for when trust feels too risky.” Abby begins within, “The more I trust myself—not to be perfect, but to be present—the more trustworthy I become. Not because I’m right or certain, but because I’m whole.” “By trusting myself, I give others quiet permission to do the same.” An even greater trust of wholeness, the “quiet pulse of spirit” reminds her “we’re held by something larger.…” Finally, repairing trust is “a species-level survival skill— the one that moves us from fear to flourishing.”

Be The Change

“Trust is an inside job,” says Abby. It is a practice that begins with a pause. Let go of certainty and control, and notice how it frees a trusting space in yourself, in others, and in life.

This Week’s DailyGood Digest

As we reflect on the past week’s highlights, stories of change and renewal resonate deeply.

Nineteen Buddhist monks walked 2,300 miles barefoot from Texas to Washington, D.C., transforming bustling streets into realms of peace and unity with their silent, saffron-clad procession. In Kashmir, farmers revived lotus stem cultivation by cleaning silted waters by hand, proving that patient, communal effort can restore both livelihoods and ecosystems. Meanwhile, a radical school in Cambridge once turned a garage into a beacon of hope for students dismissed by traditional education, showing the world the power of listening and respect. In Madagascar, rickshaw drivers outran elite athletes in ultra-marathons, demonstrating that passion and grit can defy the odds and elevate those often overlooked. An innovative school in Rajasthan cools classrooms with ancient techniques, opening new educational horizons for girls in the desert heat. In Romania’s Țarcu Mountains, European bison return after a century, with their presence rejuvenating the land and breathing life into forgotten landscapes. In the UK, a former convict leads efforts to curb knife crime, providing young victims with the support and empathy he once needed, shifting narratives from crime to redemption.

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One Hospital’s Unexpected Preventative Medicine

The University Health Network’s Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine is rolling out Ontario’s first hospital-based homelessness and eviction prevention program, which uses donations to pay off eligible UHN patients’ rent arrears, or pay first and last month’s rent so a patient can access housing. Decades of research show an inextricable link between evictions and worse health outcomes, says founding executive director Dr. Andrew Boozary. People with mental or physical disabilities, and older adults, are more likely to be evicted, and eviction can increase the likelihood of depression, substance use disorders, suicide, and premature death. UHN’s social medicine team is partnering with The Neighbourhood Group Community Services, in which people with lived experience of homelessness or drug use accompany and advocate for patients in the emergency department; as well as LOFT Community Services, which offers expertise in helping people access housing and stay housed. “This is preventative medicine,” says Dr. Boozary. “This is social medicine at its core.” The fund kicked off with $1 million raised from donors.

Be The Change

Think outside the box for problem you are trying to address. Are there indirect but proximate changes that can be made to help address the issue?

Becoming Earth

When a long-running experiment was established at the Andrews Experimental Forest, cutting ancient forests was at its peak in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, even as our knowledge of their importance was growing, says Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer. The forest ecologists believed that studying how old growth logs decay shows how elements of earth, air, fire, and water converge in ancient forest. While scientists are not theologians who study the afterlife, that is what this research plan does by tracking the log’s carbon as it disseminates into the broader ecosystem, following the nitrogen from the log to its incorporation to soil, to beetles, to thrushes. Data sheets are already prepared for the scientists who will complete the measurements long after the experiment’s designers are gone. While it is ecological science and not theology, this experiment seems an act of faith that shows that in the afterlife of trees, nothing is ever dead, Kimmerer says. “Plant breath becomes animal breath, animal becomes plant, plant becomes fungus, fungus becomes plant, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation that fulfills our deepest longing for union with the earth.

Be The Change

Take a moment today to really observe your connection to nature. Consider how your own breath, as you exhale carbon dioxide that plants absorb and inhale the oxygen they release. Reflect on how you’re part of an endless exchange of giving and receiving with the living world.

Over the Cliff: a Lesson in Being Alive

Aryae Coopersmith was driving in pouring rain on a narrow two-lane road high above a valley that winds around in hairpin turns when his car went off a cliff. At some point, he let go and prayed. “Suddenly everything is still, strangely silent. I open my eyes. Where am I? Am I alive or dead? I can’t tell.” A little tree had caught the car, and Aryae was able to get out on to the muddy embankment, and climb up to the road. As he got close to the top, he saw about a dozen people looking at him, still not sure if maybe they were angels. They had called the highway patrol, gave him blankets, and offered help. Aryae was amazed. “I look at the world around me. The exquisite beauty of it all — the glistening raindrops, the flying birds calling to each other, the trees dancing in the wind… What a miracle to be alive!” While he wouldn’t recommend it as a spiritual practice, the accident brought him the gift of seeing the world with new eyes.

Be The Change

Don’t wait for an accident! Open your eyes to the exquisite beauty of the world, and say, “Wow!”

185 Doors to Find Myself

Vicki Garlock was well-versed in world religions, and wrote multi-faith curriculum and books about faith traditions. “Somewhere in those years, I realized I needed to stop reading about other traditions and start showing up.” Almost on a lark, she signed up to break a Guinness record for visiting places of worship in one month. She thought it would be easy, but found she would need a real person to sign a verification form to document the visit. That turned out to be an opportunity for heartfelt encounters with security guards, custodians, immigrants, and people who were in Japanese internment camps to name a few. Many of the services were not in English, but Vicki walked into a place “believing we are already connected.” “…when you don’t have to worry about words — what they mean, or are trying to mean — you can let the experience wash over you. It takes the mind out of the picture. You hold it in your heart instead.”

Be The Change

Visit a faith tradition other than your own. As Vicki says, “You can go to a website, find a holiday or a service, send an email, make a call. You can say, I’m here to learn. Ring the bell. See who answers.”