Sticks & Stones: How My Life Experiences Determined My Calling/My Why

In Dialogue Education we talk a lot about the 6 Core Adult Learning Principles and the conditions needed for adults to learn well. We talk about Safety, Respect, Inclusion, Engagement, Relevance, and Immediacy as essential conditions we intentionally create in learning spaces. Over time, I have come to realize that my understanding of these principles began long before I had the language to describe them.

It began in childhood.

I can remember how easy it was to count the number of kids who looked like me on two hands. Being visibly different meant being left out, passed over, and at times bullied in ways that were both obvious and subtle. I remember rocks thrown, being tripped, and being taunted with the rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

That rhyme is not true.

The physical wounds healed. The impact of the words, the exclusion, and the feeling of not belonging stayed with me. It took me years to find language for what I was experiencing then: bias, othering, inequity. At the time, I just knew how it felt. What made it even harder was how difficult it felt to speak up. When you desperately want to fit in and belong, calling attention to how you are being treated can feel almost impossible. Silence and walking away can feel safer than speaking up and risking being cast out, no longer fitting in, or being misunderstood.

Years later, through my work in adult learning and Dialogue Education, I began to recognize something I hadn’t expected. What I experienced as a child was also what happens when the conditions for belonging, voice, and learning are missing.

The principle of Safety brings me back to how silence felt safer than speaking. In learning spaces, safety is what allows people to take the risk of using their voice without fear of being dismissed, judged, or misunderstood.

Respect reminds me that everyone has something to offer. As a child, being treated as different often felt like being treated as less than. I learned early how quickly people can confuse “different” with “wrong” or “less.” Respect, in learning spaces, is about recognizing that every person brings knowledge, experience, and perspective that matters.

Inclusion is where this feels most personal. I remember how noticeable it is when you feel like you do not belong. That feeling does not disappear with age. Even as adults, when we sense we are being overlooked or excluded, we begin to feel unseen and as though our voice does not matter. Inclusion in learning spaces is what signals to people that they belong here and that their presence is wanted, not simply tolerated.

Engagement shows up in how quickly participation diminishes when people feel this way. Disengagement is often less about interest and more about whether someone feels they truly belong in the space.

These principles have never felt theoretical to me. I know what their absence feels like. Those early experiences influenced what I notice, what feels important to me, and the work I feel called to do. In my work today, across the different spaces I work in, I find myself returning again and again to the importance of helping people feel seen, heard, valued, and supported.

I pay close attention to the words we use, the environments we create, whether people feel safe to use their voice, and to helping people recognize the strengths they carry, especially when those strengths have gone unnoticed or undervalued.

I was recently gifted a copy of Let Your Life Speak written by Parker Palmer. Reading it helped me see clearly how my life has been speaking into my work for a very long time.

Experiences like this are why inclusion, belonging, strengths, and the language we use are not abstract concepts in my work. They are lived ones. This is why this work feels less like a job and more like a calling for me.