Calming the Culture Wars in our Schools with Journalist Monica Guzman (Ep. 9)

Episode Notes

In the end, nobody wins the culture wars, says journalist Monica Guzman. The surprising key to overcoming these conflicts is to become curious rather than confrontational — to reframe the us/them confusion with complexity. Guzman also urges us to reject the easy answers — the sense of certainty many of us feel that we have all of the answers and they don’t.

Becoming curious means, we must become better listeners. Real listening, Guzman says, demonstrates that we understand and care about what others are thinking. Too often, we’re only interested in conveying what we believe and trying to win arguments. When we listen, people begin to open up and take risks, and that’s when real progress is made.

Tune in to hear more of what Guzman thinks will enable us to escape the toxic divides over our schools.

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ABOUT MONICA GUZMAN

Mónica Guzmán lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She’s Director of Digital and Storytelling at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, host of the Crosscut interview series Northwest Newsmakers, and author of the upcoming title from BenBella Books: I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Available for pre-order now! Mónica was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public. Before committing to the project of helping people understand each other across the political divide, Mónica cofounded the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey and led a national network of groundbreaking local newsletters as VP of Local for WhereBy.Us. She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties' Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Monica’s website: moniguzman.com

Be sure to check out her TEDx Seattle talk - "How Curiosity Will Save Us"
November 20, 2021

For Mónica Guzmán, curiosity isn’t a muse that flits by when we wonder about something. It’s the most powerful tool we have to navigate our world, especially when our world is dangerously divided along political lines. “If you can’t be curious across divides in a polarized world,” she says, “you can’t see the world at all.”

Mónica shares examples of curiosity-driven conversations that make it possible for even the most opposed liberals and conservatives to see and hear one another, despite the misperceptions from their news feeds. With simple, powerful questions she herself has used in countless treks across the divide, Mónica shows us how having critical conversations with people—instead of about them—changes everything. And how taking the first steps toward understanding the views that most confound us isn’t just possible, it’s easier than you think.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Testimonials:

“One of the most courageous ways to have conversations is to put curiosity first — ahead of winning, ahead of impressing others, ahead, even, of the need to be right. This podcast puts in the effort, and it shows.”

- Monica Guzman, Senior Fellow for Public Practice, Braver Angels