Chapter 2: Leading With Relational Compassion: A Contemplative Professional Education Journey Towards Collective Liberation

I am a teacher educator at a western Canadian university. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic and amid overlapping societal crises, for more than two years I have been facilitating a voluntary monthly gathering with 15 preK–12 educators. The members of this “education community” all work in different schools, but previously had been participants in a contemplative and counter-oppressive graduate course I led. Our monthly gatherings have become a kind of “refuge” where we could come together as a caring community to share our pandemic experiences, collaborate in unveiling current injustices in our educational contexts, build upon our collective compassion and healing capacities, and envision possibilities for future relational and liberatory education practices. During this time together, we have been engaging in a shared inquiry into two compassion-based practice training programs (Compassion Institute, 2023; Condon & Makransky, 2020a,b; Jinpa, 2015; Makransky, 2017; Sustainable Compassion Training, 2023) and a contemplative, relational, and counter-oppressive practice framework (Courage of Care Coalition, 2021; Lavelle et al., 2021). In this chapter, I trace the narrative path of our emergent professional learning journey.