People ask about the name "Leaving The Village" all the time. Many say they've always thought that "it takes a village," which is true. While it takes a village, Leaving The Village represents a different aspect of community: growth through embracing change and new ideas.'
The concept of Leaving The Village comes from the film The Village by M. Night Shyamalan. In the movie, an isolated community lives in a forest, cut off from the outside world. They live in fear of what lies beyond their village, clinging to everything they know, even when it stops serving them. The elders believe they are protecting their people. What they are actually doing is keeping them stuck. At one point, a few villagers decide to leave to find medicine for someone who is sick. When they cross the boundary and discover the outside world, they are shocked by what they find. But instead of embracing it, fear takes over. They go back to the village. Back to the comfort of what they know.
We do something similar in schools. We build villages, familiar systems, practices, and responses to student behavior. And we hold onto them long after they stop working, because change is uncomfortable and the unknown feels risky. Schools stuck in their villages keep suspending the same students, dealing with the same staff frustration, and sitting through professional development that changes nothing. Not because the people in those buildings don't care or the training is all bad. But because the system they're working inside was never designed to produce different results.
Leaving The Village is about helping schools get out of their comfort zone and build something different. Not abandoning everything that came before, but being honest about what's working, what isn't, and what needs to change. That takes courage, and it also takes clear systems and support to put it into practice.
