My world on the web
I think sometimes we push a group to all change in the same way at the same time. We add something new: a new system, a new approach, a new process, and we expect everyone to respond similarly. But some people are like my shoulder, some like my knee. We need to support the changes we want in such a way that we don’t expect the same responses and results from everyone, and realize that some people are ready to be pushed hard, and others need to go slow.
I think this is one of the biggest challenges that any leader faces when implementing change.
It reminds me of something that Corrie Barclay recently wrote in regards to reading various ‘how to’ posts:
As much as I have enjoyed reading and engaging with those countless posts and articles written and shared recently about these topics, I am also conscious… maybe not the right word… maybe it is… that schools and school leaders are doing what is right for them, their own situations and their contexts.
I can see that we are not our online personas. They are different than us. Yet they can say a lot about… but they don’t always say what we think they say.
I remember thinking early on that there could be a divide between our identity and our ideas. However, I often think back to your comment which challenged me:
As connected learners we are not just curating ideas and resources, we are creating relationships, some are just ‘weak ties’ but others are very meaning, rich and strong. I don’t just read Dean, I hear his voice, I connect to previous things he has said, and I pause just a little longer if he says something I disagree with
However, it is also important to remember, as Chris Wejr captures, is that not everyone is able to be who they are online.
I sometimes wonder if the issue is not who we are ‘online’, but who we are offline? I really like Austin Kleon’s point about keeping a diary as a private space.
I find that my diary is a good place to have bad ideas. I tell my diary everything I shouldn’t tell anybody else, especially everyone on social media. We are in a shitty time in which you can’t really go out on any intellectual limbs publicly, or people — even your so-called friends! — will throw rocks at you or try to saw off the branch. Harsh, but true.
Although I could always do more about communicating who I am online, I do not think I spend near enough time stopping and considering my offline space.
If you’ve seen a post that resonates with you, let me know. If you disagree with me, leave a comment, or send me a private one. Or, just keep reading… and I will keep writing.
I work best when I am a creature of habit, when I follow set routines and focus on the task at hand. But right now I can’t find a rhythm. I set things up and follow the plan for 2-3 days then I’m doing something completely different. My systems are temporary. My plans are not realized. I set a goal, then I do tons of things related to that goal, but somehow avoid the work that needs to be done to meet that goal.
It’s not like I’m falling apart. It isn’t that I’m overwhelmed and struggling. On the contrary, things are going well right now in many ways… it’s just that my routines are out of sync. My habits are an effort. Is it just me, or are others feeling like they just can’t get into a good groove?
Although I continued my sporadic reflections on space, I failed to find the time and mental space to bring together any extended thoughts and ideas.
Emily Baron Cadloff explains that the reason for our ‘fog’ is that our brains are working so hard in coping with the current crisis.
Nancy Sin, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, says that in stressful situations like this, there are physiological responses in our bodies. “Our stress hormones increase. We prepare to fight or flee,” said Sin. And as this pandemic continues and isolation drags on, “we’re having a lot of these physiological adaptations, each time we feel stressed, each time we feel worried. And over time, these repeated hits, physiologically and psychologically, can accumulate.”
That accumulation is called the allostatic load, essentially the damage on our bodies when they’re repeatedly exposed to stress. And while it feels like I’m doing nothing most days, my brain is still dealing with the anxiety and strain of this pandemic. I’m exhausted not because my body is working hard, but because my brain is.
Alternatively, James Hamblin questions whether everyone is depressed?
Feelings of numbness, powerlessness, and hopelessness are now so common as to verge on being considered normal. But what we are seeing is far less likely an actual increase in a disease of the brain than a series of circumstances that is drawing out a similar neurochemical mix. This poses a diagnostic conundrum. Millions of people exhibiting signs of depression now have to discern ennui from temporary grieving from a medical condition. Those at home Googling symptoms need to know when to seek medical care, and when it’s safe to simply try baking more bread. Clinicians, meanwhile, need to decide how best to treat people with new or worsening symptoms: to diagnose millions of people with depression, or to more aggressively treat the social circumstances at the core of so much suffering.
I remember when the idea of social isolation was mooted, people were listing all the things they could do with the extra time and space. The reality has been something vartly different. Instead it is a time to be grateful for health and safety.
Technology doesn’t just change our relationship to the tool, it changes the relationship to our environment. It changes everything.
I need to feel that I’m committed to getting better. I need to feel that incremental improvements are not just good enough, they are my goal. I need to feel good about where I am now, and where I’m going.
Let’s commit to working together, sharing openly, and transforming our practice exponentially.
Collaboration will be key. This is not a time to try things on isolation, it is a time to work together. For now changes have been forced upon us. These changes can lead us to rush and just do small incremental changes in individual practice. Or we can be slow and thoughtful and ensure that these changes lead to a collective, exponential transformation in the way we look at content, skills and competencies, as well as our assessment and evaluation practices.
There is a lot written about the move online, such as Dean Shareski’s This is the Time. Although this time provides us an opportunity, I think that if we rush too fast that we will get the bends. I will continue to come back to Dave Cormier’s pre-pandemic piece on sustainable change. Working together we need to use the opportunity to bring everyone along with the journey.
We need to go slowly. We need to ask a lot of questions. We need to think about expectations at the provincial, district, school, and home levels.
Can you please let me know where you found this post?
https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/feed/) in Inoreader. I added this feed to my blog roll which I am then able to subscribe to.Our online actions can feed a system that rewards the shaming of others, or our actions can reflect the same sort of empathy we would want others to give us if our worst indiscretions (past or future) ever became publicly viral.
You might be interested in this piece by Kate O’Halloran on the abuse that she received when she made a mistake online. I also enjoyed Anil Dash’s recent discussion of our rights online on the Function Podcast.
For the past few months I’ve been turning off most notifications on my phone. I tend to keep my phone on silent most of the time. I still get banner notifications for a few things, but most of my notifications only go to my Notifications Center, they don’t pop up and interrupt what I’m doing. What that results in is a phone filled with red notification dots, every time I look at it. I know this would drive some people crazy, but I don’t mind.
Oliver argues that there are two things that should decide whether something should be shown as a push notification:
More often than not, the answer is no.
This is also a topic that Doug Belshaw discusses:
Don’t accept the defaults! On the other side of that very engaging, colourful screen are weaponised machine learning algorithms who are not interested in you or your wellbeing. While it sounds a bit sci-fi and dystopian to say so, they’re interested in providing shareholder value to megacorps by selling your attention to advertisers who want to change your behaviour.
Put like that, why wouldn’t you want to increase your notification literacy and that of those around you?
I know that I’ve moved away from listening to the radio to listening to podcasts and audio books during commutes and longer drives, I wonder what people will use this time for in the future? Will work start when you enter your self-driving car rather than when you arrive at work? What will the commuting experience look like?
It seems counterintuitive, that adding a bunch of extra routines helped me manage my busy schedule better, but they have strengthened my skills as an educator and a leader. I’m fitter and have more energy. I’m listening to non-fiction books that I constantly connect to my job. I reflect on my learning and life lessons here on my blog. And, I’m sure my daily meditation is helping too, although I still can’t calm my monkey brain down and concentrate on my breathing for longer than a minute, even after trying daily for over a year.
PS. It has taken my wife over 20 years to stop me from buying my own clothes and now I get compliments all the time… that never happened with things I purchased for myself. My pickiness doesn’t make me necessarily think I have good taste.
One of the most interesting thing about working as a principal in a school is that there are many issues that I’d love to write about… but I can’t. Scenarios can easily by attributed to actual people, students/parents/teachers/staff/colleagues, and that would be unprofessional. Sometimes that makes writing this blog daily rather difficult, because much of my day is broken up into a series of things that are too personal or too specific to mention. Even in explaining this, I started to write a few ‘for example’ scenarios and thought better of it after trying. I don’t have a right to share things that can affect other people’s lives in a negative way, but I also don’t want to sanitize my thinking around a topic and make my writing unauthentic.
Some days I’m spending 30 minutes ‘all-in’, this post has been a bit longer. If I needed more time this would have been popped into my drafts and I’d probably post something else tomorrow.
Personally speaking, I use Trello to put together my posts. I am interested in using Indigenous, a micro-pub client, but do not like how it saves the draft to the app rather than WordPress itself. Every workflow has its limits I guess.
It is interesting to compare your ‘daily’ habit with Kathleen Morris’ approach to writing a weekly post with ten minutes a day.
I’m not sure I’m going to change my habits back? It feels rude. Isn’t that interesting? I feel an obligation to be more generous, more ‘like’-able. I share an anniversary photo on Facebook, someone takes the time to send us well-wishes, I guess I should like their comment. I share something on Twitter and someone responds. I don’t have a response in return, so I should like their tweet as my response/acknowledgement. Someone shares a wonderful family moment on Instagram, I should be nice and like it, after all, they liked my family photo. And so suddenly my habits above became watered down to things I should do to be polite on social media.
I also enjoyed Doug Belshaw’s reflection of Twitter about likes versus bookmarks:
PSA: you don't need to add to your Twitter bio: 'likes are not an endorsement'. Just use the bookmarks feature instead. pic.twitter.com/5jleRAF66e
— ˗ˏˋ Doug Belshaw ˎˊ˗ 🇪🇺 ☠️ ✊ (@dajbelshaw) August 19, 2019
After 6 PM staff only get emails from me if they are invited in. In other words, if they have asked me a question and want an answer, then a response has been invited. But if that invitation for a response isn’t there, I delay email delivery until the next morning.
I think the hard part of the new school year is:
1. Clearly establishing expectations (hopefully with student input).
2. Being consistent with those expectations.
I also think these can be done without being intentionally hard on kids.
So let’s be realistic and while tolerating the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ mantra of the networks, remove some of the poison being spread by these idiots. Take away their identity and fame… a small price they deserve to pay for taking away people’s lives.
