Written by A dear colleague/friend just told me that I seem “depressed;” that my “joy and enthusiasm aren’t present much of the time” that we are in the same room.
How’s that for a wake up call?
Needless to say, I’ve been doing some soul-searching since reading that and will continue to do so. At this point, I believe that I’m not “depressed” (at least not in a clinical sense). However, I do think I’ve become frustrated and even angry. Having spent the better part of the last 12-18 months engaged in conversations at the intersection of educational technology, leadership and reform and seeing very little change beyond small pockets of “innovation” has caused me terrible frustration. If you believe most of what I’ve read/seen/heard over the last year or so, the entire P-20 system is headed off a cliff, and only those with great foresight and agility will avoid the cliff dive. “Foresight” and “agile” are not characteristics of most schooling organizations of which I know.
That said, surely there is more to my psychological state than my frustrations with the P-20 educational system. So, since the new academic year is upon us (our first full-faculty meeting is next week), I thought I’d make some new (academic) year’s resolutions.
First and foremost, I’m going to make it a point to be more “present,” to live more “in the moment.” That’s always been a problem for me, even before the digital age and the era of continuous partial attention. I live in my head a lot and I’m always thinking about what I have to do, want to do, etc. My generalized anxiety largely prevents me from being truly present. I don’t know that social media and other forms of technology have exacerbated my inability to be present, but I’m certain they haven’t helped. I intend to revisit the works of Jon Kabat-Zinn who writes/speaks about mindfulness. I was introduced to his work a long time ago by my wife and one of her psychologist friends. Before our first child was born, my wife bought me a copy of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. I read most of it, but not closely enough; ironically, I wasn’t able to really be present with the text.
I don’t know (yet) if being more “present” and more “in the moment” necessarily means disconnecting/unplugging and/or “going off the grid;” that’s something I’ll have to interrogate. But, I know that unless it’s necessary, I’m not going to open my laptop during meetings, conferences, etc. I’m pretty good about doing the same during time with my wife and kids, but I’m going to make it a point to be truly with them during family time. Also, I’m going to try to rid myself of negative influences and to avoid interacting with people who don’t add value to my life. One step in that direction is to significantly reduce the number of individuals I follow on Twitter. Too much of what I read/see there causes me to wince and I can’t afford that right now. In general, I need to significantly “prune and tune” (I credit Howard Rheingold for this terminology, but I can’t find where he said that) my network.
My second resolution is to really pursue my passions. I hope this doesn’t sound too selfish, but I have to learn to say “no” more often and pursue the sort of work that I really want to do. I feel pretty confident that some of my frustration/anger comes from having to do so much work that is important, but just not that interesting to me. I’m fortunate to be in a position where I *can* say “no” if I need to and in a place where I *can* pursue my interests. There’s no question that I get lost in my head and in various social media pursuits because I’m bored with going through the motions related to certain parts of my professional life. There’s also the lingering reality of having to apply for tenure relatively soon, and I’m not going to get there by agreeing to do too many things that don’t advance my own individual agenda.
So, this (academic) year will be guided by two “P”s: presence and passion.
I may add to these resolutions in the next week or so. We’ll see.
What are your new (academic) year’s resolutions?
Jon, well, we all go through moments like that. Yet yours should probably be in February, not August. Hopefully, you’ve taken a real vacation–sans technology, news and books–for a minimum of ten days. If not, stop reading, go thereto, and return.
On “P-20 system is headed off a cliff”, I’ve felt that at times; not recently. In fact, I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in years!! Indeed, I see a convergent opening I’ve long hoped for, but always seen beyond the horizon. The time is now.
Why optimism?
1) Platforms.
We who have labored for, say, decadish, in the transformation of curricula from text to new media have been oft disappointed. One of those reasons is simply the underlying tech. It was never flexible, agile enough. Yet take this comparison two LMSsystems (relatively straightforward software):
* Moodle, the competing, locally installed, learning management platform, took 1.5 million lines of code. The software is free, but running an instance is certainly not.
* edu2.0, the cloud-based LMS, with additional community features, and published api’s for add-ons, took only 40,000 lines of code. It requires no installation; the server costs are dead cheap, and use by LEA’s is essentially free.
2) Awareness.
Classroom 2.0 is approaching 50,000 members. It’s less than three years old! No idea how many are ‘regulars’, but it remains solidly active. It’s sister,
FutureOfEducation.com runs 5-8 webinars a week, passing on the new ideas and sharing the joy.
3) Blogging and Ning are old hat. OK, not for everyone, but the thought leaders can begin to get beyond them. Those leaders have hyperventilated on these (and Twitter, etc., etc) for several years now. We can move on to real educational content.
In the spirit of the latter, yes, shut off Twitter. Who can put a real thought in 128 characters? More importanly, who can retain a bit of focus while dealing with it? I’m lucky to retain focus checking a handful of websites semi-daily!
Joy comes from being engaged in a project. Not from watching!
Jon, pursuing your passion is very important and *NOT* selfish. When you are your most authentic self…you are probably doing something you are passionate about. I think that’s a great resolution. Both of your resolutions are things I work on as well. Good luck in your journey.
Presence and passion – I like that a lot. At the end of the last school year I decided I needed to close my laptop while my students are in our classroom. It’s just too easy for me to get distracted by it if it is open. Then my husband and I decided that 5-8 pm was going to be family time, free from online distractions. We’ll see how it goes!
@Ed, I’m glad you’re optimistic. Have you read DIY U by Anna Kamenetz? Your pu pu platter of platforms and awareness are a bit of the foundation of her notion of DIY learning. And, I use “learning” there purposely. I think the opportunities for learning are nearly boundless now; but, what does that do for institutionalized schooling? Doesn’t the web as a “platform of participation” (Michael Wesch’s terminology) ultimately push institutionalized schooling over the cliff? I ask that without judgment, but the fact of the matter is that my kids get fed largely because I work for a formal institution of learning. I think (but could be wrong) that I’m developing the right set of skills and dispositions to be agile enough to take advantage of these new affordances for learning, but it’s all a little…well…scary.
And, I’m not giving up Twitter; at least not yet. It’s the faculty lounge and/or water cooler that I don’t have at my university (which may be a sad statement about where I work, but…).
Jon, your post really hits home … for reasons best explored over a cup of coffee, not via a blog comment.
Any chance we can connect the last week of August when I am (hopefully) down in Arlington? I say hopefully because I’m trying to rearrange some things to make that trip possible. Let me know. -kj-
Jon, maybe I’m optimistic because I’m outside the institution.
Yet I wouldn’t write off the institutions! We’ve met too many teens, kids, and adults, to think they’re all going to miraculously become self-directed. They’ll still need teachers, and they’ll still need to group in face-to-face communities.
i see where you’re coming from: if you read today of the for-sale sign at Barnes&Noble, and the one year horizon for Kindle-books outselling paperbacks; I can see your concern!
Then, too, I’ve long had questions about what schools of education brought to the mix. The studies that show a MS Education adds nothing to student performance, perhaps takes away. The lack of content knowledge teachers bring to school.
I do hear how no one needs to learn content any more. How they will all learn later if they just learn to learn now. And that’s depressing.
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In fact, now that we mention it,…I’ve been waiting ten years for someone from a school of education to step in and support the missions of OpenHistoryProject.org, in some academic way, providing some supporting analysis, or some clinical experimentation. Or just pen a long blog post weighing the possibilities.
While looking for that forward-looking ed-school academic., I’ve seen prattling about “New Media Literacy” (which is really just literacy with a dollop of platform/button awareness). Yet I see little hard work on what would make content absorption much more engaging. Little testing of the type that video game manufacturers have to do to make money.
Maybe I am just looking for something completely different in education.
Or, just really impatient!
Jon,
Congratulations on your resolutions.
In early July I changed jobs, from an Assistant Superintendent of a 6,000 pupil school system in New Hampshire (3rd largest in the state) to the Chief Human Resource Officer at a virtual school in New Hampshire. The change is one that was scheduled for some time and, as such, was much anticipated.
Fast forward to this past weekend…
I run fairly regularly, and during my run this past Sunday I found myself thinking about my new role at the virtual school and the opportunity it provides me to help shape the culture and organization of a rapidly growing organization, but also change the definition of what it means to be educated here in New Hampshire. As I ran (and thought) I became more excited about my job, thought about specific examples of how I could do it better, brainstormed ideas, and more fully developed constructs. I realized that this was the first time in years (since I was teaching) when my thoughts wandered off like this during my run.
It’s important to understand that the move I made to the virtual school was not without a cost. I took more than 20% pay cut, lost fringe benefits, and could no longer contribute to a 403(b) plan. Oh, and the workload at the virtual school is double that of my old job. Yet, the feeling I had during my run, one of excitement and euphoria, was an indicator to me that I was in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things. I had (re)found my calling. I rediscovered my passion for being on the cutting edge of and forcing the conversation about transforming education… and it feels great.
Best of luck as you seek out your passions.
I heard this guy interviewed on NPR. His family turns off the Internet every weekend. Food for mindful thought.
As someone who also “lives in his mind” I can state that the most important thing to remember is that “being present” is simply not enough; while you are thinking about it, someone is doing it, so why isn’t that someone you? (not saying you need to do more) rather focus on the action of doing, rather than ‘thinking’ about what you could be doing. Happiness lies in action, sometimes it’s the examination of life that can render it not worth living because a lot of things lose their beauty under careful inspection.
As for twitter, rather than seeing it as an alternative or barrier to presence, I see twitter as a state in and of itself. Sometimes I don’t think I have time for twitter, so I turn it off b/c I feel I can’t be fair to my work or to my twitter followers and would rather do one thing well than two things poorly.
Most of all, just remember that your happiness is up to you (based on your actions not your thoughts); by how you frame your work, by whom you associate with, by how you respond to your circumstance (and today’s circumstances in education are quite dire for everyone).
Everyone deserves happiness, be happy in the knowledge that the work you have done on your blog and twitter has improved all of our circumstances by helping to point the masses in the direction of true north in education (even if we aren’t always moving in that direction).
i love the honesty in your post Jon.
i love your resolutions.
i believe if we all pursued our passion… presence would be the norm.
warm regards.
Jon,
Interesting post, and first off, I have to say that I love the book Everyday Blessings. I think it has a lot to say beyond parenting, as well.
I find that I too have bumped up against that frustration off and on the last four years. The more I’m immersed in virtual conversations about innovation and change, the harder it is sometimes to function in a traditional institution with its boundaries. But then, a page will turn, and I’ll see the seeds growing in my own school (seemingly overnight after four or five years), and then I feel a little more hopeful. It’s like the mythical creature in Dr. Doolittle, the “Push-me-pull-me”.
I do think focusing on what our own gifts and talents are helps us become both happier and more in the “flow,” so I applaud your efforts this year!