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Ditch False Urgency and Focus on the Moment

man in black long sleeved shirt and woman in black dress

Romantic relationships. I’ve never been good at them. A few people have told me that I lack some basic insights in this department….whatever that means. I’ve never had a strong desire to be part of another duo (I’m already a twin) and there’s no ticking clock that’s urging me to contribute to the ever-increasing human population (now approaching 7.4 billion). Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for people who have followed this path, and I love spending time with others. It’s quite possible that someday I might meet that person I could spend multiple days with, but for now the urgency is just not there.

Sometimes people I know try to create a false sense of urgency out of kindness and concern, because they want me to “find happiness”. I’ve been told to consider freezing my eggs (because you never know). I’ve also been encouraged to join various dating sites. (There are the usual ones like Match and eHarmony, and then there are some strange ones like…) These are all suggestions from people who truly care about me, but they act like I’m running out of time to reach some necessary milestone in life.  (What exactly are the necessary milestones in life today?)

I am convinced relationships are important in life because humans are social creatures. It is important to remember that like marriage, any relationship takes effort and care, whether it’s a new friendship, life-long childhood connection, or a collaboration between coworkers. Why though do we still put such urgency on the romantic relationship as the end-all-be-all of relationships? A scientist might say, this is the one relationship that ensures our survival as a species, but I have a feeling romance is not a prerequisite for babies, even though it sometimes precedes them.

While our emphasis on marriage and coupledom is problematic for many reasons, this is just one instance of our tendency towards creating a false sense of urgency. This urgency has a more pervasive impact throughout our lives because it trains us from an early age to continually think about the future. It’s important to have life goals, but if we are always looking ahead we often miss the moments for exploration. These are the moments in which we get to know ourselves, moments in which solid relationships and connections occur.  This is not a new idea, but it has important implications for educators and parents.

If we are continually emphasizing the future with our children, the end of class, the end of the unit, the grade in the course, the GPA on the transcript, the end of high school, acceptance to  a good college, getting a top job, finding a life partner, getting married, having children, etc…we move our focus away from the moments of growth and exploration that will help young people actually reach these milestones (or others) and feel fulfilled. By continually fixating on these traditional milestones, it not only skews our focus to the future,  it places these options on a pedestal, while diminishing less traditional paths that might ultimately lead to more happiness, contentment, and success in the long run.

This idea is best captured in a quote by Arthur Ashe:

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”

When the end of the year is in sight, teachers tend to think about how little time there is left and yet so far to go, a vision focused on the outcome–the final measure–and not the process.  We continue to talk about how relationships must precede wellbeing, learning, and growth, but the system keeps pushing us to complete another evaluation, standard, or test. And to add to these system shortcomings, we lean on a false sense of urgency that the student must go from point A to point Z, forgetting it’s all about the moments in between. These moments build the relationship that allows for growth and fulfillment.

So take a moment to consider what is truly urgent, growth or the grade, finding happiness or marriage.  If you focus on the outcome, you may miss what’s actually at play:  the doing, the exploration, and the building of relationships.

How can we as teachers keep from falling into a bad romance created by a false sense of urgency?

  1. First, actually build relationships, don’t just talk about their importance. Relationships cannot be quantified, tracked, or recorded, no matter how hard we try. Stop trying. Make a point to talk to each student everyday. Ask more questions. Listen first.
  2. Provide time for exploration so that you and your students can better understand yourselves and each other. Play is okay. Every minute of the day does not need to be scheduled. Structured time has its place, but unstructured time is also extremely valuable.
  3. Reflect, reflect, reflect on the doing  and not only on a single specified outcome. I triple dog dare you to start a blog. It’s common to say that there isn’t enough time for reflection, but intentional reflection can and should be a part of your professional and personal life. Reflect with your students. Encourage your students to practice reflection.
  4. When all else fails just smile, take a deep breath, and have some fun. You can let the waves crash into you or you can find a way enjoy the chaos. Repeat the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

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Play On

I never would have eaten cow tongue if I had known what it was, but my grandmother never gave me a choice. She fried it up and I ate it. The texture was tough but spongy on the surface. Catsup definitely helped this delicacy. During most of my childhood my grandmother cooked, and I was expected to eat whatever she made. My grandmother also continuously body-blocked me from watching more than 30 minutes of television after school. My sisters and I would be just finishing up an episode of MacGyver, and my grandmother would often insist that we’d had enough. 

I’m seeing the opposite occur with many children today. While they are still limited in their options for meals, children are often given a choice for what they would like to eat. Additionally, given the popularity of tablets, children can easily access their favorite shows during short trips in the car, and even while eating meals. (I’m not saying these are  options offered to all children today or that providing children with choice is bad. I’m just noting a change.) It might seem that children and young people today have unlimited choices in the consumption aspects of life. 

However, the question I have is: Do students today know how to make a choice, when given an open opportunity? Their lives today are overscheduled and while they are given options about what instrument to master, and sport to play, etc.– Are these really choices?  Where is the unstructured time for exploration and discovery throughout a lifetime? We talk about how something is lost when comparing a kindergartener to a senior in high school. Is this really surprising? 

Many schools do an excellent job at the younger levels promoting play, but this is often a missing component at the upper levels of our educational system. An article from 2015 in TIME summarizes nicely the advantages of incorporating more “play” into the teenage classroom, giving hope to many teachers who strive to incorporate more student voice and choice:

“Giving students occasions to learn through play not only fosters creative thinking, problem solving, independence, and perseverance, but also addresses teenagers’ developmental needs for greater independence and ownership in their learning, opportunities for physical activity and creative expression, and the ability to demonstrate competence.”

Reading something like this definitely is philosophically inspiring, but often times I struggle to see this happen in my own classroom, when I give students time to explore or investigate a topic of their choice that relates to the course.  Students often ask me, “What do you think I should do?” or “Just tell me what you want me to do.”  When I ask them to use their creativity a few will produce some amazing products using art, video, creative writing, but many just want to create a google slides presentation. I’m not saying I haven’t seen some amazingly engaging google presentations, but this is their comfort zone. 

What is going on? I have a few ideas:

1. The students have not learned how to make a choice or be creative in the school/classroom setting.  They have went through their lives learning to work the system, so they fall back to their places of comfort–Do what the teacher wants, earn a good grade, be successful.  Most of my students are juniors and seniors, and while they make progress throughout the year, and produce some amazing products,  they still struggle internally with these opportunities initially.

They definitely do not lack this ability, because once outside the classroom,   it’s easy so see them easily accessing vast amounts of creativity and passion. Whether it’s playing guitar in a band, or beginning a plastic pollution coalition within the local community. We as teachers, see these examples and immediately understand how these could be connected to our classrooms, but our students may not be aware of this possibility, based on their prior experiences.

2. The students have no energy left for choice or creativity. When students are involved in so much outside of the school day, extra-curriculars, a job, service-learning requirements, students have very little energy left in school to invest in tasks that require higher order thinking and application. Earlier this year, I was invited by a student to the teacher appreciation night for hockey. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed seeing my student do something he truly enjoyed. It was one of the highlights of my year. The game however, did not finish until 10pm, and while the players for our school could make it home at a semi-decent time, the traveling team still had a two hour journey home. This seems like a very long day, and I am amazed at the commitment and discipline of the many student athletes I know.

3. The culture in my classroom and others  is not yet one of comfort to take the risk. While I do my best to create a welcoming environment where students are encouraged to pursue their interests, I still have to attach a grade to their work. This is a huge roadblock for a student who sees this choice and creativity as a potential risk to their transcript and eventual college acceptance.  What are some strategies for making the grade less powerful? (This will probably be a future blog post, but if you have any suggestions, I’m open to hearing from you.) I’ve been reading the recent posts by Arthur Chiaravalli, about teachers “going gradeless”, which has definitely sparked my internal examination of grades and grading in my classroom.

When I have to make a choice in life, I often think of my grandmother and consider, “What would Bernadine do?”  She was the strongest no-nonsense person I have known to date, and while it may have first seemed she was controlling my childhood, by turning off the television and implementing a “no fuss” meal policy, she was actually providing me with more unstructured time to play and explore with my sisters and friends. We would ride bikes in the summer, sled in the winter,  roll down hills  and eat ground cherries at her farm, or just quietly read for pleasure. She didn’t plan activities for us or make suggestions. She just told us to “Go play!” My grandmother was wise, and I am hopeful we can begin to focus on play again at all ages of life.

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The Scoby of Education

3-Innovation: The Scoby of Education

Scoby stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, and is the vital component for transforming tea into the effervescent beverage kombucha enjoyed by many. Kombucha is not a new innovation in the thirst-quenching industry, even though its growing popularity as of late might have hinted at a recent birth. While the origin is fuzzy at best, many believe that this “Tea of Immortality”  originated in China approximately 2,000 years ago. There are many legends connecting it to significant past cultures,  including the Samurai and even Genghis Khan. Kombucha is brewed through fermentation of sugar and tea by the yeast in the Scoby, resulting in alcohol and carbon dioxide. The bacteria in the Scoby then convert the alcohol  to various organic acids and water.

Now I’m a fan of kombucha for several reasons. Foremost, it is chemistry, and. as a high school chemistry teacher, the science itself hooks me. There are also  several proposed health benefits that might result from consuming this beverage containing probiotics, from antiviral/bacterial properties to  promoting liver and digestive health. In the end though, I admire the simplicity and the versatility of the process and product. While the thread of fermentation science remains the same, one can create a variety of flavors using different teas along with experimentally refining the chemical process. Ultimately,, the science is simple and once you’re successful you can continue to easily produce kombucha without much effort through transferring the SCOBY from batch to batch.

So why did kombucha come to mind? Well it all started when I was asked to respond to this prompt:

What does innovation mean to you?

What does it actually look like in your classroom, school, or role as an educator?

While the answer to this question continually changes and grows, there is first the initial challenge of defining the term “innovation”. . I appreciate the simplicity of the  definition coined by Geoff Mulgan, and presented to me by A.J. Juliani in his post, Innovation is the Buzzword We Need in Education Right Now. 

Innovation is simply new ideas that work.

So why scoby? Well, I believe innovation is to education as scoby is to tea for the following reasons:

1. They are messy. Both scoby and innovation are very elusive at first. Scoby is a gelatinous blob, and without any scientific background, you’re not quite sure what it’s doing as it floats on top of the tea (or when you take your final sip of a bottled version). Likewise, many thoughts or discussions of innovation begin as an ethereal notion, because to some they hope it  just might “work”. However, when you begin any form of innovation in the classroom the process likely is at first  messy because it involves learning how to relinquish control, diversify experiences, and ultimately allow students the lead in  some aspect of  learning.  Just like refining the kombucha brewing process, you must keep tweaking and trying, in order to achieve optimal conditions for success.

2. They are symbiotic. Symbiosis usually refers to a mutually beneficial relationship between two entities. The scoby or Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, is the key to this transformational process. The bacteria and yeast work together to transform the tea into an enjoyable, fizzy beverage.  Without the alcohol from the yeast the bacteria would not be able to produce the organic acids characteristic in the varieties of kombucha.  Innovation also should be a symbiotic process. This symbiosis , often in the form of collaboration, occurs between colleagues, teachers, and students. All parties involved are creating, learning, and growing together.

3. They are flexible and accessible. Kombucha is flexible, because while there is a general method for making it, you can experiment with various types of teas and flavors. Kombucha is accessible because while the bottled versions of Kombucha in the stores can cost you $4, it is easily mass produced in anyone’s  kitchen with simple ingredients. Likewise, innovation is flexible because the various strategies employed can be tweaked for a specific group of students, and innovative strategies are innovative because they are successful  for a diverse student population. Just like a bottle of Kombucha, many schools spend vast amounts of money on innovative curriculums pre-designed for teachers to utilize. While many are very effective at engaging students, that doesn’t mean that individual or collaborative teacher groups do not possess the knowledge, talent, and commitment to successfully promote innovation in their own classrooms and curriculums.( I would argue that this is a more valuable form of innovation, because a specific student group is in mind when the design occurs.)

4. They are both transferable. The scoby used in making Kombucha can be transferred from batch to batch, allowing for one to continually enjoy the beverage in the future.  Additionally, the scoby itself can be given as a gift to a “fermentation  friend”  who desires to begin the kombucha making process. Innovation is also transferable because strategies that work and are truly innovative should be shared and reflected upon. More importantly though the skills and student ownership of learning that is often promoted using innovation is transferable to a student’s future in the world of college or work. (I personally like the Tony Wagner’s Seven Survival Skills, even though I hope for more than just survival for my students in the future.)

So yes, innovation is to education as scoby is to tea.  This is an unusual analogy, but using analogies can be a helpful method for examining your own thoughts or communicating those ideas to others. After reading this, I hope I have at least convinced you to examine your own ideas surrounding innovation and share them with a colleague or two, maybe while enjoying a bottle of kombucha. 

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Hygge and Happiness

Hygge while difficult to accurately translate into English, is defined by the Oxford dictionary as a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).  I was first introduced to this term earlier this year, by my former student who had spent a semester studying in Copenhagen. Thanks to social media, I was able to live vicariously through her posts, and the city has moved to the top my list for places to visit. While Norway surpassed 154 other countries as the  happiest country in 2017, Denmark took a close second and has previously been at the top of the list. The United States was ranked fourteenth.

Happiest Countries (2017)

  1. Norway (7.53)
  2. Denmark (7.52)
  3. Iceland (7.50)
  4. Switzerland (7.49)
  5. Finland (7.46)
  6. Netherlands (7.37)
  7. Canada (7.31)
  8. New Zealand (7.31)
  9. Australia (7.28)
  10. Sweden (7.28)

The list above isn’t surprising, and I’m sure we could discuss at length the difficulty of defining and measuring a country’s happiness. However, we can at least agree that happiness is a key life goal for the majority if not all people. Ask anyone, and while some put making a lot of money at the very top, most people desire happiness. In fact, experts in the growing field of positive psychology have devoted entire careers to studying happiness.

A very helpful perspective comes from the work of Shawn Achor in his book The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work. This book in a nutshell convinces the reader that success  does not precede happiness, but happiness precedes success, because your cognitive abilities are improved when you are in a happy state. While this is a simple relationship to understand, it is a challenging task to put into practice for many today, including our students who are super-scheduled, aways plugged-in, and continually focused on their next accomplishment or potential failure. (Here’s an interesting and very humorous TED Talk by Shawn Achor that captures his important work in positive psychology.)

Knowing this, the important question becomes: How do we as educators and schools as institutions provide a recipe that promotes student happiness and ultimately success? While I do not have any concrete fixes or well-researched answers, I believe it has something to do with the school environment and purpose. First, our school environment might do well to borrow from the Danish concept of “hygge”. While we are often racing a clock, or thinking about the next assessment, I think it is important to take the time to relax, enjoy the moment, and focus on building relationships with students. We all want to know our students, but we only really get to know someone when we are in an unstructured safe, comfortable environment where we can be ourselves and pursue our interests. While classrooms can be welcoming and safe, the environment and time spent is rarely unstructured, and students are striving to live up to someone else’s expectation or at the worst are completely checked out because the expectation seems insurmountable.

In addition to the environment, the purpose of school is vital. Many view school as a necessary stepping stone to success in life, because it leads to getting into college or university. The skills and knowledge gained at college then lead to a successful career where a person can make an ample living, and this ultimately leads to success in life. Many schools define their purpose or mission statement as preparing students for participation in the real world as engaged and informed global citizens. While this purpose is worthy, shouldn’t schools place more emphasis on the happiness of the student?

On a “positive note” (pun intended), I think schools are starting to do this. First, many teachers have introduced mindfulness using sites like Calm  and are not afraid to take some time out of the hectic day to introduce students to the benefits of meditation.  Additionally, many schools are beginning to see the advantages of curricular strategies like Genius Hour that allow students the time to explore an individual interest or goal. These both point to a shift that is essential to achieving success, a shift towards emphasizing well-being of the whole person over test-scores and happiness and growth over content-coverage.  With that, I hope that all students and teachers find hygge and happiness in life!