Sitting in a taxi this morning on my way to Edinburgh Airport, enjoying the freshness and extraordinary light of a 4.30 am foray into the Scottish landscape, about to exchange the Scottish summer for the …
In a moment of pure and wonderful self-indulgence last week, I booked a last-minute – by which I mean actually on the day – ticket to see Cole Porter’s ‘High Society’ at the Barbican in …
Tucking into a hearty breakfast at my hotel in London last Sunday, in readiness for a day ahead at the annual COBIS conference, I found myself lingering over my baked beans. The reason for this …
At one point last Friday morning, as I addressed the audience at the 21st Century Learning Conference in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, I noted that I had observed that teachers and leaders, …
As I head to the BSME conference in Abu Dhabi this week, having sadly been unable to attend this year’s WISE conference (which I have really enjoyed since its inception in 2024), and also having …
Last week, a fellow Light Up Learning Board member came across this 2016 article from The Atlantic, and I thought it was particularly apt at this moment to share it in our history, as we all try to work out how to move definitively away from systemic, ingrained racism in our world. Written by Paul Tough, whose 2009 book ‘Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America’ profiled the black American educator, Geoffrey Canada, this article is a long but perceptive and well-reasoned read, exploring how children and young people learn the resilience we believe (and know) they need in order to thrive equally in the world.
Its key message is that young people need 4 important
mindsets or beliefs if they are going to be able to persevere:
A sense of belonging – ‘I belong here’
A growth mindset – ‘my ability and competence
grow with my effort’
A sense of self – ‘I can succeed at this’
A sense of purpose – ‘this work has value for
me’
Children who grow up in adverse circumstances, however, often don’t believe any of these things. Schools can make a difference, and I have seen schools do fabulous work in mindsets 2-4 especially. It struck me, while reading the article and reflecting, and while reading heartrending accounts over the weekend of the exclusion felt by black and minority ethnic people, that where we can all do so, so much better is in developing and sustaining a real sense of belonging. Schools, families, mentors, coaches … everyone can play their part in making this happen. We are all in this together, we are all genuinely equal, we should all belong … And we have to stand up, say this, mean it, and do something about it.
Change often happens not as a smooth evolution, but more
akin to the movement of tectonic plates, with a build up of intolerable
pressure until they can stand no more, the earth gives way in a resounding
earthquake, and new land is formed. George Floyd’s death released the tectonic
plates. let us regroup on the new ground, as equals, where we all belong
together.
There is no going back in life, only forward. Let’s do it
side by side, listening to the hurt of the past, illuminating the real stories,
redressing the issue of privilege, with humility and sorrow, but with hope for
the future, and a determination to ensure we all, all, all have an equal sense
of belonging in this world.
Once Upon A Time, roughly 9 weeks ago, when everyone in the
UK was instructed to stay at home, there was a mini (but nonetheless
confronting) crisis in Edinburgh, when root ginger for purchase was nowhere to
be found. ‘Sorry, not available’ were the words stamped across online orders,
and even kind neighbours who ventured out for shopping reported few sightings.
Great was the rejoicing on our (newly created) street WhatsApp group when a
neighbour returned triumphantly from a foray to a local shop, clutching a
rhizome or two to divvy up and post through our letterboxes.
Before you snort, and dismiss this search for scarcity as a
‘first world problem’, do let me remind you that while, yes, none of us was
about to die if we did not acquire this food, ginger is in fact a staple spice
used for culinary and medicinal purposes across the world, at all levels of
society. Widely valued for its anti-inflammatory purposes, it falls into the ‘this
is good for you’ pile of foods. Besides, it has an ancient history and is what
might be described as a ‘globally connecting’ food, given its journey across
cultures, and across human history. Should you need more information, Wikipedia
reports that:
“Ginger originated in Island Southeast Asia and was likely domesticated first by the Austronesian peoples. It was transported with them throughout the Indo-Pacific during the Austronesian expansion (c. 5,000 BP), reaching as far as Hawaii. Ginger is one of the first spices to have been exported from Asia, arriving in Europe with the spice trade, and was used by ancient Greeks and Romans. … In 2018, world production of ginger was 2.8 million tonnes, led by India with 32% of the world total.”
A global food indeed. Moreover – and critically – our
communal hunt for ginger in our small street brought us closer. The gratitude
and sense of ‘we’re all in this together, so let’s help each other’ that the
search for root ginger epitomised felt incredibly important at the time, and
still does. As a community, we are still all being asked to play our part in
supporting the fight against Covid-19, and knowing that we are not alone, and
that there are people close by to help and support us if needed, was (and is)
really significant in being able to sustain this. Besides, I have many lovely
new friends now, for which I am hugely thankful.
Anyway, the ginger story did not stop here, even though root
ginger – to everyone’s relief – soon became widely available again. The
experience of its scarcity, however, made me wonder whether it might be
possible to grow the plant at a latitude of 55.95°N, to sustain us in lean
moments ahead. Extensive research online and with friends suggested an
ambiguous response to this question, hovering around the ‘possibly yes,
possibly no’ mark, so I decided to apply
a filter of positivity and plump for ‘well, let’s try’. I tracked down a
company in the north of Scotland which sold ginger rhizomes for planting
(because shop-bought root ginger is usually treated to inhibit growth), and
when it arrived, I planted it. I watered it, placed it as close to the window
as possible, so it would receive some warmth, and waited.
Nothing happened.
I waited another week, then another week, then another.
Still nothing.
A little deflated, I moved the plant pot away from the
window, to make space for the chilli plants and basil, which were exploding in
their growth, but from time to time I checked the soil of the ginger plant pot to
make sure it wasn’t drying out.
Still nothing happened.
And then …
A few days ago …
I spotted a tiny, tiny, tiny green shoot, breaking through the surface. It was so tiny that without a very close inspection, you would miss it. And yet, it was undeniably there. The ginger plant was growing! Very, very, very slowly, admittedly, and almost certainly at such a fragile time in its lifespan that its existence hovers between life and death. But it is there, a triumph of nature and a living metaphor for almost too many aspects of our current situation to list – including the power of patience, the importance of learning to trust what we cannot control, and how it is within our own grasp to turn, resolutely, loss into positive action.
I am inordinately delighted with my living metaphor, so much
so that I wanted to share this experience as a fable. Were I still a school
leader, I would have material in this one story for several of next term’s
assemblies; watch out for its resurgence in my motivational talks. You heard it
here first.
After all, when we determinedly turn negatives into
positives, draw on the support of those around us, and share, then – and I do
absolutely, tenaciously and unwaveringly believe this – we take one step closer
to living, as the fairy tale says, happily ever after.
I very much enjoyed leading two virtual professional development sessions at the Lasswade High School Learning Festival for staff on Monday of this week – I wish I could have stayed longer! I spent the time sharing – as swiftly as I could – some of the experiences I have gained from working internationally with school leaders over the past 4 months especially, as teachers and school leaders everywhere have navigated the shift to online learning, and managed the continued, ongoing, demands of responding to student needs virtually, through the digital medium. Teachers all over the world have proved themselves incredibly adept at making this shift; the teachers I met on Monday were no exception.
I referred in my presentation at Lasswade High School to John Hattie’s latest article on the effects of the Christchurch earthquake on student attainment, and highlighted that – contrary to expectations – the grades of students who missed considerable time in school because of the disaster were, in fact, by the following year actually higher than anticipated. The students appeared not to have suffered at all academically, and the reason for this became clear to the researchers when they delved deeper into how teachers had responded to their students’ needs. The teachers had, it was revealed, worked out exactly what their students really needed, and had provided the interventions that matched these needs; rather than concentrating on teaching them what it previously generally thought that they needed (ie the scheduled curriculum), the teachers identified gaps in their students’ skills and knowledge, and helped them fill these. Motivated by the first principles of teaching – ie enabling young people to develop and thrive – they broke free of prior expectations and did what really worked.
Quite apart from reassuring teachers who are worried about the future of their students, this research should also embolden them. In this week’s TES, John Morgan writes in an excellent and thoughtful article about studies into the risks of re-opening schools, that “there is no ‘the science’ – no single point of scientific consensus”, and exactly the same applies, I would argue, to the ‘science’ of e-learning. There is no single method of e-learning that can be described as a magic bullet – although there are plenty of examples of interesting practice; what is emerging more and more clearly, however, is an understanding that when teachers identify the specific needs of individual students, and work with these, then progress happens.
Sound familiar? Well, this is exactly what teachers are
superb at doing – understanding their students and then working out what they
need in order to fly. These aren’t always conventional, off-the-shelf methods,
and they certainly aren’t applicable to all. All that holds teachers back is a
lack of resource and trust.
So let’s give this resource and trust to teachers, let
school leaders make decisions which work for their own students in their
particular communities, and let educators – quite simply – all just do their
jobs.
My calendar reminded me this weekend that I should be headed to Sydney in a month’s time for my annual business and coaching trip … obviously cancelled for this year as borders remain firmly closed for the foreseeable future. I was also reminded, however, of one of the many enriching experiences I had when I was in Australia last year. Last June, I popped into a bookshop in Manly, and happened to come across some detective fiction books by an Australian author whose work I hadn’t come across before, but who had obviously achieved some acclaim, as at least one of her books had featured in The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller List. Her name was Jane Harper, and while her books looked fascinating, I knew that I wouldn’t have space to carry them back with me, so I reserved them online on the City of Edinburgh Libraries website, and picked them up almost as soon as I returned home.
I finished all three – enjoyable light reads, with stimulating twists and quirks, and I was particularly struck by the evocation of the Australian wilderness, of which I have had some experience, albeit temporary, fleeting and superficial … even to glimpse it, however, is to be awed. Once seen, never forgotten.
One phrase in Jane Harper’s The Dry struck me between the eyes as soon as I read it, and has lodged itself in my brain; I cannot shake it. Breathtakingly unsettling, it captures exactly the stifling experience of apparent nothingness in the unimaginably enormous, dry Australian desert, made more poignant because of the subsequent bushfires in the country only a few months after I read the book. The phrase comes in this passage, where the author describes how newcomers feel when they move to a property out in the country …
“On arrival, as the empty moving truck disappeared from sight, they gazed around and were always taken aback by the crushing vastness of the open land. The space was the thing that hit them first. There was so much of it. There was enough to drown in. To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.”
“Crushing vastness” …. words on a page, yes, but also a powerful blow to my consciousness, recalling and intensifying previous experiences, and giving words to shape them and draw meaning out of them. In that moment of reading, there was a fusion of past and present, real and imaginary; and a truth emerged. I’d like to think that everyone who has ever read has had this experience; if not, keep reading until you do …
Reading
works the other way round too; think about the times when you have read a book,
and then – months or years later – have had an experience which triggered the
memory of the words on the page, by which suddenly made sense of them. Again,
if this has not happened to you yet, keep reading!!
Reading books opens doors to new worlds and to parts of our existing world which we have not yet fully explored. Especially at this time in our history, when physical travel is impossible, I cannot imagine a world without the richness of reading and books. Can you?
Working with clinical psychologist Dr Danielle Einstein on her school programs to help students manage uncertainty is a real pleasure – and, given that she is in Sydney and I am in the UK, it is also proof (should any more actually be required in this Covid-era) that it is perfectly possible to collaborate effectively at a physical distance. We are in daily contact; sometimes I correspond with the schools who have taken up her ‘Covid-19 Chilled and Considerate’ program, and sometimes she is their point of contact; we both attend and lead the twice-weekly Zoom support calls, and in between we continue to refine the programs based on feedback from schools. This feedback is incredibly helpful, and all 3 of the programs now being used – for Years 5 and 6, for Years 7-11, and for Year 12 – have become even richer and more impactful.
I know I am biased, but I can’t help but feel proud of these programs – and it was great to see a really positive mention of them in the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday. What I have noticed is that the key concepts included in the program, all of which are presented really memorably, with (as you would expect!) a range of exercises to help school students practise and reflect, are just as important for adults as well as young people, and I find myself increasingly referring to them in my executive coaching. Leaders often think about anxiety, and how to tackle this, but not about the uncertainty which is probably underpinning this anxiety. Learning how to manage uncertainty is a lifelong skill – research shows that people who are afraid of their anxiety and who naturally do not like uncertainty demonstrate the greatest level of worry (ie anxious thoughts), which can – as we know – be cripplingly disempowering.
One of the central concepts of the program is that of the
‘uncertainty bomb’, which lies waiting for us when we encounter a situation
whose outcome is not immediately obvious. Mishandle this bomb, and it will blow
up in our faces; handle it well, using the techniques from the uncertainty
toolbox, and it will be defused. Of course, this is easy to talk about; what is
important is really to understand, learn and practise. The programs are based
on years of research by Dr Einstein in clinical psychology into handling
uncertainty, which has informed the past 8 years of her work specifically in
schools, and while these schools have largely been in Australia, I can
absolutely see the universal significance of these programs in schools across
the world, and their usefulness for school students especially, but by
extension for teachers, school leaders, parents … everyone, in fact. In helping
us deal with uncertainty, they respond to a basic human issue – an issue which
we are all, wherever we are in the world, facing more keenly than probably ever
before in our living history.
With this in mind, Dr Einstein has already produced a parent
workshop, and more is to follow; in the meantime, I would be particularly keen
to help schools in different parts of the world access the programs, and if you
are a teacher or school leader who is interested, please do get in touch.
Together, we can do this, and make a difference!
This title is a quote from a new blog I am very much enjoying reading – not just because the author (a former English teacher and school leader) is an old friend, but because the ideas are pithy, clear and immensely practical. The blogs – which can be found at readwritetalklisten.com – are addressed directly at thoughtful teenagers (and younger students); if you know any teenagers with slightly more latent thoughtfulness, it would be perfectly legitimate to read the ideas on their behalf and then pass them on, because if we could all, gently, adopt some of the ideas contained therein, I suspect that our self-awareness, our awareness of the world, and our connections with others will all subtly improve … and wouldn’t that be a great outcome to emerge from this Covid-19 time?
One of the signposts the author plants is to materials recently uploaded by the Director of the Speak Up Scotland programme developed by ESU Scotland, and these are definitely worth a look. I do declare an interest – it is another of the charities I chair, because I consider its goals incredibly worthwhile. Debating is a means of exploring and articulating ideas, and is an enjoyable and satisfying skill to acquire. It is also a means to be able to contribute to society and make one’s way within it – on equal terms with others, regardless of background. No Prime Minister ever became Prime Minister without a strong grasp of the practice of debating. Speak Up Scotland, therefore, is aimed at bringing debating – which thrives in the independent school sector – to state schools across the country, and by doing so, is a way to lessen the poverty-related attainment gap which we must still tackle.
The materials are aimed both at teachers – a detailed set of
proposals, for instance, on how to debate during lockdown – and at eager student
debaters, who will find that ‘Intuitions, Examples and Analogies’ sharpens
their skills. More are to follow, I am promised, so bookmark the page. The
important message for us all is that communication really, really matters, and
we should be practising it now, more than ever. Human beings are infinitely
creative in their ability to circumvent – and even thrive more successfully in
– whatever restrictive circumstances they encounter, and we have seen a myriad
of examples of this over the past few months, as Covid-19 has spread across the
world. Let’s be emboldened by this; we know already that we can connect through
multiple forms of communication … why not spend some time deepening these?
Moving forward into our brave new world as better, more authentic, more
effective communicators … now, that feels like a suitably uplifting goal.
I felt uncomfortable reading the Ofqual consultation about school public examinations this week, and I wanted to explore this discomfort a bit further here.
Specifically, what made me uneasy was the proposal that no
appeals will be allowed for exam grades this year: “appeals should only be
allowed on the grounds that the centre made a data error when submitting its
information; or similarly, that the exam board made a mistake when calculating,
assigning or communicating a grade”. Now, to be clear, I can’t offer a specific
alternative to this, and it is of course a recognisable positive that teachers’
professional judgement is being valued. Moreover, if (a slightly big ‘if’ …)
the algorithms to be used in the calculations were to take account of the current
cohort of students and their individual characteristics, rather than just using
historical data and trends, then this would alleviate a little of my
discomfort, because we do need to remember that each student is indeed an
individual, and not simply a predictable point on a typical bell curve.
It does still worry me, however, how this inability to
appeal will impact already disadvantaged students – students who are
disadvantaged through chronic illness, for example, or who are differently
abled, or who have multiple socio-economic hurdles to overcome. These are
students who may not be thriving in the system, who may not have accumulated a
mass of evidence over the year, who may have frustrated their teachers … but who could – just could – perform better in
the exams themselves were they given the opportune circumstances in which to do
so – an option which they now no longer have. Note that the option to take
examinations in the autumn is not a desirable one for many of these students – particularly
for those who have had time out of school through illness, and must guard their
health carefully, these examinations will be part of a carefully scheduled
journey that, if upset, risks potentially severe repercussions and setbacks.
Autumn examinations will also cause significant disruptions in school to next
year’s learning programme –no matter how you package them, exams can’t help but
disrupt learning.
Ofqual is sensitive to the issue of equality, of course – and it has conducted an equality impact review, which is published alongside the consultation. This review does however rely on research which is patchy and inconclusive, and Ofqual accepts that there will de facto be unconscious bias in the awarding of grades, which is uncomfortable to read. Another uncomfortable element to appreciate is that many school students do not receive the quality of teaching which they deserve. The detailed analysis of papers undertaken by Mark My Papers, an organisation whose Advisory Board I chair, and which helps schools, home educators, mature students and tutor groups access professional marking by official examiners, reveals that all too often, specialist subjects are being taught in schools by non-specialists, which leads to whole elements of the curriculum being under-taught. (This analysis is always shared with the specific schools, by the way, to help them refocus their teaching.) Again – a disadvantage imposed on young people because of the failings, weaknesses and gaps in the system. And – hypothetically – if this were the first year that a school had accessed a deep analysis of their teaching, and made amendments, with the anticipation that this would translate into higher grades overall in these summer exams, would this be reflected in the Ofqual algorithms? And if not, where is the justice if the affected students cannot appeal? If these students could take an exam invigilated online and have it sent to professional, independent markers, maybe – maybe – this would help break down at least some of the disadvantage they would otherwise be facing.
Again, to be fair, I do not have an immediate solution
(well, apart from a major revolution in school funding that recognised the fundamental
central role of schools and other education bodies in our global economic and
social future …), but neither do I think that we should brush this discomfort
under our respective tables. How are we tackling this? How could we tackle this
more effectively? What is the best way to help young people overcome the
hurdles in their paths, and to enable them a fair playing field?
In raising this question, I am not advocating a sticking
plaster approach, which automatically slaps a premium of, say, 10% on to grades
of young people who have suffered evident disadvantage. To do so would make a
mockery of all that is good about exam courses – the rigour, the challenge, the
depth of learning, and the skill of being able to recall and evaluate outcomes
of this learning by communicating it to an external, standardised body. None of
this praise for exams, incidentally, detracts from my more general and long
standing concern about the often limited nature of testing methods, and my
question as to whether they allow all types of learners to demonstrate their
learning effectively – this is an equally important question, and in fact ties
together with the question of tackling disadvantage. I just want us to think about how we can
really, really tackle disadvantage and close the attainment gap upwards, by
raising ambitions and developing capacity in young people to make the most of
their potential.
I have recently taken on the role of Chair of LightUpLearning, a charity based in Edinburgh but with plans to move out across Scotland and beyond, which seeks to tackle disadvantage. It does so by providing regular, scheduled time for secondary school students with an experienced, trained, empathetic mentor – a relationship which stands outside the teacher-student dynamic in school, and which places the learner at the centre of every LUL session. This focus on liberating the student to follow their passion, has already been demonstrated to ignite a much more confident engagement with enriching learning, which will of course underpin their current and future success in life and work – including their examination courses. This kind of intervention can make an enormous difference in a short space of time … but how many of our young people are currently able to access this? How many have missed out, who could otherwise have shone in their exams?
So … sitting with this discomfort … I would love us to think
collectively about how we can move forward. It may be that there is nothing
else we can do regarding these exams, although I am always intensely reluctant
to let go of my conviction that there is always a solution, if only we put our
mind to it. At the very least, however, we cannot afford to let this just slip
by without keeping the door at least a little ajar for genuine cases, seen on
their individual merits.
Let us not fail our young people, now more than
ever. And as we seek an exit strategy, remember that we have shown that we can,
nationally, make radical, major decisions – like putting all teaching online –
based on an idea of what can and should work, a commitment to justice and
fairness, and a determination to review, adjust and change nimbly until the end
result does what we want it to do. In unprecedented situations, you cannot wait
for the research to tell you what to do – you have to fuel the research by just
doing it. Maybe this is the time to be bolder about tackling disadvantage in
our schools.
Idly browsing my Facebook feed on Sunday morning, I came across a 360 degree ‘Where’s Wally’ picture, and because I had some spare time, I thought I would just try and find Wally. Now, I will confess that the last time I looked for Wally – in a picture book – feels like a hundred years ago, and I remember (to my chagrin, now) that I was actually perplexed by, if not dismissive of, the concept, because – beautifully drawn though the pictures were, and intriguing as it was to search for the bobble-hatted, bespectacled cartoon figure – I reasoned that once you had found Wally in each of the pictures in the book, the book was no longer of use; the intrigue and excitement of the search was over, and the purpose of the book was fulfilled. Relegated back to the shelves of the library it would be; and I actually remember feeling a little sorry for the artist, who had put so much effort and ingenuity into hiding Wally amongst so many distracting red herrings, only to have super-efficient, hawk-eyed children spot Wally in the first few seconds, and ‘complete’ the whole book within minutes. Back to my preferred entertainment of choice, lengthy novels, I went …
How wrong I was! The arrogance of impetuous youth, to think
that the purpose of the search for Wally was actually to find him! Of course,
there continues to be a satisfaction in spotting the eponymous hero of the
piece – Aha! Le voilà! – but I discovered this morning an unexpected feeling of
joy in the search itself, as I really noticed the other characters and wondered
about their stories. How easy would it be to do yoga in a crowded square, was
the giraffe enjoying its feed from the tree, and what on earth was that
streaker thinking?! Even when I spotted Wally, I kept exploring – wondering, reflecting
and imagining. Underpinning this was the absolute key, the real purpose of ‘Where’s
Wally’, I realised – noticing.
Noticing what is around us …
Noticing. Just noticing, sitting with the noticing, and then reflecting on what we notice. Noticing allows us to understand ourselves and understand others. It allows us to accept our feelings and those of others; it is a core component of effective coaching, as I know well from my practice over the past 6 years. Noticing – and accepting – feelings is one of the important parts of Dr Danielle Einstein’s Covid-19 Chilled and Considerate program for school students (and I am very much looking forward to supporting her on one of her many Zoom calls with educators on Tuesday). Noticing is key to the joy we feel when we go out for a walk or run, and feel the sun on our face and smell the flowers blooming. Noticing is the first step in learning to make the right choices in our lives.
And noticing, it turns out, is the real purpose of ‘Where’s Wally?’. What a wonderful revelation on a weekend morning! And if this isn’t enough to send you scurrying to look for Wally yourselves, then perhaps you might anticipate a vicarious pleasure in witnessing in the pictures a plethora of un-social distancing … it will come again, but for now, as we fight this virus, any deliberate and joyful invasion of personal space on a mass scale – and people-watching – will have to come from books and online.
I went out for a walk this morning, in the full knowledge that this was a privilege. It was my mandated single excursion for the day, and I won’t be going out again today, because I absolutely believe in following the rules, but I know that people around the world – including in my own street – cannot even go outside for several weeks. As I write, the UAE is in the middle of a 3 day complete lockdown with no outside access at all, in order to sterilise the streets; China has tightened its quarantine and self-isolation regulations; and colleagues and friends almost everywhere in the world are in self-isolation, having shown cold or flu-like symptoms. Going out for a walk this morning was not an activity I took for granted.
So I concentrated more carefully as I walked. I watched my
shadow undulate along the walls as I felt the tickle of the sun on my cheeks. I
heard my heartbeat shift up a gear as I walked more purposefully up a hill, and
I sniffed out the aroma of wild garlic on the side of an old railway embankment.
Above all, I heard the birdsong – louder, more insistent than I have ever heard
it before … more joyous, perhaps, or perhaps just perplexed at the sudden
absence of people and their vehicles. In any case, a symphony of tones punctuated
my walk and lifted my spirits. One of my challenges this week to several of the
leaders I coach and mentor has to been to slow down and notice – notice the
world around them – because by doing so, their breath slows and their tension
subsides, and they begin to look after themselves in a way which many of them
have neglected to do over the past few weeks. Hearing the birdsong … a new
metaphor for self-care.
And then there was the dance around other citizens out for a walk, a cycle or a run – a dance I call ‘pavement waltzing’. This – like any new dance – requires some attention, if the steps are to flow smoothly. When the shape of a person appears on the horizon, walking closer, one of us must choose to cross the road or move into the road; when one makes the first move, the other inclines their head gracefully in acknowledgement. Sometimes, especially on blind corners, two walkers may meet in surprise, and then must stop short, before either backing up or sidling cautiously past one another with an awkward smile but the satisfaction of knowing that we have successfully navigated the manoeuvre and maintained our distance. When a dog walker, cyclist and jogger enter the dance together, they circle one another in a complex chassé from which they contrive to extract themselves smoothly and with the appearance of confidence that this was exactly how the movement should have unfolded.
Pavement-waltzing to the sound of birdsong: a beautiful but
bittersweet dance of our times. Let us learn the dance, and appreciate our good
fortune at being able to engage in it.
If you are a school leader or teacher, please read this! And if you aren’t, pass it on through your networks. It introduces a programme to help manage uncertainty which could potentially make a significant difference for your students – and you!
Uncertainty is the watchword of our times. People talk about
anxiety, but actually, anxiety often arises powerfully from uncertainty, and we
can’t just tackle much of the anxiety around without understanding and learning
how to manage uncertainty. Over the past two weeks – in between supporting
leaders in schools practically everywhere in the world – I have been working
intensively with an amazing clinical psychologist (who I am proud to call a
friend), Dr Danielle Einstein and her team. She is an Adjunct Fellow at
Macquarie University and Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, and
her speciality expertise is in managing uncertainty; moreover – and very importantly
– over the past 8 years she has developed detailed and in-depth programs for
several schools in Australia to help their students learn how to deal with the
unknowns in their life.
Dr Einstein is one of the world’s foremost experts in school
interventions to manage uncertainty. Writing about her, Dr Warren Mansell (a
Clinical Psychologist and Reader in Psychology at the University of Manchester
in the UK) says that “Dr Danielle Einstein is a world leader in school
interventions to address anxiety though building tolerance of uncertainty.
Through my work with Dr Einstein, I have recognised that she acutely
understands and contributes to the fundamental psychological theory
underpinning this work. In particular, she recognises that any intervention needs
to be co-designed with students and focused on their life goals, sense of
purpose, and management of conflicting priorities at this sensitive age.”
Clearly, this is exactly what students all over the
world need at the moment, from Australia to the UK, Europe, Africa and the US,
and so my task this past week was to help her in refining a blended online learning
programme for immediate release, designed to support teenagers through the massive
shifts and changes in their life and work at this current time in our history. It
is an immensely practical programme – 5+ hours of material, spread over 5 days
– ideal for schools who are in the throes of moving to online learning, and
might need an anchor for their work for the first week or two. It contains
exercises, key messages, reflections, guided meditations and videos … and it
really is very simple to use, for any teacher regardless of their background
discipline.
After a supreme effort to get this programme up and ready, it is now online and available through this website – www.covid19chilledandconsiderate.com – please, please look at it, because I really, really recommend it for your students, wherever you are in the world at the moment.
The cost of the programme has been kept as low as possible, to
cover development costs, and as you will see, the programme contains huge
value in its content. I am hoping to support Danielle in providing a series of
additional materials and Zoom calls for teachers – so watch this space. Sign up
now, though!
We are all in this together – let us join together in
sharing what we have, and make a real commitment to find ways to help all of
our young people through this time.
