It has been an intense few weeks here in Australia – indeed all around the world. As I said in my previous post, I have found myself steeped in the very practice I have spent my professional life researching advocating – inquiry. When I am asked what inquiry might “look like” in a remote teaching and learning context, my first response is that it looks like what it IS right now! We are all asking questions. going into the unknown, exploring, gathering data, figuring out what is working, what isn’t, changing our thinking, asking more questions…at a ‘meta’ level, we are undertaking a huge, collaborative inquiry. And I would argue that we are also each moving through a very personal inquiry too – as individuals within our personal communities - beyond our role as teachers.
A lot of people are talking about the opportunity for reflection as our lives are forced inward - both literally and figuratively. As someone who has long championed the vital role that reflective thinking plays in the classroom, I couldn’t agree more. Somewhat paradoxically, for these past 3 weeks, I have found some of my own reflective practices falling away. I routinely write a journal entry each night – I have done for years. But for the last 3 weeks my journal pages are empty. I only just picked it up again yesterday. Maybe it was the shock of it all, maybe the fact that I have spent most of my days writing (rather than teaching/facilitating) or maybe my routine is just out of whack. Regardless, the call to reflect might be too soon for many of us who are currently scrambling to “pivot” (word of the month) our lives from what they were to what they are now.
Here in my home state of Victoria, teachers had just 3 days prior to their holidays to pull something together in preparation for school closures. Hardly time for thoughtful, reflective, deep engagement. But now, on the eve of my local schools beginning term 2 (with a strange mix of schools being open but families urged to keep kids at home) - I am wondering about where our inevitable reflections might lead us?
The weekend before we moved into a level 3 shutdown, I watched a fascinating clip by the scientist Jem Bendell whose work focusses on the concept of deep adaptation particularly in response to Climate Change (remember that global crisis?). Watching this clip through the lens of the current pandemic made it even more fascinating. So many of the points he raised about our response to climate change were just as relevant to this crisis.
“We are not in control anymore - and we will act without knowing whether we will be successful in this very uncertain time”
In the quest for deep adaptation Bendell poses three questions.
What is it that we most value – what do we want to keep?
What is it that we must let go of ?
What is it that we could restore?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZJtFZZYmM&vl=en
There is much more to these questions and his framing of them than I will do justice to here - but I urge you to watch the clip. It certainly gave me food for thought. Bendell’s questions made me wonder. What questions am I noticing myself asking as I am suddenly forced to live a VERY different existence? What questions might help me make meaning as I ponder the possibility of returning to schools at some stage in the future? What questions might we ask ourselves as we move through to the ‘other side’ of this (we need to start asking them now – regardless of how far away that time might be.)
So, here are my 3R’s, as questions they may be of help to you too – in your thinking about teaching or even in your life aside from teaching.
Relinquish
What might I let go/give up? What is this teaching me to do without or release?
In my persona l life, I am challenging myself to reconsider my insanely busy schedule. Can I relinquish the busy-ness that dominates my life as an educator? As an inquiry educator I wonder if this experience will help teachers relinquish control? Will it help them see the power of really trusting learners? Can we relinquish our need to make all the decisions FOR learners that they can make for themselves?
Restore
What might I restore that has been lost, forgotten or compromised?
In my personal life, I feel like my commitment to my own health and wellbeing is undergoing a kind of ‘restoration’ - I am walking regularly again and I am practicing yoga for the first time in many years. What could be restored in the service of inquiry learning? I would love to see the restoration of the permission to be spontaneous. Veteran teachers often become a little ‘misty eyed’ when I speak of seizing the moment. It would be lovely to see it restored. AS authors share clips of themselves reading aloud to kids around the world, I long for the central role that reading beautiful literature aloud in classrooms once had. Is it my imagination or are we doing less of that these days? Restoration is not about harking back to the past…(thank goodness we have moved on from so much of what was NOT good inquiry). It is about ensuring that things of VALUE are not lost.
Revolutionise
What might I change?
People all around the world are revolutionising their practice in response to his emergency. I wonder – what might look different when we return? What is already different? This is a time for restoration but it is also a time for renewal. My family has had to completely revolutionize the way we use and share our house. We now have a recording and a dance studio in what was once a bedroom and a spare room. And it has been an amazing creative opportunity. We may never change it back! What might be revolutionalized in your classroom? What is already new and more effective in the way you are working remotely? I am already hearing teachers noticing the power of kids being able to have more control over their days and their timetables. Perhaps you might revolutionize your approach to timetabling to ensure greater learner agency.
Some people have started to refer to this moment in our history as ‘the great pause’. I love that metaphor. A ‘pause manifesto’ was recently posted on the ‘dolectures’ website:
“Do you give yourself permission to pause? And if not, why not? That is a big question, but if you can create small pauses, you might be able to start to get some perspective on that and grow the sense of space and the feeling of agency you have over your own life.”
https://www.thedolectures.com/blog/the-pause-manifesto
Pressing the pause button may mean we stop to ask ourselves some beautiful questions - and have the time to listen to the answers. So thanks to the inspiration from Jem Bendall, these are mine:
What will I relinquish?
What will I restore?
What will I revolutionise?
For those teachers embarking on this strange, new journey (my heart is with you fellow Victorian teachers!!) would these question be helpful to take with you?
Just wondering