This is just a very brief update and, hopefully, explanation of my blogging hiatus recently. (I have been warned.) My alibi – and I am going to miss having one! – is, of course, the last stages of my MA research.
Well-meaning folks have very kindly reminded me that all work and no play would make me a dull boy (I have my doubts) and that I have to eat, after all (never a problem), but there are mitigating circumstances. The dissertation is, after all, a project for which a year was allocated. I have deliberated not only to complete it in half that time, but to extend the scope of the research, which covers virgin territory. This means I have to take my chances, even if that involves becoming a dull and skinny boy.
I finished writing up the final chapter this week, and have spent the past two days trimming the fat from the text with the 20/20 hindsight only available after the research process. What remains at this stage is three chapters to edit, and then cleaning up the formatting before submitting the penultimate draft for approval. A few more superficial mods after that, and then the final submission awaits.
It has often struck me that there are very strong expectations of what a teacher can and cannot do. There are times when a teacher really feels this. Checking one's behaviour at work is one thing, but running into a student in the world outside - or online - is often a reminder that public and private are not always separate.
This is not about dishonesty or secrecy - if I am guilty of any sin it is being boring rather than scatological - but still, there is is a place and time for things. This post is not about what is inappropriate, though. It is about aspects of a teacher's life that may be relevant that are often left at home.
After posting a reminiscence of the decade past last week, I became aware of how many wonderful things have happened to me in this time. Yet among the many things I have gained, some things fell by the wayside, and it just might be time to reclaim them. Being a teacher, financially self-sufficient, professionally and academically focused, I have been forgetting some of the principles that made me who I am. They are as relevant as ever, but somehow they have gone underground. And I want them back. Qualities like the extreme resourcefulness that predated the recycling trend, guerilla farming in my kitchen, and judiciously questioning authority when necessary gradually became unnecessary as my income increased, free time decreased, and working under restrictive regimes unobtrusively tweaked my priorities.
I know longer "know everything" like I did ten years back, which is a consequence of hard-won experience. But I think it is time to reclaim, with 20/20 hindsight, some of these qualities. Ideally, integrity in education implies that we can truly be who we are. As learning extends increasingly beyond the classroom walls, it is vital to question identity, both online and off, and discover an authenticity that does "contain multitudes", as Walt Whitman put it, and draws on the best of them. Education can benefit from that. And my classroom can benefit from some guerilla gardening.
While we are between semesters, there is a bit of a lull on campus. Traditionally this is the time of year that lecturers recover from the past semester, prepare for the next bout and hang around over languid cups of bad instant coffee (I have converted to tea in celebration of the new decade, antioxidants and thermogenesis). It is also the one time of year when staff are actively prompted to present workshops and talks on areas that interest them.
Any opportunity to present is worth accepting, because it is such a learning experience. Because of the T42 project and my thesis, the timing could not be better, and naturally I grabbed the opportunity. A learning experience it certainly was. I was very pleased with the level of participant involvement stimulated by the activities, most of the organisation (although the LCD projector requisition and backup plans fell through) and atmosphere. Presenting to peers can be awkward because of the sudden change of roles, but it was not a problem and the interaction felt very authentic to me. Feedback was very positive, with participants commenting positively on organisation, professionalism and engagement.
Reflection also involves constructive criticism, of course, and the most significant area that needs work is that the ideas behind T42 are very new and abstract for newcomers. I will need several ways to make the concept more accessible: stories, pictures, analogies, and humour. Incidentally, humour is traditionally my weakest point as a presenter, yet there was a great deal of spontaneous belly laughter among the participants, both thanks to their wisecracks and, surprisingly, my own.
I do hope to continue building on this workshop format with a set of soft copy documents including handouts, signs, question cards et cetera, as well as a small collection of equipment needed, that will make it possible to present at the drop of a hat anywhere in the world. In fact, I'd like to do the same for a bundle of workshops and simply present what the demand exists for. This is why I need all the practice and reflection I can get. And that is why this reflection is not only written here, but I have also set up a stream-of-consciousness video relaying the principles. The next step is to make a form of the workshop available online.
The talk of the end of a decade didn’t really strike me until a FaceBook friend’s wall post set the following challenge:
Take ten minutes: think back and describe to yourself in detail exactly where you were, physically and mentally, ten years ago today, 31st Dec 1999.
Now THAT puts things in perspective. Perhaps because of the pre-millennium hype, my memories of that day are unusually vivid. And where I was, “physically and mentally”, could not be further removed from where I am today. What a long way we have all come.
On 31 December 1999, lest we forget, the fate of life as we knew it hung in the balance, and there was a tangible excitement. Not only was there the fin-de-siecle ambience of those heady days, but of course the Y2K bug was threatening to wipe out all digital records (including, I was hoping, my erstwhile credit card debt). I was living in South Africa, the only country I had ever seen, temporarily back with my mother after my first adult ventures into communal living didn’t work out, and trying to make ends meet as a media monitor. Working in media, I was one of the first to see the striking headline of Johannesburg’s The Star newspaper: it was a photograph of the Earth from space with the headline “The Last Day”. This was a rare expression of that unique and fleeting zeitgeist from a time when local mass media was still the greater voice of the people – a phenomenon that, a decade later, is a relic of a past era.
I remember taking a deep slice out of my left thumb while meticulously chopping carrot matchsticks, and baking brownies black with cocoa to disguise the secret ingredient. My millennial statement was shaving my head and having my nose pierced, in sheer defiance of the horror this caused among the more conservative folks. A very early start to the party – sunset; bantering conflicts about the aforementioned brownies; the Afro wig someone had brought along and the many uses it was somehow put to; my vague sense of guilt at not starting the new millennium in a more sensible fashion; the old friends who always seemed to be around.
Every one of the key people at that New Year’s bash has gone light years in the past decade. One went on to study in Ireland and later became a lecturer at a prominent South African university. One furthered his studies while working, rose to a high professional level and immigrated to Australia. Another made and lost millions, and is now on the way up following his off-beat creative passions. Yet another reached the pinnacle of his profession in classical music before his life was tragically cut short in a motorcycle accident. Yes, we are all in very different places now.
And then there is me. Not very far into the new millennium (which it turned out did not involve the end of the world) I got my first computer, took my shaky first steps in using the Web, used it to find work in Taiwan, worked there for five years, took a long trip through Southeast Asia, wrote a book about my travels, narrowly escaped matrimony, learned how to live a healthy life and deal with people, spent four years in Oman, furthered my studies with a UK university, and did all the little things that connect those dots. I could hardly be further from where I was a decade ago. Where then, will I be a decade from now?
This is not entirely in my hands, naturally. But I do believe that our actions can set the course, whichever way the wind blows. My actions are, first and foremost, to put in place what is needed for quality of life: positive routines, healthy habits, constructive action. Secondly, to make the most of the opportunities that come my way, which right now involve my work and studies. The third is to keep dreaming. Dreams are what drive us forward. Dreams are what I would like to see taking shape in the coming decade.
My wish for my family, friends, social networks, both online and off, and their extended networks, spanning all humanity, is that we will make the most of all we have in the coming decade, because that is where growth will come from.
