Roll with it

Day 4 of the school year has been completed, with Maddy and Teddy navigating distance learning. Due to our essential workers' status, Grey and I enrolled both kids into a learning pod at their school for the morning instruction followed by a pod for aftercare, leaving me to cover school instruction post-lunch. There have been so many balls in the air just with navigating how distance learning is happening for these kids  (Google Classroom, Zoom meetings, and Seesaw), so adding in this learning pod arrangement has also been another level.

Never mind the fact I've been teaching from 10 pm -12 am my time for the past 2 weeks, developing curriculum, running pilots, and managing the panicked state/lack of attention from my learners.

It would be logical to be insanely anxious about all of this, but looking at the schedule on Sunday and after having a short cry due to a house being in utter chaos, I found the Id part of my brain took over and the theme became "roll with it."

Yes, both kids have missed a couple Zoom meetings. Yes, we've been missing worksheets during lessons (which I've had to recreate on the fly). Yes, we're all exhausted and need a weekend to recharge. But the beauty of rolling with it, accepting that "good enough" is the hero in the story of what should be utter chaos and that recognizing how much the teachers, both at school and in their learning pods, are giving to make this work, is seeing the potential of what can be done and recognizing the changes we're long overdue to be made.

For the past 2 weeks, I've been taking a Virtual Trainer course with my coworkers. And what we've been confronting through the absence of in-person instruction is the recognition that many things we thought were working actually weren't working as well as we thought. It has been hard to see curriculum and practices that have been the labor of love for so many literally getting tossed in the waste bin, and I can confess I've had my moments of panic seeing things I thought were done going back into draft mode. But what's been coming out is something that wouldn't have been possible before; seeing the budding of projects and curriculum that was previously dormant.

A year ago, a paper was published about how paradigm shifts occur when star scientists die. The argument made by the authors is that change can't happen when those dominating a field or thought process are still occupying the stage. I for one am going to argue that the pandemic has ushered in a new form of death, shifting so many perceptions about life and how the world functions. The rules that existed for so long, with certain practices being best are in direct contradiction with keeping people safe. Survival means listening to the outsiders in order to find a new way.

I'll confess, I still have my moments. A midnight training on software really didn't go the way I hoped, leaving me in a bit of a panic. Sending Maddy and Teddy to learning pods leaves me with a since of guilt as others talk about how they are making the decision to keep their kids home (I commend them; it's not an option for us). And it's been a week of adjustments for all of us. 

But the beauty of rolling with it, accepting that there isn't a perfect, has allowed for so much good to come about even after 4 days. To hear the kids are better with masks and social distancing than most adults, to be learning new tricks for Zoom from them (they found the emojis for the chat function), and to be able to take what they are doing and incorporating with global training for a biotech company that is on the front-lines of this pandemic and learning that we're actually training better than before, has been something to hold onto. All of it "good enough" instead of "perfect." I'm starting to see the value in that.

Bob

I remember the first time I had to tread water while holding a 10 lbs brick. I was 15 years old, enrolled in Lifeguard training, and we were going over all the requirements needed to pass certification. Distance swimming wasn't a problem for me (still isn't) and mastering all the holds, maneuvers, and First Aid was something I knew wasn't going to be a problem. But sitting in the deep end of the pool, looking at the bricks, which were meant to simulate holding a human head,  I remember wondering how in the world I was going to keep my nose above water for more than 10 mins.

Full disclosure, there was a failure in those first few attempts,  including me sinking like a stone after 10 seconds on that first day, but with trial and error I eventually figured out how to kick, position the brick on my body to stay afloat and push through the panic of feeling like you're about to sink. But another thing I learned is how to hold just enough air in my body combined with spreading out my body on the water, allowing me to bob on the surface enough to hold that brick well beyond those 10 minutes.

I've been having flashes of bobbing over the last month as my manager has returned from maternity leave and we're in the thick of trainings. Her first week back was basically someone throwing her into the deep end with cement blocks strapped to her legs as the pandemic has scuddled any in-person trainings, but the demand for virtual trainings is at an all-time high. It's been rocky, with both of us trying to figure out how to navigate everything, especially since she came back to a whole new program that she didn't have much say in building, but I've been surprised that things have been progressing in the direction that I've hoped for. A silver lining in all of this.

But as I've been sitting in professional trainings for me, geared towards eLearning design and delivery, I've witnessed how many have been struggling with this new reality and are finding it difficult to adjust. Part of this comes from a lack of guidance and structure, with no direction from their leadership on how to pivot into the virtual space and making teaching more effective. But there's also been roadblocks in mindset around this adjustment, with the assumption still that online learning is a poor second option compared to in-person training. What few are exploring is why this mindset exists, how it can be adjusted, and whether it's masking something that has actually been limping along and not working terribly well despite these assumptions.

I have so many thoughts on change and how humans see the world. There's been so much of it recently, all sparked by a novel virus that we are still learning about every day. And while it's easy to blame everything on SARS-CoV-2, what people are slowing coming around to is the fact that we were living under a false sense of security that everything was fine and working well. Never mind that racism is very much alive, Rich Asshole syndrome is a huge problem and at the root of many of our societal ills, and we as a global community have our priorities wrong as tax-cuts are pushed to the collapse of community and social issues (*cough*cough* public education *cough*cough*). 

All that without talking about the Elephant-known-as-Trump in the room.

All said and done, though, I have been witnessing people who truly have no other option, learning how to bob. My manager demonstrated this today as we sat through our training together, with the facilitator repeating a lot of the same principles and guidance I've been talking about over the past month. There's still resistance to change and I'm still witnessing old assumptions, but I'm also seeing signs of shifting as the messaging is coming from multiple sources. I've also been seeing this in my community too, with people finally venturing away from the echo chambers, being willing to listen and seeing the value of community. "Us vs. them" is becoming very unpopular.

In short, though I'm exhausted, I'm still somehow afloat while desperately treading water with cement boots. I'm seeing this from others too. May we all continue to bob.