Finding the Balance
This evening I did my first Eduignite presentation! Very nervous and I am sure I gabbled but it seemed to be well received. What is an Eduignite evening? 20 slides on a fifteen second auto transition which gives you five minutes to speak on any topic dear to your heart! We heard eight inspiring talks this evening interspersed with good conversation and drinks and nibbles. The aim is to bring educators together to share and learn from each other in an informal gathering. There are Eduignite evenings held throughout the country usually in the penultimate week of each school term. Although we are often tired and feeling the pressures of the end of term by then if you make the effort to get to one it certainly gives you a boost in terms of ideas and creativity.
Here is the transcript of my presentation – the link to the slides is above.
Connections are important – our first connections with our parents help us to develop who we are, how we behave, how we interact with other people. Those habits inform our interactions with the the global online community.
It is important to maintain some balance in our relationships and our lives so that we don’t lose sight of our humanity in a world that is increasingly played out online. We have to maintain connections, build relationships and stay grounded.
We have to nurture our connections to nature if we are to maintain our dignity and humanity in the face of constant change. Maoist philosophy sees life as endless change in which we have to keep our minds open to grow and learn.
For me humanity is our ability to empathise, to care, to connect, to communicate, to feel, to believe, to be spontaneous; it is the spirituality that you can’t pin down but you know to be the essence of our relationships.
People are the root of our connections to the earth and our humanity so this sculpture called “Tangata Whenua” represents the idea of humanity. My son’s hand connects with the sculpture, connects him to the earth and to the people who inhabit it.
In adverts for new technology – I don’t know if you have seen the adverts for Corning Glass, nature often seems to be missing from visions of the future. Everything is white or glass and sterile. But I was struck by this description of an exhibition at the Hamilton Sculpture Park. ‘We sometimes forget our connection to nature and our instinctual selves when we are immersed in a society of fast information and constant stimulation.”
One of the artists suggested that our own experiences inform how we see the future, how we interact, how we cope with change. Is the past a beginning that opens up and generates connections? Does the past empty into the future? And is there a danger that our potential is limited by the limits we impose on ourselves.
So what effect has technology had on society and our humanity? Wide swathes of native bush and forest were cleared in the 1870s to make space for the extraction of gold. Massive stone pillars, towering buildings and huge cyanide tanks dominated the landscape which was once home to native flora and fauna.
Just over 100 years later nature has reclaimed the land. The amazing technology that belched steam, smoke and poison into the atmosphere has gone; the remnants of a once powerful technology are overgrown with flowers and shrubs and the birds are starting to return.
The online world has the capacity to reach across the world, across continents, into our living rooms, into the palms of our children’s hands. We have to engender a sense of responsibility, a sense of morality, a sense of belonging to a world that feeds us and nurtures us.
Nothing else has had that power since, perhaps, Gutenberg’s printing press, radio and then television. It is up to us to teach our children to filter, to be critical, to assess and to analyse what they see, hear and read; to consider their digital footprint as well as their environmental one – they are, after all, inextricably linked.
Midway is an island in the North Pacific 2000 miles from the nearest continent which is the subject of a film. It explores the plight of Layson albatross who ingest the plastic waste that we carelessly discard. It is a graphic and shocking expose of how our actions impact on nature and the environment.
And if our thoughtlessness about physical waste wreaks untold damage on the other side of the world, what might carelessness with our personal information do to humanity? Do we consider how what we post, how we share and how we interact with each other online affects other people and ourselves.
Technology is part of our lives. Technology is everywhere; In school we use pens and pencils, books, slates, blackboards, whiteboards, interactive whiteboards, tape recorders, computers, CD players, video players, data projectors.
At home we use telephones, mobile phones, dishwashers, washing machines, we watch television, we listen to radio, toast bread in toasters, heat food in microwaves. We drive cars, we have electric lights, heaters to keep us warm and air conditioning to keep us cool. The list is endless, so what is the problem?
What we accept today, without even thinking about it, is the disruptive technology of the past. Technology that made people stop and think about the status quo, it challenged people’s thinking, it changed the environment for better or for worse, it changed society and the way that we behave communicate, connect and interact.
There is always something new, but how long will it last? And what will be along to take its place? How does the way we use technology affect our humanity? If technology is always and has always and will always be with us, then we have to find our place within it. Where do we fit in as teachers and learners?
I believe there will always be a need for face to face teaching and learning. Online courses provide an extra dimension; they democratise education = anytime, anyplace, anywhere for anybody. But technology is just another tool to enhance learning….
The key to effective learning according to Dr John Hinchcliff is relationships and you really need to be face to face, in the same room to build relationships, don’t you?
John Hinchcliffe says “learning is taken to a higher level when it is done with humility, and with unconditional personal regard.” Which brings us back to relationships, to the way we interact, to the way we make connections and to humanity.
Then we come to learning. How we learn, how we teach, what our role as teacher is, whether we are meeting the needs of our learners.
I’ve been doing quite a lot of walking/running recently and it provides me not only with a well-needed brain break from the computer, leg-stretch from a chair and eye break from a screen but also time for my brain to slow down and stop thinking. Well, maybe not stop thinking but it helps me to filter my thoughts, get them in some sort of order through disordering them, breaking them up and somehow putting them back together again. I don’t necessarily gain any answers but they get “un-piled”!
