{"id":339,"date":"2018-11-14T19:47:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T19:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/?p=339"},"modified":"2019-03-21T01:02:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T01:02:26","slug":"like-spinning-plates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/2018\/11\/14\/like-spinning-plates\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Spinning Plates"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

As an English teacher I’m always looking for the apt metaphor, that one-of-a-kind allegory which will once and for all, 100% no-questions-asked-put-your-hands-down-please definitively define what it is we do, day-in and day-out, as 21st century educators. I believe this one comes close.<\/h2>\n

The reasons why I like the visual synecdoche of the plate spinner may surprise you. In my heart, I know this is the healthiest model to explain why teachers need to give themselves a break, before they break themselves. And more often than you might think.<\/p>\n

In talking with a colleague recently, the age-old adage of teachers not having enough TIME reared its perennial head. If it’s not TIME than it’s surely RESOURCES; (un-PC trigger warning alert!<\/em>) the two twin towers of educational stress and anxiety.<\/p>\n

But if we simply re-framed what we do as already impossible, perhaps then (only then) glimpses of the possible and profound would peek through. If politics is the art of the possible, then teaching is the impossible art!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we divide teaching and learning into four ready-made components, they might be:<\/p>\n