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It is my first Cohort 21 face to face meeting, and I am mesmerized… and inspired, intimidated, overwhelmed, exhilarated and terrified. I don’t really know what I am. We’ve moved on to the next discussion/idea/innovation and I’m still whirling to resolve ten minutes ago, two hours ago, the morning introductions with all of the energy and enthusiasm that popcorned about the room with the pace and style of a hip, made-for-the-digital-aged-newsroom. I can tell by my relative silence that I’m caught. I am back at any given moment of acting school, standing on the outside of some exercise or meditation, looking in. I know for sure I’ve been challenged and I don’t know yet how I’ll react, how I should react.
In the context of my life, it’s difficult to make sense of this decision to become a part of the Cohort 21 community. I have a wife and a two year old to whom I often feel I would happily devote all of my attention and energy always. We have another child on the way. I am still relatively new in a job at Rothesay Netherwood School – a place that is so positively alive with innovation, possibility, and overall excitement to an extent that my understanding of learning and teaching is often overwhelmingly pushed. We’ve been in New Brunswick for more than a year now and unpacked boxes are still creeping from the corners of the dining room. I am a graduate student, chasing a degree too often characterised by mad scrambles at the edge of academic Armageddon and desperate, late night, last minute pleas to professors as I search for a sympathetic (pathetic?) reprieve. In all that I do (I am often reminded by my all-too-supportive wife), I am hard on myself. It is, too often, a feeling of being spread so thin that all responsibilities are compromised. No one thing, it seems, represents the very best of me.
And now, here I sit, challenged by this room to become even less comfortable in my profession. To treat all that I do as an experiment at best – to implement, adjust, readjust, revamp, reflect, fail… to never be comfortable. Cohort 21? What have I done?
This, however, is the reality when a path is driven by a kind of fire or passion. Logistically, certain decisions confound and confuse. In the context of my life, the decision to join Cohort 21 makes little sense. In so many ways, Cohort 21 flies in the face of my nature (Twitter, for instance, is so immediate and I don’t often just jump in a pool. More likely I step back, and analyze and contextualize the pool, discover its metaphorical significance in a long life, discuss it endlessly with my wife, write an ‘express and reflect’ essay about it and then jump in… maybe). But while Cohort 21 makes little sense for me logistically, here is what I know for sure about my complicated relationship with education: I am deeply driven, if even for the most unhealthy of reasons – driven by the horrors of adolescence that still haunt my dreams (seriously!), driven to constantly ensure that the experiences of my students in no way resemble my own experiences as a student in, say, a high school English Class.
But, of course, I am not here to resolve logistics, to make life easy. Quite the opposite. I am here to make a mess of things. To make unfamiliar all things that convention and tradition have made all too familiar. Like with the hymn from morning chapel that repeats itself in my head throughout a day, sometimes testing my level of sanity, I am here to disrupt the rhythm of my life, of students’ lives. I am here because life (you know, if you’re truly living) is messy. Necessarily messy. At least as messy as the one hundred students who rely on me each day and the infinite complications characterising their lives. I am here because I know what it would mean if my life and my teaching ever became clean. I am here because I sense I share all of this with many people in this room. I am her to be both pushed and supported.
O.K., that’s my express and reflect essay. Now I’m ready to jump in. How’s the water?
Graham, what a fantastic post. There is something about reading a beautifully written and evocative post that just makes my heart sing. Thank you.
I hear the panic and mania that is often echoed through the halls of my school this time of year. And is it just me, or is November officially the busiest month of the year?
That said, I hope that through your action plan, you can find one of the many ways to leverage some of these 21st Century learning tools to make your life a smidgen easier. I remember in my first year of teaching, I was loosing my mind my reading out spelling words and I thought to myself: I have a flipping master’s degree. There MUST be a better way to use my time and energy!
Needless to say, I found some handy tools with Cohort21 (like flipping my spelling / writing program). Maybe more time is spent in the researching and planning, but I’ve found that the time saved in the long run does pay off in spades.
Great to read this. Keep them coming…you’re a great writer and a valuable voice in our community!
Wow! That is some journey you’ve gone through Graham Vogt… I like the little plug of having a second baby too – CONGRATS!! You’re right, things are nuts and it takes time to digest it all but you’re lucky to be in a place that supports your learning and growth in such a positive way.
I am looking forward to embarking on this journey with you, and I know you’ll write about it creatively and with humour for so many to enjoy!
Check out Shelley Thomas’ blog http://cohort21.com/shelleythomas/. She has some amazing ideas! Nice first blog GVogt!
Graham,
Thanks for your very candid post. If anyone was observing me as I read your post, they’d have seen me nodding my head in agreement with so much of what you said. Unlike you, I’m a dive right in the water kind of person. Sometimes it would have been better for me to assess the situation more carefully beforehand, but diving right in has taken me to some amazing places.
I’m a bit of a white water fiend, so here’s my metaphor. Like a whitewater river, it’s often a bumpy ride, I can’t always breathe, but it’s always exhilarating. Just like teaching, really. Like you, I think that if teaching gets too clean, I’m not learning anymore, and then my students probably aren’t learning as much either.
My water (if you care to jump in) is a swift moving, swirling conveyor belt, heading towards an unknown destination. As Christina pointed out in her post, it’s a journey. Already, I’ve had to peel out into a few eddies to catch my breath and regroup. But then, it’s back down the river. I’m on it, I can’t get off, and I wouldn’t have it any other way even though all of this new information kind of freaks me out sometimes.
I think that’s the only way to teach and learn, at least well. White water will both push and support you. You just have to be ready, flexible (figuratively, although literally helps, too) and be ready for a challenge.
Looking forward to meeting you and navigating the water together.
Meg
Fabulous post, Graham. I love the metaphors you use and how you tie it back to jumping in that pool at the end.
I’m probably on the other end of the spectrum from you – I tend to be the kind of person who jumps in head first without looking and then learns how to swim to avoid drowning – but your viewpoint (so eloquently stated) makes me remember that I need to slow down and think carefully about how and why I am doing things. Thanks for sharing!