Action Plan Anxiety and Engagement

I just got engaged!

OK I have been married for 10 years – but I did just “really get engaged”.  At our first F2F last month, I had a great catch-up chat with @timrollwagen . When he asked how I was doing, I gave him the proverbial “I’m crazy busy”. With a smile on his face he said “you should use the word engaged instead of busy; it sounds way more positive.” I believe Tim received this advice from Zen master @gnichols. What a difference word usage can make – and not just to the ear. When framing the responsibilities that go along with the business of education (or anything for that matter) as busy, it really reduces the work to itemized tasks to be completed. However, we are always striving to promote engaged learning in our students and staff – so why not view our own “work” as opportunities for engaged learning? Framing our own modus operandi as engagement and continuous learning should be both the operative mindset and word usage for someone who is a “really busy professional educator”.

This past 3-4 months has been the most engaging of my life. I moved to a new home requiring a full renovation (of which I am the contractor), my youngest started JK, my wife started back at work after 4 years off (as a teacher), I began a new position at UTS as an Instructional Leadership Facilitator (which keeps me off campus at conferences, expos, etc. much of the time), and our school has literally just moved to a new (temporary) campus. Indeed, after this experience rich start to the year, the second F2F on November 17^th marks a point of reflection, introspection and thinking about how to make meaning of all of this new learning into actionable mechanisms for change within my school community (and probably at home too!). It takes time for such ideas to manifest, percolate, and crystallize. The Cohort community (and in particular for me F2F sessions) are the catalyst for this process of ideation. Simply by talking with other Cohort members, reflective and creative fusion happens and I become motivated to “do” something new…….

Yikes! What will I “do” for my action plan?

The second F2F session can cause a bit of anxiety for new Cohort 21 members. I have run into a few fellow season 7 Cohort members over the last month, and each one has expressed the statement: “I am not sure yet what I am going to do…..” To those experiencing this action plan anxiety, I say relax! Your action plan is already off the ground simply by beginning to think and reflect about what you may “do”.

In my opinion, the critically important thing about Cohort 21 is that it carves out time for engaged educators to intentionally reflect upon their practice – and in some cases “problems” of practice. The very fact that we are thinking about our craft makes the entire year of PD at Cohort 21 worthwhile, and the second F2F session really does provide a framework to begin to reflect with intent, and design approaches to begin intentional steps at changing aspects of practice. What makes it even better is the amount of support given from the Cohort community. Last year, @ckirsh looked at my action plan and with one comment literally made made it more actionable.  It takes a lot of guts to identify a “problem” with your practice, especially if everything is pedagogically or administratively operating smoothly “as is”. However, re-thinking approaches will definitively lead to new learning and opportunities for growth – even if things fall apart. The old adage FAIL (first attempt in learning) comes up time and time again in our F2F sessions and it is this growing comfort with uncertainty and the unknown that I have slowly come to embrace as a result of participation in Cohort 21. If you have an action plan and it works out – that is brilliant! It is what everyone likely hopes for. However, sometimes along the path of a plan, something else comes to fruition from out of nowhere, and for me, this type of unexpected surprise, or new learning, has become a preferred outcome. Workable plans are great, but I think revelatory surprises can often be better. Within an education context, neither is likely to happen without intentional reflection and thought about one’s own modus operandi. So don’t force your action plan – it will come to you when it is meant too as long as you continue to reflect and discuss your thoughts with others. Who knows where you, your students, or your school community will end up as a result of your thinking put into action!