I’ve found myself trying to share my screen many times over the past year. It’s the same routine each time: ‘I’m just going to share my screen. Can you all see the PowerPoint/document/screen/photo/text/my look of quiet despair?’
In essence, as a teacher, what I am trying to say is can you see what I can see? That’s what we do: we show, we tell, we model, we demonstrate. We have something that students want or need. We try and give it to them. That’s how it works.
Of course, in a period of time as politically charged and divisive as this is, ‘seeing what I can see’ has taken on an even greater resonance. The debates around COVID, Brexit, and Trump are all rooted in the idea that we have our own special and individual point of view that we should share. We get frustrated when others don’t or can’t see things as we do. Why can’t you see it? Why won’t you see what I can? What is the problem?
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I get involved in an online debate about marathon running. I’m not as good at running as I would like to be. I’m doing something about this by running more. The debate takes a turn for the worse when it is suggested that ‘less running and more stretching will make me faster at the marathon’. I used to think things like this because there is a certain seductive quality to the argument that you can have more by doing less. I don’t believe this anymore; it’s nonsense. I say that I’d love to know how not doing the thing that you want to get better at helps you to get better at doing the thing. Hey kids, you can be a better writer by not writing. Listen up, you can improve your reading skills by not reading. I can get better at running by not running. I say as much. I wish I didn’t because it just sounds rude. It’s still nonsense though.
I know the mistake that I’m making before I manage to stop making it: I’m getting involved in an argument which is futile. Of all the hills to make a stand on, this is probably not the one. I try and tactfully withdraw. Instead I ignore Facebook and simply go running.
It’s a slow start, but after my creaking legs start to warm and my breathing settles I actually find myself bobbing along quite nicely. It’s Friday afternoon and it’s going dark. As the route starts to make the long climb up out of Bury back towards home I inwardly smile to myself that I’ve not wasted time. Instead of trying to win someone round to the idea that running is the sort of thing that we have to consciously work at, I’m consciously working. It doesn’t feel like work though. It feels like action