If I could draw, I would draw a cartoon of a teacher standing in the middle of lots of people hurling programs, directives, mandates, targets, goals, needs, at her –like unfair dodgeball.
I see many of us adapting in ways that are functional and ways that are less so.
I propose it is time to stop fighting a battle we can’t currently win. What if we accept the current reality that just when we think we’ve figured out how to manage a current set of rules and demands, they are changed? How do we navigate a system with no foundation on which we can rely?
I have an image of a level — the tool that carpenters use. There is a bubble inside that always moves to the middle when the foundation on which the tool rests is level. In a way, it searches for level.
We are finding an inner core to stay level through moves of external unpredictability. Maybe this is a cultural shift away from our traditional western linearity.
We could stop trying to force order where it is not possible. We could trust in chaos theory as a natural process that always occurs–chaos moves to order. We could stop beating our heads against the wall in frustration every time there’s a shift from above. We could consider the biological theory that growth comes from finding equilibrium every time we are pushed into disequilibrium. We could consider learning theory that with cognitive dissonance we grow through finding a new way to make sense again.
I don’t know if this is possible yet I think it is worth trying. Let’s find our inner bubble and greet this shifting and chaos as an effort toward someday finding a new level–something new and great in our future work with kids.