Authentic Tech

As previously mentioned, it didn’t take me long to realize the power of the message in our current required reading “The Art of Possibility”. Once I hit page four, I purchased multiple copies and gifted them to all our academic administrators and deans. I also purchased the audiobook for myself.

On a recent softball scouting trip, I had the good fortune of listening to the ninth practice. One of my favorite images - and one that I share frequently - is that as a teacher I see myself as lighting the match and inspire the students to fan to flames. Needless to say, I was pleased to hear the title of the ninth practice - “Lighting a Spark”.

I was rapt with the message of this practice as much for the message as for the delivery. When Ben Zander speaks about the eight voices of Beethoven’s Fifth, the audiobook escorts each of the voice intros with musical accompaniment. I felt like one of his students straining to hear the cello in the final piece.

I would recommend the audiobook to everyone. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that after completing the assigned reading with the eBook, I listened to the audiobook to hear what I missed. It was more than accompaniment – it gave voice, breath and life to an already spirited message.

The tenth practice, “Being the Board”, reminded me of one of the sayings I use with my softball team as well. “If you’re going to play the game, you must graciously accept both outcomes – winning and losing”. Surely, we would prefer to win – it’s a lot more fun. But losing is a part of the game as well. It’s what you do with that losing that really matters. Does it enrage you? Do you lash out at circumstances? Umpires? Teammates? The sun? The cold? Or can you take something good out of something unpleasant? Can you grow from it? Despite the loss, are we a better team for having played the game? Are you not only a better player, but person as well? If so, then you have won, despite the score.
Page 148 sums up my life in my current high school and the approach I have adopted for my future sanity in it.

I told my boss what I thought and he did not take my advice…It is up to me to light the spark of possibility.

Throughout my long years journey, I have discovered one of my biggest flaws as a teacher of adults: I do not treat them as students. I assume they are all like me. In a recent conversation with one of my very dear friends, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Sue, what I am about to tell you is going to be very hurtful, but I think you really need to hear it.”

I braced for the worst.

“There are many people who do not embrace technology with your same passion. In fact, there are some who don’t even like it – like me, for example.”

Blasphemy!

We both chuckled. But there – in a nutshell – is my dilemma. It never occurred to me that a person involved in education today would not see the immediate benefits of embracing technology. It never occurred to me that I should teach my colleagues as somewhat resistant learners.

And suddenly the clouds parted and the sun streaked downward.

So I’ve knocked myself out creating buy-in opportunities, upgrading technologies, soliciting software and hardware requests, soliciting training requests. So that I enter next year more prepared to prepare my colleagues to prepare their students for a world that does not yet exist.
Marianne Williamson’s words…

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
...
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
Give other people permission to do the same.

Should be emblazoned on every teacher’s door. We are a co-dependent lot. We give a test and everyone get’s an A – what’s the first thought? The test was too easy.

Conversely, we give a test and everyone fails. The first thought? I didn’t reach them.

Williamson’s quote reminds us that the power - not the blame - lies within each of us. Tap into it. Let it flow. And be not afraid of the results.



The final practice, “Telling the WE Story” at first glance contains no new news. But upon the second pass, the second step is noteworthy:

Listen and look for the emerging entity.

I never really thought of it quite in those terms - the combination of anyone and I make an entirely new entity – I talk about synergy all the time, yet never recognized that each time two people join forces that something new emerges. Viewing things in this light makes for new energy and endless possibilities.

And, after all, isn’t that the point?