A Dichotomy of Words

 Dichotomy.

This is the definition that appears on Google when you put dichotomy into the search bar. 

While I have loved this word for a long time, there isn't always much call to use it in daily life. Especially when you are teaching children who are all under ten years of age. Lately though, it's been an idea that has been bouncing around my head for some time. As "back to school" drew nearer (it never really felt like we left) and the talk of #SafeSeptember, #UnSafeSeptember, "the best plan", #NotMyPlan swirled around us and everything about education seemed to be a dicohotomy. 

Masks or no masks?

Physically distanced students or collapsed classes?

1m vs 2m?

Online learning or face-to-face?

Hand sanitizer or soap and water?

Google Classroom or Brightspace?

Also rattling around my head has been ideas about "ways of knowing". I read this blog post by Melanie White and it really stuck with me. If the pivot to emergency distance learning has taught us anything, I hope it is the importance of paying attention to multiple ways of knowing which at times can present a conflict of ideas.

A dichotomy of knowing. 

The idea of the loss of presence discussed by Melanie is huge. So much of teaching and learning is in the connection and presence of people being together. Now, I don't think that you can't build real relationships and engage students through remote learning. It's definitely possible as I've "met" many educators through Twitter and other digital platforms and feel as close to them as I do people I see face to face, and in some cases closer. But it comes back to ways of knowing. 

How might educators embrace the knowledge that stems from students' home life and culture as they build relationships in a virtual learning environment?

How might we open our teaching and own learning to the varied ways of knowing that our students bring to the learning environment, both face-to-face and virtually?

How might embracing a dichotomy of knowing help everyone's learning journey move forward?

It's interesting to me that Melanie's post stemmed from a conversation with Chris Cluff because if I remember correctly he tagged me in a Twitter post and drew my attention to Melanie's blog. He and I had also been chatting back and forth about the dichotomy of being supported and being supportive in our current educational situation.

I have been struggling with the balance of helping, supporting, listening and generally being open to taking in the pain and worries of others and helping them to feel more at ease in the unknowns of our educational climate (well as at ease as anyone can feel these days) and the idea of taking on too much from others. I've seen and heard the analogy of the airplane mask more than one time in recent weeks- you always put your mask on first, and then help others. It goes back to the idea that you can't pour from an empty cup.

How can we support each other as educators without depleting our own reserves?

Being kept in my role as a 1.0 teacher-librarian is a huge privilege that I do not take lightly. When so many other boards across Ontario have shuttered their school libraries and reassigned school library professionals I know I am one of the lucky ones. As I returned to the physical library space this past week, I began to put things back together and re-imagine what the library could be moving forward. And as many of you know, this re-imagining actually started weeks ago as I created a visual representation and document outlining the possible role of the school-library during this school year. 

Without the contact and connection of students in the school library how will I build meaningful connections to students? How can I support educators and build relevant library programming without educators feeling like I am adding to their already overflowing plate? 

As Chris and I spoke the idea emerged of how educators are usually focused on 'the who and the what" as they approach the start of school. What grade am I teaching? What subjects will I be planning for? What does the curriculum contain? Who are my students? Who might need extra support this year? Who will need to be challenged?

And while all those questions still exist and are still valid, the unknowing of who and what for many teachers as disrupted their usual routine of prepping for back to school. Many educators still don't know what grade they will be teaching. Many still don't know what subjects they will be responsible for. Many still don't know who will be in their classes.

And so we shift. 

As he always does, Chris laid out the thought fuel- we focus on the why and the how. 

Why do we teach children? Why do we love this job? How will we engage our students in learning? How will be show that we value and respect the knowledge and ways of knowing that students bring to our classes? 

As I look forward to what my role might be or will be this year, I can still see a dichotomy. There will still be a constant balancing act. There will still be the pull between supporting staff and helping them while striving to find ways to feel supported myself.  To reconfigure the why and the how of the library space when the who and the what remain a mystery. To learn to roll with the ever-present threat of change, and not change in a good way where you learn and you grow, but change in the form of re-organized classrooms, staff abruptly shifted into new roles, the ever unknowing nature of future days.  

There will always be the struggle to remember to put my own mask on first.