We are in week 2 of a new era. Our school building is closed. Everyone is working from home. All our students are now learning to fly solo with a voice from the tower... and stress has filled the hearts of our educators.
I sit as a principal, pondering how to cast vision, how to inspire, how to protect people I care about from the stresses of this season. A pandemic is killing thousands in our world, in our country. Families are quarantined. People are wearing masks all around. An invisible enemy threatens our loved ones. Everything is canceled. No sports, no graduations, no funerals or weddings. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced in my lifetime.
In cognitive coaching, they have a term called reframing. It is taking a problem and putting it into a bigger picture. It helps people put challenges and problems in perspective. So, I went to the history books to find a way to reframe what we are dealing with.
Teachers are frustrated with digital platforms that fail. Frustrated that they have to depend on a civilian force to take over their work. Frustrated they do not get to see their students. The change from a face-to-face interaction to digital is tremendous and for some- a complete 180 from what they are used to... as a leader I know how change management goes... you need to give it time. People will grieve what they are leaving behind. We have no time, we must press forward or as Dory says in a movie Finding Nemo... "Just keep swimming."
So to reframe the current mentality of stress and frustration I landed on the story of Orville and Wilber. Inspired by a childhood toy to see if flight could happen. They gave it a shot. Failed. in 1903 they lived in a world without airports. There was no Air Force protecting our nation. There was no billion dollar travel industry. There were horses and carriages... the Civil war ended recently. Lincoln was assassinated around the time these brothers were born. But they had a vision, and a model... and they were reflective. They tried and failed. Learned from it. Tried again. Then one day, in 1903 they saw their plane fly for 57 seconds. 57 seconds of hope. Changed the world right there.within the next 5 years advancements transformed the concept into something that could fly for minutes, hours, and the Wright Brothers started a ripple that has changed our world. What if they decided they were failures because they only could build a machine that lasted 57 seconds in the air? What if they listened to the critics who said they were fools. If they listened, then Niel Armstrong never would have walked the moon with a piece of fabric from the Wright Flyer's wing in his pocket. Little did the brothers know that the flying machine that went for 57 seconds would someday reach the moon.
And thus we reframe our present situation. We are working hard to get our instruction to fly in this new era. Building lessons this way, that way, or maybe this other way. We are eagerly hoping they will fly. Students will engage, students will learn. But we may only see a small piece of what we were hoping for. Like 57 seconds was to the Wright brothers, we see something. We can pause, reflect, and revise our plans. Because this is not a small moment in our profession. We are seeing something that can change learning management forever.
We are looking at classrooms that are built around the student's needs, interests, and capacities. We are personalizing, customizing, and adapting like never before. Blending our face-to-face with online platforms. Teachers are using video, conferencing, social media, and more to engage whole families in the educational process. To me this is exciting. When we walk out of this, our teachers will have new muscles- new skills, and even more... a new perspective on what it means to guide the learning of the next generation. I don't think we will ever be able to return fully to what was before. Just like we can't go back to the world before planes.
DIA (Denver International Airport) wasn't built in a day. There had to be planes first. Planes began on a field in Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903. 117 years ago. Planes began with flights of 57 seconds and grew from there. Only the imagination will be able to describe what ripple effects with happen even 117 years from now (2137) because of the courageous and adventurous educators who are stepping into this era with a vision no one has ever seen before.
