Of Energy And Synchronicity

Today I wanted to reflect on something that seems to be a bit of a theme in the discussions that I have been having lately which is energy. Some folk are getting close to, or are starting their spring break periods right now, and it is often a time that folk reflect on energy. This comes up in terms of thinking about the energy they have already put into the courses they are teaching, the relationship building that comes with this responsibility, and the energy that folk in turn feel like they are getting back from learners in different scenarios.

As we get closer to places in the term where the institutions have identified a break, whether that be a holiday break, a spring break, a switch in semester, you can often in about the one and half to two weeks previous feel that shift in energy for all involved. There's more stress and anxiety in the air, often because of it being midterm or testing season, and there's a lot more "I just have to get to X" feeling where X is a date and time or a particular task that needs completing. What I am getting at here is that the institutions sort of set us up to share ebbs and flows of energy. They are actually counting on everyone to have the same energy ebbs and flows because that supports the timing and organization of breaks. 

But this week I have been thinking about what happens when your energy, as an instructor, a staff member, a learner, does not mesh with the expectations of energy for that time of year? What happens when you don't share energy synchronicity with others? For neurodivergent folk this happens a lot. These ebbs and flows of semester/term energy are very neurotypically designed. And if you happen to be having a particularly high vibrational week (like I have) where a lot of things just get done, and you want to push things forward while everyone else is sort of ramping down and just trying to make it to the end of the week- that is a recipe for frustration for everyone honestly.

The person with the high vibrational energy just wants to get lists checked, whereas the person who has no spoons left can't believe that you are asking them to do yet another thing right now. And sadly our curriculum, our classes, our assessments, our activities, and even the meetings that we fill our calendars with in academe, are all premised on everyone having the same amount of energy at the same exact time to get that to do done. There is absolutely no flex built into these systems to account for that lack of synchronicity, or to allow folk in high vibration states to go further when they can, without bringing a lot of frustration, anxiety, or jealousy with them.

This makes me remember a story from when I was in Grade 5. We had these SRA Readers which the teacher gave us to work on at our own pace. Basically she left it to us to decide how many we wanted to read, what we felt we could read, within the confines of quiet reading time hours built into each day each week. Well of course you can kind of see how this was a recipe for disaster a bit, because kids are kids, and competition is a thing. Let me tell you how this became a who can get to the Brown level the fastest situation. Me and another student both finished that box in about 2 weeks. It took the rest of the class the whole remainder of the year to even think about the Brown level, most ending in Orange. But the teacher didn't have anything planned for those who did finish the box. Because the systems don't plan on that happening. So I ended up spending the remainder of the reading time writing short stories (which is fine because I love to write, but the other student was not a writer, and instead took that built up energy as a challenge to disrupt others' quiet reading time to help pass the time).

I share this story because it's an example of how when the systems are too rigid, and don't take into account the fact that every learner is different, you end up with a story that is so impactful it remains a vivid memory in my brain almost 40 years later. So what do we do to help support that lack of synchronicity, when some are communicating at levels that others just do not have the energy capacity to support right then? I know a lot of K-12 educators will say, we have this, we do this, that is what differentiated learning is. And sure, but how do you scale that to HigherEd classrooms of 100 plus learners? 

I promise you the answer is not GenerativeAI, at least not in the way some folk think. I think the real answer here is focusing on that creation part of learning in the way that my Grade 5 teacher did. Did I end up doing, and reading and creating more things (quantitively) than my classmates that year? Sure. But did we all meet the same learning outcomes in different ways? Yes. Some people need more space and time to do the things that fulfill them academically, that allow them to meet their goals and outcomes. For some people (like me) I use that lack of synchronicity to write conference abstracts, to work on journal articles. I also acknowledge that the reason why I tend to have different energy is because of my lived experience and direct life responsibilities at the moment. Does that shift? Absolutely. But will I always use that extra time to write more things or move something forward that is usually conference or article related, yes.

I would just love for us to be real about the lies the systems try to embed or blanket force on folk during the semester. This is what a real pedagogy of care could be, a pedagogy that acknowledges the ebbs and flows of energy and the lack of synchronicity with others that people could feel. Even this blog post is an example of this. When I started writing it 30 minutes ago I thought it would be a short one, and here we are with a lengthy post that no one will have the energy to read. Lol! But I hope you do and you get the point I am trying to make.