Earthquakes and Pandemics

I've been thinking a lot lately about the differences and similarities between the earthquakes and this pandemic. There seem to be a lot of things that remind me of back in 2011 and I'm sure that many people that live in Christchurch can say the same. I thought I'd write a few of these down to try and make some sense of the madness.
I've split this into 3 sections to try and make some sense of it - things that were only earthquake related or pandemic related and then just some things I have though about that relate to both.

Earthquakes

For me, the earthquakes were a really difficult time. I  was in the centre of town when the first big one struck and the noise, visions and chaos still remain with me, even after counselling and support. It took a long time to feel comfortable and even now I still feel strong emotions when even a small one hits. Earthquakes are unusual as we have absolutely no control over anything to do with them. We can't stop one, we can't remove ourselves from them (apart from going somewhere that doesn't have them), and there is no warning. My balance was so bad I spent time at Burwood getting back to being able to walk around without holding onto things. I struggled to go back into many buildings and even now I find myself holding bannisters and not going to some places 'just in case'.
We were without electricity, water, and many portaloos adorned the streets for a long time.
There were many lessons the earthquakes taught us about sharing. Schools were site sharing, with my children going to school from 7am until lunchtime then another school starting on the same site at 1. Businesses shared sites, people stayed with us while houses were being fixed, we helped neighbours dig out the silt from liquifaction - it was a time of community - we helped others and they helped us. Many people are still struggling through claims for damage and there are areas that are still recovering. Buildings are still being torn down and rebuilt and this will continue for some time to come.
The earthquakes only really affected us in Christchurch. The rest of the country mainly didn't have the knowledge of what it was like - all very easy to say you poor things, but they didn't have the experience of what it really was like being her through all of those aftershocks and how much is took it's toll.

Pandemic

Covid-19 has shaken the whole world. In complete opposition to the earthquakes we have been forced into isolation and we are not gathering together to offer support. We are happy to be in our own little bubble and we are far more aware of our surroundings, hyper aware sometimes of who is near us and where we go. We have an app to trace our movements and we are monitoring who we see. We have control over where we go and who we see (although there were restrictions, we could still choose who was in our bubble).
Everyone is in the same boat. We all understand, we all 'get it'. We have changed our habits to cater for this lack of engagement with others and are doing more online shopping.
Schools have been changing to online learning and we are adapting to the new normal. In a short time we will be at Level 1 - almost back to where we were, and we have been very lucky in this country to not have had more deaths.

Thoughts

Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs - I think this is really relevant for both of these events. If you look at what we had and didn't have, it shows how difficult those earthquakes were. The safety and physiological sections were severely damaged in the quakes, whereas the pandemic has been more about the safety and belonging.

Businesses in both of these have suffered. I remember walking through the centre of Christchurch a few months after the big quake in February 2011 and seeing cafe tables with the food and drink still sitting on them. Some never to go back in before it was demolished. But they got back up and the container mall was invented - a great bit of kiwi ingenuity. Hopefully we will get back up and running soon. We need to make sure more local businesses are getting our support and those that can are helping to get the economy back up and on its feet.

Neither the earthquakes or the pandemic have been easy to live through but we do get there. Eventually things move forward and although sometimes it's hard, we do embrace the changes. There will always be change and you can guarantee something else will come along eventually to make us change again. I think this links in well to my previous blog - what kind of future can you imagine? What's next?

Relections on the last 5 weeks

So - we are on the way back to school next week. It's been an interesting five weeks of learning for our ākonga and their whānau. These are a few thoughts and ideas I have had over this time.
I think before I get into the pros and cons, we need to be clear that this learning has not been normal online learning - it really is crisis education - you can read more about this in this article. I also have been thinking more about synchronous vs asynchronous learning online. This is worth a read even though it is about online learning in general, it gives a good explanation of the types of learning and is something to think about in our ākonga and moving forward in this space.

What has gone well?

I do believe teachers have worked exceptionally hard to get resources out to their ākonga in this time. The Ministry also worked hard to get out resources both paper and digital, as well as having the TV shows. Pretty impressive if you look at what some other countries have or haven't had during this time. Yes, some hasn't worked that well, but overall we tried hard!

Whānau have tried to deliver this work and encourage ākonga to do it! Some with more success than others and some, I think very sensibly just didn't even push it. Learning happens at home in so many different ways and those that took the time to be with their whānau and just do things together rather than do the workbooks or online tasks probably learnt more in some ways. This learning by being is underrated I feel. The learning that comes from cooking a cake together, walking around the block, talking and just generally being part of a whānau I believe is ultimately more important than the subject matter that gets handed out. They can learn about being connected with others, keeping a house running, planning meals, being bored and how to combat that, playing board games, doing crafts, all sorts of learning that will be beneficial in the long run.
I remember when I was at school, I was away for a whole term in my School Certificate year (Year 11 equivalent). I went to England with my mother and met family that I have never met before. It was a learning experience on it's own, and yes it probably impacted on my marks for that year (I didn't really like SC French anyway) but it was a great experience that I will never forget - unlike the content of that year of which I can't remember very much - quelle heure est-il? The learning you can get from being at home and just playing is underestimated by many.

Google Meet and Zoom - what a great way to communicate when you can't be there in person. I've never had so many face to face calls online and I've had the opportunity to connect with others around the country and the world. This has always been there but we don't always take those opportunities until they are forced upon us. I hope to continue some of these chats more often even when we are out of lockdown. You do forget how easy it is to catch up and maybe we need to take more time to do this.

I had lunch each day. Amazing! We don't usually take the time to just sit down and have lunch - and cooked lunches are even better - or go for a walk, or just stop thinking about work for 10 minutes. It was nice to actually shut my laptop and take a break. In some ways I felt I needed to take that break as being on a screen all day every day is very tiring. It would be good to think that maybe there would be some time to have a break at school as well but we often keep working through those breaks.

Some ākonga have loved working online. I have surveyed my group about what they loved and what they would change and most said they would like a mix of the online learning and face to face when we get back. This goes back to that synchronous and asynchronous learners I mentioned earlier.

Digital skills - many kaiako and ākonga have improved their digital skills over this time. They had to, even if they didn't really want to. This is also a negative as many really struggled, especially when whānau were not able to help either.

PD - I have had a lot more time to be able to read and digest things. It's been great to be able to research and keep up with the reading I want to do, as well as reflecting. More time to reflect and see what is and isn't working. I also had more time to write resources - no distractions to getting the work done.

What could be better?

To be honest, I don't like Google Classroom that much. It is just that, a traditional classroom. The teacher has all the control and the students do the tasks they are given. This goes against my thoughts on education where I believe the students should construct their own learning in consultation with and alongside teachers. I also believe learning is very personalised and although you can push out individual tasks for students in Google Classroom, it is easy to default back to the "assign to all students" option. Would we be better in a social network community type platform where you could breakout into groups, have individual conversations easily and have the student post to others. Would something like Discord work better for this type of community? Lots of questions and not so many answers.

Digital skills - Being online has highlighted how many of our ākonga do not have even basic digital literacy skills. There was a definite divide between those that managed well with the online side of leanrnng and many that really struggled. This is something we need to look at once we are back face to face. How can we improve those skills and make sure they have basic knowledge?

Helping parents - I think many parents have really struggled with  things. They have struggled having their ākonga around all day and not being able to get out but they have also struggled with the learning. I don't think we put enough effort into helping them understand the learning, and supporting them in all of this. We focus on the ākonga but maybe we should be putting more focus on the whānau as a whole.

Project Based Learning - this sort of links into the above, but I think we have lost our way a little with trying to continue with the projects that we have set up for ākonga. It's very easy to drop back into siloed learning and to not push the boundaries when you are under pressure. I do believe we can do project based learning individually and online - it just means moving away from the traditional forms of delivery and keeping true to your vision. You can see one example of a project based piece of work from SheCanCode - although this is time driven each week, it's a good example of giving student agency in their topic and passion.

Collaboration - this seems to be harder online, although it should be able to be done - more calls with each other, sharing resources and helping each other with skills and ideas. Wouldn't it be great if all schools could have shared their resources? Imagine the resource bank we could have in the country. I'm loving The Great NZ NCEA Hackathon 2020 for this - sharing ideas and knowledge and working together to improve outcomes for ākonga.

I do think we need to do more reflection and surveying of ākonga and whānau. Reflection is so important and we can't do this without gathering the voice of our community. How do we know they like or don't like what we have done? It is imperative that we get the feedback and move forward from that. I sent a survey for both ākonga and whānau and got some great insight into how they found the last 5 weeks. The biggest issue was the loss of social connection. How can we improve this online? Maybe the thought of a more communal online space could help - my comment before on Discord or some other platform like that might be a useful one to try and help with the loss of connection.

Digital divide - The Manaiakalani Programme has the following three things that show are part of improved learning outcomes for students:

• an effective blended eLearning pedagogy that is materially changing the school experience of students from years 1 to 13
• affordability of 1 : 1 digital devices for all students from years 5 to 13
• provision of fast internet to all students to enable any time, any place, any pace learning

I think we struggled with a lot of learning because these things were not in place for our ākonga. There are still some without internet, some without devices and many that perhaps had internet but the connection was not great. This came out in a conversation on a Boma New Zealand Campfire (see my blog on this) as well as other issues that the ākonga on that call were very articulate in sharing.

It's hard in a pandemic - never mind being online as well. Hard to balance our haoura /wellbeing as well as all the other things on peoples minds. Need to challenge them enough but not too much, need to be aware of where they are at and how different their situations are. Week four seemed to be a hit the wall week for many including myself. How do we support our ākonga going back to kura? I did like this infographic put out by Hagley - thought it was a good way to address some of the questions they gathered from the community. We need to support both ākonga and whānau - so much has changed and there will be reservations about Level 2 and what that looks like for everyone.

Need to know the individual in order to meet their needs. This relates to the above as well. I do feel that ākonga that only started at our kura in the week of lockdown were severely disadvantaged and that this showed in the lack of engagement from some of them - hard to engage them when you don't know them very well. Trying to unpack their learning while at a distance is definitely an area I can improve on.

Where to from here?

I like these documents from the Leading Learning - Lessons Learnt in Lockdown and Preparing for Level Two. They are a good start for thinking about what we have actually learnt and how we use that information.

Albany Senior High School has also changed what they are doing when they go back next week - you can read how they are moving forward here.

We need to focus on the learning to learn skills - how can we help our ākonga be more resilient and be able to cope better if/when this happens again?

I read this provocation by Cheryl Doig yesterday, interestingly enough just a few hours before a workshop with Chris Clay on the same sort of thing (my blog for that will be out in a few days). Provocations for the future. What sort of future could we see? Let's dream big and not go backwards in any of our thinking - keep pushing to make things better.

There are probably more things that I have thought about over the last few weeks and not included but these are what is on top for me right now. I have been keeping a diary of what I have been doing each day and reflecting on what can be changed and what cannot. Back to the serenity prayer - thanks Mum for saying this all the time. I found this version, which adds a few lines that are very appropriate.

Isolation 1

As we are all aware COVID19 has well and truly disrupted our lives. I was sitting here on day one of being at home and thinking of all the things I could do, should do, might do and probably won't do so thought I'd keep a bit of a diary about those thoughts.
This morning started the normal way, cats wanting feeding, breakfast to make, but then a change in routine had to happen and I was writing a list of what I was going to have in my routine every day.
I came up with the following list:
Go for a walk (2m apart from anyone around)
Do some gardening (although I revised this to only when the sun was shining - really cold out today)
Clean out a cupboard, shelf, or even a room - spring clean in autumn...
Do some baking or at least cook a good meal
Skype or talk to someone
Read a book (I was lucky that I got the library before it shut - I really don't like reading on a screen)
Have a short rest or meditate
Take my son on a driving lesson (he got his Learner's Licence last week, great timing)
Play a game, card, do a jigsaw
Do some work (this will change to more of my time as we go into term time)

The problem is, I did most of those things even before I got to lunchtime. So I set out to find a few more things and have started an online course on the Science of Well-Being. Could be useful over the next few weeks and I'm keen to blog about that as well! I'm also updating my Education FB page with ideas and I feel the genealogy will get some time over the next couple of weeks. Writing this blog was another idea, I'll update each day then maybe post once a week or so.
It's quite weird not going anywhere, but also not wanting to go anywhere. I really don't want this virus so I don't even want to go to the supermarket if I can help it. I don't understand those people still out there shopping and socialising. Please stay home. It's hard but it's worth it. Let the poor people who are still working get on with their jobs without a ton of people around that may be infected. The longer people are out and about, the longer this will take.

I really like this poster from the Leeds Community Healthcare service which I posted on my FB page - we need to remind ourselves this is not normal.

Day Two
Today was a bit of a mish mash, getting a bit of work done, out to get some essential stuff and a last dash to the physio this afternoon to make sure I have tape for my foot. My appointment with the specialist next week has been cancelled, so after waiting a year for an appointment, it's going to be a while yet. Hey, there are people out there with a lot bigger worries than me so I'll deal with it.
I went through the list above and I figure if I can do at least 8 out of 10 each day then I'm doing well. Today was a 9/10 day which is great. The jigsaw is being completed quite quickly - lucky I have quite a few in the cupboard!
I noticed that there was a bit of traffic out today, people rushing to get things sorted, but still quite a quiet settled feel in the streets. A number of people walking, all taking the 2m rule quite well, crossing the road and avoiding others. Long may that last so we can fight this.
I have concerns for people and my mental health is taking a bit of a hit, wanting to help others but knowing I can't do much. All I can do is Skype others and keep chatting and give out information I find. There are so many people out there in difficult situations in so many ways and if I think of it too much it hurts my heart. I need to keep myself well and not dwell on things.
I've made a list of big things to do - sorting hard drives, photos, updating things I haven't got around to - maybe I'll get on to these as time goes on, but I'm finding I am quite tired, just with the stress and mental toll. Time to take a back seat and make sure I am kind to myself as well as looking after my young adults. Another day done. A couple of games of Carcassonne and it's time for bed again. From midnight tonight it will be very quiet. Remember - only go out if absolutely necessary.

Day Three
I spent a large chunk of the morning setting up a new site. I had been battling for a while with trying to find that elusive article that I had saved on my Sue's Education Facebook Page so I decided I would make a site to keep everything on. I could then organise it a bit better as well. So here it is - Sue's Education site. It may be useful to some of you and I am updating daily.
Going for a walk today was interesting, so many more people out walking, lots of smiles and hellos but also some solitary people, keeping to themselves and having space from others.
Had a Zoom call from Kit and Rebecca at Boma today - good to catch up and have a chat about where to from here. How can we reinvent education? We have no idea how long we will be in this state so how will we move forward? I also don't want to go backwards once we get back to face to face. How can we continue a mix of online delivery and some face to face? Will this be a turning point for education or will we revert back to what we know? Only time will tell.
The jigsaw is slowly getting completed - it's nice just sitting there every now and then and popping a few more pieces in. My Veggie box arrived today - I ordered online from https://www.eatlocal.nz/shop and the box arrived with fresh fruit and veg in it. A great deal for getting food delivered. I see now they have also added a fruit box today. Yum. I doubt I'll have to leave for much at all now. This could become a habit!!
I had some good news last night - I won the Dragonboat team's Biggest Loser prize. I've managed to lose a lot of weight since Christmas and it feels really good. Someone asked how I did it - it's really a case of more exercise and healthy eating. I still managed to drink wine and eat chocolate, but only in small amounts (well, mostly)! It's nice to have some time to exercise each day, I'm missing the walking I do at kura everyday so am making sure I get out and about here instead.
I must say I do miss being a Microsoft school at this time - I love the videos they are doing to help educators, and the way that Teams works really is awesome. But hey, Google it is and I'll do the best I can with Google Meet. I have however got organised on Discord - a big learning curve but definitely a good way to communicate with others. I'm liking it already, even though I am used to Slack and Skype, I can see that this platform has more and better options. We need to keep up with the play and move forward while we can. I'm keen to look at new ways to do things - we have to.
Interesting article from Imperial College in the UK that was shared with the DisruptEd group today - a bit of  a long read but worth it. We really need to be thinking we are in this for the long haul - it's not going to be just 4 weeks I feel. I've been reading over some of the docs on my website and thinking about how we can reinvent things for the future... hmm... that will keep me thinking for a while :)
Spent some more time on my Science of Wellbeing course and on some school work, but managed to get outside in the garden for a bit as well. It's amazing how much time I seem to have when I have the whole day of not leaving home. Time is definitely going slowly.

I was going to post this each week but I am thinking I'll just post it when I feel it's time.
It's time.