The suck line – choice or tatty towels?

D2. One of the things that has made coming back a little easier have been the many lovely positive messages from my colleagues. I wasn’t sure what to write about today yet, when someone sent me this:

“hope you are all settled in QT hotel. Is there a lot of restrictions? I hope you get good internet, good food, soft bed, enough towel, tile floor, AC, mini fridge, allowances to order in coffee/food and gentle nose swab”

I then rolled out of bed groggily (jet lag meant I’d been up from 4.30am to 2.30am) and went for a shower and contemplated my tatty towel. And had to think of another quote:

“A towel, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • my tatty towel
  • my hitchhiker towel
  • jetlag progress

And thinking back to the 100s of messages in my quarantine group, I wondered where exactly the suck-line lies? Personally I don’t think it’s towels. Of my colleague’s list I actually can only tick off two, maybe three items (the food is a bit hit and miss), and I must admit a small twinge of envy seeing another colleague’s quarantine digs photos, but I don’t feel so badly off. There are people who have no internet or aircon and dirty rooms and (in their view) inedible food.

It’s not even the worst accommodation I’ve stayed in. My husband and I, newly married, with an antenuptial contract that included a stereo and bicycle and steel desk as our assets going into the marriage had just moved to São Paulo, Brazil. We went off in one of the notorious Brazilian night buses to attend a wedding of a friend in Canoinhas. After the wedding we had one more night before returning, but since I’d not yet found a job, and my husband hadn’t had his first salary yet, we only had enough money for either dinner or a flea-bag hotel. We should have taken the dinner. We literally were up all night fighting off the fleas, hearing the other bugs gnawing at the bed posts and being startled by the strange noises on the corridor.

The other very memorable accommodation in terms of discomfort was the 10 day silent retreat I did in Thailand where I slept on a stone slab for 10 nights, and had surrendered all electronic media, all reading and writing materials and had a straw mat to and a single sheet to cover me. It poured with rain for 9 of the 10 days and I don’t think I had a dry item of clothing or anything by the end of it. But it was my choice to do this and I gained more than I had to (temporarily) give up.

And then again there are the more than double digits in moves we’ve done over the years. So I thought the suck line probably is choice rather than towels.

I’ve read just enough (or maybe too much) pop psychology and self-help and seen enough TED-talks to understand that (at least in Western culture) we have the illusion of choice and the illusion that it makes the difference. Knowing my readers, most of you will know about the tyranny of choice – basically (apparently) paraplegics and lottery winners return to baseline happiness a year after the event, and once we make a choice not much can induce us to change our minds.

So I think what galls most people about quarantine in China vs other places is not the fact of it but the lack of choice and control over where we land up – we like lotteries, but only when we choose to play.

I’ll end off with some pictures of yesterday’s meals. I looked at all 3, like last year, so that I could decide which to stick with – being semi-sedentary means that’s way too much food, so I’ll opt for one and cancel the rest, at the moment the winner seems to be lunch. There’s nothing wrong with the food – perhaps a little over-reliance on meat – I pity the vegetarians as even the vegetable bits have meat. But we have to remember that China very recently didn’t have the luxury of meat at every meal let alone every month, so I’m sure it makes most of my fellow-quarantine guest happy to see it in these quantities.

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

Channeling my inner PollyAnna / stoic

Today marks the first day of my 14+7 quarantine in Shanghai before I can return to Beijing. Unlike last year’s 4 star hotel, I didn’t strike lucky on the hotel jackpot this time, so I’m just focusing on what is good:

  • the room is clean
  • no carpet (so no icky marks, hairs and other debris)
  • nice view
  • Airconditioning
  • kettle (and I brought tea)
  • wifi works
  • I have electricity
  • nice shower with good stream and hot water
  • no food orders (I need to lose some broken ankle induced weight)
  • I brought my new crochet rainbow blanket project – so I’ll have plenty of time to do that
  • my neighbour wakes up at 4.30am and has a very loud voice so I get an early start to the day
  • I have noise cancelling headphones (Chopin ballads are very soothing right now)
  • I don’t need to wear shoes for 2 weeks
  • I don’t need to wear a mask for 2 weeks except for my testing on days 1, 4, 7, 14
  • I have more than enough to read and enough work
  • View from window
  • bed with crochet project
  • Working space
For those of you not living in China and have expressed interest in the system here – you do not get to choose your hotel. You can also not book a flight directly to Beijing, but have to first quarantine in another city 14 days in isolation in a quarantine hotel and the 7 days in a hotel of your choice where you have more freedom of movement.

With Beijing now at 7 cases (out of a population of 20.8 million people – so please don’t be concerned about me living there), I may need to do a further 7 days of home quarantine before returning to work.

So you arrive at the airport, go through your first set of covid tests and forms and checks, pick up your luggage and then get herded into holding pens. They take your passport and fill in your details and once the holding pen has a bus-load full of people you get put on a bus for a magical mystery bus ride that ends up at a random hotel.

If you’re going into quarantine any time soon, a few things I’d suggest packing include Vitamin D (no sunlight for 14 days); your own plate, bowl, knife, fork, spoon, mug, lots of tea, extension cord, nice toiletries/shampoo etc, noise cancelling headphones & earplugs; perhaps food depending on how fond you are of Chinese quarantine “cuisine” – this time I just brought some anchovies in tins (helps the flavour of bland white rice) and bag of quinoa and “risotto de céréales” that I can “cook” in hot water.

Now I’m off to make my to-do list for the day – thanks to noisy neighbour I’ve unpacked and sorted everything and given the room a good wipe down with disinfectant wipes.

May – Presentation & Panel Month

I’ve had another lapse in blogging, not that things have been particularly quiet – in particular I managed to mis-step on some stairs in the center of Beijing in early April, thereby managing to fracture both my posterior and anterior malleolus (i.e ankle) resulting in my first ever ambulance ride and some pretty nifty ankle surgery inserting two titanium pins and being off my feet for 2 months, followed by quite a bit of rehabilitation. I’m happy to report that the Chinese saying 伤筋动骨100天 (injury to muscles and bones take 100 days) is absolutely correct – I’m finally capable of walking.

Luckily my brain wasn’t affected and in the interim I’ve given quite a few presentations – happily quite a few in collaboration with the veritable Katie Day who reminded me today that we should both document them before they slip into the oblivion of what was quite a year!

When you’re asked to present or be a panel member at a conference some time in November, and the presentation is in May, you suffer from a type of time illusion that makes you say yes, comfortable in the idea that it’s far away – and you keep on saying yes to different people at different times and don’t register that they’re ALL asking for May, and then suddenly you’re spending 20 hour work weeks on top of your usual work-week getting your ducks in a row to say something that won’t embarrass you too terribly – and the process is wonderful – particularly if you’ve got a great co-presenter but at the same time it’s pretty scary!

So this was the Month of May!

Toddle TIES Conference – 16 May – “Library at the Heart of the School – Developing Inquiry and Research.” A great panel moderated by Kirsten Durward with Bec Taylor, Carlos Diaz and Lamiya Bharmal the recording can be found here (click on 16 May) where we talk all things research and curation, each from a different perspective and school section (early years, primary, middle and secondary)

Then came the fantastic ECIS Library Week – the organising committee really knows how to throw together a compelling set of experts and practioners who can give some excellent presentations from things to think about to some very practical “how to” or “this is something I’ve done that worked”. Katie Day and I had each put in to present and then decided to combine our efforts on the two presentations, one a more macro view and one a more micro view on the ideas of IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Social Justice – acronym used at WAB where I work.)

Our first presentation “Moving IDEAS to REALITY” (26 May 2021) was around how the work atInternational Schools around IDEAS is being actualised. The presentation was based on a short survey we sent out to International School Librarians. Our slides and the results of that survey in detail can be found here. This presentation focused on how through Saying (language) Doing (behaviours and actions) schools could move to Being (internalising the espoused values). This was a more macro / theoretical view on what diversity means in the international school context and in particular to international school librarians (recording is available to participants).

The next presentation – (given by me slipping out of my son’s graduation dinner for a quick hour – with his permission) was entitled “#NotOurDiversity: Beyond BANA” (29 May 2021) (slides; recording). Trying to move beyond paying lip service to “mirrors, windows, sliding doors” in the international school context is NOT easy. Despite the tremendous and well overdue and much appreciated work that is being done in BANA (Britain, Australia, North America) their diversity is not “our” diversity in the international school context. We discussed and gave examples of mono- multi- inter- cross- and trans- cultural books that we use in our schools and their relative virtues and failings for our students. The problems for international school librarians of existence, discoverability and availability of the books and the people and organisations we wanted to give a shout out to for their work in this area. Please have a look at the link to the slides for some fantastic titles and resources / people to follow in this area.

Finally at the end of May I was on a panel at the Asian Festival of Childrens’ Content (AFCC) “Connections to Global Issues: how teacher-librarians are supporting the UN SDGs and beyond” (30 May 2021) with Katie Day as Moderator, and fellow panelists Zakir Hossain and Stojana Popovska, where we focused specifically on supporting schools in incorporating the SDGs into the curriculum. (slides)

So that was the end of a very busy month! Including visits to my very excellent physio and surgeon, working and preparing!

Aside: I’m not totally happy with the new WordPress “block” feature – it’s really annoying me in the way that images appear and it’s non-intuitive nature – even though I’m sure that wasn’t their intention! Having to go into the HTML code in order to align and pad the images is an unnecessary waste of time!

UN SDGS: GATEKEEPERS, ALLIES, ENABLERS, PERSUADERS

This post originally was created on 25 March 2021 for the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative’s SDG Month.

While the global goals set absolute numerical targets that are tracked as discrete targets, no matter where our country of origin or residence is on the continuum of individual goals the wonderful thing is how they tie us together as part of our common humanity.  

As educators, librarians and individuals our it is important that we can maintain motivation and momentum through our actions and thought leadership by banding together in initiatives such as this series of blogs. What roles can and do librarians and educators play?

Moving from Gate-keepers to Gate-openers

There are a number of arenas in which we can choose to be gate-keepers or gate-openers. Firstly in how we curate our collections and choose to spend our budgets. Pursuing books out of the narrow range of BANA (British, Australian, North American) publishers, heavily promoted through advertising and promotion the usual channels takes extra time and effort. It’s the librarian equivalent of trying to find rare cult and indie movies, and then promote the heck out of them to your geekie like-minded library friends – something like what we’ve been doing in the past month through these blog posts. Sometimes it feels like playing a never-ending super-Mario obstacle course – even if you identify suitable resources, you may not be able to source them in your country or school as they may only be available in a narrow geographic area due to arcane publishing and territorial rights.  

Another consideration is ethical purchasing by avoiding big companies with poor employment or environmental records and changing to suppliers through consolidators such as Ethical Revolution.  

https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/amazon-alternatives/

Persuaders

Once the books are part of our collections how do we ensure they get noticed and used by faculty and students? Sometimes the style of writing or illustrations are not what our community is used to – something like trying new foods, it’s important from a young age that our readers develop a sophisticated multi-cultural palette.  

Finally, we’re beginning to realise that unless the goals are embedded at all levels of the curriculum rather than being an option “add on” they are not taken as seriously or could even be avoided completely. What role can we play in embedding themes into the curriculum? Do we have persuasive currency with the curriculum coordinators or a voice at the planning tables with teachers?

Sometimes all it takes are a few examples from other schools or programmes to get ideas.   

Enablers

One of the organisations that comes to mind in curriculum development for the very young is ThinkEqual’s programme which addresses 10 of the 17 SDGs in 3 levels of tangible, easy to implement, step-by-step teacher guides for ages 3 to 6.

Each level of the programme includes 30 original books, associated resources, and 90 lesson plans. These are all given free of charge on condition that the programme is comprehensively and sequentially implemented.  

https://thinkequal.org/

The IB’s PYP and MYP programmes are ideally structured to allow flexibility in content around the subject groupings in Transdisciplinary Themes or Global Contexts.

At WAB, where I currently work, the SDGs are explicitly embedded in the PYP Exhibition, as part of the human rights inquiry in Grade 6, in Earth Science and Individuals & Societies in Grade 8. Looking at progress data could be part of a mathematics inquiry, and any literature units could include diversity in texts.

https://library.wab.edu/ms/G6Rights/RightsSDG

Allies and privilege 

Often it takes a few passionate people and their allies in order to make a difference. The Neev Book Award was started in 2018 “to find and showcase great children’s books from and about Indian lives.”

As a jury member since initiation, I can attest to the value of being an ally to this initiative where I can use my background and privilege to read, select and promote the books. It has also given me an insight into the difficulties for authors to “break out” of their geographical regions and reach a global audience. 

https://www.neevliteraturefestival.org/book-awards/

Similarly, the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s book award was set up to “acknowledge distinctive original Chinese picture books to encourage the publishing and reading of Chinese picture books”   

https://fengzikaibookaward.org/en/

Libro.FM, utilizes their platform “to highlight a diverse and inclusive selection of audiobooks for everyone. Each month, we curate lists of free audiobooks for educators, librarians, and booksellers. When curating these lists, we include at least 50% BIPOC authors in order to help distribute these books to classroom, library, and community bookshelves.” 

https://libro.fm/alcprogram

In the two countries where I’ve been a member of the librarian selection panels for School Book Awards (Red Dot Book Award and Panda Book Awards) discussion and criteria of diversity and inclusion have been explicit in the book choices. 

https://www.reddotawards.com/
Red Dot Awards — the ISLN (Singapore international school librarians network) annual book award
https://library.wab.edu/ms/READ/Panda20
The Panda Awards — the annual book award run by international school librarians in China

Authors partnership  or author / illustrator partnerships can result in a wonderful combination of access and voice  thereby bringing stories to a wider audience such as: 

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (and Salva Dut) / Highlighted in the blog post on SDG 6
When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (2020) / Highlighted in the blog post on SDG 4
The girl from Aleppo by Nujeen Mustafa with Christina Lamb / Highlighted in the blog post on SDG 5
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb (2012)
[Photo source]
Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan (2016) / Upper elementary/middle grade novel
[Photo source]
A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan (2020) / Middle-grade novel
[Photo source]
I See the Promised Land by Arthur Flowers, illustrated by Manu Chitrakar (2010)

This graphic novel version of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement is an exciting dialogue between two very different storytelling traditions. Arthur Flowers – African American writer and griot – tells the story in lyrical prose, while the text is illustrated by Manu Chitrakar, traditional Patua scroll artist from Bengal, India.

The artist allows the tale to resonate in his own context, translating it into the vivid and colourful idiom of Patua art. In the process, King’s struggle transcends its context, and becomes truly universal (SDG 10).

The Courage of Elfina by Andrew Jacob, illustrated by Christine Delezenne (2019) / Canada

This sophisticated picture book by Canadian professor and Swiss graphic designer tells the story of twelve-year-old Paraguan orphan Elfina sent to live with an aunt by a well-meaning grandmother. She’s then taken to Canada where she is  kept as a domestic servant by the family, denied education and has inappropriate advances made at her by her uncle (SDG4).

What What What? by Arata Tendo (2017) / Translated into English by David Boyd / Japan

A story of a young boy who doesn’t stop asking questions about how people are feeling and where they are, leading to helping a school mate in danger. (SDG3 – mental health) – sophisticated picture book could be used as a companion book or provocation for “Monday’s not coming” by Tiffany D. Jackson. 

The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden by Heather Smith and Rachel Wade (2019)

This book is a collaboration between Canadian author Smith and Japanese-Cantonese immigrant Wada (SDG 13; SDG 3) inspired by the true story of the wind phone in Otsuchi, Japan, which was created by artist Itaru Sasaki. He built the phone booth so he could speak to his cousin who had passed, saying, “My thoughts couldn’t be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind.”

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the town of Otsuchi, claiming 10 percent of the population. Residents of Otsuchi and pilgrims from other affected communities have been traveling to the wind phone since the tsunami. 

M is for Movement (aka Humans Can’t Eat Golf Balls) by Innosanto Nagara (2019)

This is a lushly illustrated long form picture book which tells the tale of the author’s history with activism weaving in themes of equality, colonialism, education, poverty. He also manages to bring in movements from all around the world, although the book itself is set in Indonesia. (SDG 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 8; 9; 11; 12; 15; 16)

If you buy one book this year, this should be it, along with the companion A is for Activist which is on my ordering list.  

Youth to Power – Your voice and how to use it by Jamie Power (2020) / Foreword by Greta Thunberg 

Jamie presents the essential guide to changemaking, with advice on writing and pitching op-eds, organizing successful events and peaceful protests, time management as a student activist, utilizing social media and traditional media to spread a message, and sustaining long-term action.

She features interviews with prominent young activists. 

Nadine Bailey is an international school Teacher-librarian and Technology Integrator currently working at the Western Academy of Beijing. A Dutch/South African former Chartered Accountant with Masters in Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation), Information Studies and Business Administration. She has lived in Africa, Europe, South America and Asia including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing.  Her passions include language acquisition and bilingualism. Online​ ​she​ ​uses Informative Flights (https://intlnadine.org/) ​as​ ​her​ ​blog​ ​and​ ​her Twitter​ ​handle is @intlNadine

Note: all the books highlighted during this month of SDGs can be found on this GLLI Goodreads shelf.

What are your favorite books that relate to the UN Sustainable Development Goals? Please share them in the comments. Let’s make this a conversation and work on the goals together.

Learning but not yet

So I got fired up about learning Javascript and then I had to do some very practical stuff in HTML/CSS that took way longer than I thought it would with considerable troubleshooting. So that’s been parked.

Even as a teacher, when I do stuff I’m learning about learning. Like the fact that when I originally wrote that blog post about customisation of libguides at my previous school, I’d spent a lot of time in that summer getting acquainted with the ins and outs of bootstrap/HTML/CSS. And because I was using it a lot it seemed quite easy. And then with a hiatus of nearly 5 years, I’d forgotten so much I had to almost re-learn it all again. It’s a little bit like my journey with learning Chinese, and forgetting Chinese and relearning Chinese, and taking a break and having to start learning it all over again. The dilettante model of learning and doing is not necessarily super efficient – Adam Smith definitely had a point on comparative advantage.

And one of the big lessons? I spent quite a bit of time doing some fancy bootstrapping for the landing page and then looked back at the guides I’d made at my previous school and realised that there is no point if there is no one to maintain and sustain it (maintenance is a big thing in my thinking – see this post from last year which was one of the most read posts I’ve written). So I reverted to something more standardised – I also believe that constraints are an important thing in creativity.

So, I’ve relearnt some HTML/CSS and managed to make a good-enough header/nav bar and footer that functions, and I’ve re-discovered the nice geeky hideout that is the Springshare lounge with their very supportive community. And I know a lot more about what I don’t know … which is a lot.

And maybe when I need a career change I’ll do some more programming and stuff … I once thought I should become an editor because I have the uncanny ability to glance at pages of text and see the one spelling, punctuation or grammar error, and working through all of this I’m developing an eye for glancing through code … very infant stuff still, but maybe something worth developing.

============

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Yay for learning!

Yes it’s been a while. A literal slump in life and learning and librarianship. Including a fractured ankle, surgery and being laid up for a month (2 more weeks to go), just as the worst 3 months of pollution in Beijing drew to a close.

But I’m feeling more energised (amazing what waking up only a few times a night can do vs. not being able to sleep at all) and have started a great new project on revamping our libguides – which has led to the fact that I need to learn me some Javascript – which weirdly has me excited enough to be excited about learning again. Not a lot, not at programmer level, but just enough to do some fancy things like in this AMAZING skills guide from York University. So really I have to thank York University and their amazing librarian Steph Jesper and Springshare for getting me out of the slump.

More after I’ve actually achieved something.

Photo by Ferenc Almasi on Unsplash

Maths and beyond

A few weeks ago one Friday, just before our WEIRD (WAB Extended Independent Reading Day) there was a sudden surge in interest in maths books from our G8 students. Unfortunately a little further questioning revealed that it wasn’t so much math books on demand as some kind of math text very specifically on quadratic equations as the students had a test in the next block but couldn’t spend the WEIRD block cramming / practising spreadsheets but had to in fact borrow and read a book.

The only book that really sufficed unfortunately was Everything you need to Ace Maths. While this type of book is a necessary part of a middle school library collection (we are after all there to meet the needs of our students), it got me thinking about the other wonderful books we have in our collection that were summarily rejected by the students.

For a while one of my favourite has been Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec’s “Dear Data“. While not considered to be a traditional “Math” book it can help both teachers and students to change their pre-conceived ideas of how data can be represented. A book like this is particularly valuable in encouraging students who see themselves as more artistic and creative to seeing that one of the important parts of numbers is making the information contained in them visible visually. A point well made by Hans Rosling in his memoir “How I learned to understand the world” – a very enjoyable read by the late author of “Factfulness”.

Recently a most wonderful book landed on my desk. Actually the book that motivated me to write this post at all. Power in Numbers by Talithia Williams – it was an order from before the winter break that I’d made to expand the biographies available for our Grade 6 Unlikely Hero unit. Until now “Hidden Figures” (mainly as a result of the movie by the same name) was the main exposure our students had to the idea of women mathematicians. This type of combined biography is so exciting because it finally gives these women the exposure they deserve. And what I mean by deserve is in a big well designed hardcover glossy full colour book. It’s a trend started by “Goodnight stories for rebel girls” but goes far beyond both in form and content. The women are put in context both of the age within which they lived and the mathematics that they pursued. It’s a book that I was reluctant to let go of to be catalogued and one that I had to immediately share with the math teacher who shares my passion for books! For more from the author see her TED talk below.

Asian parents set a very high stake by their children’s abilities in maths. Our students at all ages are often exposed to acceleration in their arithmetic and math skills whether by Kumon or Abacus or other means. As my colleague is at pains to keep explaining, speed and the ability to use equations and “tricks” don’t always equate to true longevity in maths. One series of mystery books I enjoy exposing this age group to is “Red Blazer Girls” – where the boarding school based heroines use maths to solve mysteries. Often the kids with the so called “math smarts” struggle applying their skills to word / problem / real life based situations.

A few other books that I’ve added to our collection recently include “The Wonder Book of Geometry” , “How not to be Wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg, “Maths in Bite Sized Chunks” , “How to Bake PI“. Continuing in the line of trying to encourage creativity in Maths, there is the Mathematical Origami book and for historical context “Great Breakthroughs in Mathematics” and “17 Equations that changed the World” . Finally something for the sports mad – the Full STEAM in sports series such as “Full STEAM Basketball”

One of the Maths Teacher resource books that have been a hit recently is Peter Liljedah‘s “Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. One of the benefits of social media includes being able to reach out to and engage with the authors of these books.

To end up this post, here is our Mathematics resource Library guide – happy to get more ideas of resources and the Maths books recommendations on a great website I was just introduced to today – Fivebooks.com! Worth some exploration as experts share their favourite top five books in various aspects of mathematics.

(Header Photo by Roman Mager on Unsplash)

To Blog or not to blog?

Today is clear up day… that inevitable day near the end of a vacation when I try to set up my bujo (Bullet Journal for the uninitiated – it’s great – even some of my library staff have adopted my bujo habit and it’s one of the books on our WAB-Reads list this year); sort out my desk; my overflowing to-do list (as in delete anything that I’m not likely to get to and reassess if I or anyone else cares); back up all my files and photos and peripherals like phone and watch and ipad (it’s done weekly anyway but this is an extra) and try to yet again tackle my burgeoning email inboxes.

And that’s where the crisis of whether to blog or not comes in. I’m forcing myself to delete my subscriptions to newsletters and blogs and update etc. because if I’m honest I just don’t get around to reading them, and then I wonder if this blog is creating similar angst in my (limited) readers. The things I need to write and reflect on are probably not really suitable for public consumption without getting me into trouble of one type or another, and I’ve lost the capacity for handwriting in a journal and I certainly wouldn’t do both.

A brief hiatus turned into nearly 6 months and I had to find my password to log back in – how sad is that.

I fear part of the reluctance to blog is that it was always a showcase for my work as a librarian and now that job is being (over)shared and encroached upon with my role as a tech-integrator. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of library-mojo, coupled with missing my Singapore ISLN network, and being in a library that is more of a passage-way than a destination.

I spent 6 weeks in the classroom after schools restarted before our teachers were all back as I was one of the first to re-enter after the covid visa stop. It gave me a great appreciation for what teachers do, and understanding of why the library may not always be at the top of their list of things to do each day. It was a great way of getting to know some students better, since I’m no longer in a school / school section where weekly/regular trips to the library is normal.

I must also admit that part of my hiatus was that I didn’t feel I had a right to say much in these months of Covid-19. I am still of a very privileged minority. Yes, my son and I were separated from my husband and daughter for 8 months. But as soon as I got my PU letter from China, the Chinese embassy in Bern were absolutely amazingly helpful in getting us through the hoops for a new visa. Yes, our ticket was cancelled and changed and I nearly had a heart-attack when they wouldn’t let us board as we had a “ghost” flight due to the typhoon in Korea on the way back, but we got back safely. Yes, we had to quarantine for two weeks in Shanghai, but our hotel was relatively decent, allowed for deliveries from outside and the staff were lovely. Yes, we wear masks all day every-day, but we’re back at school and the kids are all fine. They really are. Most of them happy even, despite being middle school teenagers.

I was chatting to a friend last night who is in education in the UK and her daughter is also a teacher. Hesitantly she asked me if I thought that we sometimes make it worse for our students with our emphasis on mental health and constant revisiting of things. It’s a good question. Personally I feel that when we got back being reminded of our “trauma” both made me feel guilty (too much work and not enough sleep had been my main trauma) and also took time away from me getting the things done that I needed to do to move on and make things better for myself and my students. It was like a scab that was successfully healing and closing a wound was continually being picked at and ripped off. She said she felt the same, but didn’t think she could say as much to most people around her. That is not to under-estimate the great work being done with people who need help. But too much reflection and not moving forward may not be what we need.

Life here in Beijing has been good, the occasional pollution days excepted. People are sensible and cautious. We’ve had some good hikes, walks, runs. Parties have been cancelled or limited to fewer people spontaneously not because anyone has insisted on it. We had a few extra cases (2) in the neighbourhood and 2 million people (including us) were tested in 24 hours, free of charge, with the results back in 24 hours.

Hiking on the wall

Even just putting these thoughts into words has been good – because it makes for some actionable points. So maybe this blog will remain for my professional growth for now. I have a lot to be thankful for in the past year.

And here’s my book overview for the year.

Hiatus

I’m not blogging and it’s for a reason. I’m still trying to clear out the detritus of a rather busy and stressful year. Most of it spent online. Part of that is to seriously consider each and every subscription that is creating a digital deluge in my inboxes. It’s disheartening as I unsubscribe or delete or just archive things that are great, well written, well thought out but where I just don’t have time to read.

So then I had a crisis of confidence that I’m just one more thing creating other people the same problem, and that’s had me reluctant to write.

I’ve cleared about 700 items from my personal email, and have another 260 to go. Professionally it’s worse with about 900 items unread – many of them emails to myself of things to follow up on, curate, add to libguides, etc. etc.  And that’s even after spending time every weekend culling at least a 100 emails at a time – AND it’s better since I’ve moved most of my communications with colleagues to microsoft teams.

Right – to make this worth your read – here is a link to the Summer Guide that I created with Stephen Taylor. It’s a reminder to our families of the many and rich resources we have and the fact that they continue to be available over the summer.

Summer guide

I have a list of things I want to blog about when I’ve cleared my mind and other clutter in my life, until then – a happy restful summer.

Don’t try this at home!

Week 12. The TV in our household has been quiet for most of the Covid-19 period. This isn’t unusual, since I grew up in South Africa, we only got TV when I was 9, and it was a little black and white thing to boot, so the habit never caught on. Since my son is doing film, we’ll occasionally watch something that he’s seeing for film together, or the odd Netflix series. I switched on the TV the other night and stood amazed as a home-schooling mum told a reporter about how she managed everything, the brilliant schedule*, her children diligently working at whatever was laid out, the chores everyone was merrily doing and sighed. And felt inadequate. And laughed a little hysterically. (And switched channels). And remembered that I’d never chosen homeschooling, ever, at any point of my parenting existence. In fact sending my kids to school was a sure way of ensuring that they survived past childhood.

I think a lot of us “educator/administrator / parents” are feeling the pressure that somehow we should have more a grip on online-learning – well spoiler alert – this one certainly doesn’t.

This past weekend I closed my laptop and only lightly touched my phone to connect with friends and family. Because my son needed my help. He had a film assignment to complete and I was the only warm body able to be camera-person. He needed synchronous conversation and meals with me, as we’ve been completely asynchronous all week with him waking up just as I’m at the end of my physical and emotional tether with all the work I’m doing online. We needed to have some meals together. Go for a walk. Get in the car and visit our local vegetable farmer to stock up and try a local farmer who had a meat self-service stall.

I still consider myself to be fortunate. One 16 yo in the house with me, one 18yo stuck in the UK with her guardians, trying to discuss university options and counselling not to feel despondent that the first choices were not achieved. Single and remote parenting isn’t something I’ve chosen but has been thrust on me with a husband still in China.

It was a tough week. Our landlord refused to extend our lease for even another year as she had $$ signs dancing in her eyes (good luck with that), and we needed to virtually find a new place (my husband can’t return to Beijing without 14 day quarantine, and he can’t be away from his job that long, as life is back to normal where he works). Thank heavens for kind colleagues who were leaving and prepared to have a long conversation about the place they were vacating. Now the ROTW (rest of the world) has joined the online party every single system is creaking and groaning and, more often than not, just lying down and dying. Professional stress plus personal stress are not a great combination. My son had a terrible week last week – 11 weeks of online learning for an extreme extrovert with ADHD is not a joke. Plus a physically absent father and an emotionally absent mother – or at least not present at the hours that he was present. He did a lot of sleeping. And cooking. And neighbour’s dog walking. And panicking. So did I, except for the sleeping bit.

As with most things these days, it seems like online-learning while parenting is a binary thing. On the one hand there are the perfect parents with their schedules and advice, and on the other there are those shouting out for help, discussing tantrums and refusals to cooperate. Or those like me occasionally whimpering that it’s not easy.

The other binary seems to be the “refuseniks” who are taking a stand against any online learning as an affront to their authority in the home, or who say it should take a back-seat to emotional / physical wellness vs the group who want it to all be “business as usual” and are reactive to any hint of a slackening of pace.

I suspect all and any responses are responses driven by culture, experience, financial means and dare I say anxiety. While on the one hand I do think this is the ideal opportunity to rethink so much in life, there is the constant sword of Damocles I feel hanging over my head. Single parts of a machine that change, run the risk of being flung out. Will a term out of school really matter? This article based on the Christchurch experience argues it won’t. NWEA – who is selling a tool, but does have the data that so many crave during uncertainty compare the Covid-19 slide to the summer slide. And some private schools are already preparing to mitigate against any slide. I know that working and learning in our household does create the semblance of a structure and the idea that there is some lurching forwards towards academic goals, or at least well-trodden pathways.

It is of course a privilege thing above everything else.

romanticising quarantine - .jpgThe people cited in the first article weren’t sitting around doing nothing while their children were un-supervised, left to their own devices and anxieties. The loudest voices in the “I’m going to do nothing” won’t really be doing nothing. They’ll be playing games, cooking, gardening, reading and a plethora of other stimulating activities in the (larger) indoor and outdoor spaces they have at their disposal. They’ll know what to do because their background and privilege will allow them to make choices that mean things will turn out OK. Structured schooling is unfortunately one of the few options for many other students to do the school and life learning that will make their futures more bearable.

Not just privilege but also assumptions – they’ve not really changed – the idea of homeschooling presupposes that there is someone at home to do the schooling. Now there may be somebodies at home – but those bodies may be working pretty darn hard to keep their own jobs, or in fact be the ones pushing out the online-learning while juggling the education of their own.

A few of the articles I’ve found interesting this week are “prepare for the ultimate gaslighting” That counts not only for consumption of goods, but also I think for the consumption of learning. What will happen when we go back? The universe hates a vacuum. Will it be swiftly filled by more of the same?

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*There are circles of hell for online/remote/home schooling schedules – and the ones closest to the fire are the ones that are colour-coded and for sale on TpP (Teachers pay Teachers – for the uninitiated) ! schedule.jpg