Welcome to week two of Care & Equity my friends!
I’m writing this dispatch on Sunday after a very fitting weekend (in my opinion) for our topic. My weekend was focused on play and rest. After a very long academic year, I have made it my priority to have as many 3-day weekends as feasibly possible this summer. I took this past Friday off and spent it plopped in the Pemi river with my husband and a fiction book (Mary Shelley’s 1818 edition of Frankenstein to be specific!), with no intention of checking my email or phone for at least 3 hours. It truly felt restorative and restful, like a summer day I remember having as a kid before the world got so serious. It was a welcome reminder that no one is able to be “on” all the time without breaks, and constantly pushing through to the next task/duty/responsibility shouldn’t be the norm. I was reminded of the blurb regarding UDL mindset in this week’s topic which emphasizes that barriers exist in the environment and not the learner, and that elements of struggle can and should exist, but they should be productive. To me, this signals that there is almost always something that can change around us to improve our connection to the work rather than hoping that the internalized shame/guilt/anxiety/stress will go away on its own once this next thing is finished.
When thinking about equity and creating equitable environments, we must first look to our own needs and the needs of our students, then we can look to the environment (both physical and digital) to figure out what we might change. Check in with yourself – what needs have you been ignoring? How does that impact your ability to show up, and the interest you have in showing up? What needs might your students be ignoring, both in your classroom and outside of it? Sometimes the only change needed in a learning environment is someone willing to demonstrate that we are all human and things can be adapted to meet folks where they’re at while still holding expectations that encourage positive struggles that turn into meaningful learning.
A couple housekeeping notes:
- If you are feeling behind, no stress. Refer back to last week’s dispatch for some suggestions on what you might want to tackle next. I will be back next week with some updated suggestions for our next topic.
- If you haven’t done so already, please make sure you add your Hypothes.is username to your DF Profile to make sure we can see your annotation appear on the DF website. You can edit your profile by selecting “Your Portfolio” and then “Update Your Profile”.
- If you are having any trouble with the website, accessing information or content, or Hypothes.is, don’t forget about our DF Teams channel!
I hope you are all having a great start to your summer! I hope you have some time to get outside when the sun is shining and that you’re taking good care of yourselves!