Yeoo, standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride (Robert Johnson)

This is apposite to my last posting about binary decision making. Who else but the wonderful Seth Godin. He just gets it.

No judgment, no responsibility.
No responsibility, no risk. 

There's a fork in the road. If you seek out roles without responsibility, you might just find a sinecure.

This is the hot job for undifferentiated job seekers at the placement office, the job where a famous company will tell you what to do all day. 

Alas, those are the jobs that will be deleted first. The jobs that come with little in the way of respect or stability. These are the jobs that big companies automate whenever they can, or create enough rules to avoid any variation if they can't. 

The other choice is a job loaded with judgment calls. One where it's extremely likely you'll make a decision you regret, and get blamed for it. One where you take responsibility instead of waiting for authority 

It turns out that those are the best jobs of all.

Yawn 'asal wa yawn basal * (Arabic proverb)

* means - One day honey, one day onions.

My version of it - you have to take the crunchy with the smooth!

 

My job is often largely done inside my head - millions of thoughts and mulling over of decisions - gazillions of synapses - trying to sort out my world. On a daily basis.

That's why I'm so often exhausted at the end of the day, and why I struggle to communicate with my wife on Saturdays. All that accumulation means I am like Jason Bourne in the car listening silently to the Franka Potente character.

I'm sorry, I can't remember where I got this next bit from but it resonated!

Anyway, it turns out that the mental load of management is primarily around experiencing failure.

Actual failure, sure, but mostly potential failure. Imagining failure in advance. All the current things that could go wrong. And more important, the things you're not doing that will be obvious oversights later. Our brains work overtime to cycle through these, to learn to see around corners, to have the guts to delegate without doing the work ourselves (even though that creates more imagined points of failure). Scan, touch, consider, analyze, repeat.

This is so on the money it's scarey!

I guess that's the binary aspect to the filter process on every thought/potential action during my day - will this work/will this do more harm/is there a better way and so on - imagining failure in advance.

Most times I find the filter works. But not always. And that's okay. None of us are perfect.

As the fire grows we can warm ourselves, watching rainbows in the coals (Michael Murphey)

Fieldays, Fieldays, dear old golden rule daze.

Meet Terry.

Terry is in his seventies, he's an old retired farmer, from Gore (that's somewhere in the bottom of the vastness of the South Island I believe). Dressed in a flat cap, double hearing aids and tweed jacket.

We got chatting while I was supervising my Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) students in the Innovation Tent at Fieldays.

I asked him when he'd flown up, oh no, he said - I drove.

Okay. That's a long way to drive! Who was with him? Oh no, he said - I'm on my own.

Then I asked him my big question with my usual casual élan- Why? Why do that? Why are you here?

And he smiled and gave me THE BEST ANSWER EVER!!

Because I might learn something.

Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud (Kiss)

Super exciting developments at school today as we (the senior syndicate staff) planned for Project Based Learning in Term3 with our junior classes.

I don't often rave about after school meetings, but it was great to spitball ideas with my colleagues on PBL plans.

We built on these background articles from the wonderful people at Edutopia and pretty soon the ideas started flowing.

We have planned to start off with Year 10 and PBL on a Friday, incorporating science, maths, English, languages, social studies, and accounting. Exciting!

Next stage: to scaffold an accounting Level 1 standard and what we want to present to the students in terms of a PBL framework. 

Back of the net! (Alan Partridge)

Dealing with anxious and/or defiant students is tricky and no matter what school you are working in, you will come across tricky moments.

I've learnt the hard way that raising your voice, trying to dominate, and creation of a win/lose situation does not ultimately work.

Knowledge from experience tells me that private or non-verbal, fact based praise, a sense of calm, and a positive relationship with the student goes a very long way. 

Actually, I think it's the only way.

Nipping situations in the bud, being sensitive to student needs and tailoring the curriculum to include bags of student choice is the way forward as well.

When I started at Woodford House in 2013, I was returning to teaching after a long gap - 7 years in fact (Principal and overseas consultancy stints were the cause). I was rusty, plus I knew no one and had no relationship with anyone at the start. It was tough and some tough classes (hello Year 10 and 11 girls) were merciless.

After the first few terms, though, I had learnt names, established relationships and things began to improve.

I wish I'd read this Mind/Shift article back in 2013 when I was struggling with those Year 10 girls at Woodford.

This advice would have been good: 

...a break paired with a cognitive distraction does offer respite from the “all or nothing” thinking that’s so common with anxious students. An older student might take a break and record herself reading a book out loud for a younger student with dyslexia. It’s impossible to read out loud and think another thought. Other distractions could include sports trivia, sudoku or crossword puzzles. Little kids might do a Where’s Waldo or look through a Highlight magazine for the hidden picture.

I'm particularly struck by the idea that it is impossible to read out loud and think idea. That's pretty cool.

There are 19 other tips in that article for your consideration. Even if you only think you can use 2 or 3, that's a win.

Through the windows of midnight moonfoam and silver (David Gray)

My daily routine part 2:

From 5 to 5.30pm, my end of the working day includes a check in my diary to see that I've done everything I wanted to/ needed to and some thinking about what is coming up tomorrow.

I also make some quick notes in my diary of things which happened in my day that my Community Administrators (C.A.'s) might need to know. They asked me to do a weekly email to them of these things, to do so, my diary notes have become crucial.

I can now pack up my stuff. I tidy up the paperwork into appropriate folders (I hate leaving current work lying on my desk - for some reason my brain dislikes the idea of half finished jobs).

Sidebar: Without consciously thinking about it, I have subscribed to the 5-S Principles Thomas Oppong mentions in his post on end of day routines - the name of a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: Sort (Seiri), Set In Order (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu), and Sustain (Shitsuke).

• Make work easier by eliminating obstacles (Sort)
• Arrange all necessary items so that they can be easily selected for use (Set In Order)
• Clean your workplace on daily basis completely or set cleaning frequency (Shine)
• Maintain high standards at all times (Standardize)
• Self discipline, also translates as “do without being told”(Sustain)

Having done those things, I leave school, head home and my brain starts forgetting about my working life.

Only in an emergency will I take work home. I got out of that habit when my children started coming along. It was okay with one (Keegan was very placid) but from January 1987 onwards (hello Adam) evening school work became nigh on impossible.

Keegan, Adam, then Samantha and Jade (and my wife, Jacky) made the need for work/life balance a new consideration back then and the need has continued to this day.