Month: July 2019

Just back from a wonderful week with my family and friends. We spent part of our week on the beautiful Oregon coast, pictured here! Had the chance to play golf with my kids, and one of the highlights there was watching the two of them in a cart together, playing together, laughing together. A Dad’s dream!

Getting ready to head into work this morning, I caught myself whistling and excited about heading back to a job I love, in a place I’ve spent my entire adult life, working with people I admire and respect. That’s a pretty good realization to have!

I also had the realization that time away from work, makes you better when you’re at work. I supposed I’ve always known that, but heading into vacation, I wasn’t feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed, so vacation was just a bonus. It’s possible I needed it more than I realized. It all has to do with balance. Even with jobs we love, working with people we love, spending time away with people we love more than our jobs, is the most important thing.

I hope everybody gets the chance to spend time away, refresh, reboot, relax, and then come back to work fired up and ready to roll!

Throes:

noun

1. intense or violent pain and struggle, especially accompanying birth, death, or great change.

Not sure which of those ideas is most on my mind as I write this morning, but here is what prompted my writing. I think I’m in the throes of change, absent the birth/death part.

Two worlds collided. One, I’m reading Transforming Libraries-A Toolkit for Innovators, Makers, and Seekers, by Ron Starker. So far, so good. I’m hoping to get some good ideas for three of our ongoing building projects. A new middle school, a new elementary school, and a new addition to our high school.

Hit this quote by Mr. Starker, “Those libraries offering only access to information will most likely perish, while libraries offering members the opportunity to build, create, problem solve, collaborate, network, innovate, and learn lifelong skills will become innovation hubs and critical change social institutions that carry us through times of turbulent change.”

I absolutely agree with this. Libraries are critical in our world, in schools, and for kids.

So I’m reading this book. And I get a message from a colleague about an article from Sydney, Australia, March, 2019, titled, ‘Major distraction’: school dumps iPads, returns to paper textbooks’.

Frustration was my first response. My assumption was that the sender of the message saw this as some kind of victory over change, over kids using technology in schools. Probably an unfair assumption. I make a lot of those. And I love that colleagues send me stuff to read.

And the frustration went away pretty quickly. Any change will happen in fits and starts. The quote about libraries above seems definitive in my opinion. Ultimately, for example, “…Google’s digitation project will greatly help libraries and will bring back thousands of out-of-print books, creating universal access that will ultimately benefit authors and readers alike.”

Reading the article made several things clear.

The ‘dumping’ of the ipads was to eliminate distraction from popups during reading. I suppose that’s kind of reasonable, but popups can be eliminated in other ways. However, the ‘dumping’ was also addressed. “The school will also phase out iPads and begin a bring-your-own device policy with a preference for laptops.”

Oh. Bring your own device, with a preference for laptops. That seems good.

Throes of change. Fits and starts. Intense or violent pain and struggle. Great change.

Bring it on.