#DailyWritingChallenge - Flexibility
Today’s writing challenge is based on the theme of flexibility. Funnily enough, I have woken up with a horrible headache and so my grand plan of doing lots of reading for my doctorate is already scuppered. Today I’m going to have to be flexible with my expectations of how much work I am going to be able to do. Pictures of people being incredibly productive during lockdown are all over social media and I think its more important now than ever to remember that people post their successes and productive moments. What we don’t see… the naps, the unwashed hair and the failed attempts at bread baking. With what feels like an endless expanse of time in front of us during lockdown, with no knowledge how long we will be here, we need to be more flexible now than ever.
Working in lockdown requires flexibility because there is a lot of uncertainty and this impacts our mental wellbeing. I can’t remember who tweeted it, but I saw that someone the other day had said that ‘you are not working from home, you are trying to work from home in an international crisis.’ I hope that this impacts the way you approach the challenges you are setting yourself during this time working from home. We have to be flexible as we don’t know how long this will last or how we are going to feel when we get up each morning.
Flexibility does not seem to fit well within the teaching profession. WomenEd and other brilliant groups are using Twitter to champion the possibilities surrounding flexible working and promoting the possibilities of part-time in the classroom and in leadership. This has also got me thinking about flexibility in our lives when we get back to school. No answers at the moment, but just some questions I’ll be asking myself when I get back to the history department:
How do our plans for the future link to the strengths and areas of development of the team?
If something doesn’t work, what will happen? What is plan b?
What aspects of our vision are steadfast and what can adapt as we go along?
How often are we checking in with one another to make sure that upcoming deadlines and actions fit in with what’s going on outside of school?
What has to be done now? What can wait?