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Why are We So Tired?

This took me a while to wrap my head around, but after the May 15th Pro-D day I was hearing that many of my colleagues have been feeling like they are exhausted, more so that usual. I’ve been thinking the same thing and writing it off, as many have, as we have been switching to different instructional practices, stress and anxiety due to Covid-19, self-isolating, lonely, out of routine and worrying about friends and family.

Turns out there are other things that are contributing to our feelings of exhaustion and surprisingly they are related to exactly what we have been using to keep from feeling so far apart. While Zoom has been overwhelmingly popular during this time of social distancing, our school district’s use of Teams is certainly applicable to this articles. These articles explore the effects that virtual meetings, conferences and group chats have on our well-being.

Photo by Getty Images Plus.

Christina Cauterucci begins her article with the positives that I’m sure that well all felt in the beginning of being able to access technologies that were supposed to bring us together. I know that it did me good to see the faces of friends, family and colleagues through social media apps. She builds to something that I wonder if many of us are feeling now. As these meetings became more commonplace and regularly began replacing the face-to-face contact that we would expect, we realize how much they don’t actually replace speaking to the person in real life. What she terms “video chat fatigue” sets in and all the things that education professionals have been learning about social-emotional learning, such as the importance of eye-contact and active listening skills, are impossible to mimic through a web cam and in chat rooms. This has an effect on our mental state, especially considering how empathetic we are to our students and want to communicate our encouragement and understanding to them.

From Getty Images

An article in Forbes by Yola Robert considers further reasons of the effects of virtual meetings and the exhaustion they lead to. Along with the communication disconnect that we usually rely on for positive human interactions, she also raises the stresses that technical glitches and vanity bring to being on-line. All of her points contribute to another issue that I’m hearing far too often from colleagues and that is the matter of work/life balance. As we are finding ourselves increasingly in a virtual world, the idea of it being on 24/7 is having its own impact on us. Our care and compassion for others compels us to answer that email at 9pm, check our class Team after our own children are asleep and strive to provide individual feedback as soon as we can.

All of these considerations are important to keep in mind as we continue to move through this phase of remote learning. They may even become more important as June brings some combination of virtual and in-class learning for teachers. There is also the potential that some sort of change from the regular school expectations of attendance may follow us into September and beyond. Being able to discuss these things and our own challenges facing the situation, ever changing as it may be, should bring an awareness of another layer of difficulties that may otherwise be ignored. I would encourage colleagues and students to work to strike a work/life balance and take steps to combat Covid-Fatigue. Our District’s Continuity of Learning site offers webinars for our staff to support mental and digital wellness and I strongly recommend checking them out. This vein of thinking would suggest that I pursue resources that would support teen-aged students and their families in their wellness during this time. Perhaps sharing suggestions in the comments would help further the conversation.

Thank you, take care and be safe!

rmcmahon 1 Comment

Letting Emotion Get in the Way of Judgement

Well, it happened this weekend. In this period of heightened stress and anxiousness, I almost fell into the same vitriolic emotions that I’ve been guarding against. Upon hearing that outdoor areas were being opened as long as social distancing was observed, pictures started flooding in from concerned citizens about those that were not taking social distancing seriously. The CBC published stories worried about people ignoring the rules and threatening to close outdoor areas again or start levying fines.

And I felt it… a visceral, emotional response toward those that would willfully ignore the rules set out by Dr. Bonnie Henry and public health guidelines. Anger toward those that would put others in harm’s way so that they could get their outdoor time in at our beaches and parks. The idea that in an instant of gorgeous weekend weather, our efforts to flatten the curve would be erased. I began thinking about how I could express this feeling, communicate the frustration that I had with those people. Tell them how selfish they were being and, for the greater good, must continue to observe the rules to that we can beat this virus without risking anyone else’s health.

Upon witnessing this rant percolating in me and before I could embarrass myself, my kindhearted wife, ever the educator, asked a question that teacher-librarians really shouldn’t be reminding of, “how many pictures have you seen and are they different in any way?”

Humbled, I took pause to go back and look at the pictures that had moments ago raised my ire, like these images of Kits Beach:

The perspective of photos that showed a crowd were always at ground level. It did not take long for responses of others on social media to get heated and out of hand. I am certainly glad I listened to my wife, as this came through Twitter not long after our conversation:

The series of photos from the Twitter thread by Space2Place gave further examples of how perspective of crowding changes when seen from above.

Which prompted me to do a bit of further research into forced perspective and the issues of lens compression. As interesting as that was, this CTV article was more directly to the point. That same photo of Kits Beach, the one that made it appear so crowded, had an entirely different view from the air.

From CTV News: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/just-how-crowded-are-the-beaches-pictures-highlight-how-perspectives-can-mislead-1.4935162

 

Needless to say, my initial anger subsided and was replaced by embarrassment. I fell victim by the same hooks that are used to get people to react, either to click, comment or otherwise engage with information seeking to prey on an emotional response, without taking pause and examining the situation from a wider perspective (yes, punny, I know).

That is not to say that there were no infractions of social distancing this past weekend, I’m sure there were, just as I’m now sure that it may not have been to the extent that I initially assumed. This exercise served as a good reminder to take effort and evaluate situations and information before reacting. As many times as I’ve given this advice to people in the past, I certainly benefited from it yesterday.

rmcmahon 2 Comments

How are You Getting On?

Alright, I will admit it, I’m feeling it, personally and professionally. The third week of staying at home and I’m feeling the lack of human contact, outside of my immediate family, of course, with them there maybe too much social contact.

This post is turning it over to you, gentle reader. What tools and strategies have you managed to employ to stay socially connected? I’m asking for responses beyond the general Skype, Zoom, Facetime, Teams sorts of tools. There are bunch of them out there that are able to bring people together in all sorts of virtual environments.

Any of the following are not professional endorsements by any means and some come with privacy or sign-up policies. Please take them as they are, mere suggestions or threads to begin a search for the way of connecting with the outside world that works for you and your situation, safely.

I’ll go first. I have begun using Discord as a way to connect with friends. We are really loving how it is always “on” and can see who is online and available for a chat. I the current situation where people are often hanging about the house, this feature is handy. There is the option of voice only or audio/visual direct calls, group calls and you can always leave text messages for people to read later. The phone app is handy too, for those that are out of reach of a computer or with limited access. Much used by the online gamer community, there are a ton of established groups out there that are fairly easy to find, or you can keep your contacts strictly among people you know.

There are also apps available for free on phones, operating systems and on-line game services like Steam that offer a selection of simple, free games to be run, hosted and played over an internet connection. Ranging from two player games like backgammon and crib, to multiplayer games, such as Risk. Multiplayer games can be entered with people from around the world and most, if not all, have features that allow for text communication within the game or even voice and video. Again, such options need to be approached very cautiously due to privacy concerns.

Numerous methods for playing an hosting more complicated game and gaming systems are also out there. A growing number of virtual table top (VTT) apps are becoming available, many for reduced prices. The game that, to me, reinvented board games, Settlers of Catan, is playable for free on Steam. Many other VTTs are offered there as well. Again, not an endorsement for Steam, but it is one of the longest running on-line game providers out there.

Beyond board games are VTTs such as Fantasy Grounds, Roll20 and FoundryVTT, which have been developed to host and run role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons and Starfinder. Such games are more complicated and happen over multiple sessions, so it just may be the ticket to ensure a regular meeting between friends and establish that social contact.

Now, your turn. Please leave ideas or finds on how to remain social and sane during this period of isolation. It would also be great if people put forward any items of interest or questions they had about maintain some level of social contact. As with all of the resources that I’ve put out there, there are always more, but I do not want to overwhelm or present so many that readers have no idea as to where to start. The comments section would be a fantastic place to help me and others regarding this topic.

rmcmahon 2 Comments