Technolandy

Day 88 (of 2024/25) originally titled: more reasons why I can be an admin pain as an admin….

During a meeting this week – we relooked at our district procedure on food… which reminded me about one item brought up awhile back was some parents not wanting videos on while kids were eating. I am guilty of this – As an early adopter, I found it very useful as a strategy to encourage a student who was too often on his own (by design and with support) to come and eat in the bigger classroom. Pink panther did a great job of connecting kids… but because of a recent discussion or two, I did share a point I have been slowly publicizing more: one that was trusted to me around those screens being on at lunch – for a vulnerable section, they said (and not wanting it to be confidential…except for their names) watching a video at lunch in the classroom helped them distract themselves and work on their eating disorder and ensured their paranoia that ‘everybody’ would be watching the screen rather than them… screens meant healthier eating strategies, but nobody really wants to talk about those disorders (as we might need to get uncomfortable?)

And today I shared how I still have an issue with ‘starting and ending on time’ <— I find the ‘on time’ is becoming more and more of a cultural dog whistle which is subtly dismissive because of ‘reasons’ why ‘they’ can’t be on time… because ‘my’ time is valuable. I fully agree that time is the most valuable resource in education, and I used to be more firm on time than I am now… in part because of a time blog from awhile back that I’m gonna expand on…

And when a colleague was talking about the equity/equality meme (and the variations) I couldn’t help but mention how I like to tweak the system with some other visual… augmentations…

Really glad the PLN I work with have patience to hear me out on some things… as I try to voice some systemic concerns as i continue to do equity scans knowing that more often than not… even I ponder if I should keep some of these wonders/pokes to myself. But then again, that is the point of equity scanning, isn’t it? After all, who else is going to tease annual reminders about the neat schools christmas concerts (unintentionally) reinforcing the importance of that spiritual tradition in what is supposed to be an agnostic institution…. I think I’m going to be working Good Friday and Easter monday to protest the calendar… the days will be quiet… 😇