Learning is Change

31. What do you give most freely? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 1, 2016

You can be the most skeptical person in the room. You can choose to shoot down each and every idea that is proposed. Or, you can choose to be the most silent person in the room, making no effort to engage in any way. Or, you could be the most indecisive person in the room. You can believe that the people outside of the room are the ones that matter and you can defer to them and delay any decisions until you have their input.

I am none of those people. Instead, I choose to be the most invested person in the room. I choose to listen to others and to take notes in a collaborative document. I choose to stay relentlessly positive and come up with solutions, even when it doesn’t seem as though anyone is willing to go there with me. I am an optimist and I wear it on my sleeve. You can read my intentions on my face and I most freely give smiles to each person in the room.

This is not grandstanding behavior. It is a genuine decision to give others a happiness that I feel deeply in each moment of learning. In the struggle of creating something new, I smile. In the building of a new relationship, I smile. I give smiles freely and my words follow suit. In fact, the words are the reasons for smiling. They bounce around my head and tumble forward, forcing the corners of my mouth upward.

No matter how dour the mood is, I find the collaboration engaging and worth the effort. No matter who is within the room, it is an opportunity for building community and favoring the investment rather than apathy. I do not judge those who choose to disconnect, but I do find it fascinating. Given the option of sharing a moment in creating something new, why choose anything else?

The gap-toothed grin is a tool of my trade. It is the one that I freely share with others with no expectation of reciprocity. Rather, I simply hope that others will know that I am investing in them and that I take time and attention seriously. This is not another meeting. It is not another chance to kick the can down the road. This is a moment worth seizing. It is a moment worth showing up for. It is a moment worth smiling at.

30. Are you an artist? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 30, 2016

I used to write music. I used to write poetry. I used to act in plays and perform.

Those things are still with me, but they are not of me. It is not tragic or even really sad that these things are not a part of my life. Because they could be. It is not hard to imagine me sitting down with a guitar and working out a few new songs. It is not a difficult thing to rhyme words on a page or seek out an open mic night. But those things are not part of my life, by choice.

It may be a passive choice, one of attrition, but it is choice nonetheless. I choose to be with my family most nights. I choose to watch television or use my phone to scroll twitter. I choose to blog and make videos. None of these things are artistic, but they do fill up and sustain my life.

I’m reminded of the 1988 movie, “Punchline.”

In this movie, Tom Hanks plays a struggling comedian. I one of his standup performances, he does a bit about every job becoming a “stylist” of some kind. I’m paraphrasing and mashing up a bunch of the statements, but this is how I remember it: “You aren’t a tour guide. You’re a tour stylist. You aren’t a dermatologist. You are a skin stylist. You aren’t a dentist. You are a tooth stylist. You aren’t a hate-monger. You are a hate stylist.”

I do not feel like an artist. I feel like a life stylist.

I can write and create and build new things each day. I am not lacking for creativity or inspiration. I am able to write things that matter to me and share them with the world. I am not limited by any of the constraints of family life because I chose them and I continue to choose them. But, that doesn’t make me an artist. It doesn’t mean that I am dedicating my life to the pure pursuit of artistic expression.

My expression is not limited to a canvas of any kind. In fact, much of my expression comes in the form of my children and their ability to navigate the world and not get angry when things do not go their way. I am so much more proud when my daughter writes poetry than when I do. I am so much more engaged when my wife is taking up acting in a commercial than when I acted in a play.

I am a stylist, and that may make me less of an artist, but it certainly doesn’t make me any less me.

29. How do you get everyone to the table? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 29, 2016

There is no table big enough to give everyone a seat. There is no table that everyone would want to sit at, where we all agree upon why we are there. There is no table that even looks like a table to everyone else. It might look like a stage or a bench to someone else, and they might use it for their own purposes.

In fact, the only way to get everyone to the table for the same purpose would be to have everyone build the table together. From scratch. When everyone invests in building the conduit for conversation, they do not take anything for granted. When they have to construct next to the people they will be dealing with, they understand the hard work that has gone into collaboration even before it begins.

That is why you can’t create a template for everyone to follow.

That is why you can’t draw up talking points for everyone to stick to.

That is why you can’t invite only the people you know.

A liken this to a blank Google Doc. When you start a conversation, a blank Google Doc is daunting. It seems as though you haven’t thought it through. It seems as though it should require you to build something beforehand. But, it is the process of writing trust into existence that will sustain the conversation. You must get everyone into the Doc. You must get everyone writing and structuring. There are no exclusive notetakers. There are no rigid rules for the way in which you comment or contribute.

There are some that will add images. There are some that will add tables and navigation aides. There are some that will add heuristics. Still others will work on how the document will be shared and who will be invited to edit. In the best cases, the document is shared both via an open link that can be forwarded to anyone with even a tangential interest as well as a direct invitation to those who will passionately build with you.

And then you make time.

You make time to come back to the document. You make time to create, to comment, to delete, and to move around. You are not afraid of asking questions or proposing new ideas. You are not beholden to the writing that only halfway explains itself. You are looking for buy-in and not perfection. You are looking for authentic contribution and not wordsmiths.

This is how you build the table. This is how you get everyone to come and sit.

28. If you had to focus the rest of your working days on one problem, what would it be? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 28, 2016

There is an incredibly snarky cartoon someone made in MS Paint that places WiFi below food/shelter on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This is silly and pretty insulting for many of the folks who are food insecure or who lack a constant home to call their own. I do not believe that wifi or device battery life or any of the “first-world problems” are worth devoting a life’s work to. They are about annoyance rather than need, but even in their privilege and affluence they speak to what is possible in a life where access is all but guaranteed.

When you have access to the world’s repository of information, you are no longer confined to only the solutions you and your local community can come up with. When you have access to other people and cultures you can more deeply understand the human condition, and more specifically your own situation in the context of a plural society. When you have access to the tools for creation and collaboration, the possibilities for building new things are limitless.

In many ways, Access is Equity.

And access needs a champion. Not for those who lack consistent wifi or who have to upgrade their phones every 4 years instead of every 2. Access needs a champion for those who cannot connect at all. And while this argument is much of why Mark Zuckerberg started Internet.org and why the 1 Laptop Per Child initiative was born, neither is making good on the promise of Access.

Internet.org emphasizes a closed and, often times, Facebook-centric internet. It gives access to what we currently believe is important about the internet rather than what can be created by the local community. OLPC, on the other hand, focuses on the device itself rather than the network and connection. While I do not fault either initiative for helping to move the conversation about access forward, they are not pushing for a sustainable solution in the way organizations like water.org or Kiva are.

There should be a way in which we guarantee access to the internet as a human right, much in the way we guarantee the rule of law or compulsory education. It doesn’t belong at the bottom of Maslow’s heirarchy, but it does belong in the conversation about what it means to be human in the modern world. If you cannot access the internet, the whole internet, then you will not be able to engage in the types of discourse and transactions that power our global and interconnected society. This will not only create a divide, but it will create a caste system. Those with access will be able to quite literally “plug in” to new opportunities, and those without will be stuck fighting for an ever shrinking pie.

I do not have a silver bullet for this problem and I certainly do not pretend to have thought through this from every angle in the way that folks who have been doing community work for decades in NGOs have. But, if I were going to dedicate my every waking hour to solving a problem, it would be to creating access for all. It would be in building the infrastructure necessary to guarantee everyone can use the internet freely as fundamental need.

27. What do you donate to? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 27, 2016

One of my favorite philanthropists is Hanna Hart. She is a youtuber that started the Have a Hart Day, which takes aim at the notion that you can only give with money. She believes that many young people should be giving their time rather than money, mostly because they have more of it to give. She organizes amazing meetups for her community and empowers each member to make their own contributions to making the world suck less.

I believe in the power of giving without the need to receive. And while it may not be as organized as Hanna, the most donation I do is of time to others who are stuck. I donate my time to those who need a resource and don’t have one. I donate my time to those who want to learn more. I donate my time and much effort to building communities online and in the real world.

Most concretely, I volunteer on a Board of Directors for our statewide education conference, Innovative Education Colorado. I take part in planning EdCamp Denver and other events that are not a part of any job description I have ever applied for. While I may get something back from these “donations” of time, I see so much more in the gatherings that are the result. When people come together of their own choosing and make things that didn’t exist before, they are connecting in ways that defy gravity. They are lifting one another up through learning experiences and relationships.

So, I guess I donate to learning. I donate to community. I donate to participation. I donate to curiosity. I donate to connection. I donate to people.

26. How do you internalize your gender? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 26, 2016

I’m so glad that Dad Bods are a thing now. For a while there, I was worried that I was going to have to start working out more or losing weight, but now I realize that I am just a part of a trend where embracing fatherhood excesses is encouraged and even highly sought after by some.

While that may sound like hyperbole, I believe that my internalization of gender is very wrapped up in a narrative of fatherhood. Being a dad, makes me a man. Picking my kids up from the bus stop is something that anyone could do, but the fact that I am doing it, shows my gender and my love.

There are times, though, that I feel out of sync with my gender as a result of fatherhood. When I am taking care of my 2 year old during the day and we choose to go out to target or the grocery store, I see almost exclusively women with other children. I see motherhood being advertised in every aisle. And yet, I feel proud of my gender in that moment, too. Even though I am doing much the same thing as the mom with her kiddo, it feels like I am being unconventional and subversive. Like, I am an undercover man.

Other times, my gender is more about a role I am playing at home. I do the dishes every morning, and while it shouldn’t be a gendered event, I am doing something that I almost never saw my father do while I was young. I do most of the vacuuming and putting away of folded clothes (although I don’t generally fold them) and each time I engage in those activities, I am proud of both contributing to the household and the way in which I am not playing a role that was archetyped for me.

I embrace stereotype too, when it feels authentic. I make all of the technology in the house work as a prototypical nerd dad. I wrestle my boys and let them get into much more precarious bodily situations (falling off of couches and the like). I am less likely to see the emotional components of any situation in favor of the logical explanations. But each of these things are a part of a plural personality and they are always a part of a spectrum. My wife would far rather play sports with our kids than I would. I passively avoid a lot of the final decision making for what we do with our weekends. I listen a lot to my kids and my wife.

So, I guess I mostly internalize my gender by seeing myself through the lens of expectation. Sometimes I meet expectations and other times and let them go. My manhood is tied up in fatherhood and being a husband, but it is complicated by knowing what those roles looked like for my parents. I am not the sum of what I have seen, but rather the sum of my reactions to what I have seen. I embody my choices and most of the time that is what it feels like to be a man.

25. When is it time to give up? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 25, 2016

As much as I try and avoid it, I yell at my kids.

Conversations about getting shoes on, brushing hair, or turning off the computer all start out very civil. I will make the logical case for doing those things and I will receive a litany of reasons and delay tactics for not doing them. I will remain calm, I tell myself, even in the face of such insurmountable sassiness or defiance. I will use my kindness and my words, just as I implore the children to do when they are angry. Even still, just five minutes later, I feel myself boiling over and raising my voice. I need this done NOW, and it becomes a struggle about the father/child relationship rather than just getting out the door. I, as the father, will win this argument. I will make them do the thing. I will be stronger and more stubborn. And, it is awful. As it turns out, no one wins because I am fighting with those I love most about things that don’t matter.

And that is when it is time to give up.

When the stakes are so high that continuing to push for the thing that you want means hurting the relationship. When preserving the power dynamic is all that matters and the individual task or responsibility is lost. When mean words and crying become the currency of the situation and logic is no longer in play. You must walk away and give up on “winning.”

It does not make you weak and it does not set the wrong precedent. Giving up when you are making things worse means that you can remain your whole self. You are still capable of empathy, and you can still learn from your choices. When you “go nuclear”, you no longer see a person on the other side. You see only the argument.

Enemies do not exist within my family. They do not exist within my working life either. Even for as much as I would like to construct easily understood sides of each issue that I am fighting for, I can only put caricatures across from me if I want to maintain a true dichotomy. I am never so right and they are never so wrong that I should destroy the relationship with a few acidic emails.

Giving up means not having “the meeting after the meeting” where you tell folks what you really think. Giving up means dismantling the fortress you have built around yourself to ward off any attacks from others. Giving up means looking critically at your own work and admitting that it isn’t perfect. Giving up means creating partnerships with others in the face of difficult problems and not going it alone as a martyr.

When you give up, you aren’t conceding the point or giving in to someone else. When you give up, you are letting go of your own preconceived notions and plans. You are giving room for others.

It is it time to give up when you can stop being selfish.

24. What is the most important rule in your classroom? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 25, 2016

There is nothing that frustrates me more than apathy. The statements of “whatever” or “I don’t care” that would occasionally come out of my students’ mouths would make me cringe. It wasn’t just that I happen to like when people are passionate and engaged. Nor was it a sense that these students were just waisting their time. Rather, I hate apathy because it is the surest sign that you have stopped learning. And for me, learning is the only thing there is.

When you no longer care about what comes next or how to solve a problem, it means that you are locked into what you already know. You are not expanding the edges of the map or plumbing the depths of what is already a part of you. Your apathy can also be contagious. It can spread to others in the classroom, making it so no students are able to persist in the face of difficult ideas. Whenever the caring in the classroom drops, the walls around each student are built higher. Each wall isolates the individual and divides the community.

I believe that all of the rules within a classroom must be co-defined by those within it. So, this rule has been written in many different ways. One seventh grade class put it this way: “I will participate.” Another 8th grade class said, ” I will be creative and put my own ‘flava’ into all of my endeavors.” Yet another said, “Always express yourself. Never hold back.” While these may border on cliche, they are show just how essential and vibrant the students’ can be when they are asked to craft what their engagement looks like.

For me, there are only actions. In the classroom as well as outside of it, the actions are the ones that make learning possible. So, my version of the rule goes something like this:

Participate. Engage. Try.

Learn. Share. Trust.

Give. Write. Make.

23. What 90s song taught you the most important lesson? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 23, 2016

22. Have we Godwin’s Law-ed ourselves out of having rational discussions? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 22, 2016

I have been watching The Man in the High Castle a lot lately. In this Amazon Prime television series and corresponding Phillip K. Dick Novel, the allies did not win World War 2. Rather, the US was split into a Nazi-controlled portion on the east coast, a Japanese-controlled portion on the west coast, and a neutral zone in the middle. I found this series endlessly fascinating.

I also find the study of Hitler’s rise to power interesting. I will watch documentaries about Himmler or Goebbels too. It isn’t a morbid fascination with death or an overt interest in fascism. Rather, I am incredibly passionate about understanding the ways in which propaganda can manipulate people and how wanting to belong to something larger than yourself can have terrible consequences.

Our words matter.

Even though some folks take the easy way out by comparing the opposing side to Hitler or the Nazis (Godwin’s Law), I think there is something deeper to the comparison any time that it is made. Hidden inside a flippant and obviously hyperbolic comment is an undeniable fear of being manipulated or trampled. It isn’t that we want to call someone a terrible name, like “Hitler.” We want to call attention to the fact that we don’t want to be duped again, as the German people were when they started democratically electing fascists.

We are not beyond rational discussions, but we have to stop shutting down whenever we resort to shorthand like calling someone a Nazi. The shorthand serves to tell us that we have hit a nerve and that we need to dig deeper in order to understand the fear pulsing through the conversation. It is clear that Donald Trump is not actually a Nazi, but many fear what his brand of hatred will do to our country. This is a real fear, and cannot be dismissed.

We must embrace the worst of our insults in an effort to become better aware of what they mean for each of us. In that way, reaching Godwin’s Law within a discussion should not be the end, but rather the beginning of seeing one another complexly.