Saturday, July 26, 2014

Stop, Disconnect, & Listen




Admittedly, I stole this title from a great post by Barry Saide and Christopher Bronke, “Stop, Collaborate, and Listen” who, of course, borrowed the title from Vanilla Ice. While the article for ASCD highlighted the fun and passion ignited through connection, often via conferences and social media, when it arrived in my inbox while I was on vacation, I was less than inspired by the sentiments. It led me to ponder why I felt this way, since being a connected educator is something I am very passionate about. My mornings are typically greeted by coffee over my Feedly stream, followed by checking out my Buffer suggestions and my favorite Twitter groups.


I’ve never been one who needed a full stop vacation. Rather, I typically fill vacations with work at the beach, fitness, attempting not to fall off mountains, and reading. I’m not alone in engaging in the fake break. Over summer, the call to learning is prolific across PLNs, transforming traditional R & R into Reflection & Reading...with a generous dash of tinkering and tweeting on the side. In fact, if we are not using our downtime for workshops and Twitter chats, we feel almost - dare I suggest - lazy. It is presumptuous to assume this is a shared feeling, but based on the neurotic streams of information, I can’t imagine I am alone in the frenzy.


So for the past few days, which I had the chance to spend in solitude at the beach, I took a different approach. With work deadlines to be met, I could not realistically shut it down completely, but I decided to turn the waterfall into a trickle. I allocated work time to accomplish my must-dos but disconnected from many of my feeds, only checking Feedly for morning reading on one day. I chose the sounds of nature over music and a fiction read over the titles on my professional development shelf. I ignored reading recommendations from friends (sorry!) and “pocketed” them for later...maybe.


Here’s what I noticed, aside from the stunning sounds and sights of nature. The pace slowed, my stress fell, and I felt cleaner. I know it’s a strange description, but it felt like disconnecting purged frenetic pollutants from my system. When these things exited, other things flowed in. Ideas mainly, and lots of them. They are not the ideas of others shared on my media streams, though I’m certain they are not completely original, but they did originate in my mind.

The downside is, I still feel I missed a lot while absent, though the reality is we miss the majority even while present (jumping into a Twitter stream is like standing under the waterfall and thinking you can drink all the water). Another downside is I’m not sure I have a clear sense of what actions I’m going to take to make room for disconnection in my life. But, I am committed to the idea, and when I figure out my strategy, I will share it...via social media, of course, where there surely already exists a deluge of top tips on disconnecting from your tech.  

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