Time for a Book: “Frog Music” by Emma Donoghue

Try to hear the music… Naomi’s Photos

I really enjoy reading books by Donoghue but this is the one I enjoyed the least.

Don’t get me wrong, it IS a good book but I’m not particularly fond of the “whodunnit”  format, particularly in a historical drama. The constant moving between time frames (the murder is right at the beginning of the book, it’s not a spoiler!) bothered me somewhat. When reading Donoghue I’m used to really getting to know the character and the period before such a dramatic event.  Judging by the reviews online most people were not bothered by this at all!

This book, with its many musical references, might have been more enjoyable as an audiobook  – they tend to sing such things when possible,  Reading the afterword helped me realize the significance of the references and their relevance to the period and to the plot. I admit that I needed the explanations.

In fact, the afterword helped me appreciate the book more, as the author explains which historical facts were available to her about the two main characters’ lives (and deaths)  and how she used them to create the story. I was fascinated by that part!

The book takes place in 1876  in San Francisco –  a lot it takes place in Chinatown. The author’s depictions of the shameful way the Chinese immigrants were treated tied in with the information I learned from two other books I’ve recently read, “Interior Chinatown” by Charles Yu and “Disappearing Moon Cafe” by Sky Lee (this is set in Vancouver but covers a lot of the same ground as the other two).

There are still many books by Donaghue I haven’t read – I’m looking forward to reading them!

So, Teaching in a “VUCA World” Calls for a Business Model? Bring It On!

The way forward is unclear… (Naomi’s Photos)

I admit it.

Although THE PANDEMIC has been wreaking havoc on our lives for over a year and a half, I had not known there was an acronym out there that described the situation we are facing as teachers in the school system.

An acronym derived from four different words.

Words matter.

Defining a situation and looking at its components enables us to find footholds and add pegs to hold onto.

And then move forward.

As a teacher feeling concerned about beginning another school year in the shadow of the pandemic, I am certainly interested in a model for dealing with a difficult situation, even if it comes from the business world.

VUCA stands for:

volatility // uncertainty  // complexity // ambiguity

The following “definitions” are quotes from What VUCA Really Means for You” by Bennet and Lemoine.

The suggested responses are my adaptations of their business recommendations.

unstable…
Naomi’s Photos

 VOLATILITY

“The challenge is unexpected or unstable and may be of unknown duration, but it’s not necessarily hard to understand.”

The challenges posed by teaching under “pandemic conditions” are no longer unexpected but they certainly are unstable.  We could be teaching in-person in class one day and remotely the next.  Many students could be absent due to illness and quarantine or perhaps the students will be divided into groups again. And we certainly don’t know how long this unstable situation is going to last!

     The authors’ business response works well for education:                “… devote resources to preparedness…”

LIGHTBULB MOMENT for STRESSED TEACHER SELF 

Even though I may not know what a day of teaching will look like at any given point, the time I have already invested in creating digital versions of my classroom materials means that I AM somewhat prepared for an unstable new year! True, I haven’t digitized all my material yet, but continuing to do that is certainly a clear-cut achievable goal that will have a positive impact.

Can it be righted?
Naomi’s Photos
UNCERTAINTY

“Despite a lack of other information, the event’s basic cause and effect are known. Change is possible, but is not a given”.

Gathering information about the pandemic (aka “event”) itself isn’t really a helpful option for a teacher,  since the school management and others don’t know when there will be a lockdown or new restrictions either.

However, if we focus on the authors’ emphasis on sharing information, the connection to education becomes clear. Invest in building/strengthening your ties with other teachers  – what are they doing? Did it work?  Do they know what you’ve been doing?  Even the things that didn’t work? We are not alone!

Sharing equals strength.

LIGHTBULB MOMENT for STRESSED TEACHER SELF

Yes, I will probably be frustrated and even VERY FRUSTRATED at times during the upcoming school year.  It’s unavoidable. When it happens I must remind myself that I do belong to quite a few online groups for teachers, so if no one at school has time to talk to me about it, someone is out there who does have time to listen and discuss.

But before anything else, my first response should be to BREATHE!

Many things to take into account… Naomi’s Photos

COMPLEXITY

“The situation has many interconnected parts and variables. Some information is available and can be predicted but the volume and nature of it can be overwhelming to process.”

The authors recommend building adequate resources to address the complexity (and bringing in specialists, but that’s not realistic in this case …).

As far as I’m concerned that means dividing the work of creating a large number of resources that cater to students with different needs.   The instability of the situation doesn’t end when the school day is over, it affects our daily lives. Sharing and dividing the work are the only antidotes I can see to feeling overwhelmed.

LIGHTBULB MOMENT for STRESSED TEACHER SELF

This is something I need to work on more.  The pandemic isn’t going away tomorrow – this is a call for action!

Connections…
Naomi’s Photos

AMBIGUITY

“Causal relationships are completely unclear. No precedents exist; you face ‘unknown unknowns.”

No precedents.

I have never taken an in-service training course on teaching in a situation in which the normal progression of a school year is so frequently disrupted for such an extended period of time – that situation is so unprecedented that I couldn’t even imagine it until it happened.

Causal relationship?

  • Will the students retain vocabulary when they learn online and have GOOGLE TRANSLATE at their fingertips?
  • Will having the students write their answers on paper and then send me pictures of it force them to really look at the words in the sentence carefully despite using translation programs?

I don’t know.

The business advice here is spot on but not so easy to adopt.

Which net is better? Naomi’s Photos

The authors recommend EXPERIMENTING – thinking carefully of strategies that could solve issues, trying them out, and learning from the results.

To some extent, we all do it. What else can we do in such a situation?

However, this requires dealing with failure and learning from it. I don’t know how it works in the business world, but as a high school teacher, I find experimenting to be a safe and useful approach in a limited way.

Yes, the students responded well to acting out a poem in class – Do More of That.

No, the students did not seem to really engage with vocabulary when I used a certain word puzzle, nor did they particularly enjoy it – Don’t Do That.

But high school is a setting with high-stakes standardized exams. You don’t have a lot of wiggle room.

In addition, in order to learn from results,  experiments should be planned carefully.  Some outcomes are difficult to differentiate from others – how do I know if it is because of a certain strategy I tried?

LIGHTBULB MOMENT for STRESSED TEACHER SELF

So here’s something in my life that the pandemic hasn’t upset. I’ll continue to try, from time to time different ways to practice vocabulary or work on a text or anything else.  That’s what I’ve always done.

Finding something that hasn’t changed is comforting too.

Don’t you think so?

 

 

 

 

Books from “Far Away” – A Medly

In these times of living with a pandemic, everywhere that isn’t right next door seems far away.

Nonetheless, when I read these books I felt that they were set particularly far away, either geographically, historically, or in a magical realm.

Magic? Step on board… Naomi’s Photos
The Night Circus by Morgenstern

A story set inside a magical, very magical, circus. Lovely descriptions, a love story, suspense, good triumphs evil. I enjoyed it, but I think it would have been even better if it had been a bit shorter.

Selling food at all hours…
Naomi’s Photos
The Convenience Store Woman by Murata

The story is set inside a Japanese Convenience store, which seems to be quite different from convenience stores I have encountered.  I never imagined salespeople being instructed to shout their polite responses to customers!

While I understand that the book is presenting a critique of pressure to conform in Japanese society (at the workplace, the pressure to get married and “fit in”), to me the book is set inside the mind of a woman with “autism spectrum disorder”.

I kept wanting to say to people in the book: “Leave her alone! She has worked at this store for so many years because a predictable environment with clear-cut ways to behave in every situation feels comfortable and safe to her!”

Which way? Naomi’s Photos
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

I almost didn’t read this book as I’m not much a fan of “swashbuckling adventure” – you know, the horseriding bandits with the heart of gold who save the day? But it was a short audiobook, an intriguing setting with a great reader and I’m glad I did.

It is set in Khazaria (Southwest Russia today) and takes place around AD 950. It was a period where Judaism was more widely spread, including some of the warring factions in the region. Our two tough, dangerous, brave, and generous “bandits” are Jewish, a fact which was important to the author, as Chabon himself expands on in a very interesting endnote to the audiobook.

Can you hear me? /Naomi’s Photos
Aquarium by Ya’ara Shehori

Place markers of any kind are hardly mentioned in this book – the story could have taken place anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere. It was written in Hebrew and but readers of the English translation could place the story in their town just as easily.

It’s a story of girls brought up in isolation and what happens after they are no longer secluded from the world.

It’s a story of a Deaf family trying to escape the intervention of the “hearing world”, but ends up denying reality. Such denials come with a heavy price.

At first, I was concerned about some aspects of the behaviors of some of the Deaf characters and wondered how well the author had researched the subject of Deafness. But all anomalies were explained and made complete sense later on in the book. I was amused to see that the author studied Sign Language with a former student of mine!

It isn’t an easy read. There are whole passages trying to be poetic or philosophical and too drawn out in my taste. I found some parts tiresome and rather boring.

Mixed feelings.

Well, it is on the pier… Naomi’s Photos
The Pier Falls – by  Haddon

Each story is set somewhere else – the first one is set in Britain while the next one takes you straight into Greek Mythology.

While the writing is excellent and gripping, I did not finish the book. Besides my habitual difficulties in reading short story collections by the same author (the basic style is too similar), the stories all seemed to be about people in hopeless situations facing horrible outcomes. There’s only so much of that I can take, even if it is well written.

Connections…
Naomi’s Photos
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

A clever, engrossing book that takes familiar fairy tale tropes (particularly Rumplestilskin) and gives them a completely new twist.

A feminist twist.

With lots of other messages.

A book supposedly set in “fantasy land” but it sounds a great deal like places I know of from history lessons (or genealogy research!). To me, it seems to be set in  Lithuania, or the vicinity of, with forests lurking with danger,  poor hamlets with fraught relations between the peasants and the Jews, the noblemen in the city killing each other for power, and more…

Strong women who come together, ignoring class and religion, save the day.

That’s not a spoiler – there’s much to read here (it’s a bit too long, I admit)!

Enjoy!