I often write about education, since it is my passion and my purpose.
There is a collective sense of discomfort in education that has been growing since the pandemic; a “throw my hands up” feeling that is a combination of frustration, fear, and insecurity because the rules of education seemingly changed overnight. Teachers and leaders are trying to do the same things that they did before the pandemic shuttered schools and forced the world into a virtual experience that changed everything, but it isn’t working. Maybe it wasn’t working before, a likely possibility since education has remained structurally unchanged since the Industrial Revolution, but there was at least a belief that it was working, and that sustained many communities.
Now, even that veil has been lifted. Reaching and teaching post-shutdown kids who are still emotionally shut down is requiring teachers to reimagine teaching. And that is causing some significant discomfort.
Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, says, “Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” But, we prefer a level of comfort and stability in our work lives once we have established ourselves in our field of work: we grow confident that our experiences will help us navigate any ripples that we might encounter.
Susan David’s words about emotional agility are timely and wise. In this video, she talks about how organizations can only be agile if they have agile people within the organization. When we think about education organizations, we know that we are charged with making sure our students have levels of emotional agility, but considering the words of Dr. David, we cannot have agile student minds if our teachers are not emotionally agile. Our learning communities must focus on developing emotional agility throughout our educational organizations in order to weather the discomfort and see the bright future that we can provide for our students.
