We Have Nothing to Fear But … Letting the Unknown Trump the Known
We Have Nothing to Fear But … Letting the Unknown Trump the Known
And the uncertain trump (pun intended) the certain.
As I write in the COVID-19 era, there is a high probability that what we most have in common with others is an increased stress level. The experts and the pundits often attribute this to all of the unknown and uncertain factors. Most of us function better when we know what the knowns are and have worked out ways to manage, or at least cope with them. Assuming we can somehow manage the knowns gives us a greater sense of control and maybe even empowerment that helps reduce our stress and anxiety.
A few years ago, I thought I had a great idea! The small, rural, North Carolina town my wife, Betsy Barefoot, and I live in really needed a car wash and didn't have one. I thought, "maybe I should invest in one?" I asked my accountant about this. His reply: “John, stick with what you know.” I’m one of the few people who ask for directions and then actually follow them! So, there is no car wash in my present or future. I have stuck with what I know.
I spend more time thinking about what is in my future; I imagine just like our students and our colleagues. It can be a very stressful process. If you are going to speculate on your future; I would encourage you, as you should encourage your students, to focus on the known.
Let’s try this right now. I am going to brainstorm: 1) those things that I am uncertain about; 2) those things about which I am certain. This will help me focus on what I am certain about and will help manage my stress.
I am going to start with the some of the questions regarding the things with which I am uncertain. (Try this with your students by the way)
If we started the fall term 2020 either completely or mostly virtual, will we be able to meet/teach/learn again together in real-time later this fall? Conversely, if the term started in-person on our campuses, how long will we be able to continue in this modality?
Will we be forced to do a March 2020 encore of abruptly leaving campus and revert to all virtual teaching and learning?
Will my children be able to return to real school? Will they remain free of the virus?
Will my students be able to remain free of the virus? Will I? If not, can I survive it?
How many more Black men and women will be victims of police violence this year? Will the American voting public remain accepting, supportive, and engaged in the Black Lives Matter social protest movement?
How long will this recession last and at what level of severity?
Who will win the Presidential election?
Will the United States Postal Service survive, what will happen to the 2020 census?
Will scientists be able to develop an effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19? Will enough Americans be vaccinated in order to give us a fighting chance to suppress transmission of the virus? What will be my priority level to receive such a vaccine? My children’s, my parents
When will it be safe for me to get on an airplane again?
Can we realistically hope to be able to return to normal this year? Next year? Ever?
Enough! This is increasing my stress level just to think about all that I am uncertain about.
I can’t get to what I am certain about quickly enough, some of the certainties, can induce some stress, but we can address them, such as:
1. There will always be forms of higher education in the US. The needs and hence demands for it will be even greater. How those experiences will be delivered inevitably will change.
2. No Dorothy, this is not Kansas. We will not be going back to the same normal.
3. Our students will need us more than ever. They need to be in healthy, professional relationships with us. Students are under more stress than ever because of the combination of the pandemic and economic depression. They will need us to care more, interact more, help more, be more patient, and be more understanding than ever.
4. The fallout from both the pandemic, the disruption of the economy, and the elections’ results will have even more disproportionately negative effects on disadvantaged persons than ever.
5. The demands for all forms of social justice will be greater than ever. Student activism is increasing.
6. Overall students are reporting disappointment with virtual learning and a desire to return to more traditional forms of instruction.
7. Traditional faculty autonomy and power are significantly weaker now due to the need for administrations to take often unilateral actions to maintain institutional viability.
8. Loss of revenues and financial support for higher education has resulted in lifeboat exercises on many campuses which have further exacerbated the status differences between faculty and non-faculty staff and administrators.
9. Students are showing a marked disinclination to continue paying as much or more for what they perceive as a reduced level of service and value of the total experience.
10. Numbers of transfer students are increasing, “student success” initiatives are needed more than ever; including the need for effective academic advising
11. We are asking more of our faculty, they need development support to teach effectively to students who have lived life experiences that may not match their own.
12. Human societies and groups of all sizes and types have a dominant drive to survive, thrive and perpetuate the group. Translation: higher education will do what it needs to do to survive.
13. More citizens than ever have come to realize in 2020 that the US is a country of profound inequities in terms of the ways all our societal systems are designed, for housing, work, education, criminal justice, child care, medical care, elder care, banking, credit. This means that we can’t improve higher education—or health care—or economic opportunities with tackling the issue of equity.
Let me circle back now after this solitary brainstorming. For the good of my and your sanity, stress level management, and overall functioning, what can we do?
1. Decide on what is in our own sphere of influence, our locus of control; and what can and what do we want to do?
2. Who and what can we influence?
3. Who can we partner with to make us stronger than we would be alone?
4. What are our core ethical values we must live by and how can we live as much as possible in consonance with those core values?
5. What are the most important things we can do with and for our students that don’t necessarily take money?
6. Looking at the “knowns” and “certainties” from your own generated list, what makes you hopeful? What do you want to be a part of? What might yield a rewarding return on your investment?
7. How can we better adapt in this period of great uncertainty by being more intentional?
I am thinking and writing primarily for a higher education audience. Admittedly, we don’t have all the answers and we do have problems, challenges, and unmet needs in our current higher ed system. Compared to most occupations we are still highly privileged.
For one thing, many of us can and have been working from home. Our survivability rates during COVID-19 have been higher.
We get to make more choices about what we do in our workspaces, when, where, and how we do that.
We have far more freedom about how we think, what we say, what we write, what we perform, how we dress, with whom we associate. I constantly ask myself: “John, what positive action did you take today? With the degree of personal and professional freedom that I have, more than most “essential” American workers, what did I do today? I need to keep asking that question every day and aligning/partnering myself with others asking the same thing.
To survive and thrive I have to focus more on the known, the certain—both the needs for the kinds of work we do—and what I personally and individually can do—that I have the skills, inclination and will, freedom, time, and support to do.