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I woke up this morning with absolutely no idea what I was going to publish this week. This is fairly unusual - typically I start an article at least a week before and I often have several going at once. Some gestate for months. Other times I have a conversation during the week that spins me off in a direction that I think might be helpful for what schools are dealing with at the moment.
Thoughts that have been swirling around all week - looking at the announcements of new head of school appointments; a story I heard somewhere of a person sitting in a airport lounge overhearing a law school student talking to ChatGPT on his phone to write and revise a major assignment; the cool turn of the weather and my mother’s new phase where she is not really eating anything other than an egg and toast at breakfast and Ensure - and what it all came back to was about things changing, about transitions. (And for those kind souls worried about my mom - she’s otherwise cheerful and is still trotting around with her rollator/walker, but there is some kind of a sea change going on…)
A wise woman said to me many years ago, life never remains static. I think about that all the time and it has more resonance the older I get.
Many years ago after a grouchy January professional development day at the end of a winter break - one I had planned and I was definitely feeling, “stupid faculty - no one appreciates my hard work!” - my head of school said to me something so simple but so true I think of it all the time - “Transitions are hard.” I think of it when I see a kid who doesn’t want to leave the Target toy aisle. I think of it on dark and rainy mornings lying in bed. I thought of it this morning when I fished my down jacket out of the coat closet because although everyone in New England is now mandated to love “sweatah weathah” (and I really, really do!) it’s hard to put on real shoes and a jacket rather than just taking the dog out first thing in a sweatshirt and sandals.
Transitions are exciting… yadda yadda yadda. They are also challenging, tiring and make you use muscles you haven’t used in a while, and sometimes, haven’t used at all. The speed with which generative AI is developing is scary and the potential change it could bring to education is so fundamental and hard to fully comprehend in its scale that I find I can only contemplate it in small chunks.