{"id":460,"date":"2020-04-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/?p=460"},"modified":"2020-04-07T12:02:43","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T20:02:43","slug":"compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/compassion\/","title":{"rendered":"Compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When pandemic planning hit and things\nshifted online, I started paying attention to words. I have a deep, if narrow\ninterest in historical ontology<\/em> \u2013 the way we generate kinds of people as\nwe devise classifications (Hacking, 1996). For instance, I started my career in\nremediating students with dyslexia<\/em>. That term morphed into language-based\nlearning disabilities<\/em>, which morphed into reading disorder<\/em>, and so\non. Importantly, it\u2019s not just a relabelling \u2013 it\u2019s a different way of being\nbecause the way we label has the power to make up people<\/em>. Label first,\npersonhood second. But I digress. The point is that I like to observe words and\ntheir functions and how they bring about a sense of being in the world – a word\nwatcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the pandemic spread, we were suddenly\nmoving online and everyone everywhere started talking about how to do that. The\nword compassion<\/em> started to be bandied about and within a week it became\nan exhortation. Compassion first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I want to use this blog post to talk\nabout compassion. Compassion, not as empathy and not as softness but as a deep,\nsoulful dedication and investment into the learning and growth of another\nperson. I\u2019m going to do that by telling you how I have observed compassion\namongst us in the last two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the instructor who tells a student\nphysically ill from stress that we have a few good options to finish the course\nand any of them work very well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s another instructor who connected with\na student on feeling scared about finals and pressed for time with reassurance\nthat a solution was coming soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a colleague giving everything when you\ndon\u2019t think she could give any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the other colleague who hollers to his\nstudents that he loves them because they need to know who loves them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its me, feeling teamwork like an Ontario\nsummer sandbox, knees touching, this is gonna be great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m thinking about compassion, like I said.\nI\u2019m thinking that compassion is not softness or ease or a glib dismissal. It\u2019s\nnot letting a student slide through and it\u2019s not feeling bad for someone.\nCompassion is an honourable, grave, sober commitment to another person\u2019s\nlearning and growth. Committing to the growth of students means that we\nacknowledge that our current context is especially difficult right now, that we\nare all on a feelings-rollercoaster, and that the apprehension and hurriedness\n(and challenge) about going online for you and for students only adds to the\nstruggle. Compassion holds us in a place where we believe in another and\nbelieve in ourselves. Compassion asks that we extend flexibility and patience.\nWe give benefit of the doubt. Arm in arm, we help one another to find our way\nthrough and see each other to a resolution. We\u2019re all in it together, and\ncompassion is what binds us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All those words: connection, teamwork,\ntogetherness, leadership, and compassion, have changed because of what\u2019s\nnipping at our heels. No longer feel-good words, now lifelines; compassion\nlifelines that will make up people differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hacking, I. (2002). Historical Ontology<\/em>.\nCambridge: Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When pandemic planning hit and things shifted online, I started paying attention to words. I have a deep, if narrow interest in historical ontology \u2013 the way we generate kinds of people as we devise classifications (Hacking, 1996). For instance, I started my career in remediating students with dyslexia. That term morphed into language-based learning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-universal-design-for-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wordpress.kpu.ca\/tlcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}