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How To Be An Optimist: Step 1
So I’ve been trying something, that has made it easier to remain an optimist.
It’s a deceptively simple action to take, and anyone can do it. Immediately, for free, with no effort. Well, you might need to change a couple of habits, but you’ve made bigger changes than this in your life.
I think it’s fair to say that we have a general feeling of how The News works:
- something terrible or shocking happens
- a few people shout about it*
- media outlets report on it
- if people keep shouting about it, media outlets continue or expand their coverage
- people shout about it more
- the world seems messed up and terrifying
- we feel outraged, hopeless, pessimistic and separated
- more terrible and shocking things happen…
And I think we all know by now that The News is a form of entertainment, more than a public service to inform us of current affairs. That includes non-commercial broadcasters, as they’re competing on the same playing field as all those funded by advertising.
As a bonus, we, the consumers of news, get to feel an increasing sense of “us and them” and the beauty is that “them” can be absolutely anyone who looks, sounds, thinks, acts or consumes differently to whichever “us” we identify with.
Who wants to feel like this? Who would voluntarily do something to fuel their worst fears, to take away their hope, or to alienate most of the other humans?
You. Me. Them. Everybody.
So here’s what I did around March this year. My tiny act of rebellion.
I stopped reading, watching or listening to any news.
Papers and TV news are easy to avoid. If I’m listening to the radio and the news comes on, I turn it off. The hardest bit is ignoring / hiding / resisting the urge to read news articles that friends post on Facebook. But that’s not really so hard.
“But what if something big happens, and you don’t know about it?”
Well I’m still living in 2017, with a smartphone, Facebook, Twitter and the rest. Most of the major goings on featured in the news get filtered for me via friends, comedians, podcast-makers or anyone I’ve chosen to follow on Twitter. There are some fantastic podcasts out there that collectively report on a far wider range of events than The News**. And when something really major happens, you’d be amazed how quickly you hear about it without using The News.
We, the people alive in 2017, are a pretty smart bunch***. I think we all understand that our thoughts and choices are influenced by information we consciously and unconsciously take in from the world around us. And I think we know that these influences include: what we hear people saying; what we see and pay attention to; our hormone levels; when and what we last ate; our childhoods; the current state of our many interpersonal relationships; our evolutionary origins; and of course those little hi-tech miraculous shining rectangles we hold in our hands, bathing our faces with their tempting light. So we curate what we see on Facebook (hide posts like this), Instagram and Twitter (unfollow) and on TV (continue watching). And yet still we get drawn in by The News. Offering us visions of the very worst of humanity and the most terrifying things in nature, as if this accurately reflects what is happening in the world.
And we do this, knowing full well that this will influence how we think and act. And convince ourselves that by being ‘better informed’ we can better choose those thoughts and actions.
Is the world full of terrorists and racists and murderers and rapists and despots and carcinogens and immigrants and pollution and destruction and are we heading for imminent apocalypse? Has the world gone mad? Should we be afraid, and despairing at the state of the world? Or are we simply focusing on the worst of what is happening on Earth, and giving it a massively disproportionate amount of our time and attention?
Hopefully you choose what you eat. You choose what to consume and use to fuel, build and power your body, and presumably you choose not to eat anything poisonous. So choose what else you consume, stop consuming the poison of the News, and find out about the world some other way.
Be creative in how you gather information. What do you want to know about? Find out about that. Look around you every day. Ask strangers about their lives. Listen to people without taking anything personally. If you hear about something that doesn’t sound right, do some research and get as much context as you can. Don’t assume anyone knows what they are talking about. Decide who you can trust, and keep looking for evidence for and against believing them. Look up Hans Rosling and watch his films and talks. Try to understand people with opinions at odds with your own. Smile at people and notice how many people smile back. Enjoy and be grateful for everything that you have, and the vast network of collaborations that have created everything around you.
Just don’t, whatever you do, expect to get any useful insights about anything from The News!
In the first 36 years of my life I have found enough reasons to be optimistic for the future of this living planet and the future of humanity. For the next 36 years I will look for more reasons, and more ways to share them with you and everyone else.
Give it a go.
#NoNewsThanks
*previously in the form of a press release; increasingly in the form of a tweet. Media types love a bit of Twitter.
**Some favourite podasts that keep me up to date on way more than The News ever would: Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, From Our Own Correspondent, Hidden Brain, Waking Up with Sam Harris, More Or Less.
***I think I mean ‘highly educated compared to previous generations’ or ‘well informed’. Not necessarily ‘wise’.
On food
I still think there’s an important place for a few grazing animals. On the other hand, industrial (also known as ‘cheap’) farming of animals is just unconscionable. Still deciding how this all fits together though…
I’ve been educating myself more and more about the production of food, with the aim of making the invisible visible. I’ve never seen an abattoir, I’ve never seen a dairy cow artificially inseminated, and I’ve never seen an industrial chicken/pork/beef/lamb operation in the flesh. Yet. So I’ve been gathering info and reading, listening to and watching what others have revealed behind the scenes of food production. I’m in the process of researching global stats on food production – more to follow on that front.
Bottom line: I want to talk FOOD and discuss, debate and learn all about it.
Watch this space.
My educational values
- Everyone has the right to their own ambitions
- Nobody has the right to define anyone else’s level of ability
- Everyone deserves dignity, respect and space to express themselves
- A teacher’s job is to teach as effectively as they can
- A student’s job is to learn as much as they can
- Hard work and grit are to be celebrated
- No one should be lazy or rude
- Language is powerful and creates our world
- There is only one Earth, and we all live on it. Respect it
- Think for yourself
If I am to maintain my integrity in my work life, my actions need to match my values.
This is a first attempt at putting those values into language and I hope to refine them and most importantly to act in line with them, without worrying about who might be upset!
What is the EU?
See below for Professor Dougan’s comments on immigration, which he emailed me today.
A friend shared a video of a talk given by Professor Michael Dougan of the University of Liverpool’s Law School. As he explains, he’s spent a lifetime studying and practising EU law, and as such has been a go-to consultant for various news outlets during the buildup to the referendum.
How does the mind affect health?
It is clear that we need our lives to have a purpose, to feel that our actions form part of something bigger than ourselves.
When Julia, a passionate and committed teacher, was forced to take extended leave from work, she had to find activities to fill the gap and to provide meaning to her day to day existence. Going from such an intrinsically fulfilling and gregarious job to a quieter, slower, less social existence would have come as a severe shock. It would have been easy for Julia to slip into a cycle of anxiety and stress leading to isolation and depression.
On the UK, EU and Germany
One of the many ironies of the desire by so many in the UK to vote to leave the EU.
A common line of reasoning I have heard is that the EU is like a dictatorship run by Germany. Continue reading “On the UK, EU and Germany”
Putting a Contract out on Teachers
Sometimes I think about moving to London. Then I read something like this, think about the walk from my door along the Cornish coast path, and come to my senses.
Also: brilliant idea about a structure for teacher’s contracted hours that puts them in control of their flexibility.
This is going to be about workload, and in particular, Russell Hobby’s piece about whether teacher contracts and fewer holidays might solve the workload problem. I thought this was an appropriate issue on which to return to the keyboard, not least because the reason I haven’t blogged for a while is largely due to the fact that, this year, I broke myself on the workload wheel.
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My EBacc consultation response
Submitted last minute – at 10:45am on Friday 29 January 2016!
Here is the government page with details of the consultation:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/implementing-the-english-baccalaureate
(In a large part paraphrasing Tom Sherrington – thanks Tom!) Continue reading “My EBacc consultation response”
Assessment without levels – prologue
My school has produced a first draft proposal for a new assessment framework relating to the new GCSE grades, and looking to move to a system without levels.
The gist of it is: a student comes into school, and based on their prior attainment they’re set a ‘projected grade’. This is the minimum expected GCSE grade (e.g. grade 5).
Teachers will use this to set a professional target.
In each year, the same grading system will be used, so a student should in theory progress from grade 5 in Year 7 to grade 5 in Year 11, with each subject setting the standards against which these judgements will be made.
As I spent some time on my response to this first draft proposal, I thought it would be worth sharing more widely. Below is my response. I’d be interested to know what you think.
