The Many Titles of Educators

It’s been a great week at SXSW 2023! I had a great session presenting, met Hank Green, had knowing what an “ekphrasis” is come in handy in conversation, saw a magic show and discovered parallels between magic and education, reconnected with someone who taught me over half a decade ago, solve puzzles with deaf participants in Japan over Zoom, and just generally speaking had an amazing time connecting and learning from and with other passionate educators.

Now this is going to sound a bit like my last post, but what’s really been sticking with me is how I’ve gotten to learn from so many educators that don’t just come from a teaching background. I’ve learned from coaches, magicians, game makers, neuroscientists, YouTubers, parents turned school founder, social entrepreneurs, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I have also loved learning from and with teachers while at this conference — a science teacher from Atlanta, an ESL teacher from Chicago, a social studies teacher from Arizona, etc. — but that was to be expected.

I would love to see a learning community where these two groups weren’t so siloed (the “teachers” vs everyone else). Both have different values to bring to the table, but I hypothesize the value would increase if they worked in tandem.

What if you had a learning community where everyone was always partnered when facilitating sessions? Just as a quick example:

• A math teacher and a magician
• A science teacher and a coach
• A language teacher and a restaurant owner
• A social studies teacher and a philanthropist
• An english teacher and an architect
• A music teacher and a neuroscientist

The possibilities are limitless.

Associative thinking is such a key part of how our brain learns. I can only imagine what would happen if we thought about our lead learning facilitators with an associative mindset; pairing different expertise to create unique experiences with easy applications to real world challenges. What I imagine though seems pretty great.

Teaching Social Media

Day one of SXSW was great! Loved meeting new people and re-connecting with those I haven’t seen in several years, and had so many great conversations already about the future of edu. One conversation that really resonated with me was the session lead by Emily Glankler called ”Going Beyond the Textbook to Create Life-Long Learners.”

The session focused on the idea that if we want to create life-long learners, then we need to teach kids ways to learn beyond textbooks, because when does any adult actually choose a textbook as their first source of information? Close to never. Let’s be real, we Google it. Then we look at Wikipedia then maybe we research a bit more, maybe find a news site, maybe text a friend, watch a YouTube video, look at Twitter updates for a live event, etc. The point is, we have a lot of sources of information available to us now a days, and why not integrate these methods that we as adults actually use, into our classrooms?

This topic particularly stuck with me because just last week I wrote a journal entry for my Ethics of Business class that also focused on the ethics of social media. First I want to share what I wrote last week after class, then I will share how the conference session today further made me think of this topic:

It is pretty much impossible for any social media (SM) company to fact check all posts. There are millions a day and the time it would take to properly categorize, sort, find an appropriate number of resources, etc. would make for a process not efficient enough to function. Not to mention, posts are often biased to a point where it is hard to determine fake news because sometimes it might just be facts presented from a skewed perspective. Thus, we can’t possibly expect SM companies to be entirely responsible for stopping the spreading of false information / fake news. 

However, I do think SM companies and society as a whole benefit from SM companies caring about trying to stop the spreading of false info and fake news despite their inability to entirely solve the problem. In class we brainstormed a few ideas that might at least help the problem, and I do think SM companies have a responsibility to at least consider options such as these and make their best attempt to minimize this issue. 

At a minimum, SM companies could be more transparent about their opinions on fake news and what they are doing if anything to mitigate the issue and perhaps publishing some extent about how their algorithms work so there could be a level of accountability about trying to at least be accountable for news that gets heavier traffic (vs being responsible for everything). One way to help this could be by adding a way for users to request a fact check, like if there was a “question mark” option in addition to a like, so if a post got enough question marks then it would alert the company to help provide a fact check. Perhaps even other users could even help by providing resources to help the fact checking process if they see question marks. 

Some might also argue that current SM shouldn’t have anything to do with news anyway. In that case, what if there was an entirely different platform that was specifically for news and that way fact checking and providing multiple resources could be just a part of the platform vs feeling in the way of the more traditional SM posts like memes and life updates. What if in addition to Twitter, there was a spin off platform called “Twitter News” or something, so you could separate those very different types of content and perhaps better manage the fake news since you wouldn’t have to first sort through what even needs to be fact checked. 

In regard to the other issues with SM, I think SM companies definitely have a social responsibility to concerns around mental health especially with younger users. SM was designed to connect people, and it is great at that; keeping in touch with old friends, networking with potential business partners, exploring different cultural norms, these are all great benefits of social media. However, most of these benefits aren’t really achieved until you’re 18; younger than that, there are far more cons then pros. For most minors, your friends probably go to school with you or you see on a regular basis at an activity and there aren’t likely too many outside of one of those categories and if there are, there is nothing stopping you from texting or calling them. When teens go on SM they often just compare themselves to others which can lead to social anxiety, eating disorders, self-loathing, etc. and/or at a minimum they likely get sucked into hours of screen time which is bad for physical health. There is ample data showing that SM can be harmful, and I truly think these risks make it something that should not be used by minors the same way we don’t want minors drinking alcohol. Truthfully, I imagine for minors there are almost as many if not more cases of serious harm caused by SM than alcohol. 

I know for some people SM can be great for feeling like you are a part of a community, but I think for the mass majority it does the opposite and more often makes you feel discluded vs included. Thus I propose that there are other alternatives for solving for the issue of making minors feel included despite their differences other than SM. 

This also somewhat could depend on your definition of SM; perhaps there are virtual support groups that could be more well known or maybe a “Facebook for kids” kind of thing that somehow is more structured around groups vs just being individual’s posting whatever. I’m sure there are scientists that could come up with something more developmentally appropriate because right now everything is designed based on the business of making clicks vs the business of connecting people.

After today’s session, I was also reminded of another part to our class conversation that I didn’t discuss in my journal. Yes there is a part of me that wonders if SM should be restricted to 18+, but the other option is that educators / schools could just take a greater responsibility over effectively teaching kids about how to use SM in a beneficial way. The conference session today helped further suggest that this truly is necessary. Social media isn’t really going anywhere, and there is no way companies would actually add an age restriction and no way teens will stop using these platforms even if they had to lie about their age. So if we know students are using these platforms, we might as well teach them how to use them properly to actually gain information and increase learning.

Emily offered a great list of some starting places for informational SM accounts that educators could look into and potentially use clicks in their class. She also suggested incorporating project based learning that utilized less traditional media sources, such as making an instagram story or a podcast episode.

A New Journey Begins

I just finished my mid-year winter break and tomorrow I begin classes for my second semester studying in New Zealand. It’s truly a wild time with coming out of lockdown, just returning from a 12-day road trip, concerned and anxious about the future of the US (and how that effects if/when I’ll return home…), and now starting a new and very unique semester.

Lockdown was hard, but these past two weeks of winter break have me feeling at least a bit regenerated and ready to make the most of my second term of study. I had posted in our hall’s Facebook group asking for suggestions of how I should spend the break and also suggesting I’d love travel buddies if anyone was interested. Two other girls in the hall, whom I hadn’t previously met, responded to my post and we ended up deciding to go on a road trip of the north island. We rented a camper van and spent 12 days traveling to Hastings, Taupo, National Park, New Plymouth, and Hawera amongst other stops. Along the way, we went on hikes to see waterfalls, played in the snowy mountains, watched sunsets and sunrises, explored cities and their op shops (second-hand stores), ate lots of homemade meat pies and “real fruit ice cream”, took tons of pictures and videos, and even watched the entire Twilight movie series. It was a great time, even despite me remembering yet again that I really don’t like hiking and yet somehow keep finding myself saying yes to situations where I do a good bit of it… I’m honestly exhausted from all the adventures and was very happy to spend last night in a heated room with a real bed after a long shower, but I also finally feel like I’m starting to experience more of what New Zealand has to offer and am even more appreciative of how New Zealand handled the pandemic in a way that allows me to safely have a more normal semester 2.     

This semester I’m only taking 4 courses – the fewest amounts of courses I’ve taken pretty much ever in my life – and 3/4 courses are humanities/social science-based which is also very different from my norm being a business student that attends a tech school. I’m taking a philosophy course entitled “The Big Questions”, social psychology, an interdisciplinary online course called “Great Ideas” about revolutions, rebellions, and ideas that dramatically changed the world, and my one business course is strategic management. At this point, all I’ve done is explore the online platforms/course outlines for all of my courses and watched one short video in preparation for an assignment I have due Friday, but already I’m really excited about this particular mix of classes. I think it will be really valuable to my education to get to spend more time diving into some humanities and social sciences topics that I’ve not gotten much exposure to since starting college.

This semester will also be unique because I’ll have a lot more “free time” then I’ve had in the past and probably more than I’ll ever have in the future. Typically I would take at least 5 classes a semester to stay balanced and on track for graduating in 8 semesters. However, with the way my host school does registration, I would be above the max credit hours per semester if I added a course, so I opted to take the courses I was more interested in and I’ll just deal with a heavier workload when I return to GT. The past few semesters I’ve also been working at least 10 hours a week coaching gymnastics, plus sometimes being involved with research, and usually involved with 1-3 theater productions throughout the year. Currently, in New Zealand, I’ve not been nearly as involved with any of these other responsibilities. I’ve been helping some with gymnastics work I can do remotely (like scheduling and editing music). I’m still doing video chats with research teams and helping with building out virtual and in-person curriculum for future workshops. There aren’t theater productions at my host school sadly, but I’ve joined a dance club and go to adult gymnastics classes once a week each. But my involvement in non-school activities, in general, is significantly decreased from past semesters. Honestly, I think it’s going to feel a bit weird at first with having less scheduled time in my day – I even have a three day weekend every week with my current schedule. I’m thinking I might attempt to a bit more traveling/exploring in the country with this time, though travel is still a bit challenging post-COVID. Hopefully, good things come from this extra flex time since it’s probably the only time I’ll have so much of it pretty much ever. 

Overall, there’s part of me that can’t believe break is over already considering how stressful the past few months were, but I also feel excited about what’s to come. This semester will be very different from my past years of education, much more theoretical academically speaking and more flexible in regards to scheduling, but I think a changeup is exactly what’s needed entering the first semester since lockdown.

I’m very curious and concerned for the US though as it seems like August will be disastrous with so many schools and organizations not being particularly cautious about COVID-19. In New Zealand, we basically have eradicated the virus and yet my classes still have an all-online option with some lectures held online even for students able to attend in-person lectures, we have a shortened semester with no final exam period and all online assessments (like last semester), and every course has to be designed in a way that can move entirely online in 24 hours if needed. Yet I keep reading and seeing on social media about how so many US schools are just going back to business as usual with 8 hours, 5 days a week schedules in person with minimal changes to operations… If things don’t get better, my family thinks I should look into trying to stay even longer in New Zealand, which is honestly really stressful to think about especially since I know I’m going to be ready mentally to come home in November. New Zealand has been great and I think the governing is amazing, but even at this point, it’s becoming pretty clear to me that it’s not the best fit for me long term in regards to my personality and lifestyle – still working on describing why I think this and maybe it will change as I hopefully start to make more connections here now that I’m not stuck alone inside anymore, but I’m sure I’ll have a future post about this. I just can’t imagine being here for another year from now, but every day that seems a bit more likely of a reality…

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Trying to Be Better

” …we don’t match, but we don’t need to match to be a family and love each other” – Lauren Jordan

People are speaking up. Black lives matter. Human rights matter. Injustice can not be tolerated.

I haven’t blogged or otherwise posted on social media recently not because I’m trying to ignore the events currently happening in the US, but simply because I haven’t known what to say. I respect, appreciate, and support everyone calling for change, but at the same time in some ways it’s felt better to just take the time to listen rather than try and say something and accidentally say the wrong thing by mistake.

Even with the “#BlackOutTuesday” campaign where theoretically you would think, “You don’t have to come up with anything to say, just post; it’s so simple to show support.” But again at the same time I read a lot of posts talking about negative side effects of this trend for how it was unintentionally blocking the distribution of a lot of resources, so even that seemed controversial. I also fear for many it was a hollow post and I didn’t want to post out of fear it would be a hollow post myself and also for not being convinced any message I share will reach anyone new.

As one of my friends put it: “I think what’s so frustrating to me as a white person it that I’m sharing information and resources and expressing my own support for BLM but I’m screaming into an echo chamber. I have no followers or friends who don’t support BLM (that I know of) so who am I helping by sharing? I want to help, but don’t know the best way to do it.”

So instead of posting, I spent the past day trying to better educate myself. My work on this journey is not comprehensive nor is it complete, but it’s a start, and it’s an action. To me actions often speak louder than words, so I don’t have any reflection or takeaways to share – I’m still processing and some of that requires internal thinking-  but I wanted to say that I know where I stand and want to do something about it, so here’s what I’ve done thus far as I try to personally be better so we can make a better future together:

Watched “13th” on Netflix

Read and signed 10 petitions.

Read the following articles:

END THE WAR ON BLACK PEOPLE

First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources For White People

“MOM, WHY DID GOD CREATE MATCHING?” A mom’s conversation with her adopted 6 year old about racially mixed families.

100 RACE-CONSCIOUS THINGS YOU CAN SAY TO YOUR CHILD TO ADVANCE RACIAL JUSTICE FOR OUR WHITE FRIENDS DESIRING TO BE ALLIES

FOR OUR WHITE FRIENDS DESIRING TO BE ALLIES

Responding to Racism Anti-racism tips from the NZ Human Rights Commission.

Discourse and Debate: Is performative activism inherently bad?

This Is What Black Burnout Feels Like

Global Leadership

The other night I wrote a pre-flection for a seminar on global leadership, so, now that I’ve attended the seminar, I thought I should write my reflection.

Upon the start of the seminar, it was clear to me that our pre-flection assignment was intentionally focused on leadership as a whole so that the point could be made during the seminar about what makes “global leadership” distinguished from other forms of leadership. However, personally I found myself leaving the event thinking “Is there actually a difference between ‘global leadership’ and just ‘leadership’?”

We discussed the significance of global leaders needing to have cultural intelligence – the understanding that different cultures have different values, norms, beliefs, and often priorities, and the ability to adapt and respond to these differences in an appropriate manner. And apart from the nature of interacting with people from different cultures, we said some other key challenges to global leadership include communication barriers (which is somewhat included with cultural differences but emphasised since not everyone from a different culture also has a different primary language), the potential for false assumptions and their implications, and in many cases global leadership also includes a global team and then there can be additional difficulties with managing travel, timezones, and high amounts of virtual communication.

While I can see how these challenges may play a larger role in a global context, the reason I left the seminar feeling like there isn’t a difference is because I believe a lot of these challenges can also be found with domestic leadership, and cultural intelligence is important for everyone in my mind. It’s very possible to live next door to someone that identifies with a totally different culture from you, but if you work on a team with them I wouldn’t consider that a “global team”, yet the need for cultural intelligence and the challenges presented above would still apply. Furthermore, the skills/actions/behaviors we discussed to combat these challenges are also very important to domestic leadership: don’t be afraid to ask questions, approach decisions diplomatically, know your teammates, acknowledge leadership in others, be a life-long learner willing to unlearn, relearn, and learn new things every day.

It feels cliche to say, but the world is a lot more globalized then it use to be, and perhaps in this globalized world we can no longer distinguish between “global leadership” and just “leadership” anymore. Even when thinking about the degree of awareness needed in regards to global events, often times trends in one country affect another soon after, so even if your work isn’t directly related to global events, it’s important to be aware of what’s happening globally.

So perhaps needless to say, but I wasn’t blown away or particularly inspired by this seminar. I think I expected my thoughts to be a bit more challenged or reframed, but instead everyone in the seminar just kind of agreed with each other about everything discussed. I am also currently taking an entire class on international business, so maybe these kinds of conversations have just become somewhat of a daily habit and thus I’ve decensatized myself from the novelty of the conversation. It was interesting for me though to consider how perhaps the term “global leadership” has lost some meaning as everything becomes naturally more globally minded, so I’m glad I had that to take away.

A Star in the Sky

For the past few weeks, I have been working on the brainstorming and planning behind what it would look like to host a virtual design jam (a design thinking workshop/challenge). We hope to start officially marketing the event next week, and I was originally going to wait until then to post about how much I’ve been enjoying working on this project, but I decided I couldn’t wait. It’s been so much fun to plan because I have to rethink everything I would normally do and figure out how to adapt it for an online environment and that’s been a weirdly amusing thought puzzle for me.

Today we had a group meeting with all of our table coaches for the workshop and even then I found myself still catching more little details that could be adjusted to make for a more interactive and engaging experience. It seems that every time I revisit the plans I realize there is something else I could do to make the process more efficient, and I think it’s finally starting to take on a really cool shape.

What excites me the most about this idea is that if we can pull it off, then a virtual design jam will be another tool in our pocket that we can continue to build on in the future. Being able to host a workshop virtually would give us the option to connect with such a wider range of people in the future and that’s a really exciting thought. To not be bound by the limits of physical location is truly game-changing, and I’m not sure we would have had the push to try out this concept had it not been for this pandemic; it’s forcing us to think differently and try new things that have the potential for great capacity building.

This pandemic has been awful, but it’s nice to remember that even on the darkest night, a few stars can still be found.

The Next Moment

Today was my little brother’s 14th birthday. It’s insane to think that he starts high school next year! I’m starting to actually be able to have adult level conversations with him and that’s a very odd thing, especially since he’s the “baby” of the family. (And I mean my entire extended family as well.)

Sometimes I feel like him getting older is what makes me most realize how old I am. Being a junior in college is a crazy time because, with potentially only one year left of school, it’s when you have to start thinking about what you want to do next and where you want to go for that matter. It seems like there are a lot more options at this point in life than there really ever has been before. There are also so many questions to ponder, like whether to go to grad school or look for a job, and then, of course, there is the question of what grad school or what job, and where in the country or even world might that school or job be, and how long in advance do you need to start prepping your application.

I wrote the other night about the struggle of having too many choices, and the idea of thinking about what comes next in life is definitely one of those paralyzing choices. People say to try and “live in the moment,” and not worry so much about the future, but when you think about it, nowadays if we aren’t constantly planning a year and a half ahead then it seems that it can easily become too late for some opportunities.

As early as middle school we’re taught to start thinking about the future. One of the first big choices I remember is choosing what language to study, and if you choose the “wrong” language class in middle school and want to switch your choice in high school then you have to start the new language a year behind. Middle school was also the first time we could skip a level of math, but if you weren’t selected to move ahead based on your 6th grade performance then it was significantly harder to ever reach AP Calculus BC if that was something you later were interested in doing. In high school, we start choosing some of our classes, and in 9th grade, we are told to think about our entire 4 years in order to make sure we’re able to schedule the classes we want. Then junior year is when the college process hits full swing with SATs and research so that by the summer you can start touring in order to then apply the following fall. Then in college, if you want to do an internship or study abroad, especially if you want to do more than one experience, you really have to come into school already thinking about what semester you will do these experiences otherwise you could end up in a situation where you want to study abroad but none of the classes you have left to take are offered overseas.

So you see, it’s really hard to think about “living in the moment” when the past 10 years have always been focused on thinking about the next moment. At this point, I imagine that there will always be a little voice in my head asking “what’s next?” Granted, this voice often pushes me into some truly amazing opportunities, so I’m not convinced I would actually want it to disappear, though it can also be a cause of anxiety when knowing the potential options are so vast.

The Things That Never Change

I realized today I’m kind of grateful that New Zealand went into lockdown. Obviously, going into lockdown mode has had tremendous success health-wise, but also it’s made doing online learning much easier.

Sitting in front of a computer listening to pre-recorded video lectures all day would be a lot more annoying if I knew there were other things I could be doing like visiting museums, traveling to different parts of the country, even just going out to eat. But since I’m stuck inside anyway, there’s only so many options for what else to do, so I might as well be doing school work.

Today was only day 2 of online learning but it was a long day. We decide to set up individual family meetings with our team gymnast and their parents so that everyone can get a chance to ask 1:1 questions to coaches. The first round of these meetings started today, so that’s how I spent the first three hours of my day (in addition to our Zoom class). Then after lunch, I spent the next 6 hours doing school work. It’s very odd to in someways feel like it’s only the second day of school, but at the same time have the workload of actually being a month into school.

My first real assignment of the year is due tomorrow. (I say “real assignment” because I’ve submitted a few practice multiple choice test, but we get to take those as many times as we like and it’s just multiple choice so there isn’t really much thought work involved.) I’m a little stressed about this essay though. Maybe it’s because this is my first semester of traditional school since this time last year, or maybe it’s because I’m curious as to what to expect from New Zealand grading vs US, or maybe it’s just because we’ve been out of school for a month and I haven’t even had this class since being back and yet we already have an assignment due.

The topic is about how COVID-19 is affecting international business, and it feels like one of those topics that almost has too much information to discuss and the challenging part is trying to limit what you talk about. Plus we only have 1000 words to use, and I learned earlier today that our reference list is included in this word count, which I found kind of crazy because it’s the only class I’ve had where we’re being told to not use lots of citations.

After finding this out I had to do a lot of last-minute editing today, so thank goodness I have great friends who are willing to stay up past midnight to help me edit down my essay. Ever since high school, there has been a group of us – as one teacher put it, “The Brain Trust” – that has always helped out when it comes to giving feedback on each other’s work. No matter the time, topic, or apparently the state of the world, I somehow am lucky enough to still be able to count on these friends for some last-minute help.

This was a great reminder today, that some things never change, even in the midst of a pandemic.

 

 

(Extra tangent: I have to say our feedback process is actually very amusing. As stressful as it can be, it’s also kind of one of my favorite things to just be rapidly co-editing a document with someone in The Brain Trust. Typically we are on a Google Doc leaving feedback as comments and suggestions so the other person can see the changes we’re making before approving or not approving them. Even I, as the writer on this occasion, made my new changes first as suggestions so someone else could also see the changes I was thinking about. We also tend to not necessarily move in a logical order. We move throughout the essay repeatedly, sometimes all looking at the same section and sometimes working on multiple sections at once making notes when we see them, and also replying to each other’s comments. Often the rapid co-editing is due to needing word count help, but it isn’t always, sometimes we just want general feedback on the content and the writer is also making changes in real-time so we give continuous feedback for a given period of time until everyone thinks it looks good. My favorite part though is we don’t just make comments about things that should change; it’s more like annotating a book where sometimes we’re just commenting about the writing itself and start a whole sidebar conversation and that’s what’s so amusing to me. It’s proof that giving and receiving feedback really is a gift and it can be a fun process if everyone is open and accepting of the feedback – which doesn’t mean always implementing the feedback, it just means being willing to consider the feedback.)

Creative Constraints

I realized today that while being stuck inside I’ve been doing a lot of repurposing: couch cushions become gymnastics mats, bags of rice become weights, tissue boxes become phone tripods.

Even in the kitchen, I’ve been doing a lot of repurposing. I only have a mini-fridge in my university apartment, but there is a little section on the top designed to be colder, so I thought I’d try buying mango sorbet and see if it could stay frozen. It didn’t… It’s a container of mango mush now. So instead, I took liquid sorbet and turned it into a mango chicken curry dish. I’m actually super impressed that it came out decent because I was really just winging it without a recipe and hoping it would maybe work.

There have been lots of challenges during this pandemic, but we have to remember that new constraints can also re-enforce a creative mindset; a lot of great ideas would not exist without having to have figured out a way to work around great challenges.

We Are One Planet

Today, as part of my work with the Wellington International Leadership Program, I participated in a webinar hosted by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Planning for this anniversary was clearly intense with hundreds of people around the world organizing to speak out specifically around the need to take action in regards to climate change. And then the pandemic hit…

Guest speaker and founding Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes expressed his devastation and frustration about two years’ worth of work now being illegal to execute in most countries. But what was most inspiring to me, and my biggest take away from the event, was his hope, despite everything, for what this could mean in terms of how we think about global challenges in the future. Hayes’ said it would make up for all the lost work if we come out of this crisis realizing that global threats need global cooperation and collaborative solutions that actually eliminate threats worldwide, because if only some people, some states, or even some countries take action – if it’s only “some” – then there is always a threat of the issue coming back. “We are one planet,” Hayes’ exclaimed, and so we need to work together cross-culturally to make change happen. This goes for all global threats from pandemics to climate change.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t even remember that it was Earth Day this week before I signed up for the event, let alone know that it was the 50th anniversary. I support Earth Day, but it’s never been a holiday I go out of my way to figure out how I can get involved with. But there are other global threats that I more actively work to find solutions to, like access to education and safe water, sanitation, and hygiene options. That’s why this conversation around global cooperation was so powerful to me because it’s relevant beyond the scope of just Earth Day; there are dozens of global threats out there no matter how directly we notice them impacting our lives.

For obvious reasons, the threat of climate change was compared frequently with the threat of Covid19 on today’s webinar. All of the panelists discussed how the virus is impacting their daily operations now and how they expect it to impact the future. A key idea that came up throughout the session was that even with Covid19 until people saw their neighbors rushed to hospitals, they weren’t taking the threat seriously. So the webinar left me thinking: “How might we get people to take threats like climate change and other global sustainability goals seriously when it’s even harder for the average person to visualize the direct impact these threats have on the world and the individual?”

The answer is unclear. However, from experience, we know that when people are actively involved in the process of planning and creating change, they believe in it more and care about pulling society along with them. So really the question is, “How might we get the average person to actively engage in processes to overcome global threats?” This is still a lofty question, and there could be hours spent on unpacking the meaning of “average person” alone, but it’s encouraging to have heard from several social entrepreneurs today who seem to really be thinking about this question daily.

Furthermore, panelist Molly Morse with Mango Materials suggests that there is already a demand for solutions to some of these sustainability threats like climate change. The key for social entrepreneurs to keep in mind is targeting the right market; markets need to be focused and specific that way every user feels that the issue is truly relevant to them as an individual.

So my take away from Earth Day amidst the Covid19 crisis is that no matter your area of passion, global threats exist, demands for solutions exist, and people tackling the big questions to create solutions exist. Now we just need to put it all together by working in collaboration with each other across sectors, political affiliations, and borders in order for change to actually happen. We are one planet – let’s make it one worth living on.