It’s been a while since I posted to my blog – apologies but life seemed to get busy and then complicated. I’ll try to send a few blogs over the next few days to catch up on everything that’s been going on. There have been lots of great events I was able to attend at Elon since January, and they seem even more amazing now we’ve reached a stage where we’re guided by US and UK governments not to have mass gatherings. So it is perhaps even more timely to appreciate the lovely things I was able to go to. Sorry I only have a few pictures of the events, so it’s just an excuse to post some additional ‘springtime in NC’ pictures!

Since I arrived at Elon I’ve been going to a book group involving a lovely group of women who live in and around Elon, some of whom work at the University, but many who work elsewhere. Each month a member of the group takes responsibility for choosing a theme, and then bringing 3-4 books on that theme for the group to choose as a book to read for the next meeting.

In January I was invited to choose the theme and the books. A few people wanted me to choose Scotland as a theme, but I thought I’d increase the choice slightly, so I chose the theme of Coast, and then selected 4 possible books on that theme to read: Jonathan Raban Coasting; Michael Cunningham Lands End: A walk in Provincetown; Compton MacKenzie Whisky Galore; and Neil Gunn The Silver Darlings. The group chose to read Whisky Galore, which I’d also never read, although I’ve see the old black and white film (but not the new film starring Eddie Izzard). We had some good discussions about it and I get the feeling some members of the group would now like to visit some of the Scottish whisky distilleries as well as the Outer Hebrides.

In February, I was able to go to an event for Holocaust Rememberance Day, where a couple who both survived the holocaust in Hungary talked very movingly about their experiences. Agnes and Robert Heller both lost family members to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, and experienced traumatic events first hand, but remained incredibly resilient and positive. They both escaped to the USA and didn’t meet until a Hungarian Literary Society Dance in New York. There were over 400 people of all ages in attendance at the Elon University event, and as the years go by, it feels as if this kind of opportunity to hear real stories like this, first hand, are getting less and less.

To provide a complete contrast, I was invited to go to the Carolina Theater in Durham (about 40 mins from Elon) on the Saturday after Valentines Day, to a Storytelling event. Kristen, my house mate, her parents, a friend from Elon Janelle and her husband Cal, and another Elon colleague Danielle, who I hadn’t met until then, all gathered to go. It was the finals and award ceremony for storytellers as part of an event called The Monti. The rules of the storytelling were that the stories have to be true, and edneed to be able to be told in less than 10 minutes. On this occasion, and in keeping with being Valentine’s Day weekend, storytellers were tasked with telling stories on the subject of “—– date ever”. It was absolutely brilliant. The stories were by turns warm, endearing, embarrassing, life-changing, captivating and funny. Kristen and I talked about some of the stories for days after the event. I would never have thought about going to a story-telling event, but I would definitely look to go to something like this again.

I went to an Elon creativity event in February called ‘harnessing the maker mindset’ to think about how to integrate creativity and making within teaching. Some of the key ideas we focused on came from design thinking: 1) Revision makes it better – the importance of ensuring you plan prototypes before the real thing; 2) Embrace failure – helping students (and teachers) to see failure as a really productive part of learning; 3) Work through frustration – taking time to acknowledge and explain frustrations can lead to new ideas and skills; 4) Know when to seek help – the importance of building networks so you have a range of people with different skills to draw upon; and 5) Enjoy and appreciate the process – acknowledging that how you get to the goal can be as important as the finished product. We also tried our hand at making things – and in my case I had a go at soldering, which I haven’t done since my brother burned a hole in his bedroom rug when we were teenagers!! I was quite pleased with the little light I made.

Then a first for me, I attended the finals of the North Carolina robotics competition in Greensboro (about 30 mins from Elon). I was cheering for Timothy Felten’s team – Team Aperture, who are seen as ‘the ones to beat’ in NC robotics competitions. I learned masses about how robotics competitions work (and the complexities of how they are scored), and I was seriously impressed with the level of passion for engineering and design in the teenagers participating, the creativity in the robots created and the level of professionalism and respect the teams had for one another. Although Timothy’s team didn’t win a place in the National Championships (they were robbed in my view, due to a technical hitch in one of the final matches), it was a really fun day.

Events before lockdown / Star spangled banter by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0