The New Art of Conversation
by Antonio
When I started teaching in 1995 the faculty room was the epicenter of conversation among colleagues. You would walk in, there would be a half pot of 3 hour old bitter coffee, folks grading papers, a water cooler and the drone of a photocopier working diligently in the background. Meetings took place in the library or in classrooms and occasionally we would head out on Friday afternoons for some pool and wings at a local spot in town. I remember clearly that some of the best talks I had were with a colleague named Pat Smith as we sat at the end of a long hallway on “hall duty” during lunch period. Pat was a music teacher who had toured with Barry White during the 70’s and he was a smooth, old school daddio who knew how to make kids and colleagues laugh and he loved music and teaching. He shared stories about touring in the 70’s, his experience as a teacher and he provided insight and mentorship on challenges I was experiencing at the time developing my own, young teaching practice.
Pat is not the only “conversation” I remember from my early years in teaching. There were many others, conversations with students, one conversation with a parent that will remain forever etched in my consciousness and the most transformative, the most revealing about life and society in general with other teachers who on the whole genuinely cared for kids and sought to make the world a better place. Regardless of your career choice, the conversations you have daily with friends, family members and colleagues shape your view of the world and I would contend, the way you ultimately end up interacting with it.
This week it dawned on me that the conversations I am having now are at the core, similar to those I had back in 1995, albeit topics like social media, disruptive classes and wikis were not part of our dialogue. However, the vehicle for having those conversations has systematically changed. On Thursday, I worked from home as Verizon was scheduled to come and install new FiOS service to my house. I had a marketing meeting scheduled for 11:00 am and rather than simply miss the meeting or conference call in, I asked a colleague to log into her Skype account and I as able to attend the meeting as if I were in the room. The body language, facial expressions and “tone” of the meeting were not lost and it gave my wife a real sense of what I do all day. Kim Cofino tweeted this morning about some photos she had posted on Flickr of her students Skype experiences and their ability to have conversations with students from around the world. (Kim is located in Bangkok, Thailand) More importantly, Kim regularly contributes to Twitter and while she may be half a world away from us here stateside, she is as active a contributor to the conversation as if she were sitting in the faculty room across the table drinking 3 hour old bitter coffee.
I am guilty, as I am sure most of us are of not having done a good enough job staying in touch with old friends and colleagues over the years. Email worked well for a while but with Facebook, many of my old friends seem to be reconnected in a way that feels very much like we picked up where we left off. Some of the old jokes are still funny, sharing photos of our kids and posting 3rd grade class pictures from 1979 seems to make the connection feel more real. My Wall conversations are an eclectic mix of current friends, work colleagues, relatives and high school and college friends. And while many of these Facebook friends have never met one another, they are able to organically join the conversation I have been able to initate by posting a funny video, interesting article or whitty attempt at a status update.
Similarly, my professional learning networked has grown to include individuals I have never actually been fortunate enought to meet in person and for a while, I was unsure about how it would work to cultivate a friendship or professional relationship with someone whom I had never meet face to face. The “conversations” I follow are not always addressed directly to me, but by being able to observe and absorb the content, they help shape the way I look at important issues, my thoughts about my teaching practice, and my philosophy and approach as a school leader. The art of conversation is shifting and while social technologies will never replace stopping at your favorite coffee shop with a friend or a pre-dinner glass of wine with a colleague, the ability to engage with each other more regularly has made me appreciate that I have been fortunate to develop a personal network of friends, colleagues and family members that enrich my life daily. So don’t take these digital conversations for granted they are as important and as meaningful as those you have in person.
Consider keeping the conversation going by following me on Twitter!
Photo Credit: eye2eye
Comments
Finding your blog and twitter presence was a breath of fresh air. Thanks for the great work.
You bet! Thanks @codiyioti!
Great stuff- Facebook Connect is going to be great for the blogs and conversations on the web.
Was it easy to get it going on your blog?
Sigh….you are right. I had the same experience with a Skype call to a colleague’s f2f meeting in Richmond yesterday while I was here, an hour away. My connections via Twitter with Kim and others around the world have added a richness to my learning that others who don’t participate in this world just don’t understand. My virtual conversations with local friends have actually improved communication and added a whole new layer. This morning I was chatting via Twitter with a colleague I hadn’t planned to see again until school resumes in January. Added value!!
Travis, the Facebook Connect was facilitated by using the Sociable plugin for Wordpress. Requires a few modifications and some work with Facebook Developer, but nothing too difficult to figure out.
Susan, what I find most interesting is the ability to extend a personal or professional network outside the realm of traditional venues. A colleague and former co-worker commented on my Facebook wall that she finds her Skype meetings more effective depending on the group because people are more likely to sit and listen than they are jump in and interrupt.
I couldn’t agree more. As much as I love being able to have f2f conversations with my colleagues, I am so lucky to have such a wide ranging network of friends and colleagues that I learn from every single day – thanks to our being able to communicate in a variety of online formats. Without those connections, my learning would be dictated by location, rather than interest and expertise.
Thanks for sharing Kim. It seems as if the rules have changed, at one point in time our connections were predicated on having had at a minimum at least one face to face interaction. Now, the possibility exists that the connection may occur long before a face to face meeting will take place.