HUMS staff blog update, September 8, 2019

Don't forget
Shared Staff Meeting
Tuesday Afternoon -
Here is the link to the Agenda:  September 10, 2019 Shared Staff Agenda

ITEMS:
1. September Meetings

September 10 - Shared Staff

September 12 - Open House - HS and MS

September 17 - Dept Meeting 

September 19 - LT/DH Meeting (Thurs)

September 24 - Faculty/LC

2. Thursday, Open House Schedule (Please wear Harwood Bling..)
We will decorate/prepare our space for the evening right afterschool.

5:30 - Schedules to be picked up at Harwood Middle School Main Entrance

5:45 - 5:55 - Duane Pierson Opening Address in gallery (Duane will introduce staff)

6:00 - 6:10 - TA time - (Middle School TA as well) 

6:15 - 6:25 - Block 1A - (Middle School Applied Arts ) 1st Trimester Class 

6:30 - 6:40 - Block 2A - Middle School Open House begins

 (3 C's in   each classroom) 

6:45 - 6:55 - Block 3A - Middle School Open House continues 

7:00 - 7:10 - Block 4A - (Middle School Applied Arts) 1st Trimester Class

7:15 - 7:25 - Block 1B  -(Middle School Applied) 1st Trimester Class 

7:30 - 7:40 - Block 3B - (Middle School Principal Meet and Greet 

3. Reminder about completing goals for review by the month's end. The goal form is located at
the top of the blog in the link cloud.

4. HULT - or the Harwood Leadership Team will be sending out our first Blog regarding
our goals, work plan and priorities for the year. We hope to have this information blast
out soon (and hope to have 3 - 4 of them this school year)

5. Safety Committee meeting - the HUUSD crisis/safety committee is meeting this week to
determine next steps for each HUUSD school as it relates to safety procedure updates etc.
We hope to have this information out to staff by October/November.

6. Can You Turn Off All Technology for a Full Day Every Week?

            “There are many people who need to work seven days a week,” says filmmaker and author Tiffany Shlain in this Boston Globearticle. “But many others choose to.” For years she was in the latter category: “Weekends were a chaotic mix of recreation and work, sending e-mails and ticking things off my never-ending to-do list. Not only could I pat myself on the back for my work ethic, I believed I was making more time for myself in the upcoming week. I’d be ahead of the game.” Then her father died and her daughter was born, and she decided to take a look at how she was spending time – and the history of the workweek.

            The concept of a weekly day of rest goes back to the ancient Hebrews, and it helped create a weekly opportunity for big-picture thinking that acted as a positive cultural force. Most religions have a day of repose similar to the Jewish Sabbath: the Christian Sunday, the Muslim communal day of prayer on Friday, the Buddhist period of reflection known as Uposatha, the Cherokee tradition of “un-time” days of rest. One historian believes the Pilgrims came to America partly to observe a stricter Sabbath. 

Then in the 1800s, the industrial revolution intruded, with factories that could run around the clock. Only a robust labor movement established the 8-hour day and 40-hour workweek, and Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894. The passage of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act made two-day weekends the norm across the nation. 

But smartphones and the Internet turned all this upside down. “The digital revolution has blurred the lines between time on and time off,” says Shlain, “and time off is disappearing… It’s time to reconsider what Labor Day actually means to us – what we define as work and as rest in our 24/7 always-on, always-available culture. We need to take a hard look at the boundaries we have let slide and some boundaries we might need to bring back.” 

Shlain’s family decided to completely unplug from devices and screens from Friday night to Saturday night – a technology Shabbat. “This did exactly what I hoped,” she says, “creating a work/life border and slowing the pace, at least for a day. I think of Einstein’s theory that time is relative to the motion of things. When that smartphone is on, everything is sped up. When you turn it off, time seems to slow down. When you make a ritual of turning it off each week for a full day, you can actually rest, truly, deeply, and in a restorative way we rarely get…” She’s found that her family is happier and calmer, and in her workplace (a film studio), where the practice has been adopted, productivity has significantly improved even though people are working fewer hours. 

“I found the solution in an ancient practice, remade for the modern era,” Shlain concludes. “I invite you to join me.” 

“A Labor Call to Action: Take a Tech Shabbat” by Tiffany Shlain in The Boston Globe, September 1, 2019 (pp. K1, K4), https://bit.ly/2MOFL9g; Shlain’s book is 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week(Gallery Books, 2019)