I have been neglectful of this my most favorite platform: my blog. My Dean pulled me for an impromptu and very quick trip to London, my two online classes finished and needed to be graded, and I have a deadline I set for myself to finish my book proposal. This coming weekend I am presenting a paper in Orlando and have a set of papers to grade for my face-to-face class. And yes, I have thrown up my hands and said this is enough.
Enough means that I will keep some consulting projects that are near and dear to my heart, like my child welfare project, but it means I will not be teaching anymore after next semester. Or perhaps teaching as I have known it as the onerous workload it has become. I will always be a teacher but I will be a teacher in the real world, the world where people are living and working. I will be involved in co-creating knowledge, not imposing it and finding creative ways to engage in conversations about the issues of our time in ways that are not divisive. This is the single most important work that we must strive for as people who have public platforms. As you know although we enter our conversations here through the lens of fashion, quite often they reflect and relate to the larger issues of our society.
In an very small way I was able to achieve this when I started to pay attention to my Facebook as its numbers began to grow. I must admit to not liking Facebook because people seem to feel rather free to be nasty and judgemental and I saw some of that happening on my page. Many people choose to not respond to negative comments at all, but that leaves them unaddressed. So I chose to “teach”. I presented research about the positive and negative effects of social media on women’s perceptions of their bodies and their levels of depression and anxiety. I also presented the positive effects of building community and feelings of connection and support. I set a limit that my platform would not be used to make women feel bad about themselves and I would delete all negative comments. A manifesto (which has been widely shared) was written with rules of engagement. I try to pose questions that ask women to talk about themselves and how they feel rather than comment on what I might be wearing. When someone jumped on a woman for having a certain kind of opinion I helped others to see why she might have thought that way. There are ways to respectfully disagree and listen to all sides of an issue. So now there are lovely and supportive conversations, inspiration from each other and many more ideas about what to wear than if people only looked at me. I can only imagine what more could happen if I had the time to be more thoughtful and engage every day. If it can be done on one very small Facebook page with leadership could it not be done on many more?
So I guess what I am saying is that I probably will never stop being a professor but i will do it in ways that give me freedom, pleasure and that supports critical thinking and responses based on careful thought and not on blind emotion. I have come to the realization that in the now, social media has an important role to play in democracy.
What are your thoughts about how to use social media to support all women and as a platform for civil discourse?
Lyn, you are an inspiration .
At the weekend of my life at 65 , having gone through the tragedy of losing my husband then my son ( two most important men in my life) I chose to start a fresh new chapter at 56 when I took up inline roller blading as a consuming sport and joined toastmasters club to evangelise about public speaking and skating. They skaters and speakers are my surrogate families who come onto my charities which I work as pro bono lawyer..
I just completed my fifth skate marathon in Berlin and earned my fifth medal and has a world ranking for 60s women inline skaters.
Social media is a platform that has given me a space to make my mark as an inspirational friend to those who have to struggle in their personal lives. I found myself counselling friends and strangers who think I have given them hope just by doing what I do and overcoming my own loss.. I inspire and arm twist young professionals to partake in my journey of fun through doing good..
Skating helped me overcome Fear, Fail,Fall .. my metaphor for life as I navigate on my skates as life’s weekender!
My prize winning speech about my skate journey ,,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TRnyifYg2E
Bonnie in London
Bonnie, you are an inspiration, too! I watched your video. Your speech was wonderful! You made me laugh and cry. Hooray for you and your amazing achievements!
I have been waiting for a long time to read the post where you announce that you will give up the literal classroom to more fully embrace the wider arena of discourse you have created! You will always, always be a teacher at heart. Fashion and social media are now your vehicles of expression. For the last year or more, I could feel you being tugged I’m too many directions! So I am so happy to read that this is your last school year. Good for you!
I too am in the last school year of my long teaching and pedagogical administration career. I am still exploring what that will mean. I am hoping I finally find my way more solidly as a maker of clothing and art. Family may consume me for a while—my first grandchild is due this summer and I increasingly am involved with my elderly parents. Perhaps I will dive into the world of social media, which I barely participate in. You have been teaching me it’s potential worth as a tool for teaching and community. Thank you so much!
So inspirational…. I’m glad I run into your content. Thank you ?
So inspirational, as always. What an amazing and gifted person you are. So happy that you will continue with this social media so we can all benefit from your wisdom. Thank you so very much !
I am not very active on social media. I have a face book account, but I have never used it. It worries me that hackers can so easily steal personal information and misuse it. But I do see the potential social media can have to bring together women and support and inspire them in so many ways. I do however take on line courses related to my former profession and we also have a blog , it is such a joy to share knowledge and inspire each other – just like this blog is.
I love the picture of you, the colours are beautiful and your pose seem to tell a feeling of joy and freedom, perhaps also a little relief. I wish you every success in you coming adventure. Ruth, London
You asked for ideas on "how" to use social media to enhance discourse. I think people are more interactive when there’s a live stream on youtube.
I’ve also seen some hookups where people are doing livestream on facebook and simultaneously doing it on youtube. I don’t think it’s hard to do this set up. I’m sure the instructions can be found on youtube.
That said, for the discourse to be meaningful you need to talk "to" the participants and ask engaging questions. It works. When it doesn’t work it’s because the platform is used without much thought; sort of like when people just jump on whenever they feel like it and talk in generalities instead of specific pertinent issues.
Gary Vaynerchuk also uses the method of taking questions via twitter or other social media and then doing videos answering those questions. That method is effective as well.
I think you’d need to test on whether live stream or static videos works better for you.
Most of the livestreams that are effective usually are on political and religious topics. But I’d sure love to see livestream videos related to style such as you present on this vlog.
Keep us posted on what you plan to do. I’m sure, with your teaching experience, you’d do it well.