As Head of English, much of my working life is spent interpreting words and language. However, for the last 14 years, I have also held another job, one in which I (try to) interpret numbers, graphs, arrows and data every day.
Mr Duffield knows this is not because I secretly hope one day to add teaching Maths to my CV. Nor is it because I hope to become a data scientist. It is because I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in my early twenties. Unlike teaching, my position as a full-time working pancreas is not one from which I will ever be able to fully retire.
Research has previously suggested that a person with Type 1 Diabetes makes around 180 more health related decisions every day than someone without Diabetes. However, as technology and AI advance, the job description of a full-time working pancreas is gradually becoming a little less demanding.
This Summer, I moved to Dexcom’s G7 sensor, which communicates directly with my insulin pump. I still use an app on my phone to check my glucose levels and administer insulin for food, so I am by no means redundant as a pancreas just yet. However, my pump and sensor now communicate continually, using an algorithm to respond to changes in my glucose levels and automatically adjust my background insulin. Technology is beginning to make some of those decisions for me. As that technology continues to develop, it has the potential to give me back more time and attention. Ironically, those are the very two things we so often fear technology is taking away from us.
Also this Summer, I have spent much of my time surrounded by physical books, which is what one would imagine to be a Head of English’s dream. Mr Joseph has enjoyed observing the process and offering helpful commentary on my progress, noting that the books appear simply to have moved from one pile to another. Mrs King has provided much needed humour, particularly after Mrs Hardwick popped in and enthusiastically informed me that some of the bookshelves were, in fact, double sided. At that point, I realised I had even more books to sort through than I had first thought. Meanwhile, Kirsty has continued to respond extremely positively to every new ‘book list’ I have sent her, and there have been quite a few.
I am really thrilled about what the Library is becoming and what it can offer our students. It has also left me thinking about my ‘two’ jobs. In one, I am embracing technology and increasingly relying on what it can do for me. In the other, I spend much of my time championing books, reading and the value of the physical page.
In September, technology will also become part of our plans for developing reading across the school through the introduction of Accelerated Reader. This has made me think again about my message at the end of World Book Week, when I encouraged our school community to scroll less and read more. I still stand by it. Perhaps, though, the relationship between technology and reading does not need to be quite so binary. The question is less about whether we use technology and more about what we use it for. Accelerated Reader isn’t replacing the book. The reading still comes first, with the technology coming afterwards through quizzes and progress tracking, hopefully adding some motivation and allowing us to see and celebrate the reading that is already happening. We are also subscribing to the Collins Big Cat eLibrary, widening students’ access to stories, graphic novels and other reading material. It is another option and falls in line with the government’s Year of National Reading message.
Alongside this, I am particularly excited about the physical Library. At the beginning of September, we will officially open and launch the Library, and we are really looking forward to marking the occasion by welcoming award winning author Iqbal Hussain, whose novel The Night I Borrowed Time will be studied by our Year 6 students this year. It feels like a fitting way to begin this next chapter for our Library and, hopefully, for reading across the school.
We want the Library to become somewhere students enjoy spending time, whether they are browsing the shelves, discovering new authors and genres, talking about books or simply sitting and reading. I am looking forward to seeing what the students make of it.
Maybe that is where I have landed with my ‘two’ jobs. Technology doesn’t have to replace what we value about the physical experience. Sometimes, it can simply sit alongside it. Used in the right way, it might even give us more time, more access or another route to something we enjoy.
So, if I may, perhaps I will amend my World Book Week message slightly. Scroll less, read more, but use technology well. If technology can give me back some of the time and attention I currently spend being my own pancreas, I already know what I would like to do with it...
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