March 11, 2025 • 21 mins
What does it mean to be a "techno-Victorian" in today's rapidly evolving educational landscape? JD Williams embodies this fascinating philosophy, prioritizing human autonomy while thoughtfully embracing technological augmentation. Our conversation explores this delicate balance at a time when screens increasingly separate us from authentic connections.
Drawing from her rich experiences across diverse educational environments—from urban Montreal to remote Arctic outlets — JD shares the pivotal moments that shaped her understanding of education's possibilities and limitations. She articulates a profound distinction between schooling and education, questioning whether standardized approaches can truly serve each student's unique needs. This disconnect ultimately led her to establish Pinnacle Educational Services, where she works "system-adjacent" as a champion for dedicated teachers navigating institutional barriers.
The heart of JD's philosophy beats with a simple but powerful principle: connection before content. She describes building relationships with students through genuine curiosity about their interests—learning guitar riffs from one, juggling from another—creating mutual respect that facilitates learning. As technology proliferates in classrooms and anxiety rises among students (documented in "The Anxious Generation"), JD offers a compelling perspective: "Technology should not replace our interactions; it should augment them." This wisdom reminds us that while digital tools offer tremendous potential for accessibility and equity, they remain "nominal without the human touch." How might we preserve meaningful human connection while embracing technology's benefits in our educational spaces?
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Episode Transcript
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Chris Colley (00:02):
welcome.
Uh, 2025 rolling along nicely.
Uh, I will say in canada and myguest also canadian here today,
jd williams we've beenexperiencing a tremendous amount
of snow and it just seems tonever stop, but we are going to
move onward.
Um, I apologize for my voice.
(00:25):
With the season comes a littlebit of bugs that fly around and
I picked one up, but hopefully Iwill talk less and JD will talk
way more.
Having JD Williams, who is ablogger, a teacher, an educator,
(00:50):
a consultant, a coach, allthings K-12.
And I've been kind of exploringyour site and your blog, jd,
and just really fascinatingideas and thoughts that you
throw out there, so I reachedout because I thought the world
should hear more about them.
So thanks so much for taking meup on this offer.
JD Williams (01:06):
Oh, my pleasure, Chris.
Thank you for inviting me.
Chris Colley (01:10):
Now, JD, I kind of wanted to ask you about this.
One thing that kind of poppedout when I was looking at your
materials is you consideryourself a techno-Victorian,
Could you?
I've never heard of that before, but I read kind of the detail
of what you, how you describedit.
Could you describe it for us?
I just find it so amazing.
JD Williams (01:30):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for asking.
I have an interestingfascination with technology and
I realized that as we progressthrough life, technology emerges
and changes and transforms howwe live, work and play.
But when I dig deep in my useand when I use it, I realized
(01:57):
that I always lean back to theanalog experience as the place
to level set and to have deeperthoughts and experiences.
And while I appreciate theefficiency and optimization of
technology, I always want todefer to my body as machine.
(02:19):
So that idea of that's where theVictorian comes in, that I will
always start first without thetools and then I would start
picking up with intention thetools.
And folks see this in meetingsbecause when we're on the screen
and you see folks lookingdirectly I'm writing analog pen
(02:42):
to paper.
There's something, that feeling, that kinesthetic where that
information gets locked in.
So I hold this tension betweenfiercely protecting my autonomy
as the human machine that's theVictorian part and cautiously
embracing what's coming toaugment myself.
(03:04):
So that's what that technoVictorian means to me.
Somebody else might explain itdifferently, but that's kind of
where I'm coming from.
Chris Colley (03:15):
Yeah, very well said, very well said.
And as we begin thisconversation, jd, I like to kind
of look at some markers in yourcareer so far.
What were some importantmoments or decisions that you
made that brought you to yourconsulting practice that you do
(03:39):
now?
What were some of thoseimportant decisions or chance
things that happened thatbrought you to where you are
today?
JD Williams (03:49):
That's such a beautiful question.
There are so many inflectionpoints.
I was receiving signals fromthe time I was at McGill
University in their Faculty ofEducation program.
The time I was at McGillUniversity in their Faculty of
Education program and beingunder the guidance and tutelage
(04:10):
of Barbara Shuckett Palmer Ihave to call her out by name she
was my cooperating teacher atthe time when I was a stagiaire
which seems like a long time ago, but to me it feels like
yesterday and I was alwaysthinking about that experience I
had in the Faculty of Education.
(04:31):
I emerged from the program as aproduct of the system and as I
started to work in the systemand being advised by an expert
master teacher to find my wayand to find my way in a sense,
(04:52):
that when in the classroom, thatthe lessons and the approaches
are present and what I may havelearned in theory may not square
with what I, what has to happen, then you start to recognize
that there's this disconnect.
I start to recognize thatthere's this disconnect between
how this is.
I was prepared to enter thesystem and what the system need
(05:16):
right.
And then, first couple ofteaching, I landed my job at
Wisbang School in Montreal Westand we were able to push
boundaries of what we can do.
The administrators at the timehired a bunch of young guns that
had big, high flying ideas,which would be a shock to a
(05:38):
traditional system if theecosystem itself didn't create
that opportunity.
And so there was.
I saw what is possible when youthink outside of the existing
notion of what schooling shouldbe.
And so I want to make thatdistinction between education
(05:58):
and schooling, because in myfirst few years of teaching, my
education continued because thestudents that came into my space
were challenging me and pushingme to think beyond me being a
product of the system, becausethey were not your typical right
.
So there's that point where Istarted to see what was possible
(06:20):
.
So I was holding this tension.
What was possible?
Returned from Quebec to my homeprovince of Ontario and landed
in another school, a charterschool, private school, the.
(06:40):
You know, looking, working withthe curriculum and thinking
about, oh yeah, this is allgreat pie in the sky, but when
we bring it down to my context,what I have available, I cannot
operationalize this in anyfidelity that meets that.
So then, how can I?
I kept asking how can I, howcan I um, how can I um support
the students in the way thatthey need.
How can I find more time,because there's not going to be
more time created they need.
How can I find more timeBecause there's not going to be
(07:01):
more time created right?
How can I optimize my time andstarted recognizing that an
island notion and teaching beingin your classroom is not going
to help you thrive.
Chris Colley (07:14):
And so.
JD Williams (07:14):
I started to reach out and pull on experts and
build my social network andbuild my nodes of individuals
and organizations that can shoreme up and secure more time,
like I was using them as a time,like finding time measures, in
that they had the expertise Ididn't have to level up, so I've
(07:36):
saved time that I can nowdedicate to my students.
So through that experience I Ilooked at thinking of is this
being in the system?
I'm trying to understand thesystem that I'm in and so and
you'll see the ecosystems I swimin.
So I jump out of the educationsystem and I said, okay, I've
had, I've had enough, I've seenit.
(07:57):
I don't think we serve eachstudent.
I think we do this baseline,level setting, and then there's
a lot of students above and alot of students below, and so
you know, some teachers arereally good at holding that
tension and making it work, butfor me I had more questions than
answers.
So each of those little signalsleads to me jumping and seeking
(08:21):
.
I'm seeking answers of is therea way to do this in a way where
each student, each teacher, notthis monolith, because we get
grouped in these big groups?
And then I realized that thereare many roles to play in
education.
So I jumped out and then I wentsystem adjacent, call it.
I work system adjacent.
(08:42):
I am a champion for theeveryday teacher who has the
strength and fortitude and driveto do the good work despite
some of those barriers, and Istrive to work with them to make
those barriers opportunitiesand I action.
The opportunities I put in thetime I go, seeking being that
(09:03):
time-saving measure that I waslooking for when I was the new B
teacher.
So, and then there are otherjourney along the ways, but it's
a lot of question asking.
I'm constantly questioning thequestion and my basic adage is
if we can't serve each studentin a way that they all need to
(09:27):
be served in the current state,then how could we disrupt,
adjust, reset, redesign, case bycase, because it's not going to
be systemic, because what Ilearned from my work, from urban
to rural, to the Arctic hamlets, is that place context, it's
(09:51):
not a cookie cutter recipe.
Chris Colley (09:53):
Right, yeah, for sure, for sure.
I'll stop there and it's no.
But I I love what you're sayingtoo, because we are not um cogs
in a machine, right?
We are individual and uniqueand learn differently and view
the world in different ways.
Um, so it's hard to say, okay,we're all going to, here's our
baseline.
(10:13):
Hard to say, okay, we're allgoing to, here's our baseline.
Like you said, when did you,when did Pinnacle Educational
Services begin?
And what was your?
What was the crux of starting,of venturing out on your own
like that?
Was it so that you couldaddress these things
individually as you werementioning what?
JD Williams (10:44):
was your first kind of intent that you wanted to
establish with your company,your organization?
Again, a very good question.
But at the heart of it is therelationships I had with
students who I had theopportunity to coach, mentor,
tutor, and the growth that I sawcould happen when we had the
(11:08):
time to listen to what the gapwas or what the disconnect was
and to work directly one-on-oneto strengthen it.
So it started as a coaching,tutoring, performance strategist
type of practice and in thosesessions, hearing the students
(11:31):
narratives about their teachersand I wouldn't, I wouldn't give
it oxygen I would say, first andforemost, let's be clear I'm a
teacher.
I'm not here to replace yourteacher.
I'm here to support you and tohelp you to build your strengths
and capacities and competenciesso that you could thrive in
formal school setting when yougo from being 1 to one to 30 to
(11:55):
one, right, right.
And so I recognize that I wasin a position of privilege and
not everyone has thatopportunity to step out and say
I had no idea what was going tohappen.
I just knew there was a needand I heard my students saying
you know the pace, the pace atwhich they were not necessarily
in my class.
The pace at which the contentis moving is moving faster than
(12:16):
me, and it's not that theydidn't have the ability, it was
just that they just needed thatlittle shore up, a little
coaching.
Every, every student, everychild needs a champion, someone
that can like, listen, lean in,and part of a lot of it was
negotiating and teaching thosesocial skills with them, in that
I didn't just sit down all of asudden and start teaching them.
It was connection beforecontent.
(12:39):
I got to learn who they were,so I had levers that the school
system didn't necessarily haveto be able to activate and to.
You know cajole and to enticeand to get.
If I teach you this, then youcan teach me this, you know
cajole, and to entice and andand to get.
If, if you, if I, if I teach youthis, then you can teach me
this, you know like, becausethey all, they had knowledge of
(13:00):
their own and I each interactionwith each student.
They, they taught me fromjuggling to their guitar riffs,
and so the parents would lookand say, what does guitar have
to do with science?
Because that's their thing, andso science is my thing, and I
need them to be able to see thatwhat matters to them matters to
(13:23):
me too as well, and in theclassroom setting that's one of
the things that I found that wedon't have all that time to do
that, and so stepping out wasreally for me to feel that I was
actually contributing in a waythat was meaningful, and if I
was doing it one student, onefamily at a time it's a little
slower than a system level, butI think I reached those who
(13:46):
needed it the most.
Chris Colley (13:47):
I totally agree.
Relationships.
If you don't establish thosewith your students, it it will
affect their performance in yourclass, cause they're just going
to have nothing invested in it,Right?
Um, even though we have to pushthis stuff forward in the
content and the testing.
And, um, if they don't feellike you have a sense of
(14:10):
attachment to them or care, theywon't, and it's something I
think that buildingrelationships is a soft skill
that we're teaching them withoutteaching them by doing it, by
interacting and having thoserelationships and being curious
about their experiences.
It brings me to this question,jd.
(14:33):
We've seen that technology hasreally started to proliferate
throughout education.
I mean, it's ongoing all thetime, and now we have the dawn
of AI coming into education.
Are you finding that technologyis removing those relationships
from our classrooms, ourschools?
(14:56):
And I'll just like I've beenreading a lot about the Anxious
Generation Good book, excellentbook and scary at the same time.
Just looking at the stats ofwhat's going on with our kids
and this kid generation and thewell-being, depression, the
(15:17):
anxiety that is percolating.
When do we bring technology andwhen should we remove
technology so thoserelationships that are so
crucial to education conform?
Because you're not formingrelationships if you're behind a
screen or you're distractedwith social media or your
whatever it might be Like.
(15:39):
Where do we find that balance?
I guess I'm I'm I'm gettingthat.
It's a huge question.
I guess I'm silent because I'mletting it.
JD Williams (15:50):
I'm letting it.
I'm letting it sink in and I'mfeeling my somatic response,
like I could feel the hairs onmy arm standing up, because it's
such a.
It's such a robust and complexquestion, but not necessarily
complicated, because there is adifference between calm.
I believe there's a differencebetween complex and complicated,
(16:12):
which means with the complexitythere isn't a one right answer
or one pathway solution, aswe're seeing now with the whole
notion of action reaction.
We're gonna ban phones, but yetstudent achievement doesn't
change and this is a recentreport out of the Guardian in
the UK in terms of actionreaction.
We're going to ban phones, butyet student achievement doesn't
change and this is a recentreport out of the Guardian in
the UK in terms of, you know,the action reaction system and
(16:35):
that the action from the schooldidn't garner the outcome in
terms of feedback that theyexpected, because there's
another lever, there's the homeelement, there's you know.
So it's never.
It's not like one side or theother, but I think technology
and the thing, it's such abeautiful question.
Technology can make certainthings possible, things access.
(17:05):
It can make access possible.
It could be the level setterfor equity from some regards,
but at the same time, if theinfrastructure is not there it
becomes an equity challenge, butit holds so much potential but
I'm going to lead with this thatit's the intentionality and the
purposeful use that the valueand its impact rests in and that
(17:31):
, as you are becoming, we'reconstantly in a state of
becoming, from the first time weleave our home education frames
and enter into the formalnotion of schooling, we're
becoming, and there's somefoundational social skills that
we must learn, model andpractice.
(17:52):
And so I'm a qualified teacherin junior, intermediate and
secondary and not primary,because I give hats off and
oceans of respect to theteachers who work with that
level of those you know thoseessential skills that are needed
to then come into the spacewhere I'm comfortable, which is
(18:13):
grade four, five, six and onwardright, and it has a place, it
has its purpose, but it shouldnever trump human communication,
human human collaboration,human interaction.
It of technology in and ofitself, I think its value is
(18:35):
nominal without the human touch.
Um, I am, I am a strong, fierceprotector of my digital
identity.
It's something that was on myradar of my digital identity.
It's something that was on myradar from, I think, 2012.
And I said if it goes out there,where does it go?
(18:56):
So there's the questioner ofquestions when does it go?
What happens to it?
And then those questionsstarted to be answered.
I started to see these thingscome up in the news about what
people can do, and now what AIcan do and the deep fakes.
So we have to learn how to behuman and relate to each other
in a human way, and then weaugment our interactions.
(19:19):
The technology should not placeour interactions, it should
augment our interactions.
I love it.
Chris Colley (19:28):
I love it.
I mean, this podcast flies byso quickly.
Your answers to my questionsare so thoughtful, JD.
I mean I just love yourreflective capacity kind of on
the fly because I've beenthrowing out some pretty biggies
but I really, really appreciateyou taking some time.
(19:50):
I would love to continue thisconversation with you in a part
two, because I feel that wecould talk so much more.
I like to keep these relativelyshort, just so that we have a
capsule of thoughts and ideas,and I want to thank you for
taking some time out of your dayto come and share some of these
(20:11):
amazing ideas that you have.
Pinnacle Educational Servicesis a great thing that you're
offering, and I will definitelypromote that in the descriptor
as well.
So people go check out and seewhat JD does.
She has a great blog, too.
Please read some of herarticles.
I really hope this isn't thelast time we speak.
JD Williams (20:35):
I hope so too.
I hope that it is not the lasttime we connect, because those
little nodes that I build in thenetwork just makes it possible
to see and get a more thoroughview of where innovation and
excellence is happening ineducation across the
pan-Canadian context.
So thank you for inviting mefor a chit-chat.
Chris Colley (20:57):
Awesome.
Thank you so much and enjoy thesnow.
JD Williams (21:01):
Thank you.
welcome.
Uh, 2025 rolling along nicely.
Uh, I will say in canada and myguest also canadian here today,
jd williams we've beenexperiencing a tremendous amount
of snow and it just seems tonever stop, but we are going to
move onward.
Um, I apologize for my voice.
(00:25):
With the season comes a littlebit of bugs that fly around and
I picked one up, but hopefully Iwill talk less and JD will talk
way more.
Having JD Williams, who is ablogger, a teacher, an educator,
(00:50):
a consultant, a coach, allthings K-12.
And I've been kind of exploringyour site and your blog, jd,
and just really fascinatingideas and thoughts that you
throw out there, so I reachedout because I thought the world
should hear more about them.
So thanks so much for taking meup on this offer.
JD Williams (01:06):
Oh, my pleasure, Chris.
Thank you for inviting me.
Chris Colley (01:10):
Now, JD, I kind of wanted to ask you about this.
One thing that kind of poppedout when I was looking at your
materials is you consideryourself a techno-Victorian,
Could you?
I've never heard of that before, but I read kind of the detail
of what you, how you describedit.
Could you describe it for us?
I just find it so amazing.
JD Williams (01:30):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for asking.
I have an interestingfascination with technology and
I realized that as we progressthrough life, technology emerges
and changes and transforms howwe live, work and play.
But when I dig deep in my useand when I use it, I realized
(01:57):
that I always lean back to theanalog experience as the place
to level set and to have deeperthoughts and experiences.
And while I appreciate theefficiency and optimization of
technology, I always want todefer to my body as machine.
(02:19):
So that idea of that's where theVictorian comes in, that I will
always start first without thetools and then I would start
picking up with intention thetools.
And folks see this in meetingsbecause when we're on the screen
and you see folks lookingdirectly I'm writing analog pen
(02:42):
to paper.
There's something, that feeling, that kinesthetic where that
information gets locked in.
So I hold this tension betweenfiercely protecting my autonomy
as the human machine that's theVictorian part and cautiously
embracing what's coming toaugment myself.
(03:04):
So that's what that technoVictorian means to me.
Somebody else might explain itdifferently, but that's kind of
where I'm coming from.
Chris Colley (03:15):
Yeah, very well said, very well said.
And as we begin thisconversation, jd, I like to kind
of look at some markers in yourcareer so far.
What were some importantmoments or decisions that you
made that brought you to yourconsulting practice that you do
(03:39):
now?
What were some of thoseimportant decisions or chance
things that happened thatbrought you to where you are
today?
JD Williams (03:49):
That's such a beautiful question.
There are so many inflectionpoints.
I was receiving signals fromthe time I was at McGill
University in their Faculty ofEducation program.
The time I was at McGillUniversity in their Faculty of
Education program and beingunder the guidance and tutelage
(04:10):
of Barbara Shuckett Palmer Ihave to call her out by name she
was my cooperating teacher atthe time when I was a stagiaire
which seems like a long time ago, but to me it feels like
yesterday and I was alwaysthinking about that experience I
had in the Faculty of Education.
(04:31):
I emerged from the program as aproduct of the system and as I
started to work in the systemand being advised by an expert
master teacher to find my wayand to find my way in a sense,
(04:52):
that when in the classroom, thatthe lessons and the approaches
are present and what I may havelearned in theory may not square
with what I, what has to happen, then you start to recognize
that there's this disconnect.
I start to recognize thatthere's this disconnect between
how this is.
I was prepared to enter thesystem and what the system need
(05:16):
right.
And then, first couple ofteaching, I landed my job at
Wisbang School in Montreal Westand we were able to push
boundaries of what we can do.
The administrators at the timehired a bunch of young guns that
had big, high flying ideas,which would be a shock to a
(05:38):
traditional system if theecosystem itself didn't create
that opportunity.
And so there was.
I saw what is possible when youthink outside of the existing
notion of what schooling shouldbe.
And so I want to make thatdistinction between education
(05:58):
and schooling, because in myfirst few years of teaching, my
education continued because thestudents that came into my space
were challenging me and pushingme to think beyond me being a
product of the system, becausethey were not your typical right
.
So there's that point where Istarted to see what was possible
(06:20):
.
So I was holding this tension.
What was possible?
Returned from Quebec to my homeprovince of Ontario and landed
in another school, a charterschool, private school, the.
(06:40):
You know, looking, working withthe curriculum and thinking
about, oh yeah, this is allgreat pie in the sky, but when
we bring it down to my context,what I have available, I cannot
operationalize this in anyfidelity that meets that.
So then, how can I?
I kept asking how can I, howcan I um, how can I um support
the students in the way thatthey need.
How can I find more time,because there's not going to be
more time created they need.
How can I find more timeBecause there's not going to be
(07:01):
more time created right?
How can I optimize my time andstarted recognizing that an
island notion and teaching beingin your classroom is not going
to help you thrive.
Chris Colley (07:14):
And so.
JD Williams (07:14):
I started to reach out and pull on experts and
build my social network andbuild my nodes of individuals
and organizations that can shoreme up and secure more time,
like I was using them as a time,like finding time measures, in
that they had the expertise Ididn't have to level up, so I've
(07:36):
saved time that I can nowdedicate to my students.
So through that experience I Ilooked at thinking of is this
being in the system?
I'm trying to understand thesystem that I'm in and so and
you'll see the ecosystems I swimin.
So I jump out of the educationsystem and I said, okay, I've
had, I've had enough, I've seenit.
(07:57):
I don't think we serve eachstudent.
I think we do this baseline,level setting, and then there's
a lot of students above and alot of students below, and so
you know, some teachers arereally good at holding that
tension and making it work, butfor me I had more questions than
answers.
So each of those little signalsleads to me jumping and seeking
(08:21):
.
I'm seeking answers of is therea way to do this in a way where
each student, each teacher, notthis monolith, because we get
grouped in these big groups?
And then I realized that thereare many roles to play in
education.
So I jumped out and then I wentsystem adjacent, call it.
I work system adjacent.
(08:42):
I am a champion for theeveryday teacher who has the
strength and fortitude and driveto do the good work despite
some of those barriers, and Istrive to work with them to make
those barriers opportunitiesand I action.
The opportunities I put in thetime I go, seeking being that
(09:03):
time-saving measure that I waslooking for when I was the new B
teacher.
So, and then there are otherjourney along the ways, but it's
a lot of question asking.
I'm constantly questioning thequestion and my basic adage is
if we can't serve each studentin a way that they all need to
(09:27):
be served in the current state,then how could we disrupt,
adjust, reset, redesign, case bycase, because it's not going to
be systemic, because what Ilearned from my work, from urban
to rural, to the Arctic hamlets, is that place context, it's
(09:51):
not a cookie cutter recipe.
Chris Colley (09:53):
Right, yeah, for sure, for sure.
I'll stop there and it's no.
But I I love what you're sayingtoo, because we are not um cogs
in a machine, right?
We are individual and uniqueand learn differently and view
the world in different ways.
Um, so it's hard to say, okay,we're all going to, here's our
baseline.
(10:13):
Hard to say, okay, we're allgoing to, here's our baseline.
Like you said, when did you,when did Pinnacle Educational
Services begin?
And what was your?
What was the crux of starting,of venturing out on your own
like that?
Was it so that you couldaddress these things
individually as you werementioning what?
JD Williams (10:44):
was your first kind of intent that you wanted to
establish with your company,your organization?
Again, a very good question.
But at the heart of it is therelationships I had with
students who I had theopportunity to coach, mentor,
tutor, and the growth that I sawcould happen when we had the
(11:08):
time to listen to what the gapwas or what the disconnect was
and to work directly one-on-oneto strengthen it.
So it started as a coaching,tutoring, performance strategist
type of practice and in thosesessions, hearing the students
(11:31):
narratives about their teachersand I wouldn't, I wouldn't give
it oxygen I would say, first andforemost, let's be clear I'm a
teacher.
I'm not here to replace yourteacher.
I'm here to support you and tohelp you to build your strengths
and capacities and competenciesso that you could thrive in
formal school setting when yougo from being 1 to one to 30 to
(11:55):
one, right, right.
And so I recognize that I wasin a position of privilege and
not everyone has thatopportunity to step out and say
I had no idea what was going tohappen.
I just knew there was a needand I heard my students saying
you know the pace, the pace atwhich they were not necessarily
in my class.
The pace at which the contentis moving is moving faster than
(12:16):
me, and it's not that theydidn't have the ability, it was
just that they just needed thatlittle shore up, a little
coaching.
Every, every student, everychild needs a champion, someone
that can like, listen, lean in,and part of a lot of it was
negotiating and teaching thosesocial skills with them, in that
I didn't just sit down all of asudden and start teaching them.
It was connection beforecontent.
(12:39):
I got to learn who they were,so I had levers that the school
system didn't necessarily haveto be able to activate and to.
You know cajole and to enticeand to get.
If I teach you this, then youcan teach me this, you know
cajole, and to entice and andand to get.
If, if you, if I, if I teach youthis, then you can teach me
this, you know like, becausethey all, they had knowledge of
(13:00):
their own and I each interactionwith each student.
They, they taught me fromjuggling to their guitar riffs,
and so the parents would lookand say, what does guitar have
to do with science?
Because that's their thing, andso science is my thing, and I
need them to be able to see thatwhat matters to them matters to
(13:23):
me too as well, and in theclassroom setting that's one of
the things that I found that wedon't have all that time to do
that, and so stepping out wasreally for me to feel that I was
actually contributing in a waythat was meaningful, and if I
was doing it one student, onefamily at a time it's a little
slower than a system level, butI think I reached those who
(13:46):
needed it the most.
Chris Colley (13:47):
I totally agree.
Relationships.
If you don't establish thosewith your students, it it will
affect their performance in yourclass, cause they're just going
to have nothing invested in it,Right?
Um, even though we have to pushthis stuff forward in the
content and the testing.
And, um, if they don't feellike you have a sense of
(14:10):
attachment to them or care, theywon't, and it's something I
think that buildingrelationships is a soft skill
that we're teaching them withoutteaching them by doing it, by
interacting and having thoserelationships and being curious
about their experiences.
It brings me to this question,jd.
(14:33):
We've seen that technology hasreally started to proliferate
throughout education.
I mean, it's ongoing all thetime, and now we have the dawn
of AI coming into education.
Are you finding that technologyis removing those relationships
from our classrooms, ourschools?
(14:56):
And I'll just like I've beenreading a lot about the Anxious
Generation Good book, excellentbook and scary at the same time.
Just looking at the stats ofwhat's going on with our kids
and this kid generation and thewell-being, depression, the
(15:17):
anxiety that is percolating.
When do we bring technology andwhen should we remove
technology so thoserelationships that are so
crucial to education conform?
Because you're not formingrelationships if you're behind a
screen or you're distractedwith social media or your
whatever it might be Like.
(15:39):
Where do we find that balance?
I guess I'm I'm I'm gettingthat.
It's a huge question.
I guess I'm silent because I'mletting it.
JD Williams (15:50):
I'm letting it.
I'm letting it sink in and I'mfeeling my somatic response,
like I could feel the hairs onmy arm standing up, because it's
such a.
It's such a robust and complexquestion, but not necessarily
complicated, because there is adifference between calm.
I believe there's a differencebetween complex and complicated,
(16:12):
which means with the complexitythere isn't a one right answer
or one pathway solution, aswe're seeing now with the whole
notion of action reaction.
We're gonna ban phones, but yetstudent achievement doesn't
change and this is a recentreport out of the Guardian in
the UK in terms of actionreaction.
We're going to ban phones, butyet student achievement doesn't
change and this is a recentreport out of the Guardian in
the UK in terms of, you know,the action reaction system and
(16:35):
that the action from the schooldidn't garner the outcome in
terms of feedback that theyexpected, because there's
another lever, there's the homeelement, there's you know.
So it's never.
It's not like one side or theother, but I think technology
and the thing, it's such abeautiful question.
Technology can make certainthings possible, things access.
(17:05):
It can make access possible.
It could be the level setterfor equity from some regards,
but at the same time, if theinfrastructure is not there it
becomes an equity challenge, butit holds so much potential but
I'm going to lead with this thatit's the intentionality and the
purposeful use that the valueand its impact rests in and that
(17:31):
, as you are becoming, we'reconstantly in a state of
becoming, from the first time weleave our home education frames
and enter into the formalnotion of schooling, we're
becoming, and there's somefoundational social skills that
we must learn, model andpractice.
(17:52):
And so I'm a qualified teacherin junior, intermediate and
secondary and not primary,because I give hats off and
oceans of respect to theteachers who work with that
level of those you know thoseessential skills that are needed
to then come into the spacewhere I'm comfortable, which is
(18:13):
grade four, five, six and onwardright, and it has a place, it
has its purpose, but it shouldnever trump human communication,
human human collaboration,human interaction.
It of technology in and ofitself, I think its value is
(18:35):
nominal without the human touch.
Um, I am, I am a strong, fierceprotector of my digital
identity.
It's something that was on myradar of my digital identity.
It's something that was on myradar from, I think, 2012.
And I said if it goes out there,where does it go?
(18:56):
So there's the questioner ofquestions when does it go?
What happens to it?
And then those questionsstarted to be answered.
I started to see these thingscome up in the news about what
people can do, and now what AIcan do and the deep fakes.
So we have to learn how to behuman and relate to each other
in a human way, and then weaugment our interactions.
(19:19):
The technology should not placeour interactions, it should
augment our interactions.
I love it.
Chris Colley (19:28):
I love it.
I mean, this podcast flies byso quickly.
Your answers to my questionsare so thoughtful, JD.
I mean I just love yourreflective capacity kind of on
the fly because I've beenthrowing out some pretty biggies
but I really, really appreciateyou taking some time.
(19:50):
I would love to continue thisconversation with you in a part
two, because I feel that wecould talk so much more.
I like to keep these relativelyshort, just so that we have a
capsule of thoughts and ideas,and I want to thank you for
taking some time out of your dayto come and share some of these
(20:11):
amazing ideas that you have.
Pinnacle Educational Servicesis a great thing that you're
offering, and I will definitelypromote that in the descriptor
as well.
So people go check out and seewhat JD does.
She has a great blog, too.
Please read some of herarticles.
I really hope this isn't thelast time we speak.
JD Williams (20:35):
I hope so too.
I hope that it is not the lasttime we connect, because those
little nodes that I build in thenetwork just makes it possible
to see and get a more thoroughview of where innovation and
excellence is happening ineducation across the
pan-Canadian context.
So thank you for inviting mefor a chit-chat.
Chris Colley (20:57):
Awesome.
Thank you so much and enjoy thesnow.
JD Williams (21:01):
Thank you.
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