Learning is what makes us human. Our ability to adapt and change has given us an evolutionary advantage when facing adversity or threats. While this is particularly relevant in this pandemic, I wonder how this crisis will impact our learning institutions.
As an event professional I've always been frustrated with the orthodoxy that suggests events and meetings should be typical and boring. It is particularly frustrating and stupid when this logic is applied to online meetings. No surprise that after many months, zoom fatigue is widespread.
We tend to have a false collective assumption that health is binary. Either we’re healthy, or we’re sick. If we’re sick, we should be fixed, so we can be healthy again. Otherwise if we remain sick, we’re broken, and then tend to be marginalized by society and sometimes forgotten.
One of the elements sorely missing from this current pandemic induced crisis are better stories. In our obsession with data, and our focus on numbers, we’re missing the larger role of narrative. Without narrative, we remain lost in the wilderness of confusion and chaos.
The missing link in this crisis is effective public health education. We ought to double down on our belief that the answer is earning the trust and consent of people, rather than demanding their obedience.