What does work look like?

Sometimes, there is only one way to do a thing. (Local History & Archives, Hamilton Public Library, Hamilton, Ontario)

At The Little Middle School, students usually have a period of discretionary time each day in which they can work on any assignment for any subject or pursue their own projects.

Part of the benefit of this format is that we can directly teach students how to pace and structure their work time. Don’t you wish someone had shown you how to do that when you were twelve?

Interestingly, to make Discretionary Time successful, the adults have to recalibrate their own understanding of what it looks like to be working. Otherwise, a well-meaning teacher will go over to a student who has been staring off into space for the last few minutes and ask them to get to work. We might instruct a kid who is pacing around the hall to go back to his seat. Two students who are talking might be asked to be silent. And in all three cases, we’d be interrupting good work instead of encouraging it.

Now, is it possible, in each of the cases above, for students to be goofing off instead of working? Sure. So giving students the space to do their own thing in their own way has to have a foundation of trust. The good news is that we can eventually tell by the student’s output whether their choices are working, and then adjust accordingly.

This might sound familiar to anyone who has taken part in The Great Remote Work Experiment of 2020 - 2021. Employers have had no choice but to evaluate their employees by the results they are getting, rather than hours spent. Meanwhile, freed from the paternalistic supervision of the office environment and away from the watchful eye of the boss, the employees are discovering new things about their own work habits and preferences. They’re learning that their work hours, pacing, and intensity can all be tinkered with in order to obtain the maximum output with the minimum effort. Everybody wins.

Those who run their own businesses have had to learn these lessons about their work habits, too. Some of these habits can get pretty weird—at least, mine can. I’ve taken many a nap in my office when progress came to a standstill. I have often given up on my office to go work in a coffee shop (and then had to find other ways to nudge myself into productivity when the pandemic arrived). I work out tricky problems while out walking, I talk to myself, I set timers, I listen to “Cinnamon Girl” loudly on repeat while dancing in my seat, and I prefer to have snacks and beverages close by. It’s especially great if I can talk through what I’m working on with someone.

Notably, none of these things were possible when I was an adolescent sitting in class. Maybe that’s why I used to tune out my teacher in Algebra II in high school, preferring to compose song lyrics in the margins of my notebooks during lectures and then figure out the work later, lying on the floor with my book while my stereo bathed me in sound.

Maybe I’m not that weird, actually. Maybe the weird thing is that we expect people to work like machines, literally—operating with precision and responding instantly and appropriately to commands. It’s nice to have cues like a scheduled appointment and a quiet space to remind us to work, but it’s normal that it might take us time to settle in and concentrate, especially if we’re not used to it. And it’s normal that we need to get up, stretch, get a change of scenery, and experience some fresh stimuli.

If all we have to do is mindless fill-in-the-blank worksheets, we might be able to just sit at the desk and knock them out until they’re done. But if the work requires more of us—our best thinking, creativity, and energy—we’re probably going to have to take breaks, make room to collaborate with others, and sleep on the toughest stuff. At the very least, we’ll have to do some staring off into space. Sitting at a desk in silence, continuously putting pencil to paper, is not the only mode of working. And there’s nothing wrong with you if it isn’t your preferred one.

There are lots of ways to approach work. We all would do well to let go of the “factory” mindset in which we treat ourselves and others like machines without offering space for variability and variation. Instead, let’s allow ourselves, and the kids, to do what we need to do to get into the flow, whether that’s movement, collaboration, or something else. Maybe if we treat each other like human beings, we can begin to eliminate the shame that so many people feel when they can’t match the expected rhythms of the typical classroom or workplace. And perhaps we can help each other to tap into our limitless human potential and create something wonderful.