I send a “3 Things” newsletter to my community each week, and that format has allowed me to explore a wide range of topics on teaching, leading, learning, and life over the past couple of years.
The email structure is simple: here is a topic and three ideas or considerations to consider.
When I started the process, I thought it would be a quick 15-20-minute email each week, but it can take between 2-3 hours to complete, plus the little “notes” that I compile over the week as I consider the topic. I have no “content” calendar each week or month, but it is just a way of saying, “Here is something I am thinking about and three points to consider.” It has always meant to be an authentic and organic email, not trying to hop on trends but to say, “here is what I am thinking about this week.”
However, as much as the time devoted to this process can be onerous, the reflection time I carve out each week has been invaluable. Many of those newsletters have become keynotes I have delivered to groups, but I have never done a keynote and then written a newsletter on what I delivered. For me to prepare something for a presentation, writing has been a way to share my learning and, more importantly, a way of learning. Processing my thoughts for a public forum makes me think deeply about a topic, and ideas seem to lock into my brain afterward. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from Clive Thompson, who shares the following:
Writing has been a creative outlet for me and has made me much smarter as I grapple with the process. (To my high school English teacher, Herman Bauer, you were right, and I was wrong.)
But this past week, I did not feel like writing an email.
I didn’t have much in me, and as much as this might not make sense to others, each time I write, I produce a mental and emotional output that can be pretty exhausting. The mental was there, but the emotional, not so much.
Little did I realize that this week would have been my deceased father’s birthday, and although I did not even know it at first, my body felt it. I was depressed and emotionally spent all week, and couldn’t quite figure it out until I saw the calendar.
I still wanted to put something together, but I thought I would try creating it differently.
I set out to write an email titled “3 Practical Ways to Become More Coachable. “ I took my preliminary notes, dictated them to ChatGPT, and asked to write it in the style of my regular ‘3 Things” email. Now, the ideas in the email were all mine, and perhaps my style was mimicked, but the majority of the email was not “written” by me (and I provided that disclosure at the beginning of the email).
What was an obstacle was now an opportunity. If I put together this email by dictating my thoughts and then compiling it, what would I learn from the process, and how could it apply to education?
Here are some of my thoughts, compiled by me, but grammatically corrected by Grammarly.
The Bad
One of the things that stuck out to me was that through dictating my thoughts and subtle “George ‘isms”, the email felt very clear and concise, but along the way, I felt I lost my voice. Yes, the ideas might be more succinct, but I think in a time when everything feels very filtered in our world, authenticity matters more than ever, even when it is long-winded.
Now, some might appreciate that, and I get that. We sometimes want the information delivered succinctly, but I started writing to share stories, not encyclopedia versions of my ideas.
To combat this feeling, I went through the email and decided to add and subtract some sentences. How could I give this email a bit of my personality? Maybe I am reading into it too much, but the finished project didn’t feel to be me as much as I would have liked.
(P.S. ChatGPT does not like my jokes, but others do. Right?)
The Good
When I first started the process of dictating my newsletter, I used voice-to-text, which created a generic email. I didn’t like that.
So as I went through the process, I said, “I am going to add a part at a time and then when I am finished, I will tell you, and then you can put the email together.” Going through that process, I had a couple of notes written, and I SLOWLY shared my ideas. Honestly, I have never spoken so slowly in my life, but I was trying to process the ideas through my voice the same way I would through writing. I wanted to be reflective, and I think that if you want your ideas shared through that process, it might provide an outlet for those who want to get their ideas out there through writing, but don’t like the process.
This can open up some incredible opportunities for accessibility to learners of all ages.
I have shared before, as an example, that some students are not bad at science but are bad at writing about their understanding of science. Those are two different things.
Are we assessing their knowledge or ability to share their learning in a way that makes sense for us but not necessarily for them?
What doors can this type of creation open that were not there before?
Ideas for Use
If I were still a principal today and needed to communicate information in a written format, this might be one way that I would start. I might dictate what I wanted to share and ask for it to be written succinctly, and then do the add-and-subtract method afterward.
As much as we think communities want information, I think many are still attracted to personality. If you look at many social media accounts and commercials for businesses, many of them are trying more to have a personality, while schools in many ways are trying to become more like businesses (I am looking at you, data-driven!).
This process can save you time and provide information succinctly, but ensure it has some personality.
If schools are built on a foundation of relationships, our communication should reflect humanity, not just efficiency.
(Bad) Ideas for Use
I once saw a video of someone in the field of education suggesting that if you get an upset email from a family, you can use AI to formulate a response. Don’t do that, either written or by dictating.
Call them.
Some of the toughest voices over the Internet soften up significantly with a phone call.
As I finish this post, I realize why I love writing. I hope that breaking down these ideas can be helpful to you, reading them, and also to me, writing them. It is how I process and has improved my knowledge over time. That is writing for me, but it could be a conversation for someone else. There are different opportunities to share and reflect on our own learning.
BUT…
I am not sure I used to worry about this before, but I do now. We probably won’t need to write in the future. Everything you are reading now can easily have been done via voice-to-text. My concern is not focused solely on what we lose when everything can be read to us, but what we lose when we don’t write for ourselves and wrestle with our own ideas and learning. My writing might not have improved in the fifteen or so years that I have been writing in this blog, but my thinking has grown exponentially. That is what I will ensure I do not lose, no matter how good the technology becomes.
