personal engagement – Adam F.C. Fletcher

An Introduction to Human Engagement

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An Introduction to Human Engagement

Throughout the day all of us move from place to place, activity to activity, and people to people. Along the course of things, we connect deeply, we flutter along independently, and we journey aimlessly, sometimes purposefully, and sometimes we’re just there. This is human engagement.

I define human engagement as anytime we choose the same thing over and over again. This choice can be active or passive, intentional or coincidental, intrinsic or extrinsic, and independent or collective.

Human engagement is anytime we choose the same thing over and over again.
– Adam F.C. Fletcher

When we look throughout the course of our individual days, we can see that as humans we engage and disengage all day long, with all kinds of people, in all kinds of places, for many, many reasons.

The research literature has shown us how human engagement happens and does not happen; other nonfiction shows us where and why engagement matters. Our best fiction writing can demonstrate who practices human engagement and when it occurs. Sometimes speakers chip at the icebergs of engaging people in certain places at specific times, and every now and then activists effectively demand people connect HERE and NOW. However, few people put the whole puzzle together.

I want to help facilitate the conscientious practice of human engagement with individuals, organizations, and communities. For the last 25 years, I have worked with K-12 schools, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to do just that. With these places as partners, I have intentionally engaged students throughout schools; constituents within government programs; and clients around nonprofits as each of these have sought to engage them.

I advocate, I educate, I speak, I write, I consult, and more. If you’re interested, contact me right now.

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Adam F.C. Fletcher is available to consult, speak, and write.

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Isolated by Differences

For years I’ve been explaining the separation I felt from people and places when I was growing up as border crossing. Yesterday I learned differently.

When I was a kid my family moved constantly. My dad had frequently incapacitating post traumatic stress disorder and couldn’t keep a job, so my family – 4 kids and 2 parents – moved from motel to motel between the US and Canada. Cars constantly breaking down, often filled with the motto “If it doesn’t fit in the trunk it can’t come along.” In the nine youngest years of my we lived in 12 different cities; in the first 4 years of school I went 7 different places.

*My friend Michaela took this pic of a moon over Nebraska.*

When we finally landed it was because our car broke down 3 times in one week and we couldn’t afford to go any further. My dad got began lifelong treatment for his PTSD and we eventually got a house. Moving into a neighborhood where we were a racial minority among economic peers, it was hard to fit in. I was a goofy Canadian boy in cowboy boots and corduroy pants singing “Rhinestone Cowboy” while everyone else wore parachute pants and air jordans and sang “Billie Jean.” To say I didn’t fit in is an understatement.

For the rest of my youth I struggled with belonging and joining. I prided myself for establishing a unique group of friends who shared that sense of non-belonging, but somehow I never quite learned how to fit in. As a card-carrying member of Gen X, I held it was my duty to flip off the establishment and eff-up the system from within, which I tried to do through my 20s. I managed to create a career in a space where there was barely a field, and I established an identity as an outcast of sorts, so I was comfortable at least!

Along the way I read about Henry Giroux’s concept of “border crossers,” people whose identities are constantly in flux. We learn the codes and become code breakers; we find the barriers and circumnavigate them. Reinforced by reading some of Zygut Baumann’s works on liquid culture, I prided myself on this identity over all others. I had a sense that not belonging and staying apart was my superpower.

Then yesterday happened.

It turns out that at the root of it, that displacement is isolation. I was listening to a podcast with a writer from The New York Times when he was talking about the angst experienced by refugees in America, people who were stripped of their lands and cultures and identities only to be thrown into the cauldron of suffocating sameness that is mainstream American culture. While I wasn’t escaping war or a repressive regime, my family were mental health exiles forced to extreme escapes from the seemingly inevitable pauper’s prisons awaiting failed consumers in the 1980s.

As an adult, I’ve discovered that the suffering I experienced because of the isolation I lived in childhood and nurtured through my adult life was a healthy response to a traumatic experience. My child brain didn’t know how to cope with the differences repeatedly forced onto me by circumstances far beyond my control, and without therapy or even seeing that clearly as an adult I carried the burden of isolation for years.

That isolation affected my work, my friendships, my romantic relationships, and of course my family. Only now am I beginning to see that my own calls for conscious engagement with the worlds within ourselves and around us were a desperate plea for me to connect with what mattered most to me. Now that I see that clearly, I am beginning to see how to move forward. I’m also saddened for the younger person I was when I struggled so much, so righteously to have the belonging I didn’t.

That is yet another reason why I do the work I do today, to connect people wholly throughout the whole lives they live. Its a heck of a mission, and it comes from a true place.

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Adam F.C. Fletcher is available to consult, speak, and write.

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Self-Care for Students During COVID-19

Self-Care for Students During COVID-19

If you’re engaging students through Meaningful Student Involvement during the pandemic, they might be affected by differently than other people in your school, including other students and teachers, too!

Students need to take care of their mental health, social health, emotional health and physical health. Since students engaged in Meaningful Student Involvement can have more responsibility than many other students, they need to be intentional about taking care of themselves.

Here are some points you can teach students to help their self-care.

Point 1: Watch Your Thinking

Distance learning can be isolating for everyone, and being apart from teachers and fellow students can be hard. Teachers should reinforce to students that they need to maintain their friendships and other relationships. It is actually an important way to develop lifelong communication skills, and can also make stressful situations a little more bearable.

Students should learn to…

Listen to their self-talk. They should give themselves credit for being engaged through Meaningful Student Involvement and not be too self-critical
Keep things in perspective, try not to gossip, get the facts, and assume the best intent when possible
Acknowledge to themselves and others when things are weird, whether during the pandemic or otherwise
Remember changing to online learning can be hard work for themselves, and they’re not expected to get everything right
Its essential to take breaks from being an engaged student when needed

Point 2: Keep In Touch

Distance learning can be hard on students’ emotional and mental health. It is common for students to feel more depressed or anxious during distance learning, especially during the pandemic. Many students are still figuring out how to adjust to a system that requires so much self-motivation. This can make students feel guilty or stressed.

Students should learn…

Communication and collaboration makes the distance feel less distant between engaged students, other students and friends
It’s important for engaged students to take time to do things with people other than class work. They should know that bringing the “school experience” home can make it hard to separate from non-school life from school life
Many of their peers are dealing with the same hard things in distance learning, and they aren’t alone

Point 3: You’re Not Alone

It can be boring and feel repetitive to be on the computer for every class, all day long. Learning we’re not alone, even if we’re one our own at home during the day, is important for Distance Learning.

engaged students should learn to…

Talk to other people – including other students and adults – about what they’re struggling with is an important lesson for engaged students
Find hobbies, ways to relax, and healthy places to process difficult feelings brought on by full-time distance learning
Be encouraged to focus on the positives as much as possible

Point 4: Move Your Body

Sitting in front of a screen all day is hard on your eyes and your whole body. Being responsible for other students’ tech use and for helping teachers can add to those difficulties. Remember that, even though engaged students are exercising their minds throughout the day, their bodies needs care too. In addition to helping with learning, moving can help with mental and emotional challenges too. Things like stress and depression can affect the body in physical ways too.

Engaged students should learn to…

Stretch, take walks and breaks, and get outside if they can
Pay attention to posture and go easy on their backs
Keep a routine with things like food, sleep, etc.
Exercise to release toxic thoughts and stress, whether its simple or complicated activity

These are just a few thoughts about what engaged students should learn about self-care. What would YOU add?

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Adam F.C. Fletcher is available to consult, speak, and write.

Contact Adam