#isolation

Ça rappelle carrément l’incendie anglais Grenfell d’il y a 10 ans. Qui avait pointé la mauvaise gestion immobilière.

je suis très surpris par la couleur de mon département ...

Ca s’appelle les pompes à chaleur en mode froid (dit la clim) dans des régions où l’isolation thermique n’a jamais été une priorité.

#climatisation certainement, mais cela recoupe ce facteur clé : la propension à consommer davantage d’une #classe_sociale,
comme le montre cette carte, ce sont les logements les mieux construits et les mieux isolés, les logements de ceux qui skient, qui consomment allègrement le plus

https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2022/10/capture.jpg

En 2020, la consommation par habitant dans le 16e arrondissement était de plus de 10 000 kwh contre moins de 2 000 khw dans le 19e. Apur

#Versaillais #écologie #riches #bourgeoisie

Il y a une ruée vers les pompes à chaleur dans mon entourage proche. Aide de l’état oblige, certains en profitent, non sans avoir été encouragés de manières trompeuses, pour se reconvertir vers ce mode de chauffage. Mais ce qu’il faut savoir, c’est que, plus la températures extérieure baisse, plus le rendement (COP) de ces pompes à chaleur fonctionnant par aérothermie diminue. Si la température passe en dessous de 0°C, le compresseur qui capte les calories de l’air est obligé de passer en mode dégivrage. Ce qui a pour conséquence d’augmenter fortement la consommation électrique. Et là, le COP peut même devenir négatif !

▻https://www.quelleenergie.fr/magazine/pompe-chaleur-efficace-zero

Le COP ou coefficient de performance d’une pompe à chaleur est un multiple de la puissance électrique consommée. Il détermine la quantité de chaleur produite à partir d’une quantité d’électricité donnée. Plus le chiffre est élevé, plus le système est performant. Exemple : avec un COP de 3, une pompe à chaleur consommera 3 fois moins d’énergie électrique qu’un équipement conventionnel de chauffage électrique direct (convecteur, grille-pain etc.). Ce qui ouvre a priori de substantielles économies par rapport à un mode de chauffage tout électrique.
Il faut toutefois se garder d’extrapoler trop rapidement le COP nominal d’un appareil avec la consommation réelle d’un logement. En effet, le COP machine d’une pompe à chaleur, ou COP conventionnel, est mesuré par le constructeur entre de 7°C et 35°C. Cet indicateur permet de distinguer les appareils entre eux mais en aucun cas d’estimer la performance en situation réelle. Le COP saisonnier ou annuel de l’appareil, et a fortiori de l’ensemble de l’installation de chauffage (production, distribution, émission et régulation) dépendra, en effet, du climat tout au long de la saison considérée, mais surtout des conditions d’utilisation : écart de température entre sources, régime de fonctionnement de l’appareil tout au long de la période de chauffe.
Le COP, ensuite, est d’autant plus élevé que l’écart de température entre sources sera faible, en vertu d’un principe physique indépassable. Quelle que soit la machine, la performance sera moins élevée si l’écart de température entre sources augmente. Ainsi il sera bien plus avantageux d’alimenter un plancher chauffant à basse température (25°C) qu’un réseau de radiateurs traditionnel à 60°C.

En fait, on en revient toujours au même problème, plus la température baisse, plus tu consommes d’électricité. Sans compter que dans mon bled, le parc immobilier est vétuste et les bâtiments très mal isolés. Donc privilégier les travaux d’isolation avant de changer son système de chauffage. Mais ça, les arnaqueurs qui viennent démarcher les personnes âgées ne le disent pas.
La transition énergétique ? Un système pyramidal soutenu par de l’argent public.

Et du coup pour aller avec : ▻https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/fr/2011/02/body-insulation-thermal-underwear.html

#bouillotte #chauffage #sous-vêtements #isolation #chaleur #low-tech #énergie

►https://seenthis.net/messages/977974 du coup aussi

Sinon, trouver une source d’eau chaude, comme Jigokudani, le parc des singes

Située dans la préfecture de Nagano, Jigokudani yaen kouen (#地獄谷野猿公苑), est un parc de sources chaudes où se baignent des singes

https://d1d37e9z843vy6.cloudfront.net/jp/images/4526177/3ea5557ebce743531da83b8014d413deb609eab9.jpeg https://static.retrip.jp/article/117588/images/117588ce0ff75b-6157-46f5-bb1a-acc36fd9bc69_l.jpg

Certaines mairies qui prétendent que « les enfants devront s’habituer » (au froid dans leurs salles de classe) feraient bien d’en prendre de la graine ...
▻https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/energie/jusqu-a-10c-dans-les-classes-face-a-la-flambee-des-prix-de-l-energie-le

Certaines municipalités ont déjà sauté le pas :
▻https://www.francelive.fr/article/france-live-avec-agence/le-maire-baisse-le-chauffage-dans-les-classes-et-commande-5000-de-vestes-
#chauffage

Le site web « solar.lowtechmagazine » avait déjà été mentionné ici mais plutôt dans le domaine de l’Internet.
►https://seenthis.net/messages/809252
(retrouvé grâce au tag #sobriété_énergétique)

Quand je pense qu’on interdisait de ventiler les classes en mode covid pour «  garder la chaleur  ».

Les classes sont toujours en mode covid mais le froid ne dérange vraiment pas les virus. En Mayenne pendant l’été 2020, les principaux clusters étaient localisés dans des abattoirs.

C’est la solution des Japonais. Les gus vivent dans un coin tropical l’été (besoin de maisons bien ventilées) et bien froid l’hiver. Donc, l’hiver, ils chauffent les corps : kimono matelassé, tatami isolant et surtout chauffage sous les tables basses. C’est un tout petit volume à chauffer, mais ça maintient tout le corps à la bonne tempé.

https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/archive/DVXrYjEXoHnmDmht17EE_kotatsu6.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d1/3e/95/d13e95602ca9eb548bf9ee0de52c9034.jpg

Roh ! Ça donne trop envie d’avoir les pieds là dessous ! Je ne connaissais pas !

J’ai testé la bouillotte sous un poncho et recherche maintenant un poncho chauffant :)

Est-ce que quelqu’un·e a déjà testé le #heat_pal ?

https://heatpal.org/web/images/article-img2.jpg

#heatpal #se_chauffer #chauffage #chauffage_portable

C’est un chauffage radiant, on dirait.

Heat pal ressemble à un soufflant céramique assez banal…

Sinon sur ▻https://www.slowheat.org/post/regard-neuf-sur-les-v%C3%AAtements je découvre 2 unités : le Clo et le TOGs

▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_vestimentaire#Unit%C3%A9s

–> Merci @marcimat, je découvre aussi le Clo et le TOGs, ceci dit, je trouve étrange que les tableaux présentent uniquement le type d’habit, sans prendre en compte la composition : coton, lin, soie, polyester ou... LAINE... ce n’est quand même pas la même chose.
Et pour moi, hiver = #laine
(laine ou laine/soie pour les tissus légers collés à la peau et grosse laine dessus)

Je viens d’ailleurs de faire un bon investissement dans une couette en laine de chez Ardelaine :

https://www.ardelaine.fr/1809-large_default/couette-laine-bio-naturelle-chaude-france.jpg

#couverture_chauffante c’est vraiment très agréable ; mais impossible d’en trouver une faite en matières naturelles ?

@fil : couverture en laine et bouillotte à défaut d’une couverture chauffante en laine ? (système D)

bon, encore une faute de goût. le plastique c’est mal, sauf pour qui manque de caillasse. ma mère a froid au point de porter souvent trois couches de vêtements et un manteau à l’intérieur. lui ai donné ce que j’utilise trop souvent à mon goût (la laine, ça coute une blinde), des tee shirts à manches longues et des leggings façon damart améliorés asiates ▻https://www.uniqlo.com/fr/fr/product/t-shirt-heattech-ultra-chaud-col-rond-manches-longues-450738.html?dwvar_4507
longtemps j’ai évité les fringues avec synthétique, puis je suis devenu plus frileux alors que pas mal de vêtement « techniques » se sont diffusés

edit à produit d’exception figure d’exception ? la jeune noire à mèche rouge pour les couettes nature à 300 balles et plus c’t’une trouvaille

@colporteur si jamais, une grande marque de vêtements sportifs française s’est aussi lancée dans la production d’habits merinos... à prix concurrentiels.
Pour ma part, j’évite d’acheter dans ce type de magasins, mais c’est une option...

#chauffage

#Airbnb #immobilier #isolation #propriété_privée

Trigger Warnings | Centre for Teaching Excellence

A trigger warning is a statement made prior to sharing potentially disturbing content. That content might include graphic references to topics such as #sexual_abuse, #self-harm, #violence, #eating_disorders, and so on, and can take the form of an #image, #video_clip, #audio_clip, or piece of #text. In an #academic_context, the #instructor delivers these messages in order to allow students to prepare emotionally for the content or to decide to forgo interacting with the content.

Proponents of trigger warnings contend that certain course content can impact the #wellbeing and #academic_performance of students who have experienced corresponding #traumas in their own lives. Such students might not yet be ready to confront a personal #trauma in an academic context. They choose to #avoid it now so that they can deal with it more effectively at a later date – perhaps after they have set up necessary #resources, #supports, or #counselling. Other students might indeed be ready to #confront a personal trauma in an academic context but will benefit from a #forewarning of certain topics so that they can brace themselves prior to (for example) participating in a #classroom discussion about it. Considered from this perspective, trigger warnings give students increased #autonomy over their learning, and are an affirmation that the instructor #cares about their wellbeing.

However, not everyone agrees that trigger warnings are #necessary or #helpful. For example, some fear that trigger warnings unnecessarily #insulate students from the often harsh #realities of the world with which academics need to engage. Others are concerned that trigger warnings establish a precedent of making instructors or universities legally #responsible for protecting students from #emotional_trauma. Still others argue that it is impossible to anticipate all the topics that might be potentially triggering for students.

Trigger warnings do not mean that students can exempt themselves from completing parts of the coursework. Ideally, a student who is genuinely concerned about being #re-traumatized by forthcoming course content would privately inform the instructor of this concern. The instructor would then accommodate the student by proposing #alternative_content or an alternative learning activity, as with an accommodation necessitated by a learning disability or physical disability.

The decision to preface potentially disturbing content with a trigger warning is ultimately up to the instructor. An instructor who does so might want to include in the course syllabus a preliminary statement (also known as a “#content_note”), such as the following:

Our classroom provides an open space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive and/or traumatizing. I’ll aim to #forewarn students about potentially disturbing content and I ask all students to help to create an #atmosphere of #mutual_respect and #sensitivity.

Prior to introducing a potentially disturbing topic in class, an instructor might articulate a #verbal_trigger_warning such as the following:

Next class our discussion will probably touch on the sexual assault that is depicted in the second last chapter of The White Hotel. This content is disturbing, so I encourage you to prepare yourself emotionally beforehand. If you believe that you will find the discussion to be traumatizing, you may choose to not participate in the discussion or to leave the classroom. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so if you leave the room for a significant time, please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

A version of the foregoing trigger warning might also preface written materials:

The following reading includes a discussion of the harsh treatment experienced by First Nations children in residential schools in the 1950s. This content is disturbing, so I encourage everyone to prepare themselves emotionally before proceeding. If you believe that the reading will be traumatizing for you, then you may choose to forgo it. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

Trigger warnings, of course, are not the only answer to disturbing content. Instructional #strategies such as the following can also help students approach challenging material:

– Give your students as much #advance_notice as possible about potentially disturbing content. A day’s notice might not be enough for a student to prepare emotionally, but two weeks might be.

– Try to “scaffold” a disturbing topic to students. For example, when beginning a history unit on the Holocaust, don’t start with graphic photographs from Auschwitz. Instead, begin by explaining the historical context, then verbally describe the conditions within the concentration camps, and then introduce the photographic record as needed. Whenever possible, allow students to progress through upsetting material at their own pace.

– Allow students to interact with disturbing material outside of class. A student might feel more vulnerable watching a documentary about sexual assault while in a classroom than in the security of his or her #home.

– Provide captions when using video materials: some content is easier to watch while reading captions than while listening to the audio.

– When necessary, provide written descriptions of graphic images as a substitute for the actual visual content.

– When disturbing content is under discussion, check in with your students from time to time: #ask them how they are doing, whether they need a #break, and so on. Let them know that you are aware that the material in question is emotionally challenging.

– Advise students to be #sensitive to their classmates’ #vulnerabilities when they are preparing class presentations.

– Help your students understand the difference between emotional trauma and #intellectual_discomfort: the former is harmful, as is triggering it in the wrong context (such as in a classroom rather than in therapy); the latter is fundamental to a university education – it means our ideas are being challenged as we struggle to resolve cognitive dissonance.

▻https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/trigger

Why Trigger Warnings Don’t Work

Because trauma #survivors’ #memories are so specific, increasingly used “trigger warnings” are largely #ineffective.

https://i1.wp.com/www.stirjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/trigger.png?resize=740%2C493

Fair warning labels at the beginning of movie and book reviews alert the reader that continuing may reveal critical plot points that spoil the story. The acronym NSFW alerts those reading emails or social media posts that the material is not suitable for work. The Motion Picture Association of America provides film ratings to advise about content so that moviegoers can make informed entertainment choices for themselves and their children.

Enter stage right: Trigger warning.

A trigger warning, most often found on #social_media and internet sites, alerts the reader that potentially upsetting information may follow. The words trigger warning are often followed by a subtitle such as *Trigger warning: This may be triggering to those who have struggled with _________. Fill in the blank. #Domestic_abuse. #Rape. #Body_image. #Needles. #Pregnancy.

Trigger warnings have become prevalent online since about 2012. Victim advocate Gayle Crabtree reports that they were in use as early as 1996 in chat rooms she moderated. “We used the words ‘trigger warning,’ ‘#tw,’ ‘#TW,’ and ‘trigger’ early on. …This meant the survivor could see the warning and then decide if she or he wanted to scroll down for the message or not.” Eventually, trigger warnings spread to social media sites including #Tumblr, #Twitter, and #Facebook.

The term seems to have originated from the use of the word “trigger” to indicate something that cues a #physiological_response, the way pollen may trigger an allergy attack. A trigger in a firearm is a lever that activates the sequence of firing a gun, so it is not surprising that the word was commandeered by those working in the field of #psychology to indicate objects and sensations that cause neurological firing in the brain, which in turn cause #feelings and #thoughts to occur.

Spoiler alerts allow us to enjoy the movie or book as it unfolds without being influenced by knowledge about what comes next. The NSFW label helps employees comply with workplace policies that prohibit viewing sexually explicit or profane material. Motion picture ratings enable viewers to select movies they are most likely to find entertaining. Trigger warnings, on the other hand, are “designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response… to certain subjects from encountering them unaware.”

Say what?

Say hogwash!

Discussions about trigger warnings have made headlines in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and various other online and print publications. Erin Dean writes that a trigger “is not something that offends one, troubles one, or angers one; it is something that causes an extreme involuntary reaction in which the individual re-experiences past trauma.”

For those individuals, it is probably true that coming across material that reminds them of a traumatic event is going to be disturbing. Dean’s definition refers to involuntary fear and stress responses common in individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder characterized by intrusive memories, thoughts, or dreams; intense distress at cues that remind the individual of the event; and reactivity to situations, people, or objects that symbolize the event. PTSD can result from personal victimization, accidents, incarceration, natural disasters, or any unexpected injury or threat of injury or death. Research suggests that it results from a combination of genetic predisposition, fear conditioning, and neural and physiological responses that incorporate the body systems and immunological responses. Current theories suggest that PTSD represents “the failure to recover from the normal effects of trauma.” In other words, anyone would be adversely affected by trauma, but natural mechanisms for healing take place in the majority of individuals. The prevalence of PTSD ranges from 1.9 percent in Europe to 3.5 percent in the United States.

The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous.

Some discussions have asserted that because between one in four and one in five women have been sexually abused, trigger warnings are necessary to protect vast numbers of victims from being re-traumatized. However, research shows that the majority of trauma-exposed persons do not develop PTSD. This does not mean they aren’t affected by trauma, but that they do not develop clinically significant symptoms, distress, or impairment in daily functioning. The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous. Now some students are pushing for trigger warnings on college class syllabi and reading lists.

But what?

Balderdash!

But wait, before people get all riled up, I’d like to say that yes, I have experienced trauma in my life.

I wore a skirt the first time George hit me. I know this because I remember scrunching my skirt around my waist and balancing in heels while I squatted over a hole in the concrete floor to take a piss. We were in Tijuana. The stench of excrement made my stomach queasy with too much tequila. I wanted to retch.

We returned to our hotel room. I slid out of my blouse and skirt. He stripped to nothing and lay on the double bed. He was drinking Rompope from the bottle, a kind of Mexican eggnog: strong, sweet, and marketed for its excellent spunk. It’s a thick yellow rum concoction with eggs, sugar, and almond side notes. George wanted to have sex. We bickered and argued as drunks sometimes do. I said something — I know this because I always said something — and he hit me. He grabbed me by the hair and hit me again. “We’re going dancing,” he said.

“I don’t feel like dancing — “

“Fine. Stay.”

The world was tilting at an angle I didn’t recognize. The mathematician Matt Tweed writes that atoms are made up of almost completely empty space. To grasp the vast nothingness, he asks the reader to imagine a cat twirling a bumblebee on the end of a half-mile long string. That’s how much emptiness there is between the nucleus and the electron. There was more space than that between George and me. I remember thinking: I am in a foreign country. I don’t speak Spanish. I have no money. We went dancing.

Labeling a topic or theme is useless because of the way our brains work. The labels that we give trauma (assault, sexual abuse, rape) are not the primary source of triggers. Memories are, and not just memories, but very specific, insidious, and personally individualized details lodged in our brain at the time of the trauma encoded as memory. Details can include faces, places, sounds, smells, tastes, voices, body positions, time of day, or any other sensate qualities that were present during a traumatic incident.

If I see a particular shade of yellow or smell a sickly sweet rum drink, I’m reminded of my head being yanked by someone who held a handful of my hair in his fist. A forest green Plymouth Duster (the car we drove) will too. The word assault does not. The words domestic violence don’t either. The specificity of details seared in my mind invokes memory.

Last year a driver slammed into the back of my car on the freeway. The word tailgate is not a trigger. Nor is the word accident. The flash of another car suddenly encroaching in my rearview mirror is. In my mid-20s, I drove my younger sister (sobbing, wrapped in a bed sheet) to the hospital where two male officers explained they were going to pluck her pubic hair for a rape kit. When I see tweezers in a hospital, I flash back to that awful moment. For my sister, other things may be triggers: the moonlight shining on the edge of a knife. The shadow of a person back lit in a doorway. An Hispanic man’s accent. If we were going to insist on trigger warnings that work, they would need to look something like this:

Trigger warning: Rompope.

Trigger warning: a woman wrapped in a bed sheet.

Trigger warning: the blade of a knife.

The variability of human #perception and traumatic recall makes it impossible to provide the necessary specificity for trigger warnings to be effective. The nature of specificity is, in part, one reason that treatment for traumatic memories involves safely re-engaging with the images that populate the survivor’s memory of the event. According to Dr. Mark Beuger, an addiction psychiatrist at Deerfield Behavioral Health of Warren (PA), the goal of PTSD treatment is “to allow for processing of the traumatic experience without becoming so emotional that processing is impossible.” By creating a coherent narrative of the past event through telling and retelling the story to a clinician, survivors confront their fears and gain mastery over their thoughts and feelings.

If a survivor has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided.

According to the National Center for Health, “#Avoidance is a maladaptive #control_strategy… resulting in maintenance of perceived current threat. In line with this, trauma-focused treatments stress the role of avoidance in the maintenance of PTSD. Prolonged exposure to safe but anxiety-provoking trauma-related stimuli is considered a treatment of choice for PTSD.” Avoidance involves distancing oneself from cues, reminders, or situations that remind one of the event that can result in increased #social_withdrawal. Trigger warnings increase social withdrawal, which contributes to feelings of #isolation. If a survivor who suffers from PTSD has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided. The individual is in charge of each word he or she reads. At any time, one may close a book or click a screen shut on the computer. What is safer than that? Conversely, trigger warnings perpetuate avoidance. Because the intrusive memories and thoughts are internal, trigger warnings suggest, “Wait! Don’t go here. I need to protect you from yourself.”

The argument that trigger warnings help to protect those who have suffered trauma is false. Most people who have experienced trauma do not require preemptive protection. Some may argue that it would be kind to avoid causing others distress with upsetting language and images. But is it? Doesn’t it sometimes take facing the horrific images encountered in trauma to effect change in ourselves and in the world?

A few weeks ago, I came across a video about Boko Haram’s treatment of a kidnapped schoolgirl. The girl was blindfolded. A man was digging a hole in dry soil. It quickly became evident, as he ushered the girl into the hole, that this would not end well. I felt anxious as several men began shoveling soil in around her while she spoke to them in a language I could not understand. I considered clicking away as my unease and horror grew. But I also felt compelled to know what happened to this girl. In the 11-minute video, she is buried up to her neck.

All the while, she speaks to her captors, who eventually move out of the frame of the scene. Rocks begin pelting the girl’s head. One after the other strikes her as I stared, horrified, until finally, her head lay motionless at an angle that could only imply death. That video (now confirmed to be a stoning in Somalia rather than by Boko Haram) forever changed my level of concern about young girls kidnapped in other countries.

We are changed by what we #witness. Had the video contained a trigger warning about gruesome death, I would not have watched it. Weeks later, I would have been spared the rush of feelings I felt when a friend posted a photo of her daughter playfully buried by her brothers in the sand. I would have been spared knowing such horrors occur. But would the world be a better place for my not knowing? Knowledge helps us prioritize our responsibilities in the world. Don’t we want engaged, knowledgeable citizens striving for a better world?

Recently, the idea of trigger warnings has leapt the gulch between social media and academic settings. #Universities are dabbling with #policies that encourage professors to provide trigger warnings for their classes because of #complaints filed by students. Isn’t the syllabus warning enough? Can’t individual students be responsible for researching the class content and reading #materials before they enroll? One of the benefits of broad exposure to literature and art in education is Theory of Mind, the idea that human beings have the capacity to recognize and understand that other people have thoughts and desires that are different from one’s own. Do we want #higher_education to comprise solely literature and ideas that feel safe to everyone? Could we even agree on what that would be?

Art occurs at the intersection of experience and danger. It can be risky, subversive, and offensive. Literature encompasses ideas both repugnant and redemptive. News about very difficult subjects is worth sharing. As writers, don’t we want our readers to have the space to respond authentically to the story? As human beings, don’t we want others to understand that we can empathize without sharing the same points of view?

Trigger warnings fail to warn us of the very things that might cause us to remember our trauma. They insulate. They cause isolation. A trigger warning says, “Be careful. This might be too much for you.” It says, “I don’t trust you can handle it.” As a reader, that’s not a message I want to encounter. As a writer, that is not the message I want to convey.

Trigger warnings?

Poppycock.

▻http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/trigger-what-why-trigger-warnings-dont-work

Essay on why a professor is adding a trigger warning to his #syllabus

Trigger warnings in the classroom have been the subject of tremendous #debate in recent weeks, but it’s striking how little the discussion has contemplated what actual trigger warnings in actual classrooms might plausibly look like.

The debate began with demands for trigger warnings by student governments with no power to compel them and suggestions by #administrators (made and retracted) that #faculty consider them. From there the ball was picked up mostly by observers outside higher ed who presented various #arguments for and against, and by professors who repudiated the whole idea.

What we haven’t heard much of so far are the voices of professors who are sympathetic to the idea of such warnings talking about what they might look like and how they might operate.

As it turns out, I’m one of those professors, and I think that discussion is long overdue. I teach history at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, and starting this summer I’m going to be including a trigger warning in my syllabus.

I’d like to say a few things about why.

An Alternative Point of View

To start off, I think it’s important to be clear about what trigger warnings are, and what purpose they’re intended to serve. Such warnings are often framed — and not just by critics — as a “you may not want to read this” notice, one that’s directed specifically at survivors of trauma. But their actual #purpose is considerably broader.

Part of the confusion arises from the word “trigger” itself. Originating in the psychological literature, the #term can be misleading in a #non-clinical context, and indeed many people who favor such warnings prefer to call them “#content_warnings” for that reason. It’s not just trauma survivors who may be distracted or derailed by shocking or troubling material, after all. It’s any of us, and a significant part of the distraction comes not from the material itself but from the context in which it’s presented.

In the original cut of the 1933 version of the film “King Kong,” there was a scene (depicting an attack by a giant spider) that was so graphic that the director removed it before release. He took it out, it’s said, not because of concerns about excessive violence, but because the intensity of the scene ruined the movie — once you saw the sailors get eaten by the spider, the rest of the film passed by you in a haze.

A similar concern provides a big part of the impetus for content warnings. These warnings prepare the reader for what’s coming, so their #attention isn’t hijacked when it arrives. Even a pleasant surprise can be #distracting, and if the surprise is unpleasant the distraction will be that much more severe.

I write quite a bit online, and I hardly ever use content warnings myself. I respect the impulse to provide them, but in my experience a well-written title and lead paragraph can usually do the job more effectively and less obtrusively.

A classroom environment is different, though, for a few reasons. First, it’s a shared space — for the 75 minutes of the class session and the 15 weeks of the semester, we’re pretty much all #stuck with one another, and that fact imposes #interpersonal_obligations on us that don’t exist between writer and reader. Second, it’s an interactive space — it’s a #conversation, not a monologue, and I have a #responsibility to encourage that conversation as best I can. Finally, it’s an unpredictable space — a lot of my students have never previously encountered some of the material we cover in my classes, or haven’t encountered it in the way it’s taught at the college level, and don’t have any clear sense of what to expect.

For all these reasons, I’ve concluded that it would be sound #pedagogy for me to give my students notice about some of the #challenging_material we’ll be covering in class — material relating to racial and sexual oppression, for instance, and to ethnic and religious conflict — as well as some information about their rights and responsibilities in responding to it. Starting with the summer semester, as a result, I’ll be discussing these issues during the first class meeting and including a notice about them in the syllabus.

My current draft of that notice reads as follows:

Course Content Note

At times this semester we will be discussing historical events that may be disturbing, even traumatizing, to some students. If you ever feel the need to step outside during one of these discussions, either for a short time or for the rest of the class session, you may always do so without academic penalty. (You will, however, be responsible for any material you miss. If you do leave the room for a significant time, please make arrangements to get notes from another student or see me individually.)

If you ever wish to discuss your personal reactions to this material, either with the class or with me afterwards, I welcome such discussion as an appropriate part of our coursework.

That’s it. That’s my content warning. That’s all it is.

I should say as well that nothing in these two paragraphs represents a change in my teaching practice. I have always assumed that if a student steps out of the classroom they’ve got a good reason, and I don’t keep tabs on them when they do. If a student is made uncomfortable by something that happens in class, I’m always glad when they come talk to me about it — I’ve found we usually both learn something from such exchanges. And of course students are still responsible for mastering all the course material, just as they’ve always been.

So why the note, if everything in it reflects the rules of my classroom as they’ve always existed? Because, again, it’s my job as a professor to facilitate class discussion.

A few years ago one of my students came to talk to me after class, distraught. She was a student teacher in a New York City junior high school, working with a social studies teacher. The teacher was white, and almost all of his students were, like my student, black. That week, she said, one of the classes had arrived at the point in the semester given over to the discussion of slavery, and at the start of the class the teacher had gotten up, buried his nose in his notes, and started into the lecture without any introduction. The students were visibly upset by what they were hearing, but the teacher just kept going until the end of the period, at which point he finished the lecture, put down his papers, and sent them on to math class.

My student was appalled. She liked these kids, and she could see that they were hurting. They were angry, they were confused, and they had been given nothing to do with their #emotions. She asked me for advice, and I had very little to offer, but I left our meeting thinking that it would have been better for the teacher to have skipped that material entirely than to have taught it the way he did.

History is often ugly. History is often troubling. History is often heartbreaking. As a professor, I have an #obligation to my students to raise those difficult subjects, but I also have an obligation to raise them in a way that provokes a productive reckoning with the material.

And that reckoning can only take place if my students know that I understand that this material is not merely academic, that they are coming to it as whole people with a wide range of experiences, and that the journey we’re going on #together may at times be #painful.

It’s not coddling them to acknowledge that. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

▻https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/29/essay-why-professor-adding-trigger-warning-his-syllabus

How to study at home during coronavirus – by online students and tutors

Here’s how to study effectively from home, according to those who have been doing it all along

For Dafydd Evans, 21, who studies media production at De Montfort University, online teaching has got off to a good start. “I didn’t think the new systems would cope, but they have,” he says. “We have contact with academics as normal and I really don’t think there’s much I’m missing out on.”

Others, however, say it’s been an uphill struggle. “The sites are crashing and lecturers are struggling to turn face-to-face interactions into online discussions,” says Isabel Thomas (not her real name), who studies international development at the University of Sussex. “We don’t all log on at the same time as some don’t have stable enough internet connection for live chats. Everything is slower.”

Scott Henderson, who studies esports at Staffordshire University, feels he’s missing out on valuable experience. “A big part of what we were doing this year was running a live event and we obviously can’t go forward with that,” he says.

Although UK university learning has been moving online for a while in light of the coronavirus crisis, this wasn’t the experience most envisaged. For others, though, it was their first choice. We asked online learners and tutors for their tips on how to make it work.

Create a study area …

Although you may be competing with others in your household, try to mark out a work space. “Even if this is temporary each time you use it, place some physical objects around you to customise it. Make it comfortable,” says Martin Weller, professor of educational technology at the Open University. Set boundaries with others. If your study space is now the kitchen table, try to get an agreement that it is yours alone for a set time period.

… and keep it tidy

It’s hard to be disciplined to work at home, and even harder if the place is cluttered. “If you have piles of dishes or laundry around you it can be difficult to focus. I like to set a timer for 15 minutes and do a quick blitz of a room. It makes for a calmer environment,” says Kimberley Lowe, who studied Spanish and English at the Open University.

Keep socialising

Although you may miss campus and socialising in person, reaching out and connecting with staff and other students can maintain a sense of community. Use the online systems to maintain social contact. Stephane Bignoux, senior lecturer in management at Middlesex University, says although it can feel lonely, posting on discussion boards and reading other student’s posts can help. Set up informal discussions via Skype or FaceTime if you can.

Reach out for help

Not everyone has access to a laptop and reliable wifi. Some students are relying on mobile data to connect to their online lessons and many are missing physical resources such as the library and laboratories. Get in touch with your university if you don’t have access to the right equipment. “We are telling staff to make content easy to view and interact with on smartphones. It needs to be much more inclusive,” says Neil Morris, dean of digital education at the University of Leeds.

Manage your time

Recognise that different tasks require different levels of concentration. Watching a video can be easier than reading a complex text and taking notes. Divide your work in to manageable time slots and take proper breaks.

Plan your day

The fact that you can put off watching recorded lectures until later can be dangerous. Make sure you devote your full attention to the recording – don’t squeeze it in while eating or listening to music. Set a routine to use time efficiently, says Jack Yarrow, 28, a final year engineering student at the Open University. “If you’re tired or not feeling great don’t just sit there – go tidy up, and when you’re feeling more awake, apply yourself then.”

Be clear when messaging colleagues

As with other social media platforms, a simple misunderstanding in writing can quickly escalate. “What may have been intended as an ironic comment can be misinterpreted,” warns Weller.

On discussion forums you may find that some who don’t speak up in class have more to say – which is a good thing. “My course generally don’t interact that much in lectures, but the interaction with online teaching has been constant,” says Evans. “It seems hiding behind the screen brings out confidence in our generation.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/mar/26/how-to-study-at-home-during-coronavirus-by-online-students-and-tutors

VIRTUAL NOT VIRAL

NO PANIC IN THE #PHDPANDEMIC
curated links to helpful resources and strategies

▻https://www.virtualnotviral.com

Tips for Learning During Disruption
– Google presentation (turn on speaker notes!)

▻https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15RAiWCVoCQV90V3lj4CbOkfONs_KDaRMmx0oGSpEC8A/edit#slide=id.p

Some Advice for PhD Students and Their Mentors in the Time of Coronavirus
View all posts by Meghan Duffy →
13-17 Minuten

This blog post started as an email conversation between Dana Turjeman and Meghan Duffy. Dana turned her initial outline into a twitter thread (starting here). We decided it would be fun (and hopefully helpful!) to turn this into a blog post that expands on these ideas. So, here are the perspectives of a PhD student and a faculty member who are trying to figure out how to maintain mental health – and also hopefully some productivity, but that definitely comes second to physical & mental health – while social distancing.

First, this assumes that you are not going about your normal routine, but, rather, trying to stay home as much as possible. This is strongly encouraged! If you aren’t sure of why, please read this.

Here’s our advice:

Most importantly: your health and the health of your loved ones comes first.

There has been advice on how to stay productive while working from home, and we understand the motivation behind this. But we think it’s important to note that this is not business as usual. Things will be different, and it’s important to emphasize that physical and mental health come first. This should always be true, but it’s especially important right now.

Maintain a routine – plan out your working hours, exercise, sleep, eating regularly, connections with others, work breaks, etc. (Note: this should also include keeping a sense of weekends, taking some days off from work.)

Maybe you already were a routine kind of person – if so, great! Keep it up, adjusting your schedule to accommodate the new reality. Maybe you are not a schedule person. Take a growth mindset and give it a shot now! A lack of structure can be tough for mental health. Create structure as much as possible.

If you can, try to get outside every day, to non-crowded places with fresh air. This might not hold to those who must stay in strict isolation (which is different from social distancing) and cannot get closer to others. But, to the extent possible, try to get sunlight and fresh air, even when indoors.

Make sure you keep up other aspects of your normal routine. Meghan remembers how, when she was writing up her dissertation and her advisor was in a different state, she was thinking that she could just stay home all the time. At that time, she got advice along the lines of: “You need to come in at least for lunch or else first you’ll stop getting dressed, then you’ll stop showering, then you’ll stop brushing your teeth”. He had a point. So, while we aren’t going to gather in person for lunch now, it is still important to keep up normal routines!

At the same time, be flexible. Modify your plans. Experiment with new approaches.

We’re all going to be learning on the fly. You will misjudge how much you can do. Your initial routine may end up not working well for you. You will realize things work differently than you thought they would. This is all normal. Be flexible, and be kind with yourself and others as everyone figures out how to adjust.

Arrange virtual coffees or lunches with colleagues, even if you didn’t have those before. Start with some small talk. (Bonus points if some of the small talk is not about coronavirus!)

Social distancing is important, but really it’s physical distancing that we need, not social isolation. So, to the extent possible, try to connect with folks virtually.

Stay connected, but not too connected.

The internet helps a lot with maintaining connections with people (which is good!), but it’s also easy to get sucked in in ways that are not helpful. There are real downsides to anxiety scrolling through social media and constantly checking the news. Set limits on where you get your news and how often you check it (e.g., something like: “I will only check X sites, and I will only do that for 15 minutes four times a day” or “I will not check social media or news within 1 hour of bedtime”.) If you feel you check the news in ways that harm your mental health or productivity, and need an external boundary, try using “website blockers” on PC/Mac, and/or one of the many iPhone/Android apps. Some examples: WebsiteBlocker, ColdTurkey, HeyFocus.

If a partner / housemate is staying with you at home, make sure to respect each other’s work time and routine. Try to get a break from time to time – by sitting in another room or, contrary to that, arranging fun games together to reduce the working stress. Being together more than you’re used to might cause stress and tension.

Coming back to a common theme: we’re all trying to figure out new ways of working and living. Be kind, be compassionate, and communicate clearly and regularly.

Find an accountability partner – someone you “promise” to show measurable progress of work to, and who will nudge you gently in the right direction if you’re not holding up to your promises.

This may be a lab mate or a friend or someone else in your grad program or a colleague or a mentor. At first, it might help to check in pretty frequently – maybe three times a week or every week day. Keep the check in format short. One that Meghan has used (modified from resources from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity) has: 1) My goals for yesterday were ; 2) I accomplished ; 3) My goals for today are . Depending on who you are checking in with, it might also make sense to explicitly check in about non-work stuff (e.g., are you maintaining connections with folks? Taking breaks from work? Getting sleep and exercise?)

If progress on a project is paused or delayed because you’re unable to collect data / run studies in the lab etc., try to think of all the things you can do otherwise – literature review, writing introduction of a paper, ideation for another paper etc.

In Meghan’s group, as of last week, the only lab work going on is: 1) maintaining cultures (which cannot be frozen, unfortunately) and, 2) finishing up one experiment (the last block of an experiment that is the last chapter of the dissertation of a student who is finishing this summer). Everything else is on hold, and all but three people in the lab have been told to work from home, and we’ve discussed how even those two things that are currently going on might need to stop. The folks staying at home are analyzing data, planning for future experiments, and working on literature reviews and meta-analyses. It will be interesting to see if there’s a notable increase in lit reviews & meta-analyses in the next year!

For the PIs/advisors/mentors, some things to keep in mind as you think about where people should work should include things like how they would get there (e.g., would they need to take public transit?), what other responsibilities they have (remember that many schools are closed now), their health, their comfort levels with being out (some people will not feel safe coming in and that should be respected), and possible impacts on their careers. For the last one, though, the bar has to be in a different place than it normally would – productivity is going to be impacted by this.

We were really impressed with the leadership shown by Tom Finholt, the Dean of UMichigan’s School of Information, as summarized here:

Communicate clearly and regularly

Information vacuums cause a lot of stress. Do your best to avoid them.

For the advisors: make sure you are in regular contact with everyone in your lab. Check on them. Keep them up to date on the status of things. Make sure they have opportunities for informal conversations where they can ask questions. You should be in touch with your lab several times a week (but also should allow for them to be on their own schedules – everyone’s solution to the current situation is going to be different!)

One idea Meghan heard that she liked is to set up frequent (three times a week or more) virtual lab hours where people from the lab can gather online to check in and chat with each other. Bonus: this increases the number of opportunities for seeing everyone’s pets!

For the students: If possible, update your advisers and co-authors more than you are used to. Schedule weekly meetings – even short ones – as much as possible, while recognizing that they have other things to focus on, too. Find measurable results of analyses / writing to present each time. Send short email updates to them, with small chunks of your progress. If things are requested from them, make sure to allow extra flexibility, and find things that you can do even without their feedback, so that they won’t feel obliged to respond if unable to. For example: “Hi, I did these analyses. Below you may find the results, and a draft of the text I will put in the manuscript. I would love to hear your feedback whenever you have time. However, no rush. I understand things might be busy on your side too. Therefore, meanwhile, I will be working on the literature review for the other part of the paper. “

For everyone: It is especially important to keep up with regular check-ins right now!

Schedule meetings with people you wanted to meet offline / online anyways – such as fellow PhD students / faculty from other places. Many conferences are cancelled (and more cancellations are surely coming), and networking will be lacking. Try being proactive in fixing this. Example: email seminar speakers who were supposed to come, or people you hoped to meet in (now cancelled) conferences, and ask to meet them online instead.

Some people will be too busy with childcare, moving courses online, etc., but others will be excited to have a chance to connect and to have a welcome distraction from all the other chaos!

Take advantage of the reduced commute time, and learn something fun and new – cooking, art, meditation…whatever can be done indoors (or away from others) in a healthy, respectful way.

Yes, for some people, just getting the bare minimum done will be all they can manage. But also consider whether this is an opportunity to try something new. Maybe it’s time to pick up a long neglected instrument, or to finally download that meditation app you’ve been considering, or to perfect your croissant-making techniques. (Meghan admits to having been tempted to finally get a new dog, but, sadly, concluded this is not the time.)

Recognize that people are making hard choices, dealing with difficult circumstances, and doing the best they can.

Your advisers, peers and colleagues might not be as responsive as you’d like. This will likely be even more so if they face health concerns or familial obligations. Remember that lots of people have things going on right now, some of which you will not know about (e.g., worrying about loved ones who are far away). Try to be understanding, and find other routes of support, as needed. Everyone is adjusting to a new situation, and lots of folks are extremely stressed and anxious right now.

Your work matters, even if it isn’t directly linked to coronavirus or health.

People who are not doing research directly linked to epidemiology, medicine, or something that feels pretty close to the pandemic might feel a sense of unworthiness. However, once things settle down, the impact of that work will become clear again!

Again, remember that the wellbeing of you and your loved ones comes first. Some people are talking about how productive they will be because of this, ignoring that people will be sick and worried and that some people have family responsibilities that need to come first.

There have been waaaaaay too many tweets noting how much Newton did in the year he was isolated as a result of the plague. This is our favorite take on those:

Work isn’t going to be perfect, parenting isn’t going to be perfect. Again, we need to be compassionate (with ourselves and others) and be flexible.

But what to do? One common suggestion has been to set a routine. (Meghan’s 4 year old helpfully set an alarm for 6AM – perhaps he is trying to keep us on schedule? Dana, on the other hand, hopes her toddlers won’t wake her up before 6AM.) This schedule has been going around social media:

https://dynamicecology.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/covidschedule.jpeg?w=584&h=584

schedule of different things to do during a typical day, from waking to bedtime

That particular routine might not work for you & your family, but trying some sort of routine seems like a good plan. (And, for those who do follow it, here’s hoping for lots of days where the kids earn 9PM bedtimes!)

If you have a partner who is also working from home, discuss your plans for sharing the load – for example, maybe one person takes the lead on childcare/homeschooling in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Another option is 3 days for one, 3 days for the other.

Your children’s school may have given some assignments for the coming weeks. If not (or if you want to supplement), other resources are available, such as Khan Academy and Scholastic Learn at Home. For more, here’s a list of education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings.

Finally, Amy Cohn (a UMich Engineering Prof & the Associate Director of the Center for Healthcare Engineering & Patient Safety) shared her thoughts in this twitter thread:

Which ends with this advice:

We’re interested in your thoughts, too! What advice would you give? What have you been doing that’s been helping? What are you trying to figure out? We’re hoping people will share their thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments!

About the authors
Dana is a PhD student in Quantitative Marketing at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she is also the wellbeing and research productivity chair in their PhD forum. Meghan, as regular readers of the blog know, is a Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Michigan and Chair of the Rackham Graduate School’s Task Force on Graduate Student Mental Health.

Additional resources that might be of interest (please share others in the comments!):

From Active Minds: Coping and Staying Emotionally Well During covid-19 related school closures

From Gina Baucom & her lab: How to Science During a Pandemic

From UMich’s Center for Academic Innovation: Adjusting your study habits during COVID, which includes these tips for working with a group or team:

https://dynamicecology.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/screen-shot-2020-03-14-at-10.08.34-am.png?w=584&h=447

▻https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2020/03/15/some-advice-for-phd-students-and-their-mentors-in-the-time

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure
By Aisha S. Ahmad
9-12 Minuten

Among my academic colleagues and friends, I have observed a common response to the continuing Covid-19 crisis. They are fighting valiantly for a sense of normalcy — hustling to move courses online, maintaining strict writing schedules, creating Montessori schools at their kitchen tables. They hope to buckle down for a short stint until things get back to normal. I wish anyone who pursues that path the very best of luck and health.

Yet as someone who has experience with crises around the world, what I see behind this scramble for productivity is a perilous assumption. The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.

Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed .

The rest of this piece is an offering. I have been asked by my colleagues around the world to share my experiences of adapting to conditions of crisis . Of course, I am just a human, struggling like everyone else to adjust to the pandemic. However, I have worked and lived under conditions of war, violent conflict, poverty, and disaster in many places around the world. I have experienced food shortages and disease outbreaks, as well as long periods of social isolation, restricted movement, and confinement. I have conducted award-winning research under intensely difficult physical and psychological conditions, and I celebrate productivity and performance in my own scholarly career.

I share the following thoughts during this difficult time in the hope that they will help other academics to adapt to hardship conditions. Take what you need, and leave the rest.

Stage No. 1: Security

Your first few days and weeks in a crisis are crucial, and you should make ample room to allow for a mental adjustment. It is perfectly normal and appropriate to feel bad and lost during this initial transition. Consider it a good thing that you are not in denial, and that you are allowing yourself to work through the anxiety. No sane person feels good during a global disaster, so be grateful for the discomfort of your sanity. At this stage, I would focus on food, family, friends, and maybe fitness . (You will not become an Olympic athlete in the next two weeks, so don’t put ridiculous expectations on your body.)

Next, ignore everyone who is posting productivity porn on social media right now. It is OK that you keep waking up at 3 a.m. It is OK that you forgot to eat lunch and cannot do a Zoom yoga class. It is OK that you have not touched that revise-and-resubmit in three weeks.

Ignore the people who are posting that they are writing papers and the people who are complaining that they cannot write papers. They are on their own journey. Cut out the noise.

Know that you are not failing. Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now. Instead, focus intensely on your physical and psychological security . Your first priority during this early period should be securing your home. Get sensible essentials for your pantry, clean your house, and make a coordinated family plan. Have reasonable conversations with your loved ones about emergency preparedness . If you have a loved one who is an emergency worker or essential worker , redirect your energies and support that person as your top priority. Identify their needs, and then meet those needs.

No matter what your family unit looks like, you will need a team in the weeks and months ahead. Devise a strategy for social connectedness with a small group of family, friends, and/or neighbors , while maintaining physical distancing in accordance with public-health guidelines. Identify the vulnerable and make sure they are included and protected.

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The best way to build a team is to be a good teammate, so take some initiative to ensure that you are not alone. If you do not put this psychological infrastructure in place, the challenge of necessary physical-distancing measures will be crushing. Build a sustainable and safe social system now .

Stage No. 2: The Mental Shift

Once you have secured yourself and your team, you will feel more stable, your mind and body will adjust, and you will crave challenges that are more demanding. Given time, your brain can and will reset to new crisis conditions, and your ability to do higher-level work will resume.

This mental shift will make it possible for you to return to being a high-performance scholar, even under extreme conditions. However, do not rush or prejudge your mental shift, especially if you have never experienced a disaster before. One of the most relevant posts I saw on Twitter (by writer Troy Johnson) was: “Day 1 of Quarantine: ‘I’m going to meditate and do body-weight training.’ Day 4: just pours the ice cream into the pasta” — it’s funny but it also speaks directly to the issue.

Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will be slower than keener academics are used to. Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas .

Stage No. 3: Embrace a New Normal

On the other side of this shift, your wonderful, creative, resilient brain will be waiting for you. When your foundations are strong, build a weekly schedule that prioritizes the security of your home team , and then carve out time blocks for different categories of your work: teaching, administration, and research. Do the easy tasks first and work your way into the heavy lifting. Wake up early. The online yoga and crossfit will be easier at this stage.

Things will start to feel more natural. The work will also make more sense, and you will be more comfortable about changing or undoing what is already in motion. New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team.

Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month. Emotionally prepare for this crisis to continue for 12 to 18 months , followed by a slow recovery. If it ends sooner, be pleasantly surprised. Right now, work toward establishing your serenity, productivity, and wellness under sustained disaster conditions.

None of us knows how long this crisis will last. We all want our troops to be home before Christmas. The uncertainty is driving us all mad.

Of course, there will be a day when the pandemic is over. We will hug our neighbors and our friends. We will return to our classrooms and coffee shops. Our borders will eventually reopen to freer movement. Our economies will one day recover from the forthcoming recessions.

Yet we are just at the beginning of that journey. For most people, our minds have not come to terms with the fact that the world has already changed. Some faculty members are feeling distracted and guilty for not being able to write enough or teach online courses properly. Others are using their time at home to write and report a burst of research productivity. All of that is noise — denial and delusion. And right now, denial only serves to delay the essential process of acceptance , which will allow us to reimagine ourselves in this new reality.

On the other side of this journey of acceptance are hope and resilience . We will know that we can do this, even if our struggles continue for years. We will be creative and responsive, and will find light in all the nooks and crannies. We will learn new recipes and make unusual friends. We will have projects we cannot imagine today, and will inspire students we have not yet met. And we will help each other. No matter what happens next, together, we will be blessed and ready to serve.

In closing, I give thanks to those colleagues and friends who hail from hard places, who know this feeling of disaster in their bones. In the past few days, we have laughed about our childhood wounds and have exulted in our tribulations. We have given thanks and tapped into the resilience of our old wartime wounds. Thank you for being warriors of the light and for sharing your wisdom born of suffering. Because calamity is a great teacher.

Aisha Ahmad is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and the author of the award-winning book Jihad & Co: Black Markets and Islamist Power (Oxford University Press, 2017). Her Twitter is @ProfAishaAhmad.

▻https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-You-Should-Ignore-All-That/248366?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_1b

Aisha Ahmad’s personal website: ▻https://www.aishasahmad.com/about

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Rédiger sa thèse en confinement : tips, outils, méthodes
▻►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FTTB5MYfdY

SOS Téléthèse : continuer sa thèse en plein #CoronaCrisis ?
▻►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I32FN6JjIl0

singalé par @mad_meg

Staying Grounded & Connected to Academic Work in the Time of COVID-19 - The Dissertation Coach

Alison Miller, PhD, Owner of The DIssertation Coach & Kathryn Peterson, PhD, Dissertation Coach
8-10 Minuten

https://www.thedissertationcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/BLOG-COVID-19.jpg

When we imagined the world in 2020, we didn’t conceive of this very strange and frightening reality of COVID-19. But here we are, living in some kind of dystopian existence, where our world has been turned upside down by a global pandemic.

Just a little while ago, we were unfamiliar with terms like social distancing [sic #terminology —> physical distancing, smart distancing or distant socialising] , shelter in place, safer at home, or flattening the curve. Few of us have ever experienced empty supermarket shelves, toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages, or scrambling to recalibrate our lives to work online. Many of us are having to make countless small and large adjustments. You may be teaching online, changing your routines and suddenly coworking with others, becoming homeschool teachers overnight while schools are shut down, or caring for others who cannot leave their homes at all.

Even in the face of our new reality, we know it is important to maintain some sense of #routine and #normality. We also know that many of you still want to make progress on the path to earning a graduate degree. We are all needing a way to manage the #stress and #uncertainty of our new reality, yet still be able to #focus, #concentrate, and complete academic tasks. To that end, we want to offer you a few #ideas of how you can support yourself to stay grounded, productive, and connected to your academic work during this unprecedented time.

PRIORITIZE

To start, it can make a big difference to clarify your priorities . In terms of your academic work, we encourage you to consider what deadlines you have or goals are you seeking to meet. What work would it feel really good to (realistically and humanely) accomplish today, this week, this month? Take into account what can reasonably be accomplished given what is happening in your household, changes to your work or childcare responsibilities, and the stress of living through this pandemic. We recommend writing down the academic and life priorities you have over the next few weeks to set the stage for making progress and being able to care for yourself and loved ones. Each evening, write out your priorities for the next day and give yourself specific writing or other research tasks that can be completed in shorter intervals of time. For example, instead of a directive to “write chapter 2,” it may be more helpful to identify small subsections in chapter 2 to write in a given day.

STRUCTURE YOUR DAY

A great way to feel connected to your work is to set up a structure for your day that includes some academic zones , periods of time when you will commit to only doing academic tasks (and truly take a break from your phone, email, social media, and the news). This is especially important if you are not used to working from home. It can be very helpful to map out a plan for the day that includes when you are writing or doing other academic tasks, when you are exercising, and when you are managing other work and personal responsibilities with space to unwind and even do nothing. Alison closes out each work day by mapping out the next day on a yellow pad of paper and uses that written plan as a roadmap for how to move through her day including her own writing projects, phone calls and meetings, administrative tasks,etc. She often plans 1-2 hour blocks of phone and email free time for writing projects. Alison has learned from experience how vital it is to build in time to rest, eat, connect with her family and unwind so she can better focus and concentrate when it is time to work. Inside your academic work zones, you may find it especially helpful to use the Pomodoro Technique , where you work in 25 minute increments (check out Spotify’s Pomodoro Playlist) or virtually co-work with others via Skype or Zoom.

FIND VIRTUAL COWORKERS

Virtually #coworking with others can be a great way to feel more accountable and supported while also reducing the #isolation of only being able to work at home. We offer virtual writing boot camps for our clients and many of them tell us that coworking is the only way they can focus and make meaningful progress during this pandemic. Coworking can make a surprising difference in your productivity. Here is a suggested coworking strategy:

Find one or more people to schedule a coworking call. Open the call with a 5-10 minute meeting to get connected and declare your work goals for the first work session. We find that using Skype or Zoom with video can be very helpful.
Agree to a set amount of time you will all work and then turn off the video and sound during the work session. Set an alarm or timer so you know when to return to the call at the agreed upon time.
Take a 5-10 minute break and share what you were able to accomplish. Support and encourage each other as needed and declare your goals for the next work session. Alison typically co-works with others for 1.5 to 2 hour blocks of time, checking in about every 40 minutes or so. Other people prefer the pomodoro method mentioned above, where they work for 25 minutes and check in for 5, doing between 2 and 4 pomodoros in a row.
Close out the co-working session by acknowledging your accomplishments and anything you want to do to make future work sessions more effective. Schedule another coworking session.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

We are all facing challenges and uncertainty at this time. Many of us are experiencing that our bodies are flooded with adrenaline and cortisol leaving us in a chronic flight, fight, or freeze state. You may be losing track of time and feel like your brain is not fully functioning. If you feel like your IQ has dropped or you are struggling to remember, think, or write clearly, you are not alone. What we are experiencing with COVID-19 is pushing us into survival consciousness where the reptilian brain (more primitive part of the brain) takes charge, and the neocortex (where higher order functioning takes place) gets limited to rehashing the past or trying to control the future. Thus it becomes harder to think clearly and make thoughtful, conscious choices. We are more likely to be in a reactive mode. So please be gentle with yourself and keep focusing on what is in your control. None of us can control how long this pandemic will last, whether others will practice social distancing [sic] , or when life will feel more normal again. Yet we can all practice being kind and compassionate toward ourselves and others. We can stay informed while also maintaining a healthy boundary with news and social media, find enjoyable activities and do things like connect with loved ones virtually, engage in activities that help us unwind from stress, and practice social distancing [sic] and other recommended behavior. Believe it or not, some of you may find working on your dissertation to be a helpful refuge from the world . Also, don’t forget to take time to create a peaceful, organized workspace so you have an environment that feels good and is conducive to productivity..

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT DEADLINES

Some of you may work in healthcare or other fields that are seriously impacted by COVID-19 or now have children at home who require your attention and care. If your professional or parenting responsibilities are making it very difficult to meet external deadlines, we encourage you to be in communication sooner rather than later. Most likely, faculty and administration will be flexible and grant extensions to students given this pandemic. Communicate this message in a positive way that demonstrates your commitment to meet existing deadlines with an alert that you may need to ask for an extension. In our experience, it is better to communicate early and provide a proactive warning that you may not be able to meet deadlines .

We are here rooting for you to put one foot in front of the other, taking it one day at a time, maybe one hour at a time. From all of us at The Dissertation Coach, we hope you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

▻https://www.thedissertationcoach.com/blog/staying-grounded-and-connected-to-academic-work-in-the-time-of

Tout le monde n’a pas accès à la clim et il y a même certaines entreprises qui l’interdisent pour limiter leurs dépenses énergétiques (les enfoirés), ou encore certaines personnes empêchent carrément leur utilisation car elles ne la supportent pas, et tant pis pour les autres (du vécu, improductivité et malaises garantis au boulot).

Ca à quant même pas trop de sens de vouloir la clim et de reproché aux personnes que ca rend malade de faire chier. C’est polluant, énergivore, toxique la clim il me semble. Pollué plus pour supporter la pollution, c’est peut être une idée pour les personnes qui ont encore un emploi, car la clim au boulot est réservée aux gens qui ont un boulot. Ce qui manque c’est principalement de la végétation, des points d’eau, d’ombre et des horaires de travail adapté et des habitats adapté au climat, pas adapté à la climatisation. Ce texte est un coup de gueule légitime mais ce qu’il propose comme solution est dans la mentalité de courte vue qui nous plonge dans le four depuis un siècle.

Oui, d’accord avec toi @mad_meg, mais le point qui me semble intéressant dans ce billet d’humeur, c’est tout de même le total manque d’effort sur le logement et le fait que les recommandations sont incompatibles avec le médiocre niveau des logements actuels : elle vit tout de même dans un immeuble récent !

De la même manière, il y a eu 300 000 euros de travaux de mises aux normes du bâtiment où bosse mon compagnon. À ce prix-là, ils auraient pu directement raser la baraque (c’est une grosse maison, pas un immeuble) et en construire une HQE au top.
En fait, je n’en sais pas trop ce qu’ils ont payé avec cet argent : même les peintures intérieures n’étaient pas comprises. Et dès la conception, il y a eu des choix ridicules, comme vouloir à tout prix ajouter une véranda d’accueil devant l’entrée : on découvre une fois faite que la véranda ne permet pas les circulations ET l’accueil, parce que l’architecte n’avait pas compté la place de la personne derrière le bureau !!! Et surtout, qu’avec son orientation et les matériaux choisis, c’était un four non aéré 6 mois par an !

Quant aux bureaux déplacés sous les toits… ben, sur le papier, c’est écrit que c’est super isolé, en vrai, c’est plus de 30 °C entre 2 et 4 mois par an (selon la météo) : quand on a signalé que c’était invivable, ça a juste été : démerdez-vous !
On a obtenu la clim (ben ouais !) quand on a prouvé que les hautes températures nuisaient au matériel informatique qui tournait dans ce bureau (le matos, donc, pas les gens…).

Tout ça, il y a moins de deux ans, c’est-à-dire qu’il est difficile de dire qu’on ne sait pas qu’il faut penser les bâtiments autrement !

Ce que tu donne comme exemple est effectivement scandaleux et typique du système de caste actuel. Je voie bien le truc de la clim pour les ordi et pas pour les personnes très conforme à mentalité actuel. Et les architectes qui sont issues des castes qui ne vivrons pas en logement sociaux ou ne fréquenterons pas de locaux professionnels mal conçus. Je suis sur que le même architecte si tu lui fait faire ses propres locaux il aura pas oublié l’espace pour son bureau ni les questions thermiques bio dynamiques et touti quanti.

Et je suis toute à fait d’accord avec toi pour dénoncé l’incohérence des constructions contemporaines.
Comme je vais souvent à Rome, je voie bien l’efficacité des architectures adapté. Murs épais, fenêtres plus petites vers le haut, circulation d’air prévu, terrasses végétalisées. L’hiver ca à ses inconvenants, mais ils sont courts là bas.

Je parle bien sur dans l’idéal mais les personnes vouées à vivre et travaillé dans les bâtiments devraient être consulté à toutes les étapes. Les horaires devraient être adapté au climats et aux saisons. En Italie ou je vais souvent les petites villes s’arrêtent complètement de fonctionné de 14h à 17h au minimum et les grandes villes sont au ralenti. Il faut un max d’espaces publiques végétalisés (toitures, trottoirs, préaux végétalisés).

Hier j’étais tombé sur cette construction végétale, qui est sensé être un endroit de prière mais sur le principe on doit pouvoir faire d’autres utilisation. Ca ne doit pas coûté très chère à construire ce genre de préaux végétalisées et ca permettrais de profité d’un peu de fraîcheur et d’ombre à tou·te·s.

http://images.telerama.fr/medias/2017/08/media_161463/le-culte-de-la-nature,M475669.jpg

#paille #isolation_paille #agriculture

c’est la mariage de la paille et de la poutre, en somme ?!

Oui, et balayer le champ devant la porte de la maison que tu auras bientôt :)
Au passage on apprend qu’il y a 40% de la paille qui se perd, même constat pour d’autres produits dont personne ne veut plus comme la laine ou le cuir (qui est allé se faire tanner ailleurs). #recup