I decided to go back and look at my final December 2020 / first January 2021 posts to see what I’d written. It feels like another lifetime since I wrote them and once again it’s been a year of many changes. It was a good reminder of the constant flux in which we live. Perhaps we always do, the only difference being that we’re in an era where there is so much external instability beyond the usual of our every day lives. In any event, this time last year I was working on Program Review, and now we have two new people to support that process. I’m appreciative of the experience working on Program Review. It’s given me an insight into the challenges some areas are facing. I also like the fact the process is essentially future focused. What can we do differently?

The end of the year seems an apposite time to think about what we can all do differently. I’ve already set some priorities for the first few days of term in January. This year I plan to be more proactive, less reactive, and create for myself some tangible milestones across the months, not only week by week.

I’ve enjoyed working more closely with OGE the past few months and already we are pulling together the outlines of a yearly plan of events. This will help focus my mind on what I need to achieve week by week / month by month as we go forward. Equally, I have it on my ‘to do’ list to sit down with my PD plan and map out the year in terms of the goals / action items I’ve identified. I want that to be a living document that I keep referring to, so I can measure my progress / learning. Or journey.

In a discussion today about our new Teaching and Learning Intercultural Strategy, we talked about thinking of this in terms of personal journeys toward greater levels of intercultural confidence. I like that idea. Developing intercultural fluency is an individual and ongoing process. As most of us are doing are best with what we know, it’s not helpful to label or measure so called ‘progress’ in ways that do not acknowledge the situational, developmental and growth aspect of this individual ‘journey.’

For the new year, I’m looking forward to exploring how we can create guided maps that support everyone as they follow their own paths toward greater comfort in this diverse world.