This is the second of my two reflections on last week’s OpenEd18 conference. This one is personal. I’m stepping outside my normal economist persona and sharing my personal experience. Actually, it’s less a reflection on the conference than reflection on what I learned about myself at the conference.

Open conferences like OpenEd, OER, and OEGlobal should come with warning labels. I’d throw Digital Pedagogy Lab and Domains conferences in there, too, but it would ruin my alliteration around “open”. At good conferences you learn lots of useful things. You think differently afterward. At great conferences  you connect with people. You work differently afterward. But the open conferences can change you. You may be different afterward. I am.  I first wrote about this experience a couple years ago after OpenEd16. It happened last spring at OER18 and OEGlobal. And it happened again last week at OpenEd18. I wasn’t ready for it. They really need a warning label.

At an evening get together with some friends I finally confessed. I’ve never karaoke’ed. Reasons. Many reasons. Some include an utter lack of singing ability. Another is age. I’m from a different generation. I’m a boomer. Karaoke seems like it’s more a Gen X/Millenial thing. An 80’s-90’s thing. I’m a boomer. Grew up in 60’s. Came of age in 70’s. We had radio. Lots of radio. So I don’t sing in public. Instead, there’s a constant rock’n’roll soundtrack in my head. The Who. Stones. Doors. Dylan. Pink Floyd.

This past summer has been brutal. Heck, the last two years have been brutal at the news and macro level. Trump. More war. More hate. At work, it’s been just as stressful. No home or certainty for the open learning project I started. Political infighting. Overwork and no appreciation. Stress. A valued personal friendship hitting the rocks as collateral damage.  That 60’s soundtrack has been turned up to 11, maybe even 12.

The stress culminated in some serious health issues this summer.  Doc says slow down, take care of yourself first.

Ooh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Ooh yeah, I’m gonna fade away
War, children
It’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away

I needed shelter.  A home.
The physical issues have me feeling my age.  People my age, including many colleagues, are thinking retirement. But my soundtrack keeps screaming. There’s work to do. I’m not done yet.

Ooh, see the fire is sweeping
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost your way
Rape, murder.
It’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away

Work to do. But I’ve been lost about how I can help. The Open conferences the past few years have been fantastic. They feel like a home. But I’ve not been clear what I can do. I’m not really an expert in pedagogy. I’m an economist, not ed psychologist or sociologist. I understand tech systems. I can even design some innovative ones. But I don’t actually code. At the school, the semester starts with me feeling ghosted.

Mmm, the floods is threat’ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m going to fade away

Gimme, gimme shelter.

OpenEd18 answered.  Last year’s OpenEd17 pointed me towards the commons and education.  It led to this blog post last spring. Conversations with David Wiley (and my scholarly spirit animal, Chris Gilliard) inspired me to rejuvenate my scholarly work and do a deep dive on the economics of commons and education. That led to my OpenEd18 presentation and it’s blog post. Conversations and the reaction to it have me fired up to do more on the topic.  And  while they weren’t at this year’s conference, I was reading Sean Morris and Jesse Stommel’s new book at the conference An Urgency of Teachers.  They describe critical pedagogy. One aspect is:

“How can critical pedagogy help to examine, dismantle, or rebuild the structures, hierarchies, institutions, and technologies of education?”

Bingo. I can do that. I know that work. I’ve 40+ years of work leading up to this. I can contribute here.  Thank you to David Wiley, Paul Stacey, Lisa Petrides, Doug Levin, Sean Morris, Jesse Stommel, Robin DeRosa, Rolin Moe, and others for helping see my niche to contribute. I know a lot of you saw this before me, but when it’s about the self, I’m a little slow. Thanks to a comment Rolin Moe made I understand I need to take care of myself precisely so I can continue to contribute for a long time. It’s a long haul.

I had hoped to see my friends at OpenEd18 and I did. But I didn’t expect the love. I know I should have, but I didn’t.  Friends like Ken Bauer, Bonnie Stewart, and Amy Collier not only understood but made sure I took care of myself.

The list of of other people I want to thank is so long I fear I’ll leave too many out. But thanks to Ken, Rolin, David, Bonnie, my new friend Jess Mitchell, Amy, Lisa, Doug. Also Daniel Lynds, Terry Greene, Sundi Luella, James GlapaGrossklag, Shawna Brandle, Bryan Ollendyke, Hugh McGuire, Billy Meinke, Steele Wagstaff,  Autumm Caines, Joe Murphy, Nate Angell, Christina Hendricks, and many many others.

I tell you love, sister
It’s just a kiss away, it’s just a kiss away

I’m not instantly cured. I still need to pace myself. But with friends and kindred souls like these, I will.

In true boomer tradition, the first song on the “radio” (Pandora counts as “radio” right?) in the car on the way home from OpenEd18 was, you guessed it, Gimme Shelter.

I got shelter. I got love. In the open.

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Lyrics excerpts in block quotes quoted are from Gimmer Shelter by The Rolling Stones as found at Genius.com. Copyrights apply. Excerpts used under U.S. fair use.