We are really excited to share a series of blog posts with you which have been written by Residence Life Team Leader Eliott Rooke. Eliott is a PhD student and can explain why we are feeling such unease during these strange times, and how we can adapt and overcome.<\/p>\n
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Understanding Skill in a Global Crisis But this isn\u2019t just limited to work. When the lockdown first began, I was writing about how changes in our environment or circumstance might cause us to struggle with skills we\u2019re familiar with. I\u2019ve put together this blog series to share some of my findings and, hopefully, some tips on how to push forward. So, whether you\u2019ve suddenly got writer\u2019s block, or your knitting is a tangled mess and your bread won\u2019t rise, this brief guide to skill in a global crisis might give you the answer you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n This first blog post defines what we mean by \u2018skill\u2019 and explains what this definition teaches us about how a pandemic might disrupt skill.<\/p>\n Skill: An ecological approach This brings us to the second criteria: a skill is often something we do better when we\u2019re not thinking too much about it<\/strong>. That doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t have to pay attention, but you pay attention to the end goal rather than the steps. When you type you think about the words you want write, not the movements of your fingers \u2013 if you do, they end up in a muddle. For a lot of skills, practicing until you can complete small tasks without needing to focus on them is a core part of the development. When learning to drive you might have to think about the pedals and the gears to start with, but eventually your focus will be on the road and traffic and things like changing gear will seem automatic.<\/p>\n But the criteria that is most relevant to the current climate is that skills are situated within a network of interactions and contexts. <\/strong>We call this an \u2018ecological approach\u2019 to skill[2]<\/a>. When we perform a skill, we don\u2019t do it in isolation. Many skills require equipment \u2013 a tennis racket, a golf club, a painter\u2019s brush \u2013 that must be carefully manipulated to complete the task well. Changing the specific tool can have a drastic impact on someone\u2019s performance. If you\u2019ve ever tried driving someone else\u2019s car you may have experienced this. But changes in the environment \u2013 whether that\u2019s physical environment or social, cultural, political etc. \u2013 can also impact skilled performance because when we learn a skill, we learn it in specific contexts. This is why people initially find it harder to drive in the rain or at night. But we naturally encounter variations of context, so those changes which are frequent and minor (rain vs. sun, loud vs. quiet, hot vs. cold) are things we get used to without much thought[3]<\/a>. Drastic and unprecedented changes which affect things we\u2019ve always taken for granted have much greater affects and can disrupt even our most basic skills.<\/p>\n Not convinced? The best way to show this would be to take a skill most of us learn to master at an early age, that we routinely perform without thinking, and then change one of the most fundamental environmental factors. Thankfully, NASA already have:<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>We\u2019re now several months into lockdown and many of us are still getting to grips with how to reclaim some sense of normality. Work is particularly hard. Exams are underway and postgraduates are still expected to continue their research. But even if you do manage to find the time to work, you may still find yourself struggling. Whether you\u2019ve spent hours staring at a blank page, or have been writing, deleting, and then rewriting the same sentence over and over because something just doesn\u2019t seem<\/em> right<\/em>, you aren\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Skill is normally a relative term; someone is considered skilled when they\u2019re better at something than most other people[1]<\/a>. But at its core, a skill is anything that you can improve at doing<\/strong>. Cooking is a skill. As is writing, or running, or driving. But skills can be much smaller and taken for granted. Touch-typing is a skill that many of us learnt at an early age and haven\u2019t thought about since, but it\u2019s also the kind of skill that can be particular vulnerable in times of crisis.<\/p>\n