Sorting
20/01/23 02:25
Erik Erikson’s landmark work, “Childhood and Society” outlined eight stages of psychosocial development. Developmental theory is one of many perspectives on how humans learn and grow, but an understanding of developmental theory is essential to understanding the process of teaching and learning. Among the breakthroughs of Erikson’s theories is the assertion that development continues throughout all of the life span. Development is not just something that infants and children experience. There are active developmental tasks for people of all ages. In Erikson’s theory, the critical developmental task for people my age is “Integrity vs. Despair. During late adulthood, the pace of life slows down and people look back on their lives to assess what they’ve achieved. People often alternate between feelings of satisfaction and regret.
It is, fundamentally, a process of sorting. Much of what is being sorted are memories. In our case, and the lives of many of our friends, this emotional and memory sorting is accompanied by physical sorting. In preparation for a long-distance move, we sorted through our possessions and got rid of some of the things we had accumulated. Then, a year later, we downsized once again when we moved from our rental home to the smaller home that we purchased. We still have a few things in storage at our son’s farm that need to be sorted. We own too many possessions to fit into our present home and we know that we will need to downsize even more in years to come. We are extremely fortunate to have free storage space to assist with this process. Many seniors are paying rent on storage units while they sort out the accumulation of their lifetimes.
At the same time as we are sorting in our private lives, there is a large sorting component present at our work. The church we are serving has a large building with a lot of classrooms and ample storage areas. As a result, they accumulated a lot of things over the years. When the congregation welcomed another congregation to share our space, room had to be made for their offices. This prompted a huge process of sorting one of the major church school storage areas in the church. In one of the closets we found that they had stored previously-used curricula dating back more than 50 years. I hauled a pickup load of paper to a recycling facility. Moving out of that area resulted in dozens of boxes of additional items that needed to be sorted. Books were evaluated and sorted into piles of ones we can continue to use, ones that should be archived for historical value, and ones to be discarded. We are still delivering boxes of books to a local library’s book sale on a fairly regular basis.
We’ve found a lot of other items that need to be discarded. We found a stash of snacks and supplies for holiday baking that were well past their safe use dates. We found toys that no longer meet current safety standards. We have piles and piles of pictures and teaching posters, some of which might still be useful, others of which represent antiquated methods of teaching and learning.
When we are done sorting all of the things from that area, we have more class rooms, more cupboards, and more closets to sort.
There is, of course, a problem inherent with hiring someone to do sorting. As newcomers to our church, we sometimes don’t know the history and which items are connected to important stories of the church’s life. We often don’t recognize the emotional attachment a long-time church member might have to a particular item.
I should have noted at the beginning that all of this sorting involves a lot of emotions. When we are sorting our personal items, we have emotional attachments that come from receiving an item as a gift, or associating an item with a particular stage of our life. Our grandchildren regularly play with toys that we kept from our children’s growing up years. We are not sorry that we have kept them. Similarly, there are a lot of emotions in a church. We have families that are in their fourth and fifth generation of participation in the church. What appears to be a worn out Christmas pageant costume for us might spark a deeply meaningful memory for someone else. The church, by hiring us to do some of this sorting, risks having something precious recycled or thrown away.
Recently the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to ground more than 11,000 flights on January 11th due to the temporary shut down of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) database. The problem as essentially one of people hired to clean out and sort throwing away some necessary items. What happened is that computer professionals were hired to do some synchronization between the data base’s current operating and backup files. The database of notices had become so large that it was unwieldy. A pilot does not need to know that there was turbulence on their route 25 years ago in order to make responsible decisions about flight plans. That same pilot does need to know what was going 25 minutes ago and 25 hours ago. Sorting the information into a form that gives the needed information is critical to the system. Some data that seems to be no longer relevant needs to be retained so that accident investigators can access what happened before an accident or incident. What caused the computers to shut down was the deletion of critical files from the backup data base. The experts hired to sort threw out files that were still needed.
The files were recovered and the NOTAM database is up and running once again. An investigation has been launched into the incident and how to avoid a similar incident in the future. Planes are once again flying after a day of confusion.
I worry that some of the decisions we are making about discarding items may not be as easily repaired. We might throw away something that is valuable to someone. I’m sure it is happening in the church we served for 25 years. A new pastor probably doesn’t know that some of the shepherd’s robes were made from the old curtains in Nancy Humke’s house. They might not even know the story of who Nancy Humke was. Memories fade. The past is lost.
I just hope that we aren’t throwing away too much of the past. Some things are worth keeping. I know. I’ve moved some of the same toys to four different homes since our children played with them, and I still can’t bear to part with them.
It is, fundamentally, a process of sorting. Much of what is being sorted are memories. In our case, and the lives of many of our friends, this emotional and memory sorting is accompanied by physical sorting. In preparation for a long-distance move, we sorted through our possessions and got rid of some of the things we had accumulated. Then, a year later, we downsized once again when we moved from our rental home to the smaller home that we purchased. We still have a few things in storage at our son’s farm that need to be sorted. We own too many possessions to fit into our present home and we know that we will need to downsize even more in years to come. We are extremely fortunate to have free storage space to assist with this process. Many seniors are paying rent on storage units while they sort out the accumulation of their lifetimes.
At the same time as we are sorting in our private lives, there is a large sorting component present at our work. The church we are serving has a large building with a lot of classrooms and ample storage areas. As a result, they accumulated a lot of things over the years. When the congregation welcomed another congregation to share our space, room had to be made for their offices. This prompted a huge process of sorting one of the major church school storage areas in the church. In one of the closets we found that they had stored previously-used curricula dating back more than 50 years. I hauled a pickup load of paper to a recycling facility. Moving out of that area resulted in dozens of boxes of additional items that needed to be sorted. Books were evaluated and sorted into piles of ones we can continue to use, ones that should be archived for historical value, and ones to be discarded. We are still delivering boxes of books to a local library’s book sale on a fairly regular basis.
We’ve found a lot of other items that need to be discarded. We found a stash of snacks and supplies for holiday baking that were well past their safe use dates. We found toys that no longer meet current safety standards. We have piles and piles of pictures and teaching posters, some of which might still be useful, others of which represent antiquated methods of teaching and learning.
When we are done sorting all of the things from that area, we have more class rooms, more cupboards, and more closets to sort.
There is, of course, a problem inherent with hiring someone to do sorting. As newcomers to our church, we sometimes don’t know the history and which items are connected to important stories of the church’s life. We often don’t recognize the emotional attachment a long-time church member might have to a particular item.
I should have noted at the beginning that all of this sorting involves a lot of emotions. When we are sorting our personal items, we have emotional attachments that come from receiving an item as a gift, or associating an item with a particular stage of our life. Our grandchildren regularly play with toys that we kept from our children’s growing up years. We are not sorry that we have kept them. Similarly, there are a lot of emotions in a church. We have families that are in their fourth and fifth generation of participation in the church. What appears to be a worn out Christmas pageant costume for us might spark a deeply meaningful memory for someone else. The church, by hiring us to do some of this sorting, risks having something precious recycled or thrown away.
Recently the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to ground more than 11,000 flights on January 11th due to the temporary shut down of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) database. The problem as essentially one of people hired to clean out and sort throwing away some necessary items. What happened is that computer professionals were hired to do some synchronization between the data base’s current operating and backup files. The database of notices had become so large that it was unwieldy. A pilot does not need to know that there was turbulence on their route 25 years ago in order to make responsible decisions about flight plans. That same pilot does need to know what was going 25 minutes ago and 25 hours ago. Sorting the information into a form that gives the needed information is critical to the system. Some data that seems to be no longer relevant needs to be retained so that accident investigators can access what happened before an accident or incident. What caused the computers to shut down was the deletion of critical files from the backup data base. The experts hired to sort threw out files that were still needed.
The files were recovered and the NOTAM database is up and running once again. An investigation has been launched into the incident and how to avoid a similar incident in the future. Planes are once again flying after a day of confusion.
I worry that some of the decisions we are making about discarding items may not be as easily repaired. We might throw away something that is valuable to someone. I’m sure it is happening in the church we served for 25 years. A new pastor probably doesn’t know that some of the shepherd’s robes were made from the old curtains in Nancy Humke’s house. They might not even know the story of who Nancy Humke was. Memories fade. The past is lost.
I just hope that we aren’t throwing away too much of the past. Some things are worth keeping. I know. I’ve moved some of the same toys to four different homes since our children played with them, and I still can’t bear to part with them.
