Tag: heroes

The Value You Bring

child_reflection

“Try not to become a human of success. Rather become a human of value.” 
                                                             ― Albert Einstein

 

The value you bring does not come from:

  • your title.
  • your position.
  • the buzz words you use.
  • your ability to schmooze.
  • your willingness to play political games.
  • the size of your ego.
  • the number of people you know.
  • the number of people who know you.
  • the number of presentations you have made.
  • the conferences you have attended.
  • the titles of books on your desk.
  • the number of compliments and acknowledgments you have received.
  • the hours you work.
  • the number of projects that you take on.

The value that you bring does not even come from the money you make.

Or even, the year that you were great.

________

The value you bring comes from:

  • your empathy for others.
  • your ability to leave your ego at the door.
  • your willingness to embrace the complex and say: “I don’t know.”
  • your resolve in determining, clarifying, and articulating (so everyone can understand) what matters.
  • the time you spend doing what matters.
  • the occasions you spotlight others and step back.
  • the alignment between your words and actions.
  • your willingness to roll up your sleeves and do the work.
  • your ability to say no. No, that doesn’t align with my beliefs.
  • your authentic vulnerability.
  • your willingness to change your opinion.
  • the tenderness of your heart.
  • the value you place on feedback and reflection.
  • the times you say sorry and mean it.
  • the moments you are completely present.
  • your willingness to reach across divides and hold your hand patiently.

The value that you bring may not even be noticed. But rest assured you are valuable.

________

What value do you bring?

Just Learning

 

 

walking_in_circles
“We have to change our schools, but if that is not preceded or accompanied by a change in our thinking, in our preconceptions, in how we regard what and where children are, in our imaginativeness and boldness — absent these changes we will again confirm the maxim that the more things change, the more they stay the same.” -Seymour Sarason

In the rush to update education, we often confuse new for innovative and conflate old with outdated. We look at what is trendy to guide our decisions. Trapped in the tyranny of the urgent, we don’t have the time or energy to consider the complexity of the problems we are trying to challenge. Instead, we throw around terms such as inquiry, agency, and learner-focused with the same effort entailed in putting a slipcover over an old couch.

Peg_Core

The terms in of themselves, do not change the learning. Do not change the learning environment. Do not change our roles. Do not change how we view the curriculum. The “slipcover” hides the real work to be done. we need to strip bare our language and reveal what we really mean. What we are really talking about. Get out from under terms that are the right mix of ambiguous and politically correct.

I don’t know EXACTLY what you are talking about but it sounds about right…and I have heard that term a lot lately… I’m in!

From there, you know how it goes.

New templates and organizers. more sessions. new books. And of course, new stuff. Cause that really proves if we are doing something different.

I sure like what you’ve done to your classroom! I should do that, too! Like I can just order all this stuff from Amazon? Cool.

Bada-boom-bada-bing, you are in business. The business of keeping up with the Jones. The business of being cutting edge. The business of catching up with the bandwagon before it leaves town.

Don’t get me wrong. I love books. I love new stuff. We need items for classrooms. New materials and books can be a catalyst for the change process. But it’s just not that simple.

simplevs complex

A slipcover alone is a simple solution to a complex problem. We might have to save for a new couch. We might have to learn how to recover the old couch. Both will take time. Both will take patience.  Both will take unwavering focus on what really matters.

…but I really wanted a quick fix. I wanted to just get on with it. Like let’s get it done. NOW. 

This world moves fast. Every answer is just a couple of clicks away. It’s understandable that we want educational change to feel exactly the same.

What if we stopped “slip covering” and were really brave. Really brave like Greta or like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Standing up for what they believe. knowing what they believe in.

What if we were brave enough to start from our beliefs? To speak of our beliefs. First. To stop and stand in our beliefs. Brave enough to ignore the siren call of sameness.

what_really_really matters

What if we started with clear and straightforward conversations about what we believe about learning? No fancy terms. No new books. No new templates. Just learning.

What if we stubbornly and patiently stuck with just that? Just that.

“The phrase ‘what matters’ is shorthand for our capacity to dream, to reclaim our freedom, to be idealistic, and to give our lives to those things which are vague, hard to measure, and invisible.”       -Peter Block