Today I evaluate whether or not students attempted "their best work." It's part of their participation grade. Did they do their best? Did they work with excellence? How does one evaluate this, anyway?
As I think carefully about each student, I realize that my rubric differs from some teachers. It's not just that students arrived on time and prepared. It's not just that they produced papers that fulfilled the assignment. That's a given. This is average, expected, and baseline.
I'm looking for something else.
I'm looking for curiosity, complexity, a challenge, character, community, and courage.
I ask:
Did you approach each lesson with curiosity and wonder?
Did you push your thinking to higher levels of complexity?
Did you challenge yourself with each assignment to improve and try new techniques?
Did you display good character during this course?
Did you build community or thwart it?
Did you show courage in approaching hard topics and writing with an authentic written voice?
I apply this to my own sense of excellence today--for myself and my own children.
Might I move into this day with curiosity, complexity, a challenge to myself, character, community building, and courage?
I think this could make each day my best work.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
The Licking Kind
I love reading what I was doing on this same day several years ago. It's a benefit of daily blogging (for those of you still wondering why anyone would blog!). On this same day in 2010, I learned something great that I had forgotten.
Here it is, and you can read it below, too.
Sometimes the flair you experience isn't your own. Sometimes, the flair for the day is the flair you helped make happen for somebody else.
In the words of my wise hairdresser: Sometimes you are in the spotlight, and sometimes you are the spotlight. It's better to be a spotlight. When I'm a spotlight, I'm shining light on another person, making a flair moment happen for them.
This is harder than it sounds. First of all, I tend towards narcissism. I tend to be overly self-involved, self-concerned, self-reflective. When this happens, when I'm the center of my own universe, I can always tell. I turn into a completely different person. Every conversation is about me. I interrupt to tell you about my experience, and I reflect on your words only insofar as they relate to something I'm thinking about. I hate this person.
Today, during my haircut, I talked about how to make flair happen for others. I wondered what it would look like to take my eyes off of myself and my day in order to deliberately create an extraordinary moment for someone else. I knew the truth of this practice: we are often most fulfilled when we are serving others. It's wired into our DNA to find ourselves when we give ourselves away.
But how?
In any given day, I can be a spotlight by asking this question:
Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you? It's a long question, I realize.
So the flair for the day is this question I resolved to ask. I started with my cat. I leaned down and asked her, "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?"
She brought me the yellow rope (see "A Rope and a Smile). Easy. I ran around the living room with this rope for a few minutes. That wasn't so bad. It even felt good.
Later, after preschool, I asked my daughter: "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?" I thought she'd mention Disney World. I thought she'd bring out the list of wishes from every toy store she's ever visited. I knew, I just knew that Polly Pocket would be involved. I scrunched up my face and closed my eyes, ready for the worst.
"Yes!" she shrieked.
She leaned forward to shout in my ear as I drove. "I want more of those envelopes. The licking kind."
"Why the licking kind?"
"Well, we can send a letter, I can lick the envelope and send it, and they'll know I licked it."
Amazing, this concept.
I looked at her eager eyes and clasped hands. She was bouncing in her car seat. "I can do that," I said. Easy. I just made another creature happy. It cost me nearly nothing.
What marriages would thrive, what friendships preserved, what wars averted if more people set out to make somebody else have an extraordinary day?
Living with flair means being a spotlight and making a great show for somebody else.
Here it is, and you can read it below, too.
Sometimes the flair you experience isn't your own. Sometimes, the flair for the day is the flair you helped make happen for somebody else.
In the words of my wise hairdresser: Sometimes you are in the spotlight, and sometimes you are the spotlight. It's better to be a spotlight. When I'm a spotlight, I'm shining light on another person, making a flair moment happen for them.
This is harder than it sounds. First of all, I tend towards narcissism. I tend to be overly self-involved, self-concerned, self-reflective. When this happens, when I'm the center of my own universe, I can always tell. I turn into a completely different person. Every conversation is about me. I interrupt to tell you about my experience, and I reflect on your words only insofar as they relate to something I'm thinking about. I hate this person.
Today, during my haircut, I talked about how to make flair happen for others. I wondered what it would look like to take my eyes off of myself and my day in order to deliberately create an extraordinary moment for someone else. I knew the truth of this practice: we are often most fulfilled when we are serving others. It's wired into our DNA to find ourselves when we give ourselves away.
But how?
In any given day, I can be a spotlight by asking this question:
Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you? It's a long question, I realize.
So the flair for the day is this question I resolved to ask. I started with my cat. I leaned down and asked her, "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?"
She brought me the yellow rope (see "A Rope and a Smile). Easy. I ran around the living room with this rope for a few minutes. That wasn't so bad. It even felt good.
Later, after preschool, I asked my daughter: "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?" I thought she'd mention Disney World. I thought she'd bring out the list of wishes from every toy store she's ever visited. I knew, I just knew that Polly Pocket would be involved. I scrunched up my face and closed my eyes, ready for the worst.
"Yes!" she shrieked.
She leaned forward to shout in my ear as I drove. "I want more of those envelopes. The licking kind."
"Why the licking kind?"
"Well, we can send a letter, I can lick the envelope and send it, and they'll know I licked it."
Amazing, this concept.
I looked at her eager eyes and clasped hands. She was bouncing in her car seat. "I can do that," I said. Easy. I just made another creature happy. It cost me nearly nothing.
What marriages would thrive, what friendships preserved, what wars averted if more people set out to make somebody else have an extraordinary day?
Living with flair means being a spotlight and making a great show for somebody else.
Monday, April 28, 2014
A Lesson from a Young Fern
My friend calls me over to where we are gardening, and she points out something extraordinary. Through last season's ground leaves, new ferns grow.
I take a picture of this particular growth strategy. It's amazing; this unfurling of the fern leaf--the scroll that slowly, slowly, unrolls--happens in order to protect the fronds. The structure itself is called a fiddlehead (I learned something new!).
Besides protecting the delicate leaves, the unrolling strategy (as opposed to shooting straight up or expanding from a bud), also gives the young frond the ability to successfully emerge from the soil and leaf covering.
I examine the strength of the leaf stalk (the petiole). It shelters the developing frond in a warm embrace, slowly unrolling the beautiful scroll.
I imagine God's own growth strategy for what's developing in us. It's a slow and protected unrolling. When we think something should burst out, shoot far, or expand quickly, remember the strong hug that keeps the scroll rolled up so we survive the journey.
I take a picture of this particular growth strategy. It's amazing; this unfurling of the fern leaf--the scroll that slowly, slowly, unrolls--happens in order to protect the fronds. The structure itself is called a fiddlehead (I learned something new!).
 |
| Fern Fiddlehead |
Besides protecting the delicate leaves, the unrolling strategy (as opposed to shooting straight up or expanding from a bud), also gives the young frond the ability to successfully emerge from the soil and leaf covering.
I examine the strength of the leaf stalk (the petiole). It shelters the developing frond in a warm embrace, slowly unrolling the beautiful scroll.
I imagine God's own growth strategy for what's developing in us. It's a slow and protected unrolling. When we think something should burst out, shoot far, or expand quickly, remember the strong hug that keeps the scroll rolled up so we survive the journey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)