Mission One

 It is easy to get caught up in checking social media, email and other busywork and it feels like we are really getting stuff done. Being able to identify those times and refocus is a challenge. Ishita Gupta says that "every day is a new chance to choose" (Godin 2010, 206). Adam Robinson, Chess master and investor asks himself the question, "Am I rehearsing my best self?" If the answer is no, then how does one reset? Robinson breaks it down to a granular level when he identified there are 86,400 seconds in a day and every one of them can be used to reset our actions and attentions and recover to become our best selves (Ferriss 192). One way to do that is to create a personal mission statement to check actions against. That mission statement should be flexible enough to be used in school, at work, and with friends and family.

Ferriss, Timothy. Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2018.

Maps for Artists

 There is no map for being an artist. Once a person creates a map to be an artist or a leader, others who follow it are no longer artists, or leaders. They are following a prescribed path, or painting by numbers. Bringing the artistry into anything requires forging one's own path. Whether it is writing, painting, or science, the artists figure out what to do next. They are not told.

Think about the games calling on players to choose a card and do what it says. Candyland is a perfect example. There is no thought involved (other than deciding to take the shortcut). The player picks a card and does what it says. Yay! I got two yellows!

Education is flush with this type of activity. Rubrics are one of the major reasons this is the case. A rubric does not require a person to push themselves to their limit of creativity. It limits thinking and the impetus for ultimate success. In a world teeming with wicked problems that can only be solved with original thinking and new solutions, instead of schools embracing diversity, we embrace common assessment, to the detriment of student and teachers by ignoring some of their most ardent interests and areas of expertise.

Godin, Seth. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Portfolio, 2010.

Wear Rain Gear

"There will be weather." One of my favorite quotes from Bill Beaster, my one-time middle school industrial arts teacher, basketball teammate, now friend, was his retort to a comment questioning whether he really wanted to bike since it was supposed to rain for his weekend bike ride. Everyone knows that we can't change the weather, but Bill has an understanding about the weather. By being proactive, he also can overcome non-ideal conditions to still have fun.

The key in our everyday lives is to understand the things we can change and the things we cannot change based on effort. Bill Burnett and David Evans call those things effort can't change gravity problems (Burnett and Evans). Bill Beaster didn't succumb to the idea that it was going to rain and change his plans, he overcame the weather by putting on rain gear--pretty simple.

Seth Godin gives us a graphic way of looking at the problem in his Quadrants of Discernment (Godin 2010, 181) . The x axis is passion and the y axis is attachment. We want to live in the upper right corner of discernment and passion, where we are choosing the types of problems or projects that our passion and effort can change, ones that make us a linchpin. The bottom left quadrant is where the passive person who feels they cannot create change lives. They are the whiners.

Burnett, William, and David J. Evans. Designing Your Life: Build a Life That Works for You. Vintage Books, 2018.

Godin, Seth. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Portfolio, 2010.

Isn’t That Interesting

Thinking scientifically, or maybe like an entrepreneur is a powerful way of approaching things, whether they turn out well or not. The thoughtful reflection about the answer to the question, "Isn't that interesting?" takes any situation to a new level through the careful examination of it (Godin, 2010, 178). Being able to take the outcome not as an indication of your power, but being truly curious may yield unexpected results. A few years ago a co-worker had long standing issues with her department chairperson. She asked for a meeting and when the department chair blasted her for all of her perceived indiscretions, she asked, "Isn't that interesting. Why do you think that?" It cut to the heart of the matter and then they could start the discussion. She caused the department to truly think about why he felt what he did, and they were able to come to a better understanding of why events and beliefs were constructed the way they were.

For years, I have wanted to create an environment like they have in art or tech ed when kids come in the room and immediately begin working. For the last week or so our students have done that. For our final exam we have allowed students to split themselves into groups of 3-5. For the spirit award, they created a team name, logo, handshake, costumes, and promotional posters. They are participating in an academic decathlon where they will merge content from different classes as they construct products for a pitch, trailer, throwdown, physical representation, jeopardy, impromptu speech, website, art gallery, story/skit, and reflection. Maybe the key is that we have gamefied it. Almost everything involves earning points, but in a lighthearted way.

gamification, Arete Academy, interesting, decathlon, Growth mindset

Gratitude

 In a culture of gratitude, it is no longer good enough to give lukewarm applause. Give wholehearted applause or appreciation and reach out to that person on a one to one level. Speak to them individually as close to the completion of the delightful event as possible. That may be in person, letter, by telling the person you will spread the word about them. If there was something delightful, it was a gift. The repayment is for you to go out of your way to personally connect and tell others about the experience, not as an “Instagram” way of bragging, but as a way to celebrate someone else and offer them a gift in return: respect (Godin 2010, 172).

In the classroom, there are ample opportunities to give thanks to others. Especially if students are given the opportunity to choose their own way of showing what they have learned. That will offer the possibility of people using their talents to create something that is delightful. It wouldn't happen if they got a 100% on their multiple choice vocabulary test. When giving people the scary freedom of making their own map, the opportunity to dazzle exists.

Godin, Seth. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Portfolio, 2010.

Reinvigorating Education

In thinking about a structure to hang a new focus to the rebranded Arete Academy, efficiency engineer Harrington Emerson stated, "As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble." When considering moving the thinking of both teachers and students to a new level, holding to the principles of students advocating for themselves and their learning provides many methods for them to show it, which would make the learning the important thing, along with students taking an active role in how it will be assessed and quantified.

In a sense, common assessments hold students hostage on the teacher focused side of the continuum of who is driving new learning and keep some students and teachers from being fully engaged. It may take awhile, but student engagement will go up if they are given leeway to use their strengths to show their learning. There will have to be a huge amount of support given to students at first, including lists or menus of product types. Eventually they will get to the point where they can choose an appropriate product for the targeted skill they need to master.

There are many people who feel like changing jobs or even careers every five years or so is how they stay fresh and always in a perpetual mode of growth, but it is stressful going to a new workplace, working with new people on a new idea using our current skill set. Teachers often have the ability to avoid the reinvigorating feeling of thinking about their area of expertise in a new way. They have the lesson plans, and the history of having students find success in terms of GPA. Embracing the principle that students should be in charge of showing their learning may be daunting in terms of letting go of control, but could re-energize teachers in the sense that they are still the content experts, still working with the same people, in the same place, but now seeing it, in the opposite way of it being about what the students take away from the class rather than what the teacher teaches.

Ferriss, Timothy. Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2018.

Not Only a Hammer

Cognitive flexibility is what is generally referred  to as “out of the  box thinking.” It is the ability to find multiple solutions to problems, analyze them and find what truly is the best one. Cognitive flexibility allows people to apply what they already know to new situations (Tough 114). In his book Think Again, Adam Grant refers to this as “scientific thinking” (Grant 2021, 20). Whatever the term, it is a way of approaching the world in that the first idea is not the best idea. Steven Johnson says one’s best idea doesn’t come until the 26th idea. Taking the time to conceive of that many ideas  takes some cognitive self control, where one doesn’t jump to the first solution that they may always rely on, the time worn “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” sort of thinking. Sometimes the best solution is hidden by that hammer. In one activity created by the Stanford d.school, they  recommend including a dinosaur or an alien into one of the solutions, to expand the possibilities. 

Recently, I have begun to take it to a different place and think about, in the future, What will I hate, or at least be frustrated by with the solution in the future. Especially when I am building something. Unfortunately, I have created many things that frustrate me everytime I use them or think about them--sometimes to the point where I wish an actual dinosaur were available to make the changes I need.

Grant, Adam. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Viking, 2021.

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.