Who Inspires You?

I was recently asked the following question:

"Which of your colleagues are you most inspired by?"

I am embarrassed to admit that the question terrified me. I knew I should have an answer...that I should be able to enthusiastically and emphatically dive into a conversation about how I am inspired and by whom.

But I couldn't. I didn't have an answer. I was embarrassed.

And it really threw me for a loop.

You see, I know what it feels like to be inspired. I love being inspired, and I genuinely feel inspired often. But right now, in my current season of life, I'm just not making the time to connect with my colleagues in ways that are pedagogically inspiring. I am allowing paperwork, preparation, and the minutiae of my job to take the helm.

In writing about fatherhood, Dave Simmons once wrote that in order to spend quality time with our children we must first commit to having a larger quantity of time with our children. They aren't efficient (our kids); instead of quickly maximizing time together,

"What they do is suddenly--no one can predict when--spin around, open up, and take a long swig of Dad. The little hole in the window opens up and lets you in. Then they shut it, go back to their preoccupation and shut you in a holding mode again...You have to hang around."

Though children and colleagues differ, by simply spending time around my colleagues I can become more inspired. So what have I done since that initial conversation? I have twice placed myself near colleagues to do work, eat lunch, and I've prioritized asking a question, sharing an idea, affirming them for a strength I admire, or discussing a dilemma.

The result has been great and the 50 minutes have been both illuminating and inspiring. I was inspired by being near them, by spending time around them, and by allowing the silence between us to invite the window to open up.

If we don't know who we're inspired by, we're probably failing ourselves and putting a ceiling on our propensity to be inspired and to reach the heights of which we are capable.

Trust the Process

The Philadelphia 76ers basketball team has a saying: "Trust the Process."

The suggestion therein is that fans of their team should know that, while the team might not experience a great deal of immediate success, the long-range results will far outweigh the struggles of today. 

The process versus product conversation has been at the forefront of educational dialogue as well, ever since I became a teacher eleven years ago. Recently, I had a conversation with a student who was concerned about why he had earned a B+ on his revised essay. The revisions, I had to agree, were great, but the essay was still not quite of the A caliber given the expectations outlined on the rubric. As I returned home that evening, however, I couldn't stop thinking about the student and the effort he had put into his revisions. His process had most certainly been A+, but the product was a B+...so why wasn't I grading the effort and energy he had put into improving? Why wasn't I celebrating the growth?

Well, the conclusion is that I am now. Henceforth I will be grading revisions for the quality of the process, not the product. While final drafts still earn grades for the quality of mechanics, grammar, organization, and analysis, the revisions will earn grades based upon how the student receives feedback and applies it to the revision.

With all writers, we must be more like the Philadelphia 76ers and trust the process. We could spend months working on the first paragraphs of essays, just as my kindergarten son spends months in art class learning how to use materials without any pressure to produce a museum-quality piece of art...it's about process. My son delights in mixing paint colors to see what will happen, and relishes the opportunity to use duct tape to affix a handful of feathers to a slide projector reel. Is he creating art? Yes, but what he's really doing is being granted permission to experiment and grow, and to find joy in the process of developing his own artistic style. My young writers, too, should be playing with words and developing their own narrative voices as they learn to appreciate the process of writing, not just the constant feedback about the product.

I am a better teacher today than I was a week ago because I allowed my student's questions to open a door to my own questions. And perhaps my attempts at dwelling in the process will fail...but if I do, I can have faith in my own ability to reflect and improve, to adapt and grow...I, too, must trust the process.

Closer to Fine

During this first week in October I have the pleasure of sitting down with the parents of my students to discuss the year thus far. We get to talk about each child as a student, a citizen, and a human being. It's a lovely time and, regardless of how a student is doing, the focus always remains centered upon who the student is. Right now. Today.

We don't know who the students will become. How could we? One day they will wake up, look in the mirror, and realize that they've grown up. Another day they'll wake to find they've grown old. The process of aging and becoming wise, though, isn't binary, it's gradual.

My students are beginning to read Lord of the Flies this week in English class. In world cultures, those same students are learning about Zoroaster, the 7th Century (BCE) Persian mystic who first proclaimed that the world was a battleground between forces of good and evil. The conversations we've had remain centered around the reality that there are few truths in the world.

It reminds me of the Indigo Girls' song, "Closer to Fine." The lyrics begin,

I'm tryin' to tell you somethin' 'bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all, yeah

Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety 'til I sank it
I'm crawling on your shores

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

As the chorus suggests, the lines we follow do tend to be crooked. But they ultimately arrive us someplace new. The sense of arrival, however, is fleeting because--like most things, life is not binary. Humans are so quick to place boundaries and boxes around us as groups, but we fail ourselves when we do that.

My friend Ben recently shared a way of thinking about this topic when he described two different ways of thinking about Christianity. One way is the conventional means of viewing followers of Jesus as either being "in" or "out." Again, it's a binary method of identifying people and is known as a "bounded set." The other approach, however, is known as a "centered set" and refers to the direction of a person's movement.

But this needn't only apply to Christians.

Our thinking of other humans can be either bounded or centered.

For the boys of Lord of the Flies, they are too bounded. If they centered around being saved, and coexisting, they could succeed. But the "us" versus "them" narrative takes over.

The Indigo Girls would assuredly believe that every step on the "crooked line" either moves them closer to fine, or farther from fine. When I talk with my students...when I talk with their parents...what I ultimately want is to help them draw closer to fine. To grow closer to believing that they matter, that they are enough. They are so deep, so rich in their understanding and their curiosity.  Who they are is not binary. I don't have good students and bad students; weak students and strong students. Social scientists and scholars no longer refer to nations as undeveloped or developed. Instead, we now refer to countries as either developing or developed, but the reality is that all countries are in the process of developing into something. We, too, are not bounded sets in life. We are centered sets who are moving somewhere.

We are moving, always.

I love teaching my moving, evolving, growing students (no matter how centered, or uncentered they are). They help me draw closer to fine.