Feb 08 2009
The One Thing
If you are a teacher, and you have not already viewed the TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, then STOP! You obviously have time to kill because you’re here. Stop reading my silly blog and watch it now!
Wasn’t that awesome! I first saw this video last fall in my Principles of College Teaching class, although it’s been out for a couple of years; wish I’d seen it sooner. I think it’s brilliant!
I’m currently reading “The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion & Purpose” by Matthew Kelly. He writes:
We don’t produce broadly educated, well-rounded leaders for tomorrow. We teach more and more about less and less. We don’t draw out the individual. We impose upon the individual – systems and structures. We don’t reverence individuality, we don’t treasure it, we stifle it and try to stamp it out. We don’t educate, we formulate. We abandon the individual in his or her own need and uniqueness and “impose” the same upon all…
Truth be told, our modern education systems crush the very spirit they claim to instill.
When I reflect on my own teaching and philosophy, I wonder if I am ever guilty of the indictments of these gentlemen. After all, I am a computer technology teacher, and the field of Computer Science is chock full of specialists. Do I ever “crush the very spirit I hope to instill“?
I believe that often times teacher themselves suffer from the same mentality. Certain ways of teaching are preferred over others. For example, the lecture has taken a beating in recent years in favor of “active learning”. But Ken Robinson gives us a spellbinding 20 minute lecture. The point is, we should encourage the strengths of our students and we should also be teaching with our own personal strengths.
Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
How many of our students leave our classes thinking they are stupid because what we are teaching doesn’t resonate with them? While we should never accept a lack of effort, perhaps we might do well in accepting that some of our students will never excel in our subject. One thing I struggle with when I recognize that I have a “tree climbing fish” in my class is how to be patient and continue to encourage.
Matthew Kelly also writes:
I believe that we are all capable of doing one thing better than any other person alive at this time in history. What is your one thing?
Oh my gosh! I’ve heard this before! And when I heard it, I thought “yeah, whatever“. In the film, City Slickers, Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, is on a cattle drive trying to sort things out and make some sense of his life. The trail boss Curly, played by Jack Palance, says that middle aged men often come out around the same age, trying to understand.
You city folk! You spend 50 weeks a year getting knots in your rope… then you think two weeks up here will straighten it out.
Here is Matthew Kelly’s idea expressed in Curly’s simple, cowboy way that I’ve heard before but never paid much attention to:
Previously, I posed the question “The quality of my life is determined by the quality of my _____ ?” referring to the Jim Fay statement that “Quality of life is determined by quality of decisions.” Most of the replies I received dealt with some aspect of this idea, whether it was relationships, family, friends, thoughts, or so forth. Ultimately, it all comes down to how we decide to approach these areas of life.
But how do we make good decisions?!?
Kelly suggests that if we know our one thing, the thing that helps us to become the “best version of yourself” then every decision should be centered around whether or not it will help us to do the one thing we were created to do!
I believe if we want to be truly amazing educators, then a number one priority ought to be helping our students discover their “one thing.” And we ought to know our own personal “one thing” and strive to use it each and every day we step into the classroom!
