Tag Archives: potential

First Day Jitters

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Across Canada there are countless students starting their first day of school today. Some students are excited, some upset to see the summer end, and some thrilled to be seeing their friends again. There will also be many who are nervous, apprehensive, and scared, especially those transitioning to new schools. Moving up a school level is a right of passage every child experiences, and this challenge is met with many different emotions.

Think of how different this experience is for students. Some are leaving friends they’ve gone to school with since they learned to read and write. Some are hoping for a fresh start. There are so many emotions being felt. Nervousness and the jitters are probably felt by most, even for those happily looking forward to the new school year. And all these different students, with there different hopes and expectations, will be met by teachers having similar thoughts and emotions, only tempered with the wisdom of age and experience.

The first day is filled with potential. It is the start of a year more significant than the start of the calendar year. The new school year brings jitters, but it also arrives with hope; with promise; with an opportunity to be great.

Wishing all students, teachers, and school leaders a fabulous year ahead. Make it a great year.

Feeling underutilized

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This morning I saw a news item on LinkedIn News, “Are workers being underestimated?”

“The majority of U.S. professionals (58%) believe they have a wide range of skills that are being underutilized in their current roles, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey.

This sense of untapped potential is especially strong in certain fields: Nearly two-thirds of workers in the administrative and support services industry (65%) say they’re being underutilized, along by 63% of those in retail and 62% of those in transportation. Education and oil, gas and mining follow, both at 60%.”

To me this isn’t an employee but rather an employer issue. It’s not a worker issue to resolve but rather a leadership issue. I think in many cases the enthusiasm of a worker to be innovative and try new things, which magnify strengths and utilizes untapped skills, are quelled by a drive for consistency and minimum competence. Instead of promoting opportunities for innovation, large companies want to minimize uniqueness for the safety of not taking risks and making mistakes.

‘If I let this employee try this unique approach, other employees will try less effective approaches’. Or, ‘I can approve this additional cost request for one employee, but if others ask it will be unsustainable, so it’s better not to try and end up with cost overruns’. Or, ‘If it fails it will make us look bad’… Or, or, or… it’s always easier to turn down differentiation than to allow unknowns that are not a guaranteed success.

So, innovation is deemed too costly, or too much of a risk, and employees feel like the potential they have is underutilized.

We need to create an environment where ‘Yes is the default‘. Where innovation and failing forward is seen as opportunities to grow… and where those we work with feel like they are being better utilized.

Remembering the Push

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I’m 57. I’m never going to compete athletically at the level I did half a lifetime ago. I know this. I understand this. I’m good in terms of how I think about this.

And so what I look for now are moments where I connect with that former athlete, the drive, the push, that I once had in sports. The ability to have my body quit before my mind does. That’s the push.

We are capable of so much more than our minds usually allow. We exert ourselves with mental limits conservatively below what our bodies can achieve. So when we have those moments where we surrender those limits and work our bodies to limits that are our real limits… we remember the push of who we once were… and we become that again.

Here we go

The school year begins. 180 school days.

I am nervous about the balance of things: work/home life/exercise; leadership/management; priorities/budgets; teaching & learning; support & independence; planning & follow through; time & efficiency.

I may be nervous but I can feel the potential… the promise of a great year ahead. Physiologically there is almost no difference between anxious nervousness and excitement. So I’ll reframe my thinking, I am excited.

I hope all educators are equally excited. We are in an incredible occupation. We change lives. We make learning fun and engaging. And our teaching goes well beyond the curriculum. We don’t teach subjects, we teach kids. We teach kindness, collaboration, cooperation, and creativity. We don’t just teach classes, we teach young adults who want to do well, who soar, who struggle, and who do the best with the resources they have.

Some come to us full of support and resources, others come to us with much less. The less the resources, the more compassion we need. The greater the challenge, the more patience we must have. The more we are challenged, the higher we must rise.

We can be the purveyor of the status quo, or we can be the change agents we want to be. It all begins today… here we go!

— — —

I wrote the following in 2011:

My Open Educator Manifesto

‘We’ educate future citizens of the world

Teaching is my professional practice

I Share by default

I am Open, Transparent, Collaborative, and Social

My students own their own:   (Learning)

• learning process

• learning environment

• learning products

• learning assessment

My students belong to learning networks

Every student deserves customized learning

• Student voice

• Student choice

Every educator deserves customized learning

I have high expectations

I Care, Share, and Dare

I am a role model

I am the change I want to see in Education!

Potential Humanity

We live in an era of incredible potential. And yet when I opened my news feed this morning this is what I saw:

A misogynist Op-Ed that was clearly written with malice.

A racist group causing harm and violence.

An extremist left group doing the same.

An anti-mask gym owner saying he’ll continue to pay fines to keep his gym open.

A politician calling covid a ‘hoax pandemic’.

The largest iceberg ever, that broke off in 2017 thanks to global warming, is heading to islands likely to cause an ecological disaster.

Crazy.

When I think of the potential of humanity, I think of benevolence, creativity, generosity, love, and kindness.

When I open the news I see hate and ignorance. Today these stupid headlines came (except for the iceberg) from the country south of our borders. A country that’s supposed to be about equal opportunity, liberty, and justice. A country divided into two camps so opposed to the other side that they see the other as enemies more than neighbours (or I should say neighbors).

What does it mean to be human? What potential do we have as a species? What could we accomplish if we work together? What kind of world would we live in if we focused on what’s possible?

We can be better as a species. We can be peaceful. We can be kind. We can be loving. We can be more human.

What could have been

I feel it every year.

It’s the last official day of school, an administrative day. Students picked up report cards yesterday and teachers wrap things up today. This is the day that I look back and think of what could have been. I think of the lost opportunities, the missed potential, the goals unmet.

I know I’ll look back and see the accomplishments as summer begins, but for some reason this day has always been melancholy, and sadly nostalgic (if that makes sense). It’s weird. I don’t tend to be the kind of person that holds regrets and wallows on missed opportunities, but this day always harbours feelings that the year could have been better. Specifically, on this day I look back and feel that I could have, and should have, been better and given more of myself to the school year.

It’s a feeling that’s hard to shake, through the goodbyes and the well wishes for a wonderful summer. It will go away, but today it sits with me, now and throughout the day ahead. Oh, what could have been! It sounds sad, but in a way, it holds me accountable and makes me want next year to be better. There are “promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

While the past holds many successes, and the future holds much potential, today I sit with what could have been.

Potential

This time of year, the word ‘potential’ resonates with me. There is so much potential in a new school year! What will be accomplished? What surprises await?

What questions can we ask to maximize the potential we and our students have? Here are a few that might be worth asking:

What will I do to build a good culture in my school and my classroom?

What can I do to inspire my students to go beyond the curriculum?

What can I do to support open communication between myself, my students, and their parents/caregivers?

How can I extend the learning beyond the walls of my classroom?

How can I connect my school and my classroom to the community?

What questions and challenges can I give my students to help them become more resilient problem solvers?

The questions we ask help to define the directions we go in, and the goals we want to achieve.

What questions would help you and your students meet or even exceed their potential?