I have a lot to say. You wouldn’t know it from the time between posts, but I do.  I even made a list and discussed with a good friend which one I should post first.  But still I postponed it.  I’m not usually a procrastinator. There were just too many ideas that, although related, didn’t seem to share a common focus.  If the jumble of ideas left me confused, it was unlikely that readers would be able to sense any unifying elements.

And then I encountered a timely essay, penned by Jon Kabat-Zinn entitled “The Total Incompatibility of Mindfulness and Busyness”. One of his highlighted quotes spoke directly to me.

When we set things up to make any balance in our lives a virtual impossibility, we are evincing disloyalty to what we value most.

On the same day I received a notice from the Modern Learners Team asking us to react to op ed written by Peter DeWitt that appeared recently in EdWeek. In his piece DeWitt suggested “12 Areas School Leaders Should Focus On in 2019”.  Only 12? Talk about the impossibility of finding balance!

I smiled a bit at my contrasting images.  On the one hand, there was Peter DeWitt juggling 12 balls, each labeled with a different area demanding his attention.  On the other, there was the image of Jon sitting cross-legged in a serene yoga pose engaged in the practice of quiet mindfulness.  In my imagination, I was right there with Peter juggling a list of 12 competing themes for my next blog piece, looking longingly at Jon peacefully reflecting on ways he could simplify his life and reject self-imposed busyness.

And then came Oprah to the rescue.  Yup, Oprah.

Actually Oprah didn’t make a personal appearance, rather she showed up at the request of my wife’s suggestion (!) that I read the transcript of Oprah’s interview with Michelle Obama. The interview was scheduled to help promote the release of the First Lady’s memoir, Becoming.

Oprah had me at the first question, Why Becoming?. Michelle had me with her answer…

A question that adults ask kids – I think it’s the worst question in the world – is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As if growing up is finite. As if you become something and that’s all there is.

I realized that all of the items on my topic list dealt in some way with becoming… becoming who we want to be, becoming what our schools might be, becoming what learning is all about, helping our kids become more than a test score, and helping our kids learn how to be in the world they are experiencing.

If you’re reading this and working in schools, regardless of position you can identify with the image of juggling too many balls.  These balls may be in the form of new or revised standards, new safety/security protocols, new professional evaluation systems, new or increasing focus on “personalized Learning”, new graduation requirements, etc. Hardly a climate suited to peaceful reflection and cross legged yoga positions.  And, by the way, it’s no different for kids.

You might recall my previous reference to a film entitled Eighth Grade.  In that film the young girl who is the focus of the film discusses that each day she is faced with deciding who to be. Who to be with her friends during school? After school? Who to be with her dad while she rides with him in the car? Who to be on social media?  She goes to bed late. Gets up early. Decides what to wear.  Wonders if she’ll see her friends? If they’ll still be her friends? She goes to soccer, participates in drama, has part-time job.  12 balls in the air seems like a piece of cake.

How do we escape the seemingly endless demand to juggle too many “have to’s” or “shoulds”? Years ago, I happened on a book edited by Art Costa, James A. Bellanca, Robin Fogarty. It was entitled, If Minds Matterand posed the question, “If minds really mattered, would school look like it does?”  Would we group kids by age? Would they all have to read by the end of third grade? Would we still focus so much on compliance and efficiency? Would we continue to organize high school content according to the thinking of the Committee of Ten in 1892? (Yes, we still do.) Would we continue to place most of our emphasis on learning that occurs within the walls of a school building?

So, as adults, let’s forget the 12 balls for a bit. Let’s forget the constant introduction of new initiatives, the pressure imposed primarily by the focus on the needs of adults.  Let’s just answer one question?  What matters?  What matters to you? How do we help kids learn/decide what matters?

What would happen if we created space where answering this question was the thing that mattered? For us? For kids?  What would the design of learning look like if it were based solely on the answer to ‘what matters’?  What would your answer to this question be?  What if Aldrich is right and the only thing that matters for our kids is that they learn how to learn, learn how to do, and learn how to be? What if you took 15 minutes or so and just wrote down what matters to you as an educator? What if you then looked at what you (or your school) is doing to make your “what matters” a reality?