“Perfect is the enemy of good and good is the enemy of great.”
I think this is what I would post in my classroom if I had one. Maybe I would add to it: “Great is the enemy of that one step beyond into a void for which we don’t yet have a name.”
For how many of our students is 100% their goal? For how many is it 100% plus extra credit? What narrow box constrains such aspiration, what anchor weighs down our dreams?
What if perfection on a test earned students a passing grade?
What if replaying the same course year after year earned our teachers the same pay year after year…and the offer of mentorship in how to break that cycle?
Is school really the booster rocket we want it to be? Or by every wall, silo, and directed piece of thinking have we actually chained our students more tightly to the ground? How can we hope our students will reach for the stars if we don’t cut those chains?
Is this really what we want? For two years I have been listening to teachers, students, and parents tell me what they really want. It is gelling in my imagination. More later, but here’s a hint: none of us have thought far and widely enough because we are stuck on the arc of good, great, and perfect.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we jumped on the arcs of “I wonder…” And “How Might We?” As well as “what propels us?” So my thinking goes towards arcs of questions and wonderings. These are actions and states of being rather than descriptors which imply judgment. How might we move away from the business of evaluation and more to the business of being and doing???