Experience And Mistakes Grow The Brain, So Enjoy The Process

I have not blogged in almost a month because I've been busy with "end of year stuff," but I felt (to keep the wheels rolling) to post a blog on a couple things I have learned in the classroom during this Fall Semester.

Google Classroom and Technology

Since we do not have "one to one" technology, and have to rely on whatever devices students bring into the classroom, but do have access to laptops I can check out from the library once a week, I have learned not to "put the cart before the horse," when it comes to technology.  Let me explain.  I was so excited to get my students into Google Classroom and "blended learning" that I assumed most students would smoothly start using Google Classroom with their smart phones.   I learned my lesson after a bad walk through (received comments like "most students were not on task").  Students just got confused and started doing what a 14 year old typically does with a smart phone in his or her hand; start texting and snap-chatting with their friends.  I should have just started by checking out laptops from the library once a week (banning phones on that date), so the students would get used to Google Classroom and other tech apps (like FlipGrid), then slowing started putting out assignments that they could use with their smart phones.   Education is just like the rest of life; timing is everything and everything has it's place in time.

Enjoy the Process, Not The Product 

On Friday, our Principal showed a video about inspiration to our Freshman.  It was about a young man who had a very bright future as a pro football player, but his dreams of being a first draft pick (which would have made him a multi-millionaire) ended due to a serious injury in his last year of playing College football.  Instead of wallowing in self pity, he used this experience to inspire others not to give up.  He said many good things during the video, but to me the most profound one was; "enjoy the process, not the product."

So many times we become so focused on the goal, we forget to seize the moment.  I was thinking during the video that folks graduate from High School and have reunions 5, 10, 15, 20 years and so on, not so much because they walked across a stage to receive a diploma; but they were nostalgic for the process that lead up to that diploma.  The process that built lifelong relationships.  The process that taught them endurance would help them overcome struggles (as it had in the former football player's life); a lesson that would serve them long after they left High School.   So many times we forget that achieving goals worth striving for, that the joy is not in achieving the goal itself, but in the lessons "the process" gives us along the way towards that goal.  For yesterday has past and tomorrow is not promised us; but the struggles is in the here and now and in that we should take joy in.