Tag: improvement

Just Get Better

Thermometer 20oC

Tonight, a new improv team I coach had their first show. While I understand the difference between coaching and teaching, today’s question made me flash on a recent email I’d sent as an introduction to the team letting them know I’d be their coach. I made the following three commitments:

  • For each show and rehearsal, I will push you to be better improvisers at the end than you were at the beginning.
  • I will give you direct, concrete feedback.
  • I will help you set and work toward personal improv goals.

It was surprising, 4 years out of the classroom, to look at my commitments and realize they were the same things I would tell new students at back to school night.
“I’ll be your English teacher,” I’d say.
Student would sheepishly look at the floor and either student or parent would admit to the student not being a reader or writer or both.
“I’ll help you with that,” I replied.
That became the goal. At the end of the year, I didn’t need my students to consider majoring in English or start envisioning themselves as English teachers. I wanted them to want to claim the titles of reader and writer because they’d felt themselves get better, and because they saw the two activities as parts of who they were.
If they grew up to be engineers, tremendous – so long as they grew up to be engineers who read and wrote. If they grew up to be waiters and waitresses, good on ’em – so long as they were servers who read and wrote.
I am hard-pressed to think of a vocation or profession where my mind wouldn’t be put more at ease when I heard it was a position filled by a person who identified as a reader and writer.
This is how I always have and always will measure my success as an educator. At the end of the day, do you see yourself as closer to or further from identifying as a person who practices whatever I’m charged with teaching you?

Asking Who I Want to Be

Mirror

A few weeks ago. An email from a friend, “I just took this job, and I got an offer for this other job. What should I do?”

My response, “Who do you want to be in this situation?”

End of conversation.

That was the guidance necessary, not an answer, but a question to which I did not know the answer.

This is often the case.

At SLA, Chris will often say his hopes for the students are that they will leave the school thoughtful, wise, passionate, and kind.

I want those things too, but it’s not my answer. My answer with anyone is that I hope I can in some way help them on their way to being the better version of themselves.

It’s my answer for myself too.

Today, in a conversation at work, I found myself faced with a colleague whose approach was to point out the problems we were facing and then stare at me. The eyes I saw across the table said, “Problems everywhere. Probably more problems on the horizon. Might as well pack it in.”

If you’ve spent any time with me, it’s clear I’m not keen on dwelling for long on the difficulties problems present. Sitting across the table, I could feel the little stress ball starting somewhere between my stomach and my chest.

In that moment, I asked myself, “Who do I want to be right now?” The act of asking moved me from loudly inquiring, “How did you let these problems happen in the first place?” and moved me to, “What are do you suggest we do next?”

To be sure, I was still frustrated. I still am. The difference was asking who I wanted to be when I found myself sitting in frustration. In the second it took me to think of my answer, I was able to change tack. As I’m recounting this story here, I realize I’m closer to proud of that version of me than I would have been if I’d let loose what I was feeling in the moment.

It’s a question I’ve had to ask myself quite a bit in the last week as I’ve watched the aftermath of Charleston, people’s response to today’s health insurance decision, and either way the gavel falls on marriage equity in the next few days.

“Who am I?” is important.

“Who do I want to be?” is equally so.