Immeasureable

Lessons Learned

Must Everything Be Measured?

In a word, metrics. How do we measure up? Are we faster, better, or stronger than the last time we checked? Are all of our measurable qualities demonstrating continuous improvement? Success of any organization or entity, these days, boils down to numbers and can readily be assessed on the pan balance of comparison. Good numbers constitute good work, and good work is the all in all. Eons and billions are spent monitoring and managing metrics, and profit empires are built on such.  This is humongously meaningful for countless things such as those that are inanimate, but what of those that are not? What about people?  With respect to people, there are a number of immeasurable qualities which significantly influence successful outcomes. Many of the immeasurable qualities that powerfully contribute to success are contingent on the affective culture or mindset of the people involved. In the flurry of checklist assignment dispensing, deadlines pressing in, paper gathering, number crunching, outcome analyzing, and bottom line ramifications, where are the people? Where are the feelings of the people? Machines heartlessly and most effectively produce brilliant metrics. The human variable notches down the effectiveness because this pesky variable has feelings; unquantifiable feelings that can and do unpredictably tip the balance. Drat and double drat. Take schools, for instance. Are all of the boxfuls of voluminous paperwork generated and tabulated for each student honestly, truly honestly improving that student’s understanding of content, application of understanding, and capability of producing connection building scaffolding? I do not think so. From my vantage point of thirty years in the classroom, I see the areas in most dire need of bolstering among students to be relational.  Feelings, communication, empathy, and compassion are all immeasurable and they all lead to understanding. Understanding leads to meaning-making which suddenly brings relevance into the educational picture.  Encouragement is another immeasurable but remains by far the single most important and long-lasting motivator. We can try to motivate extrinsically but when the novelty of the incentive wears off we’ve lost. Encouragement, on the other hand, cumulatively builds confidence and commitment and requires no paperwork, simply words spoken from one heart to another heart.  A leader comprehends this human need and harnesses its power as a strong motivator of people. A leader comprehends that to create and to innovate, which exist at the top level of Bloom’s Taxonomy  of learning domains, the affective environment needs to be one of encouragement. The affective environment of a metrics driven organization is fear, fear of the pan balance upon which each one’s efforts are regularly measured.  Fear can surely be a motivator, but in a very sad, unhealthy, and dysfunctional sort of way.  Fear binds creativity. The data obsession of a metrics environment aligns all efforts on an efficient and lock-step path of conformity which is neatly quantifiable, but deals the death blow to all things time-consumingly creative.  The pendulum swing of those cultural values to which we most deeply cling is presently at its widest arc in metrics glorification, but it will swing back because historically it always does. Numbers can never and will never paint the whole picture when the hearts and dreams of people are involved.

The Seeds of Innovation Grow in the Garden of Free Play

Lessons Learned

From The Garden of Play, Amazing Things Will Grow

To be able to problem solve is unquestionably an extremely desirable and highly useful skill. Problem solving requires a mind that sees connections and extrapolations, it requires considerable confidence, and it must be carefully cultivated. Problem solving grows from seeds of divergent thinking which grow from seeds of creativity which are watered, weeded, and sunshined in the childhood garden of unstructured, fully imaginative, and wonder-filled play. The priority of this sort of play is critical, for the impact and power of this sort of play desperately underestimated. Kids need to play. Creatively play. With duct tape, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, rocks, boxes, old socks, and all of the things all around them that can readily become something else with a pinch of imagination. All children have imaginations. One of my students informed me that imaginations live under people’s hair. Absolutely right. All children love to play. They must play. Have we traded forts out of blankets for technology toys? In our pursuit of vast opportunities to enrich our kids, have we enslaved ourselves and our kids to schedules so structured that there’s little to no time left for unstructured play?  Have we sacrificed the garden of play for captivating screens and a light speed, leave-you-breathless pace? Have we maintained a healthy balance in our culture of extremes and superlatives? What are our children learning from our choices? If we are to cultivate a generation of problem solvers, a generation of well-balanced deep thinkers and innovators, we must, we must let them play.    

The Piece Of Furniture Known As The Television

Lessons Learned

Flying On The Wings Of Creativity

The first day of summer vacation could irrefutably be the most eagerly anticipated and longed for day on the calendar of all school children. In a word, freedom! My own boys were faithfully counting the minutes, starting weeks before the late winter snow had fully melted in the upper Midwest. On the eve of the day above all days, much discussion was occurring in my home among the boys as to exactly which television program might kick off the glorious three month hiatus. From my couldn’t help but listen post at the kitchen counter, I knew we could do better than this to usher in the summer, a beautiful season of different learning.  The woo hoo day arrived with torrential rain but none-the-less great jubilating joy. The race to the television was stopped in mid-step with the pronouncement that everyone needed to hop in the car. What? Why? Garage sale-ing. Ughhhh. Everyone gets five dollars to buy a broken appliance to take apart. It’s raining! All the better for a day at the workbench.  Garage sale hosts are exceptionally enthusiastic to have customers during a rain storm, so the deals were extremely good and it was clearly the peak season for broken appliances.  With three items and quite a lot of pocket change in our possession, we headed dripping wet to the basement workbench. Although the start was a bit slow with excitement in the project noticeably underwhelming, the momentum quickly picked up and soon tools were flying and the chatter of creativity was escalating in volume and speed. The project lasted hours, days, and weeks, and grew to include the neighbor kids who were already tired of watching television and much more interested in engaging their hands and ideas in the project. Early on, it was determined that all three appliances were completely unfixable, but by pooling all of the parts and adding this and that from various nooks and crannies in the basement, the garage, and the neighbors’ houses, a brand new idea emerged. The new idea led to drawings, plans, suggestions (only when asked) from engineer dad, and many phone calls (by the kids) to a variety of local gear shops. Fund raising efforts were organized to have money to order and purchase parts to continue work on the project.  The project was brilliantly and delightfully consuming and exhilarating and half of the summer whooshed by in a flurry of creativity before a calendar was ever noticed. Camps, family vacations, and assorted lessons punctuated the project efforts, but it all was good and fun and happy. In what seemed to be a snap, we were buying school supplies and shoes again readying for a new school year. Impossible. On the magnificent wings of creativity, the summer flew in the most joyful way hovering over the well-lit basement workbench, while the piece of furniture known as the television collected a good amount of dust.

Can't Say No To This...

Lessons Learned

The Improbability, The Impracticality, and The Impossibility of Creativity

It was an ordinary July morning about to become an extraordinary one as well as an indelibly etched memory simply because of the word “yes,” which is creativity’s favorite word. In a world of “no’s,” where everyone has a reason why not, why you shouldn’t or can’t, why it’s ridiculous or a great waste of time, or what would clearly be better, which is all about those who are the naysayers and how their ideas trump anything thing else on the table, the brave, small voice of yes fiercely fights to stand firm and hold open the door of possibility. Nothing crushes the possibility or the actuality of creativity more completely than a no face, a no spirit, or a no personality, yet no is easiest answer, because, like a hot knife through butter, it cuts off the inefficiency and messiness associated with creativity and keeps us all neatly in lock-step, robotic and only superficially engaged. Once you say yes, the lid of Pandora’s box flies to the wind and time is caught up in the swirling wonder of imagination; a place of play and a place of seeing things differently.  This is a precious place where joy and innovation collide and burst together into a splash of technicolor brilliance. It was pouring with rain this hot July morning, and it had been pouring with rain on and off over a number of days in a row. Inside activities, experiments, and projects were ongoing in every corner, when one of my sons casually presented the genuine wish of his heart in that moment, “I really would like to go snowboarding today.” In the nanosecond subsequent to the proclaimed wish, my mind raced between yes and no, why and why not, practical or impractical, possible or impossible, ridiculous or exhilarating, and I attempted to buy a pinch of time with the obvious  question,  where could we go in July? As if the entire seemingly problematic gap between winter and summer had been fully scrutinized and mentally bridged, hence resolved, prior to the question, the response was simply and immediately, mud is as slippery as snow. Hmmm. Of course.  So with the yes door flung wide open, we loaded the board in the car and set out in the pouring rain to find steep enough muddy hills adequately suitable for mud-boarding. The perfect hill was discovered.  He was absolutely right about mud being slippery as snow.  Run after run after run with increasing laughter, increasing rain soaked mud caked clothes, and increasing competence on the mud slope, my son lived his July wish. Joy. Test and full affirmation of what to some no faces might have seemed a ridiculous impractical impossibility. An idea dreamed, an idea tried, a wish fulfilled. All because of yes.  Every yes most certainly builds significant confidence toward the next new idea, which is exactly the place where creativity loves to dwell. Are there enough yes’s at school? Are there enough yes’s at home? Are we wearing yes faces enough so that this next generation of dreamers can imagine, then plan, then build an exciting and hopeful future?

The Perfection Of Store Bought Creativity

Lessons Learned

Trading In Homemade For Store Bought

With bright, wildly excited eyes, he exuberantly shared with words spilling over words that the long awaited and much anticipated huge science project was to be a creation of the solar system. Artistic, creative, original, unique, any medium, any materials were all descriptors from the teacher concerning this wonderful project. What do you think you’d like to do? I have thought about this all day and all the way home from school, and I think origami planets in different colors of different sizes all connected with pipe cleaners would be perfect. That sounds fantastic! What do you think we need to get for you create this just as you imagine it? With supplies gathered and work space cleared, the imaginer set to creating. Other than peeking in now and again, we, the support team, were to not distract or disturb the imaginer. Colorful origami planets began to fill the space, while pipe cleaner connectors held them in their proper orbits. Evenings filled with brilliant, beautiful creativity flew by punctuated with awe speckled giggles and other sounds of pride.  When at last the stunning, fragile solar system was complete, we were invited to a viewing. Magnificent. Perfect. The imagined solar system had at last become the created one, and  hearts were dancing with joy as they do when creativity is swirling in the midst. Although this humongous creative science project was due on a Friday, several students had decided to bring their projects in Thursday, and what our imaginer saw on Thursday crushed the zeal that had set his spirit soaring through the numerous previous evenings. Most, if not all, of the Thursday solar systems were made from purchased kits with every component perfectly set in place per the specific directions contained in the box, which made them actually, perfect; quite the same but nonetheless perfect.  Friday morning in the parking lot, as other beautiful boxed solar systems streamed by, a very sad thought struck our imaginer. Suddenly, pipe cleaner connectors and origami planets were the tools of losers and others who created without directions in the box. The bright, wildly excited eyes dulled and from the previously jubilating heart came the whispered words, I can’t turn mine in; it’s dumb. My solar system doesn’t look perfect like boxed ones do, and the teacher will think I didn’t work as hard. Gentle, encouraging words from the support team were not quite enough to get us beyond the parking lot crisis occurring in our car, but an intuitive, sensitive, empathetic teacher saved the day, the moment, and a creative heart under siege. This wise and good teacher, upon hearing of the crisis, tenderly pulled the student aside, reminded the student of the excellence of creativity and imaginative work, and affirmed the highest priority and value to be placed upon all of the extra effort involved in creating a unique project, which was, in fact, the assignment.  The imaginer’s smile returned thankfully.  When do we actually trade in our out-of-the-box imaginations for boxed kits complete with perfect directions? Once we make the trade, are we able to go back?

The Priority Of Play

Lessons Learned…

From A Garden of Play

To be able to problem solve is unquestionably an extremely desirable and highly useful skill. Problem solving requires a mind that sees connections and extrapolations, it requires considerable confidence, and it must be carefully cultivated. Problem solving grows from seeds of divergent thinking which grow from seeds of creativity which are watered, weeded, and sunshined in the childhood garden of unstructured, fully imaginative, and wonder-filled play. The priority of this sort of play is critical, for the impact and power of this sort of play desperately underestimated. Kids need to play. Creatively play. With duct tape, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, rocks, boxes, old socks, and all of the things all around them that can readily become something else with a pinch of imagination. All children have imaginations. One of my students informed me that imaginations live under people’s hair. Absolutely right. All children love to play. They must play. Have we traded forts out of blankets for technology toys? In our pursuit of vast opportunities to enrich our kids, have we enslaved ourselves and our kids to schedules so structured that there’s little to no time left for unstructured play?  Have we sacrificed the garden of play for captivating screens and a light speed, leave-you-breathless pace? Have we maintained a healthy balance in our culture of extremes and superlatives? What are our children learning from our choices? If we are to cultivate a generation of problem solvers, a generation of well-balanced deep thinkers and innovators, we must, we must let them play.