First things first. If you found this post after searching for dog related things, the title is the only place you’ll see me mention them. This is not, after all, a pet blog. What this is about, actually, is about me following my own advice. I’m a teacher, as has come up on our site on occasion, and spend a good portion of my days talking to students about the virtue and value of education. I’ve been telling them about the importance of a growth mindset, constantly looking to elevate our understandings and abilities, arguing against the very notion of “good enough.” Well, I’ve said all that, but I haven’t been in a classroom or received any formal education or training since 2012. That was true until this month.
Now, though, I’m back in school. I’ve begun work on a masters degree in theology. It’s important to me that I do this for a couple of reasons, but the first one really is about being able to speak on it with integrity to my students. Honestly, how am I going to tell my students that there is always more to learn while I rest on the classes I took more than a decade ago? Furthermore, it’s been that long since I’ve had the experience of writing for a critical eye. One written assignment in, and it’s clear that I’ve got some significant rust built up over the past decade.
I’m not going to pretend that I was excited to see the feedback on my paper at the first reading. I’m a bit of an arrogant academic and place a lot of stock in my ability to do things quickly and well. Now, I say, “well,” but I actually mean, “good enough.” So, here I am, nearly 40, taking stock of where I am, accepting feedback and correction, and finally starting to remove that deep-seated “good enough” from my life that I’ve been cautioning the students against.
Leave a Reply