There is a running joke in the military, that wherever there are two or more enlisted men gathered, an unhindered rant on the failures of system and the unfitness for duty of immediate leadership is bound to follow. My experience is that the same is true all over and for all groups. I think we are hardwired as a species to complain, to see the bad in every good, the cloud in every blue sky. Frankly, it's easier to snipe than to solve problems, easier to complain than to make personal changes, easier to negate than affirm. In this context, the whole "life is suffering, and our suffering is self-imposed" notion in Buddhism makes a lot of sense, regardless our competing beliefs. We each make our own happiness, find our own satisfaction, and, indeed, create numerous opportunities for self-imposed suffering in our lives. A life of true quality lies beyond general measures of happiness and satisfaction. We have to learn how to rebound, to overcome the gloom and doom. If life is determined to give us lemons, we better learn how to make lemonade.
If you recall, growing up is a complex experience full of opportunities for happiness and sadness, success and failure. School, it so happens, is a laboratory for the same. We learn a lot of really important lessons in school: not everyone is meant to be our friend; we are not always kind to each other; sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we still fail; best intentions make us feel good but carry little weight when things go sideways; humility is earned the hard way; we have to learn to work effectively with people we don't like; sometimes we carry more than our fair share of the load; most of our profound lessons are taught to us when we fall flat on our face.
One could read each of these truths in the negative, but they are incredibly powerful when applied to the whole of our lives; to our relationships and professional experiences. It is because of these lessons that we are able to navigate and thrive in a tough, even unforgiving universe. In this day and age we recoil at the thought that our children might encounter difficulty. Difficulty is where all the growth happens. Frankly, we must teach and encourage our children to take on challenges and face difficulties not with recklessness or abandon, but with thoughtfulness and a plan.
This fall has been a challenge for many students, especially in Middle and High School. We are asking kids to think big, differently, at 45 degrees, upside down and inside out. We are asking our students to take on big problems and big ideas, the very sort they will face in their adulthoods. We are pushing them to upend old practices and stale approaches to their learning. They have to justify their answers, explain their reasoning, reflect on their approaches to learning, grow their metacognition. If they learned in the past to game the system, a system where grades were accidentally on purpose valued more than learning, then I fully expect this fall has been uncomfortable. Grades have never been more important than learning, even if that is how most schools, certainly all those I attended as a kid, generally operate. That is cart before the horse thinking. When you focus on the learning, on skills and concepts development, the grades in due time become the easy part.
Everything gets clearer with practice. We won't promise easier. Then again, schools should continuously challenge their students. Our students are making the turn. We see real growth in the classroom. We can't wait to see just how far they'll go. We're proud of how they have stepped up to the challenge. This is the miracle of IB. It doesn't stop here...they'll carry these lessons for a lifetime. They will rebound, grow, transform. We hope they do the same to our world.
See you around campus.