Argue for Your Limitations and You Get to Keep Them (8)

Struggle is good. When students feel comfortable and unchallenged, they often become complacent and lazy. As adults, we do too. But, if we force them, or ourselves into a situation we are not ready for, without the tools to compensate for any misconceptions, without a sense of security, that failure is expected, welcomed, you can shut them down, we shut down. Once we shut down, we get distracted and discouraged. Once you lose a student to frustration, it is very hard to get them to engage again in the class discussion or activity.

Frustration is good if there is a purpose to it. If we lead them to struggle, let them find their solution, their own way- we provide them with the biggest tool of all-self-awareness and self-endurance. As educators we need to make sure struggle is meaningful and purposeful, and they know they are safe to make mistakes, if we do, students will overcome their fear and take the risk.

Many students feel discouraged, fearful, anxious to try new things. As educators we look for ways to push them past these hurdles. We create barriers, yet they magnify the road blocks, they make them seem larger than they are. We have to understand their hesitation and teach them strategies to look these fears in the eyes and say I got this.

To help my students accept fear and use it to look for ways to strengthen their resolve, I have them write notes to their fear at the beginning of the year. Then I have them write another at the beginning of semester two. At the end of the year we pull them out and read them. They usually feel a sense of accomplishment because they overcame most of their fears. I write one too- then we add them to the memory box in our class room.

"Dear Fear, hello, I welcome your advice but ultimately, I will make my own decisions. I believe in myself and therefore I trust my instincts. You are not an instinct, but a limitation. Therefore, I will not argue for you, but against you. I accept you as a guide, but not a guide post. A way to warn me, lead me away from danger- but also to lure me to the unknown, so I can grow."

These struggles, these limitations, are just that, limits and limits are meant to be broken. They are meant to be pushed aside, long enough to keep moving forward. If we argue hard enough and long enough in support of these limitations, we get to keep them. Period.

We will internalize them, feed them, nurture them. We will give them a name, a power, a sense of self, all to themselves. Then these limitations will take up residence, close the gates and make themselves at home and when this happens it becomes nearly impossible to evict them.

Today we wrote our Dear Fear notes and read over our letters from the beginning of the year. Students got a kick out of the letters they wrote so many months ago. Some students still had the same fears and wrote letters to those same fears. But most had overcome those original fears and asked if they could write a letter to Hope instead. I thought this was very cool.

So I thought I would write one too and add it to the box.

Dear Hope, thank you for following along side me most days. You really help me stay mindful and positive. You help me see the good in people and let things go, you are a reminder to stay focused on the prize, not on the struggle. You help me to accept my limitations, but more importantly my creativity, curiosity and faith. You guide me to a path of happiness and for this I am truly thankful.

Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them. Argue for hope and you get to keep that too.