Practice Makes Humble

I finished reading Jon Acuff's book Start yesterday and felt inspired.  I've wanted to do a blog for school for the last couple of years, but couldn't really think of a topic to blog about.  I even created a blog last Spring when I updated my school website--but I still didn't know what to write about.  I mean, if I complained about a student online--I might just get in a little bit of trouble.  I found a couple of 180 teacher blogs, meaning that they blog every day of the school year.  Yikes!  I have a hard enough time trying to update this blog monthly.

So, after finishing Start, the idea came to me.  I'm always telling my students that learning is a life-long process and that I'm continually learning new things--math related and not.  Now I have the opportunity to prove it.  I want to write WEEKLY about what new things I learned that week.  I believe that the flexibility of the subject and time frame will make it possible...and hopefully, some what interesting.

Since there are still 5 weeks until school starts, I should practice now to make sure that it's really something that I want to commit 36 weeks of my life to.

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This week I learned about home remodeling.  I've watched Nate fix drywall, mud, sand, and make basic repairs for the last couple of years since we bought our house.  But this week, it was my turn.  In the process of finally painting Kaylie's room (see video below), we found blue paint at Home Depot for $7.  Jackpot!  Which means it was time to also paint Carter's room.  Nate decided that it was time for me to learn the finer arts of home construction.  So, Tuesday I learned how to mud the correct way and Wednesday I learned about how much work sanding correctly really is.

Three days and a couple of tears later, the real thing that I learned is that I'm still stuck in a "Fixed Mindset" (See Carol Dewak's book Mindset).  When learning something new, I want to be able to just do what I'm asked and move on to the end results.  I often don't care about the why and how of it.  Which means I get REALLY touchy when I'm told that I'm doing it wrong--like with sanding.  Once I calmed down, dried my tears, and apologized to my husband, I realized that my pride was getting in the way of being in the "Growth Mindset".  After that realization, I was able to see the need to ask clarifying questions and actually learn how and why to do something the correct way.  The work continued and Carter now has a newly painted room  (see 2nd video below).

It's hard to admit that the teacher in me is having the same troubles that I complain about with my students.  I'm afraid to ask questions because of what someone else might think of me!  Good grief!  If I don't ask questions, how am I ever going to learn it correctly.

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Kaylie's new room

Carter's new room

FYI.  My new school blog can be found at http://thecallhall.weebly.com/blog.html.  I won't start posting there until school starts.