There is a lot we don’t notice until we make an effort to notice it.
It was mid-November; the end of the school year was fast approaching, tiredness the dominant force.
But this teacher was invigorated. We’d been running a little pilot to see what the impact of tuning into and documenting the school values would have. And he’d had an epiphany that went a little bit like this:
I can’t believe it - I’m seeing the values everywhere now.
Boy, how much have I missed over the year?
“Just like red cars on a motorway,” I said.
Have you had a similar moment?
And a funny thing had started to happen. He wasn’t just noticing the values. He was starting to share those moments. They were starting to be the basis of conversations. The kids were starting to use the language. The values were becoming how the class related to each other.
Today’s message from Pluto
“My friend has been here. And there. And there. Woof!!!”
Something to try that might make a difference
When this teacher looked for love, he found it. And then he talked about it. And that made more.
But it rested on this:
Documenting what he found.
Without the discipline of making the moment ‘concrete’, all he would have had were anecdotes.
By taking the time to document, he could think deeper about what he was tuning in to and noticing. This led to the epiphany and the impact on the classroom culture.
In other words, the anecdotes became data that he responded to.