Apr 18, 2012 16:44
Last night I was discussing with S the difficulty with tweens of convincing them that there's more to creating something than just seeking someone's approval. There's a fundamental conceptual gap that has to be crossed in order to realize that there's a difference between a mere test and a product, and that your WORK creates something that isn't you, that isn't anyone else either, it becomes a FACT in the WORLD, so much so that someone could like your work but not like you, or not know anything about you but still be influenced by your work.
Early on in my teaching career I started interrogating the parents of really impressive kids, asking "How the hell did you create this person?" questions at parent conferences. One common theme that came up again and again was that kids who were already (at the age of 10-12, say) impressive people had all grown up in households where they always had WORK to do, in the sense of specific roles and responsibilities that were THEIRS. Kids who grew up on farms, for example, learned as toddlers that work wasn't punishment, it wasn't grownupstuff, it was simply part of life, and generally a pretty cool and satisfying part of life.
The lesson, in brief, is The Lesson of Life: KARMA IS. You Make Choices, and you Do Stuff, and it MATTERS, not always in obvious ways, sometimes in very surprising ways, but TRYING MATTERS. Effort counts. Doing stuff is GOOD, whether or not it succeeds.
Where many of my kids are still struggling is: learning that you don't Do Stuff just for your teachers, you don't Do Stuff just for your parents, you Do Stuff because YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO, and you get to CHOOSE WHO YOU ARE, which ROCKS! And the sum total of all the promises you keep (and/or break), all the commitments you honor (and/or dishonor), all the times you kept high standards (or settled for less), that is your shadow in this life, and it's not exactly your essence or your substance or your spirit, but it may well outlive you, outreach you. And it has a lot to teach you.