Under Construction
September 3, 2024
For the last six weeks I have been working outside the USA facilitating a bunch of ‘before school’ workshops. It’s been a terrific experience – Singapore, Macau, Hanoi, Beijing, Shanghai, Kristiansand, Norway. At one of my locations, Beijing, I had a day off, and I went to see a part of the Great Wall.
Since the 7th century, and onward for 2000 years, dynasties have added parts to the Great Wall making its entire length to be 13,170.70 miles – half of the length of the equator. The wall was for centuries, developing. Now in 2024, it still is getting fixed. It’s ‘under construction.’ Things need shoring up, modifying, and modernizing. Sounds familiar in my life (and with my body).
Nothing is static. It can’t be. If we are static, we are in entropy. We must be changing, ever growing, ever developing – responding to the weather, the changes in culture, the ways of the world as it moves forward.
One of my assertions in my book, Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work, comes from my colleague, Zafer Achi. He states, “Human development is not an indulgence.” He is so right at such a deep level. We must change. We must develop. It is an imperative. Have you seen our globe? The challenges we are facing? We need to grow into bigger human beings in order to do what’s right for future generations. We need to develop.
AND, we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. As Adam Grant has said, “Visions for change are more appealing when they’re coupled with visions of continuity. Our culture or strategy might evolve, but our identity will endure.”
So holding on to those wise comments, ask yourself:
- What do I want to keep doing as I move into the fall season? Which parts of my identity do I want to endure?
- What needs to change? What strategies will I try? What will shift in my everyday life that will help me grow and develop into the person I want to become?
- What piece of my being do I want to have ‘under construction’ at this time? Not my whole being but a part that needs shoring up and some help to be even better.
- Given that there is a lot of work to be done and a long road ahead of me, how can I do my change work in a way that allows for some grace and some self-compassion?
I didn’t make it very far on my Great Wall journey. While folks climbed for hours, I enjoyed the views from where I stood. The road was bumpy, it was hot, and the ups and downs were, for me, challenging with all the people and the bustle.
AND, again, it’s always worth it to gain a bit of perspective. Here’s to the importance of forever being ‘under construction.’
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions or need a safe space for talking something through, please feel free to email me at jennifer@jenniferabrams.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Cool Resources
Lee Ann Jung – Assessing Students, Not Standards: Begin with What Matters Most “The standards-based learning and grading movement of the past twenty years has ushered in a critical shift in assessment that demands clarity in both what is being measured and how well students are learning. Seeing the value in this evolution, a wave of schools has invested enormous effort to institutionalize the policy and practices of the movement. In doing so, many focused their initial efforts squarely on grading and fell short of the more important work–classroom assessment. There are important lessons in these missteps and failures. This groundbreaking, “next generation” approach to classroom assessment challenges educators to reflect on the connections between growth, mastery, and student self-efficacy and to prioritize the transferable skills of metacognition and self-regulation in assessments. A powerful call-to-action.”
Kyle Aldous – Keep Asking – “Each week I share a question or question set that you need. You need questions more than you need advice! And this is the right place to get questions worth asking. The questions we explore here are the ones that will:
- help you take back control of your life
- strengthen your relationships
- make better decisions
and so. much. more.”
Margaret Wheatley – Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations “The perfect storm is here, created by the coalescence of climate and human-created catastrophes. As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do? I state my answer to this also with full confidence:
We need to restore sanity by awakening the human spirit. We can achieve this only if we undertake the most challenging and meaningful work of our leader lives: Creating Islands of Sanity.
An Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by people’s commitment to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires sane leaders with unshakable faith in people’s innate generosity, creativity, and kindness. It sets itself apart as an island to protect itself from the life-destroying dynamics, policies, and behaviors that oppress and deny the human spirit. No matter what is happening around us, we can discover practices that enliven our human spirits and produce meaningful contributions for this time.”
