#Goals (Life Lessons from the VMC)

This morning I went to my usual hiking spot. It was the first time I’d been since May. The end of the school year is always crazy busy, and most days I am just too tired to go hike at the end of the day. Then the school year ended, and I got this lingering allergy/ sinus/ upper respiratory thing that just decimated my stamina. In short, when I arrived this morning I felt much like I was starting from scratch. I went my usual route, headed for my usual trail, the Vertical Mile (you can read about it here). When I got there, I looked up at it, and I just gave up. I turned around and headed back. I knew I couldn’t do it today.

Probably not what you were expecting, huh? After all, this is a post about goals, and I pretty much just gave up on mine. So why even write about it?

As teachers, we tend to focus on goal-setting for moving forward. We want to celebrate when we meet goals, or our students meet goals, and we tend to get really down when we don’t meet them. But here’s the thing: Missed goals are learning opportunities, maybe even more so than met goals.

As I was dejectedly returning down the trail, I’ll admit that I was berating myself in my head for being a quitter. I was disappointed in myself. I decided that instead of quitting altogether, maybe I’d just try a different trail. I turned onto the Grindstone Trail. It was a little shorter, only about 1.5 miles instead of 2.5, and the trail description was moderate to strenuous rather than the Vertical Mile’s intensely strenuous descriptor.  And as I was walking, I started thinking back to a class day this school year.

“I just don’t think I can read this today,” Austin said. “My head’s just not in it. Can I take today off?” He’d been reading Lord of the Flies for independent reading. It was a pretty hefty read for someone who had only just found an appreciation for reading this year. I hesitated. I had traditionally frowned upon “taking the day off,” but I know that LotF is not exactly light reading, and most likely no good would come from forcing him to read it if he knew he just wasn’t into it today.

“So what will you do instead?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “Put my head down?”

I smiled, but shook my head, “No, let’s just try something different.” I handed him a copy of I Wrote This For You, a book of poetry and photography, and left him to it. At the end of the independent reading period, he asked if he could sign the book out and take it home. “Of course! You’re not giving up on Lord of the Flies, are you?”

“Oh no, no! I really kinda like it. But I liked this one. It made me think about my reading different. And I liked how the pictures went with the text.”

The next day, he had finished I Wrote This For You, and went back to LotF. But the following week, when Austin finished the novel, he wanted to know if I had any more poetry books that he could read. He ended up reading most of my poetry collection, just from that one day of needing something a little different. He hadn’t set a goal to discover a new genre, but in needing to take a step back from his self-selected goal of reading more classic literature, he discovered something entirely new.

As I traveled the “easier” trail that I chose to hike today, I noticed quite a few things. Even though the trail was easier, it was less familiar to me, and I found myself having to pay closer attention to the trail markers and blazes. That slowed me down considerably, and I found myself noticing the flowers and scenery more than I would have if I was on my usual trail. Because I had no idea where the trail was headed, I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get to my destination. I was able to take my time and enjoy the journey. I still got a workout, and my heartrate was still pumping by the time I finished the first set of switchbacks. Finally, I really liked the trail. It will definitely be one I will add to my rotation in the future.

All those benefits, just from taking a step back and recognizing that I wasn’t able to work toward my goal of 5 vertical miles today. Will I still work toward that goal? Of course! But when you need a break, you should take one.

I hear a lot of times that teachers don’t want kids to read graphic novels or “stupid” books, like Captain Underpants or Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or that students should always be reading “rigorous” text. Why? Can’t we still reap benefits from different types of reading? When students read graphic novels, or novels-in-verse, they may find themselves having to pay closer attention to the text because the landscape is less familiar to them. Students who can blaze through novels may find themselves challenged in an entirely different way by the need to take the time to combine visual cues with text in a graphic novel. They may have to think more carefully about characters or plot by noticing what is not said in a novel-in-verse. You can rest assured that the skills they would use to talk about characterization in To Kill a Mockingbird can still apply to Dogman by Dav Pilkey. Rigor does not come from text; it comes from thinking.

So by all means, have students set goals and work toward them, but give them room to deviate from the path every so often. Just because something is easier, doesn’t mean there aren’t any benefits from doing it, and they may discover a whole new path to reading that they didn’t even know existed. There is no shame in taking an easier path occasionally. It’s better than not moving at all.