By Simon A. Eugster (citation in link)
“Moving Slowly, and That’s Okay”
I want you to read the excerpt below in its entirety. It comes from a student’s GAP Q2C reflection, and it details what I imagine is a relatable experience:
Well, it’s that time of the quarter again, and there’s only one work I can use to describe my work pace this GAP period, and that is… slow, really, really, slow. I’m going to be 150% honest with you Mr. Eure, coming back from Christmas break and over the course of those next two weeks looking at our Google Classroom put so much anxiety in me that I could barely even look at it without getting a headache. There were also multiple times whereas the posts on Classroom were piling up I thought to myself, “he must be out of his mind”, only to come to find that none of them had due dates, and although that shouldn’t matter (but let’s be real, it does), it took a huge burden off of my back. Through much talking with my peers, I realized that most of them are not understanding that all of this stuff doesn’t have to be turned in by the end of Q2C, and that by submitting everything right away, they’re not grasping the point of all of these things, they’re for us to take our time, to put forth our best work, and to try, give up, and try again. I have not much at all to turn in by the end of Q2C, and ya know what, I’m not even going to stress about it, because the point of all of this is progress. I really started to bother myself when I kept scrolling down classroom, seeing little to no assignments with the green letters DONE next to it, because usually I have everything done by the end of the GAP period and have a bundle of fun metacognitive stuff to turn in as evidence. I felt as if I was not succeeding as a student, and that really drove me up a wall let me tell you, but little did I know that this GAP period I have grown and matured more than I ever have over the course of this entire year. I’ve had to sit down and tell myself that in the real world, progress does not happen overnight, and things take time. I kept asking myself “but what if you get a low GAP score because you don’t have a lot of evidence”, and I eventually came to the conclusion, unfortunately towards the end of Q2C, that I’ve been doing everything I have to, just slowly. I’ve been focused this quarter, just moving slowly, and that’s okay. Assignments don’t take me ten minutes like they used to, but that’s the best part of how much I’ve grown, I’m caring way more about the quality and advancement of my work over when it’s due.
She got it. And this is the right chain of logic to follow, for any other students who had the same he-must-be-out-of-his-mind reaction.
Look back at two of the end-of-quarter posts to Google Classroom:
Posted Jan 19.
Posted Jan 18.
These are key announcements and assignments, built to give you perspective and direction. Whether you felt overwhelmed or confident has something to do with how carefully you read these posts.
Anyway, as the student at the top of this post noted, “in the real world, progress does not happen overnight, and things take time.” Grade abatement is about process — about “caring way more about the quality and advancement of [the] work over when it’s due,” as she wrote.
You have many ongoing assignments and almost no deadlines, because your learning should be understand as a process. This is why your reflective and metacognitive work is so important.
Rinse, Repeat
This came up in many conferences last week: You need to know how to view your Google Classroom portfolio. To see it, just click the “VIEW ALL” link at the top-right of the course page:
You should see a list of assignments for the class. All of your work is here. This is your online portfolio, and it’s exactly what your teacher sees.
While you’re there, look at what you handed in for the “GAP Score: Q2C” assignment. Did you submit evidence? Did you account for your works-in-progress? Did you reflect on the skills and traits of the course? This is the self-monitoring that matters.
In fact, it’s so important that you practice metacognition and reflection that there are always formal assignments that require them both. For instance, even if the answer to all those questions about submitting evidence is a resounding nope, you had this chance to generate process-based reflection and metacognition:
Did you complete the Google Form embedded in that post? It was more than a chance to talk to your district about its Strategic Coherence Plan. It was also a way to generate evidence of those higher profiles. That’s why the Google Form and GAP scoring itself were the only assignments with deadlines: That was my way of guiding you toward the right kind of metacognition and reflection. The form responses, for instance, will always be available in your Gmail inbox, and that is a fine benchmark for your growth over the next semester.
It’s well past time for lessons and lectures on self-control and honesty. It’s time for you to embrace the process.
We’ll keep meeting, as we did last week, to talk about you and your learning. Those meetings will continue past the day your GAP scores are finalized. In fact, I’ll need to take a day or two, while you do test prep and read 1984, to compile scores and post them.
The Sorites Paradox
Today’s analogy is the paradox of the heap:
You are always learning, and epiphanies are rare. A better metaphor is the heap: You will realize, one day, that you have become better and more skilled, and it will have happened slowly. You will be able to look back at an earlier version of yourself — at writings, journals, decisions, etc. — and see the obvious difference. But the more quotidian stuff will be less obvious, like someone adding grains of sand to a heap.
These GAP scores aren’t judgments, which is why our meetings aren’t about them. The scores mark the moments when we gather what you’ve done and look closely at it. We know the shape will change. It’s changing all the time. The process is what matters.
The questions for below, if you have the time to discuss them: At what version of yourself do you look, when you look back? Where does that non-heap version of you exist? The beginning of the year? Ninth grade? Earlier?