10 Things

Earlier this week we had a team-building activity to kick off our staff meeting at the preschool where I work. Written on the white board were the directions “List 10 things you do well. Be prepared to share.” We were each given a pink notecard to make our lists.  

Here are the contents of my notecard:

1.       Writing/blogging

2.       Reading

3.       Learning

4.       Sleeping

5.       Working with kids

6.       Cutting my own hair

7.       School list making

8.       Teaching/guest lecturing

9.       Going to professional development

10.   Making mashed potatoes

This list took me less than 2 minutes.  I went back and crossed out “school” on number 7 to make room for “list making” when I realized it was kind of a repeat of #3, learning, and that I was the first person done. By more than 5 minutes!

For the life of me, I could not understand what was taking everyone so long. Folks, take a look at yourselves. Are you dressed?  Is your shirt on the right way and do all of your buttons and button holes match up? Some days I am not that put together. I think that’s enough rationalization to put it on your list.  Do you remember to floss every day? I don’t. Do you fix your hair regularly? My cubicle-neighbor brings her flat iron to work and sometimes she still ends up just putting her hair in a messy ponytail.  Clearly these are skills that not everyone possesses in equal measure. I think that is sufficient reason to add them to your list.  Do you know where to put the oil in your car? Can you find your birth city on a map (or like me, was it news to you when the pushpin and string connected to your baby picture on the bulletin board map showed up)?

I’ve seen some of your manicures and I know we’re on the same salary schedule. If you can make your nails look that good day-in and day-out, you’re either a talented manicurist, couponer or budgeter…. Or your husband washes all the dishes. Can you parallel park? Carry a tune in a bucket? Walk in heels?

Clearly these are skills, my friends.

Including the Principal, Teachers, Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, School Psychologists, Educational Assistants, and Administrative Assistants there were about 25 of us at the staff meeting.  I loved listening to everyone’s lists. There were some funnies, including the woman who shared “I dress well…. I mean, I actually am good at putting my clothes on, but I also dress well” (I think she was trying to say she has fashion sense, which she does) and the exchange between two Mom’s of infants who recently returned from maternity leave:

Mom #2: (reading from her list) “I’m a good Mom… well, on some days.”

  Mom #1: “I didn’t even put that one down.”

Mom #2: “Well I felt it was best to acknowledge it, get it out in the open.”

  Mom #1: “As opposed to my approach, which is to just ignore the problem!”

Ahhh, Sped-ucators. How readily we dissect our own shortcomings!

What I noticed, though, is that mine was probably the only list that was 100% about things I do, and not who I am. I read the directions “list 10 things you do well” quite literally and I supposed at the time that this accounted for my relative speed in completing my list.  How much longer would it take if I were to agonize over which character traits best describe me, as so many of my colleagues did?  Their lists contained phrases like “I’m understanding,” “I’m good at saying “I’m sorry”, “I’m creative,” “I’m good at Medicaid billing” (which of course elicited a chorus of groans) and other gems. Their lists were a combination of things they do, and traits that describe them.

I have a favorite phrase. Its not one I coined, but something that one of my professors shared:  people often have their “whos” and “whats” mixed up.  I think this is especially relevant in our society today. We get confused about who we are, believing it is made up of what we do.  And if who we are is the same as what we do then any value judgments assigned to what we do (whether its cooking, writing, singing, driving, making jokes, being a family member, being a worker, etc.) reflect on who we are.  This is a problem because it means that how I feel about myself- my self worth- is subject to what I think about what I do… and especially what you think and what you tell me about what I do.

Here are some truths that I know about who we are:

1.       I am a Daughter of God.

2.       You are also a Daughter of God (unless you’re male, then you’re a Son of God).

3.       We are of infinite worth and value.

4.       We are so valuable to our Savior that if it had been only my sins, or only your sins rather than the entire world’s sins and pains, He still would have suffered and died for me. Or for you.

5.       I am an eternal being. My identity is eternal. My potential is infinite. I lived in the presence of God before I came to this earth. I came here willingly choosing to forget about my previous life to gain a body and to enter a place with both good and evil so that I would have the opportunity to choose good, an essential part of my eternal progression. Because of Jesus Christ, I will live again in the presence of God. All of this applies to you, also.

 

Mormon messages excepted, these aren’t things the media generally tells you about who you are.  So is it any wonder that we so frequently behave badly toward one another?  Not so much, no.

In my Ed.D. cohort there are 19 students. Two among our number are adult immigrants from China. Ah-Fong, who chose the American name “Jessica,” sat next to me Wednesday night during our Advanced Qualitative Analysis class.  

At the end of the class, Jessica has not been able to get her question answered and she turned to me and asked whether I thought she should do a Quantitative Analysis study for her dissertation since it would be less writing-intensive than a Qualitative study.  Of course the real answer is that you do the type of study that the research question needs.  But I wanted to be helpful, and I had proof-read several of Jessica’s papers over the Summer so I knew she sometimes struggled with the mechanics of English and word choice, but that she was engaging in higher-order thinking. She was only held back by her ability to convey in her 2^nd language the depth of thought and incredible connections she made between course material, historical contexts and her work as a Grade 1-6 Mandarin Immersion teacher and more recently as a 1^st grade teacher.  

So I told her exactly that, and concluded that I thought she had a special gift having grown up in a visual culture, speaking a visual language versus those of us who have visual thinking systems but grew up in an auditory culture and have varying levels of compensatory strategies for overcoming that cultural-linguistic mismatch.

Jessica accepted my compliment with a “thank you” and replied “And you’re very good at cutting your hair.”

+1 for random rejoinders!

I laughed off the non-sequitur, but as I thought about it later, it occurred to me that sometimes as human beings we feel the need to return a compliment for a compliment.  Or an insult for an insult. And I wonder if this is a symptom of having our Whos&Whats confused?

I had intended to end this post with some sage advice or wisdom.  But I’m tapped out. So instead, here is a meme that always makes me chuckle: