{"id":148,"date":"2019-12-03T01:44:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T01:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/?p=148"},"modified":"2019-12-30T19:25:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T00:25:54","slug":"hard-work-does-not-guarantee-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/2019\/12\/03\/hard-work-does-not-guarantee-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Work Does Not Guarantee Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cHow did you do on the assignment?\u201d she asked her deskmate tentatively. \u201cI did really well,\u201d the girl responds. \u201cHow about you?\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t do so well. I worked really hard on it too. I hate that: when you work hard on an assignment and you don\u2019t do well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The classroom can be a place of insightful conversation when students are working. Often, I\u2019ll overhear students discuss their interests, anecdotes about what\u2019s happening in another class, perspectives from the teenage lens (sometimes referred to as \u2018tea\u2019 from our gen-Xers), or, the odd time, a meaningful gem that can be used as the basis for a genuine teachable moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

I overheard the above conversation last week after handing back an assignment to my grade nine students. One student in particular was disappointed that her efforts did not lend to the result she wanted. I interjected after hearing this remark and responded, \u201cI love what you just said, and, if it\u2019s ok with you, I\u2019d like to use that comment to teach something to the class.\u201d Of course, I promised not to refer to her directly. Naturally, she was surprised that I overheard her comment, despite the mere two desk distance between us, but she gave me the ok to converse with the class. So, as the class was winding down with about five minutes left, I stopped the students and proceeded to give them two analogies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Analogy one: \u201cHow many people have ever played sports or performed in one way or another?\u201d Nearly all of the students\u2019 hands went into the air. \u201cHow many people have ever played or worked really hard and, despite your best efforts, lost?\u201d Again, almost all the hands shot up, along with some varying commentary of \u201cthat\u2019s the worst!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Analogy two: \u201cYou decide to bake a cake. You gather all of your ingredients, prepare your work station, follow the instructions, and work hard to craft this delicious treat. When it\u2019s time to taste the \u2018fruits of your labour\u2019, you bite into the cake only to taste salt. You spent time and effort into this dessert, but you forgot the sugar and added salt instead!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I followed these analogies up with a life adage that I assured the students was free: hard work does not guarantee success. Just because you work hard on something does not ensure that you will see the result you wanted, nor should it. While work ethic is an important element to being successful, like baking a cake, it\u2019s only one ingredient.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly in sports, there might be games where you put in a good effort, yet you still lose the game. In those moments, the result is actually less meaningful than what you decide to do next. Identifying what skills need to be refined, and, most importantly, taking action to make those changes are how we improve, much akin to a team practicing the basics after a loss.<\/span><\/p>\n

Working on an assignment is like baking a cake or playing sports; your effort does not always ensure a favourable result. When an unwanted result arises, it\u2019s an excellent opportunity to be introspective. If you worked hard on an assignment and you didn\u2019t do as well as you hoped, what skills can you improve upon? What specific elements of the task did you spend time working hard on? What does it look like when you\u2019re working hard? What steps can you take now to ensure that you\u2019re successful in the future?<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no one factor that can guarantee success, hard work included. When disappointed by a result, it\u2019s not the effort that one should look back upon; rather, it\u2019s the response that one should look ahead to that will allow for success in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow and tweet @Bjeblack to share a teachable moment that you’ve had in class!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow did you do on the assignment?\u201d she asked her deskmate tentatively. \u201cI did really well,\u201d the girl responds. \u201cHow about you?\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t do so well. I worked really hard on it too. I hate that: when you work hard on an assignment and you don\u2019t do well.\u201d The classroom can be a place … Continue reading “Hard Work Does Not Guarantee Success”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}