Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted...and came across this wonderful list of things we wish our children would experience before graduating from high school and stepping into the wide, wide world:
by Matt Lintner
Management guru Peter Drucker famously said, "What gets measured gets managed." But what if we're measuring the wrong things? Consider the following: you can graduate from high school with straight A's without ever having
1. Searched for answers to unknown questions.
2. Budgeted your own time.
3. Discovered what most interests you.
4. Initiated a project requiring sustained commitment.
5. Taken risks or experienced failure.
6. Led a team in the pursuit of a worthy goal.
7. Practiced consensus building or the messiness of compromise.
8. Asserted yourself, even if it meant challenging authority.
9. Built something of value.
10. Created art that speaks to the soul.
11. Explored the natural world.
12. Interacted with people outside your age group.
13. Volunteered substantively in your community.
14. Apprenticed in fields of your choosing.
15. Started a business.
16. Traveled and gathered perspectives outside your comfort zone.
17. Acquired practical skills like saving and investing, handling tools, programming, growing food. . .
Perhaps most tellingly, you never learned to say No.
America can continue down the path of national standards, high stakes testing, longer school days, expanded calendar, merit pay, and all the rest -- but none of it will cure what ills us if we're not focused on what truly matters.
Matt Lintner is a teacher in Fairfax County Virginia.
My school is geared towards helping students experience # 2, 8, and 12-- but so much more of it is missing, and so much of our students' energy seems directed (by themselves, their parents, their teachers, our culture) toward the next step, "The Real World," as if where they are no is only a passage, somehow unreal or not "counting" except for how it impacts their future.
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