"Fatigue not failure."
That was a phrase used by Mr. Mark Raymond, superintendent of Dassel-Cokato when he offered the opening remarks at the Big Time Strength and Football Coaching clinic that Coach Mumm and I attended this weekend.
Mr. Raymond was talking from his experience as a gymnastics and soccer coach. This was a key lesson he learned as a coach. "Fatigue not failure" simply refers to what our focus should be on as coaches and teachers. Too often we focus on teaching things that tend to end with failure instead of focusing on building up the skills that end in fatigue. This is basically the growth mindset.
Mr. Raymond gave this example - as a gymnastics coach, often he would start practice by making his female gymnasts see how many pull ups they can do. This is what he means by focusing on failure. How many true pull ups can anyone really do? This is destined for failure only. However, once he shifted his focus to "fatigue" instead of "failure," he began by pairing his gymnasts up. One girl was hanging from the pull up bar while another held her ankle and her other knee. The second girl worked as a spotter, not totally lifting the gymnasts attempting the pull up, but rather just guided her and supported her. Together both of these gymnasts worked hard. Instead of a lone gymnasts struggling to do two total pullups and failing and 10 minutes of practice getting wasted, he now had two gymnasts lifting together and doing ten pull ups each - with the help of spotting. Both kids get a work out and fatigued, but no one fails.
As teachers, how can we focus on "Fatigue" (or hard work) over "failure"?
Inside this week's teacher thoughts, you'll find -
Images - Never Say - "That's Not My Job" - this is so important. I always tell my students to "default to 'Yes,'" which means to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way. If someone asks for your help or to chip in, condition yourself to say yes. Why? They broaden your experiences and give you connections. They never know where a "yes" will lead you. This same is true for never saying "That's not my job." Where will that get you? Nowhere. The more jobs you can do (or learn to do), the better.
The World is a Fine Place - This incredible story from Minnesota where a McDonald's worker - who didn't happen to even think of saying "That's Not My Job" - saw that one person who was in the drivethru was choking. She didn't hesitate to leap through the window and help them. That's amazing. We need more people going over the top to help like she did.
Teaching Thoughts - Check out Teaching Thought #8 - Traits of a good teacher. This comes from a book by Donald Graves called Teach Day by Day. Graves offers this excellent advice -
Choose your favorite colleague, and then make two lists. What makes this person a good colleague? What would be on the list this colleague makes about you?
Who is on your list? Why? I'd love to hear and learn from them.
Podcast of the Week - This one hits close to home - either I've been subjected to packets or I've been guilty of dumping them on my students - Jennifer Gonzalez's "Frickin' Packets." If there was one thing I despised about distance learning, it was all the packets that stood in place for learning.
Video of the Week - If you look at one thing, make it this video - "Be A Mr. Jensen." I saw this video as a result of some recent CPI training. This video is one of those videos that is so amazing, it stops me in my tracks and makes me wonder how I ever taught without having seen this video!
Give this a Try in Your Classroom - Animoto. This is such a great tool for video creation. So simple and easy to use with so many great ways to apply it to all kind of class content.
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