100 Days of Wonder – #60

Today I want to pause to celebrate my students past and present. They’re all absolute stars. Yep that’s the link to the picture. Sorry. But actually there’s more of a link. I didn’t really ‘get’ the importance and value of celebrating success and being told you’re doing or have done a good job. I found the mostly American culture of ‘good job for existing’ level of praise and affirmation quite jarring and irritating the first time I really witnessed it properly during the first Disney trip in 2006. Yep well done, you are an adult and you managed breathe all day today. I thought it was all a bit pathetic really.

But of course that first Disney trip was before I had any genuine sense that just existing could be so fucking hard. I have u-turned on this. Give yourself and others all the praise, love and affirmation you can. Over the last 20 years I have seen over and over again the power that believing in someone can have, the power that saying ‘good job’ or ‘Well done’ can have and I remember so vividly the impact it had on me when life got hard. So you, yep you who struggled to get out of bed today – you’re awesome. And you who spent all day hiding and crying because life is shit right now, well done for getting through today. You who fought your bastard demons today – I see you and I’m proud of you. And for those of you who are happy today, those who had a great day and for whom things are really good. I am genuinely happy and excited for you. (I mean that genuinely but however I write this it always seems to sound sarcastic – not meant to)

So celebrating students. I have finished teaching for this semester and assessment season is upon us and somehow we are collectively making a mess of this in higher education . The anxiety we create is unreal! Assessment should not be this stressful! Sure, nerves are normal but wow society and the education system pile on the pressure. What are we doing? Assessment should be the celebration of learning. It should be a chance to show off the journey and demonstrate mastery of new knowledge and skills. Over the last couple of weeks I have read genuinely insightful work, watched brilliant presentations and had really deep and sometimes heartbreaking conversations. All my students are juggling life in ways that many of us in our privileged academic bubbles can barely imagine and yet they jump through our anxiety inducing hoops and come out fighting for a better world. I am so unbelievably proud of all of them. The kids are alright, you know and I’m never going to stop telling them that.