A few days ago, my son’s incredibly wonderful second-grade teacher posted a bunch of photos on FaceBook of her students over the past 8-9 years. It started a tagging and sharing frenzy of parents looking through the photos and finding their adorable second grader. When I found the photos of my son and his friends (who are now high school sophomores) I was delighted to see their smiling faces. You can see their excitement for school, their enthusiasm for every classroom activity and their camaraderie. It brought me right back to the days when I served as a parent-helper and I was flooded with fond memories of what I witnessed in that elementary school. There was magic in that second-grade classroom! It was so wonderful to see!
Everyone should have to walk back into a second grade classroom every so often and take a look around as a refresher course. It is not because I think we need to be reminded of how to use punctuation appropriately or because we need to work on developing spatial reasoning in relation to geometric shapes. It is because there is nothing like being reminded how every second grader thinks he/she is the smartest kid in the class. The teacher asks a question and every hand in the classroom shoots up. Kids are twisting and turning and wriggling in their seats with their hands waving high in the air. They are praying that they will be called upon to answer the question and share what they know. You can hear the audible "please call on me" coming from numerous 7 and 8 year olds. It is as if they are game show contestants and there is a huge prize behind curtain number two waiting for the second grader with the correct answer. Ask any teacher and you will be told that by the time the students are in fifth grade, there are less hands in the air and the ones that are raised up are more tentative and not flying as exuberantly and confidently as they were in second grade. By eighth grade, you can count on one hand the number of kids willing to take the risk and attempt to answer a question. By senior year, every single 18 year old is thinking “oh man, there is no way that I am going to be the only one raising my hand.” This has happened to every single one of us. Why is this so? Are we afraid of being wrong? Do we think we will get hurt? We end up putting up a wall around us, we build a protective shell...we think "if I don’t take any risks, if I don't put myself out there, if I don't get involved, if I hold back a little bit, I can't make any mistakes, I won't get laughed at and I won't get hurt or embarrassed." That shell that we create ends up more like a prison than a fortress.
Have you ever been afraid to step out and do something new because you don’t know how it is going to work out? Are you embarrassed to raise your hand and answer the question because you are unsure if you have the correct answer? Are we passing up moments of opportunity because of our fears and insecurities? When you look back, you will see that the shell around you is empty and that while you didn't get hurt, you also didn't experience anything great, important or joyful. We need to take risks in order to learn and grow and truly experience life.
Every day that you spend learning, growing and improving, you are preparing yourself for an exciting new part of your life's journey. If you end up taking a wrong turn, treat your life as our car navigation systems would...just reroute yourself and keep going. Pretend you are in second grade and are unafraid to take on any new challenge.
If you take an oak tree seed and put it into a 2 gallon pot, it will not grow to its full potential. Why? Because it needs room to spread its roots in order to be able grow outward and upward. It is being restricted by the size of the pot. You have an unlimited amount of talent and potential, but you may be restricting yourself by the size of the pot you are living in. Are you doing anything strategic or intentional to keep growing? If not, it is not too late to get started.
You know the growth charts that parents have for their children as they are growing up? Every inch of growth is plotted on the chart and celebrated. Even the years with a small amount of growth are considered important developmental milestones. Somewhere along the way, we decided to stop celebrating small steps forward.
As adults, we can create our own personal growth development plan and chart our progress. How about listening to a teaching CD on your way to work in the morning? You can go to the library and take out books on a subject that you have always wanted to learn about. There are classes offered at local colleges and universities that are waiting to inspire and challenge you. Michael's Craft Store is filled with ideas for hobbies that will wake up the left side of your brain and help keep you young, creative and enthusiastic. Any one of these steps would be a definite growth plan.
My son just finished reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In this best seller, the author describes the philosophy known as the "10,000 Hour Rule". The idea behind this is that "excellence at performing a complex task requires a certain minimum level of practice". Researchers have settled on what the magic number is to achieve true expertise and that number is 10,000 hours. That means that any one of us can become an expert on anything! Does 10,000 hours seem like a lot? We have been given a gift of 86,400 seconds every day. How are you spending them?
I think it is time that we each reclaim our inner second grader. We can have that same zest for learning and fearless approach to life. Raise your hand high in the air and take a risk! After you have done that, chart your growth and take time to celebrate your milestones!
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