I bet your eyes went right to the checks that weren't under the "I can do it by myself" column. Mine did too.
When I first looked at this report, I realized that my initial response was to find out what she couldn't do. I stopped myself because I wasn't taking the time to consider what she could do. What if my conversation with my daughter started with, "Well, you can't do a pivot turn by yourself yet"?
Instead, I told her how proud of her I was and I asked her, "Do you want to do this again?"
"Yes!"
What if we took the time to celebrate with teachers and tell them how proud we are of their hard work? How would celebrating our accomplishments affect the start of the next initiative? I bet there would be more willingness to get started.
Change in schools often deals with improving something. There will always be room for improvement--but who will want to bother if we aren't stopping to celebrate our accomplishments?
