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There is no Pace Car

Thinking about change, progress and setbacks

Allow me a digression/metaphor that I swear will become relevant.

I have two close friends who are teachers and a number of others with school aged children at the start of the pandemic. They all went through a lot during COVID, scrambling to deal with remote learning or home schooling — all while trying to WFH and explain this massive shift in lifestyle, the pervasive fear and anger, the political backlash and other Big Things for small brains.

And then schools reopened. Half the teachers and support staff quit during the pandemic, and a whole bunch quit from stress during the first 6 months back. Students were obviously behind grade level because the scrambled together patchwork of solutions during lockdown didn’t really teach the kids as much as they would have learned in a classroom. And students were coming back with significant emotional issues and trauma that caused them to act out, be disruptive or just not really able to get through the day like before. Plus the loss of all that socialization at critical ages, so one student’s outburst would ripple through the classroom in bigger, new and unexpected ways.

And yet, school administrators have barreled ahead, acting as if nothing happened. They pushed teachers to hurry up and catch their students up for testing scores, despite being completely behind the 8-ball in every way I just mentioned. And this has really only compounded the metal health and behavioral issues these students are experiencing. The cognitive dissonance! Pay no attention to the life altering event behind the curtain!!

Everyone would have been a lot better off if they’d taken a deep breath and said something like “well, guess what, you’re actually still in 9th grade and we’re going to slow down the curriculum on top of that to give everyone time and space to reacclimate to society and process their trauma.”

What I'm saying is you're those students, don't also be the administrator failing those students!

And I don't just mean covid. Everyone has “setbacks” and distractions - a divorce, a child, a club closing or getting a new booker, an injury or long term illness. Just Life stuff.

But let's not call them setbacks or distractions – maybe they are detours, maybe they are actually new paths.

There is no pace car. There's no rabbit ahead of the horses for you to keep up with or catch up to!

There's where you hope to be and where you want to be but there is no should. (Yes I know I just sent an email about where you should be).

But like those poor kids being re-traumatized by no one acknowledging the initial trauma, you'll only hurt yourself if you insist on chasing that rabbit.

Reorienting your thought process

What have I lost?

Did the club that gave you the most stage time suddenly shut down or get a new booker who doesn’t seem to know you’re alive? That freaking SUCKS. Definitely acknowledge and mourn that loss. But don’t fix that past moment in your mind as some yardstick you’re now constantly failing to measure up to.

What do I have now?

Your eggs shouldn’t be all in one basket, so what do you have to work with still? Don’t let what’s gone overshadow what you still have.

What do I want next?

Used to have 11 spots a week and now you’re down to 4? Start from 4 and reach for 6, not 13.

And were your eggs all in one basket? Make sure as you move forward now, you take that lesson and diversify!

And you might be thinking, “Sure, Amy, having a different attitude seems healthy but it’s not getting me more spots!” And sure not directly. But I can assure you that a bitter/entitled attitude seeps out all around you, whether you realize it or not. And no one wants to work with that kind of negativity or the kinds of unprofessional outbursts and unreasonable requests it often leads to.

So, kind of, yeah, reorienting your train of thought can lead to more spots!

Random links

The French word for “trash can” is actually a man’s name! He introduced trash collection and even sorting/recycling to Paris in 1883.

The NYT still uses the original Wordle word list created by Josh Wardle for his girlfriend.

Well, here’s an unexpected Venn diagram of things I love - Henry VIII calling his 4th wife “proper fit” thanks to Drunk History UK - Part 1 Part 2