Dear colleague,

Recently retired Nebraskan Warren Buffett had a fascinating theory regarding the degree to which our behaviors stem from our “scorecards”:

The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. I always pose it this way. I say: ‘Lookit. Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think you're the world's worst lover? Or would you rather be the world's worst lover but have everyone think you're the world's greatest lover?'”

— Warren Buffett, from The Snowball

Maybe you're feeling the pressure of the winter months of teaching already. Or maybe you're bright eyed and pumped about the prospects of a new year. Regardless, you probably don't need another new thing to think about or tactic to try. Instead, perhaps you could use a reminder of something basic.

Well, since such a reminder is the kind of thing I'm in the market for today, you're in luck.

Which scorecard is operational in your heart today?

Years ago, I wrote a post riffing on the Warren Buffett quote I started this post with. This idea of internal versus external scorecards is so good.

It's easy to trick ourselves into thinking our external circumstances are the cause of our difficulties and our internal circumstances are beside the point. In reality, it's often the opposite — externals act as magnifiers of what's going on inside.

To start reflecting on whether I have the inner scorecard running in my heart, I have to put Buffett's litmus test question into the various areas of my life's work:

• Would I rather be a really good teacher, but have everyone think I'm terrible? Or would I rather be a really terrible teacher, but have everyone think I'm great?
• Would I rather be a really good father, but have everyone think I'm terrible? Or would I rather be a really bad dad, but have everyone think I'm amazing?
• Would I rather be really smart, but have everything think I'm dumb? Or conversely, would I rather be really dumb, but have everyone think I'm smart?

You get the idea. And as I'm writing those, I'm like, “YES, Warren — I know people who appear smart but are dumb and I know people who appear dumb but are smart. Same with the dad thing, the teacher thing…all of those scenarios above are as real as the desk I'm resting my elbows on.”

The Abundance of External Scorecards

In our times of complex teacher eval systems, vapid social media hype, and AI-infused fakery, you and I are almost commanded to define ourselves by external measures. It's easier than ever to fool myself (and others) into thinking I'm better at things than I actually am. And same for you. We live in beautiful and tragic and deep and wide times, but there's this thick, grotesquely shiny veneer of fakeness all over the place.

An obvious example is the dog-and-pony shows that typically pass for formal teacher evaluations. The principal walks into the room, and so it's time to break into collaborative groups or refer to the day's learning target or jump through some hoop. Lots of our teacher eval systems are basically bound to create this kind of thing: inauthentic performances where teachers teach how they think they're supposed to teach so they can get a teacher evaluation score that means they get to keep their jobs. Students are caught in a similar game, with many of the “best” students having internally reduced their education into checkboxes and GPAs and essay grades.

Let me be clear on what I'm saying the problem is: not that external measures are somehow morally wrong or that I have a better idea, but instead that an external attitude — Buffet's Outer Scorecard — doesn't yield optimal human growth. It's not that it's naughty but rather that it doesn't work. Obsessing over outcomes doesn't work. Worrying about how we appear to others is a spiritual black hole, ravenous and dense.

This is a pattern just about everywhere.

• The kid driven simply to be valedictorian is unlikely to flourish long-term as much as the kid driven to be the best student she can be. We've all taught the child who cares more about grades than learning. (Many of us, I'm sure, have even been that student.)
• The teacher driven simply to get Highly Effective on the eval is unlikely to flourish as much long-term as the teacher pursuing “the full use of their powers along the lines of excellence.” We got into this work because it's sacred and precious — not for some eval number.
• The father driven simply to have “successful kids” is unlikely to be as good of a father as the one who wants to invest in his children and delight in them regardless of their performance. I've seen a lot of “successful families” over my years in education and lots of beautiful ones. They're often not the same families.

The crux of these comparisons is that you and I are finite creatures with finite energies. Effort expended on attaining a five out of five on element 3.A.b of the Ninety-Two Dimensions of Great Teaching rubric is effort that cannot be expended thinking or reading deeply about what assessment is good for. I dropped out of pre-med pretty early in my undergrad career, but I remember enough of science to know the first law of thermodynamics (“energy cannot be created or destroyed”) is just as true for the universe as it is for the ways we use our hearts and minds.

You can obsess about being a great teacher or about looking like one — you can't obsess about both.

Decide and Discipline

Don't get me wrong — external validation is great. I think it's good to get Highly Effective ratings, it's good to have people compliment my children, it's good to write books that sell well, and so on.

But external validation is a cruel and unrelenting taskmaster. Make it ultimate, and it'll ultimately eat you up. It's a wretched Top Priority and a greedy little god. The more I live and observe, the more it seems like the people who live the best lives and do the most important work are those for whom external validation is a side effect of an internal quest for excellence. John Wooden, the oft-heralded former UCLA basketball coach, is most famous (an external validation) for his perhaps untouchable record (an external validation) as a college basketball coach, but he attributes this largely to a definition of success Warren Buffett would appreciate: “Success is knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

So, here's my gentle prod: spend less time reading your teacher eval rubric and more time reading good books, talking to smart people, and thinking about great teaching.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR