As I shared last time, this spring I'm giving Cal Newport's new book a look. It's called Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout (emphases mine), and I'm finding it challenging and provocative in just the ways my mind and heart need at this point in the school year. I'd love to have you read along, too. (The book's hardcover is steeply discounted on Amazon right now, and it's also on Kindle and Audible.)
But I bring all that up to share this line from the book that got me thinking about parent/teacher conferences, which our school is having yesterday and today.
Slow productivity, Newport argues, is
reorient[ing] your work to be a source of meaning instead of overwhelm, while still maintaining the ability to produce valuable output.”
I think he's put his finger on a real conflict here: meaning vs overwhelm. Us teachers really feel this one. We got into this career driven by a deep sense of meaning; too many of us leave this career driven by a deep sense of either
- A) Lack of that initial meaning
- B) An exhausting overwhelm
(Definitional aside: What is meaning, though? It's a sense of significance or purpose. When Viktor Frankl began to search for meaning during his time at Auschwitz, he was seeking a sense of significance or purpose in the overwhelmingly senseless and dehumanizing conditions of the camp.)
And so, let's talk about how parent/teacher conferences can help us deepen our sense of meaning vs our sense of overwhelm.
And yes, I do think that's possible.
Here are three tips that help me.
1. It's about perspective.
P/T conferences can be the scariest or most frustrating part of the year for a teacher, OR they can be among the most enlightening parts. So much of that is based on what we bring to the conferences.
IF we view P/T conferences as a chance to meet new people, learn more about our students, and gain insight into what our teaching practice looks like from outside our four walls, THEN we'll likely find them an enlightening opportunity.
IF, on the other hand, we view them as something we have to do, something that's broken, something that's a waste of time, something that's wrong, THEN we'll find them really negative experiences.
2. Set some goals.
If you're feeling nervous about P/T conferences, try setting some “can't miss” goals. These are the kinds of goals that you're going to hit just by being at the event.
Those goals might be:
- Meet new people.
- Encourage a parent.
- Thank a parent.
- Listen to a parent.
- Learn something new about a student.
- Learn something about your practice that you didn't know.
Now you might be thinking, “DSJ, it's P/T conferences — why am I setting goals for these things? Or why am I setting such basic goals?”
Well, great questions. Probably the best thing goals do for us, motivation-wise, is they define success (see Strategy 8 in The Will to Learn)– they clear the clouds from the peak of Everest. Human beings seem to really thrive on knowing where they're going, on being able to see their destination. Even if the end point is far off, our souls settle down a bit when we can see where the journey's headed.
But goals can really cause us overwhelm and pressure if we're always setting them high. Yerkes-Dodson called it — us humans can only take so much pressure. THAT'S why can't-miss goals are so important — they define success as something that we're going to achieve.
This helps us enjoy things.
Because succeeding is enjoyable. It feels good to walk out of P/T conferences feeling like you accomplished something.
So when I'm coming into a night of P/T conferences, it's a good feeling knowing that I'm going to achieve my goals of meeting new people, encouraging someone, thanking someone, listening to someone, and so on. It's like I'm watching an important sporting event where I know my team is going to win an important game.
3. Consider their importance.
And now from those can't-miss goals, we can start to practice the final piece: considering that P/T conferences may just be important for us as educators.
- Not because they solve all the educational problems
- Not because they're easy
- Not because the “right” parents and guardians come
- Not because they're exceptionally run or organized
- Blah blah blah
We can list the problems with P/T conferences all day long. It's easy to do. And it deepens our rootedness in the overwhelm and meaninglessness that Cal Newport's getting at in his abovementioned book on productivity.
OR…
We can focus on the fact that there are going to be parents and guardians and students there tonight who really. Need. Something.
A word of encouragement, someone to listen to them, a solution to the overwhelm THEY are feeling, a reassurance that school is a place where their child's long-term flourishing is being cultivated. Somewhere in the night, we're going to encounter people with these kinds of needs.
The three tips in this article help me to be aware of that fact and to do something meaningful about it.
I hope this helps,
DSJR
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