My goal in this blog is to write about inspiring moments I experience and often that's seen in my classroom. I teach business education at the high school level. A few months ago I posted about revising my management curriculum from first semester to second semester. In this class, we've partnered with Market Day to run a student business.
Try, Try Again:
With its ups and downs, I changed the structure of our business and how the students would reflect on the experience. I truly believe that the structure improved and so did the learning process. But after running the business for one month, the students approached our student President about their desire to stop running Market Day. I gave my pep talk. I felt like I was a coach giving a pep talk before a big game. I explained how team's watch tapes of their games, analyze what they could of done better and go into the next game to improve. That's why we are going to do Market Day for two months to see how we can improve. I met with the department managers and they expressed their concern. They felt that they got everything out of the Market Day experience they could. They were interested in learning other management and leadership content AND they had a lot of ideas on how to make that happen. I gave them props for approaching me. I gave them props for taking responsibility for their learning. And after my students spent a month reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens I decided to put myself in their shoes. Even with the changes I made it came down to purpose - the students didn't feel as connected to the cause (business model) despite all attempts at improving the structure of the activity. We had a class meeting, I listened, I decided... it was time cease and desist.
REFLECTION: It's OK To Give Up:
Actually I don't really consider it giving up. It's all the way you look at it. I tried something new and took a risk - I'm a better teacher for it. There are a lot of great parts to the concept of running the business in a management class. And there's a lot of great things I learned along the way. One being that I think it's a great experience for students to have an opportunity to reflect about what they learned. I believe self-reflection is a life long skill that helps anyone become more successful.
Do you reflect on your experiences? My motto is live better, do better and just be better! Let me ask you this - how has reflection helped you "be better"?
I reflect A LOT... probably too much that in some cases, it keeps me from moving forward. However, I feel that over-reflecting is better than not reflecting at all. By understanding what I've done in the past and getting into the motivations and goals I pursued helped me better understand myself and whether or not I did things for the right reasons or if my risks outweighed the rewards. It is a tough process, but the only we can make better future decisions is to understand our past actions at a deeper level. Ultimately, reflecting has helped me become more humble and compassionate... things that are very easily lost in today's society of bigger, better, faster, more and more.
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