Last week, I did something big.
Did I just get a massive salary bump? Nope, I'm making about half of what pulled in when I was teaching. Did a rich uncle die and leave me an inheritance? No, as far as I know I have no wealthy distant relatives (or close relatives). Did I win the lottery? Not a chance - literally - because I don't play the lottery, so my chances of winning are 0.0% (just slightly below the 0.0000000034% it would be if I did play).
So how did this happen? Because of the best advice I've ever followed, and it wasn't even given to me. I happened to be at a birthday party where I overheard Bob, a financially savvy man giving advice to a younger man, whose name I do not know, who was about to buy his first home. He said, "Never pay only the amount it says on the bill. Always pay something over. Sometimes, it may be more. Sometimes, you may be rounding up, but whatever you can do over in any month will save you a lot in the long run." I thought that sounded reasonable and have applied it to every loan I've had since.
For 19 years of that time, I was on a teacher's salary. While I was doing pretty well in the 19th year, the first few years of that time were slim. I was still in credit card debt at that time, so the amount I had to put over on the mortgage payment was small. Once the card was paid off, I was freed up to add more while dealing with some other costs. When my car died and had to be replaced, and I had to lower the amount I was paying over on the house again. At times when I got a tax refund, I was able to put more on it. When I left teaching 18 months ago and started my job at the Y, I was thankful I had savings to pull from. But I never made a single payment that was only the minimum. Even if the amount over was, as it once was, $8.51, I knew those small amounts would still add up. And they did.
"This is supposed to be an education blog," I hear you saying. "What does this have to do with education?" Well, thank you for asking; I'm glad you always do when I have seemed to stray from the point.
Some students have a long way to go when it comes to scholarship. Perhaps, they stopped paying attention during online learning and have yet to figure out how to re-adapt. Perhaps, they stay up too late at night on their phones and come to you in a less than optimal state of alertness. Perhaps they haven't had to study in the past or have gotten by until now with ineffective techniques.
Regardless of the changes they need to make, they cannot make them all overnight. They can start going to bed earlier, but it is going to be a minute before that results in noticeable change because their body must adapt. And some may need to back up their bed time by 10 minutes per night in order to make it work because trying to back it up two hours all at once will just result in tossing and turning. It might take more than one test for newly acquired study techniques to show improvement. They may only be able to sustain 10 minutes of focused attention during studying and need to make it 12 next week and 15 the week after that.
The human brain resists change because it worries you might die if you deviate from the status quo. And, it really resists big changes that happen fast. So, encourage your students not to take a New Year's Resolution approach to improvement. Encourage them to change one thing until it becomes normal and then take on another. These small but consistent efforts add up over time, but more importantly, they are sustainable in a way that big, sudden changes are not.
This is bigger than one student or one test. Small, consistently sustained improvements eventually result in good habits. Good habits eventually result in more self control. More self control produces better character. Better character contributes to a more responsible citizenry. You see where I'm going. These things that seem so small in our students as individuals ultimately make the world better for everyone.
And you, as teacher, get to be part of that with your own small, consistent effort in the lives of your students.
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