Strength or Weakness - Depends on Context

Whether in school are workplace performance evaluations, there is much focus on strengths and weaknesses.  You might work in a place that does verbal gymnastics to prevent using words like "weakness," so they might call it something else, like "opportunities for improvement."  Whatever the verbiage, it's the same thing.  There is a list of things you appear to excel at and a list of thing that you don't, at least not yet.

A few years ago, at a Learning and the Brain conference, Dr. David Rose came into deliver a keynote address, pitch hitting at the last minute for someone who was ill.  While I would love to see the person who was slated to speak someday, Dr. Rose's speech was amazing.  He had worked as a very young man for B.F. Skinner during the famous pigeon experiments.  While I learned a lot from that portion, it wasn't the main thrust of his speech.  Mostly, he discussed what it meant to have a disability and whether or not something that might be a disability in one situation could be a strength in another.  He explained that he was tone-deaf.  This might not be considered a disability, but most would likely think of it, at least, as a weakness.  After all, it interferes with one's ability to identify voices and enjoy music.  

Or does it?  It turns out that there might be a situation in which it helps.  He was attending a church in which the organ had fallen out of tune.  The discordant tones were driving everyone else crazy, but he was happily singing along as he always had because his tone deafness prevented him from knowing the difference between an organ that was properly tuned and one that was not.  This weakness turned out to be a strength in that context.  

Conversely, I have had students with "perfect pitch," a seeming strength for aspiring musicians.  But, I have watched them cringe at tones being even slightly less than perfect - even when it was just a group of people singing "Happy Birthday."  They do not enjoy much of the music they listen to because most music doesn't rise to the level of perfection.  What we would identify as a strength becomes a weakness in those situations.

I'm not a fan of most personality type testing because there is little to no science behind any of them. They only tell you what you already know about yourself because you are the one answering the questions.  However, in the training I do for camp, we are divided into four personality types (and I am less than shocked to find out that I am a planner).  The reason I am okay with our doing this, despite my skepticism of the tests, is that it leads to a discussion about the need we have for every type of person at camp.  

If there weren't planners, we would arrive at camp, ready to have fun, but there would be no food, no activities packed on the truck, and no program.  It would be total chaos.  Planning is an obvious need and strength.  However, if ONLY planners showed up at camp, we would be on time for every well planned event with no one to provide the energy.  Camp wouldn't be any fun.  If all the staff were super focused on relationships, the kids would bond well, but rules would go out the window, and that could make things dangerous (at this camp, especially, the rules protect everyone).  The point is that we need each type of strength to be present, or those strengths would make a very weak camp.

For 18 years, I was a yearbook advisor.  I had quite a mix of students with a variety of strengths.  Some had an incredible knack for visual balance and creative ideas about how to represent events.  Some had the ability to write with concision. Some understood how to include every member of a team on a page without it making the page appear overcrowded.  Some were super critical.

You don't think criticism is a strength?  Then, you have never needed an editor.  A yearbook editor needs to see what is wrong with a page and be able to fix it.  The gentle optimist is generally not suited for the job.  My first editor was incredibly self-aware, and it led to a practice I'm glad we established early.  She emailed me and said, "I don't think I can tell her what I think of her page without making her cry.  Why don't I send my thoughts to you and you tell it to her in a nicer way than I can?"  The lack of tact that accompanied her strength of criticism would have been a weakness if she hadn't also been able to criticize herself.  For the next 17 years, that was the process, saving everyone a lot of heartache and making for a better creative environment.

My point is this.  Instead of telling students or employees what their strengths and weakness are, we should talk about the contexts in which all characteristics could be best used.  It's easy to think a weakness should be eliminated if you don't recognize that there could be a situation in which it is a strength. Suggest to a student that they might be good at . . . because of that trait that they have previously been told to eliminate.  

Examining Yourself

This week, my school finished our accreditation process.  While the visit from the team lasted only 3 and half days, the process was almost three years long.  And that's what I want to focus on because, while the visit from outside observers is what most people see, it's the lead-up that makes it an important process because it makes us examine ourselves.

The process starts with dividing up into committees and rating ourselves on a number of standards.  From how the school mission and vision statements guide decision-making to instructional practice to assessment to social-emotional development to spiritual formation, all areas of the school are analyzed and rated on a scale of 1 to 4.  Often the difference between a 3 and a 4 is the word "always" or "formal."  We spend a lot of time saying, "Yes, we do this, but do we have a 'formal' process for it?" while deciding on our rating.  

Then, the fun starts.  We can't just rate ourselves without providing evidence for that rating, so we brainstorm ways we might show what we do.  The committees each have a few teachers from various levels, at least one student and at least one parent.  The benefit of that variety is that we get an examination from all sides.  As teachers who love our school, it would be easy for us to romanticize things.  Having a parent in the room to say, "I'm not sure" is helpful in giving ourselves an honest evaluation.  Having a student may give us ideas for evidence we wouldn't have thought of.  Having teachers from a variety of levels gives us a complete view of the child's experience.  Evidence includes everything from pictures of labs and projects to copies of forms to meeting minutes.  The self-examination process is always revealing, and it is mostly encouraging.  I leave those meetings thinking, "Yes, we really are pretty great."  Of course, there are areas we could work on.  As Isaac Asimov said, "Education isn't something you can finish," but going through this process helps us to look at ourselves at a level above the day-to-day and see who we are and what we do.

After all of that is put together, each committee writes their portion of the report, summarizing the ratings and evidence in narrative form and pointing to the evidence folders.  The steering committee pulls them together and polishes them into a cohesive piece, and the report is submitted to the accreditation team.  They read it thoroughly and examine the evidence.  We also provide them access to our curriculum tracking software, our LMS (so they can check lesson plans and get a sense of the student experience), and any other resources they might wish to see.  By the time of the visit, they have a very good idea of what our school is all about.

The self-examination isn't over when the report is written.  When the visiting team arrives, they tour our building, where we have attempted to show our best.  They observe our classes.  They come to a faculty meeting and ask probing questions.  They meet with small groups of students, parents, and administrative staff.  They meet with our board and our administration.  At night, they return to the hotel to write their own report based on everything they have seen in ours and from their observations.  

They don't just accredit or not.  They make recommendations and commendations so that we can continue doing what we do well and work on those things we and they have identified as opportunities for growth.  We were excited to see this time that there were only two major recommendations (one about our facility and one about staff development on addressing social/cultural issues from a Biblical worldview).  There are smaller recommendations as well, but the fact that there were only two majors made us feel pretty confident about what we do and who we are as a school.  

Self-examination like this is at a very high level, but it should be happening at all levels all year.  At GRACE, that looks like an annual professional growth plan meeting with the principal, frequent conversations with department chairs, peer observations to get new ideas, and encouragement to engage in frequent self-reflection.  We want to look at what we do well and where we can improve, not just once every five years when there is a team coming, but always.