Making it Happen

A few days ago, I was talking with the Official Liaison for Sassafrass at Balticon, and I thanked him for being so good at getting ALL of the logistics together for a 16 person ACapella group, whose members are scattered all over the United States.  He said it was a bit crazier than he had had to work with in the past, but he was, if he did say so himself, getting stuff done and making things happen.

Making things happen can be rough.  It requires a specific skill set and a lot of persistence.  I realized, as I was thinking of all the work he had done for us, that so many of us lack that persistence.  We are so conditioned for instant gratification that we aren't willing to work for a long time to make something we want happen.  It gets passed off as "just too much work," for students and teachers alike.

On top of this, the arts of writing and discussion, as well as thinking outside the box, are very rarely taught.  Thus, between the lack of persistence, the lost arts of writing, discussion, and creative thinking, as well as the taught "sit down, shut up, and listen to the person in control," mentality, making stuff happen is a rare skill.

In order for for us to make things happen, we need to break the cycle.  When I was a child, my parents presented everything in our house a choice.  We discussed the choices before I made them, and after I made them.  Before any of us in the house made a choice, we discussed the Pros and Cons of said choices.  My parents taught me how to make a coherent argument for the choice I wanted, and how to argue against the other choices.  Sometimes, we needed to make a hybrid between the choices, and that's where the creative and independent thinking came in.  Needless to say, I did NOT learn these in school.

Now, as a teacher, I despair for my students, who possess none of these skills.  How can we teach these skills?  How can we help students learn persistence--that hard work pays off?  How can we break the "sit down, shut up, listen to the person in control" mentality?  How can we help students learn to make things happen?