The Gift of Not Scratching Itches

 It's awfully cliche to say "find the gift in everything," but what if cliches weren't so . . . cliche? What if we thought of them as a kind of reminder that are repeated so much because they matter so much?  

I've been working on following, what I like to call, my "pings" lately; those little bursts of intuitive insights that I've pretty much ignored my whole life.  It's a little twinge in my gut and subtle mental whisper that I should take a different street home today rather than my usual route, or that I should take a moment to call my 94-year-old grandma.  Sometimes it's even an internal nudge to wear this shirt instead of that one.  Something is trying to guide me.  

I figure I should listen. 

Today I got a ping to email a teacher who attended a recent PD session I and two colleagues offered. In the session, this teacher was particularly cranky.  Not cranky in the sense that she was having a bad day, but in the sense that she had an itch that the session just wasn't scratching.  I used to take these things personally, as if it was my responsibility to personally ask her where exactly I should scratch and how hard.  Now, instead, I try to be curious:  to find the gift in even troubling situations.  Asking questions helps. So does paraphrasing. 

"You're frustrated," I offered. "You teach elementary art and find your content too subjective to accurately assess." 

"Exactly!" she said.  I even saw her body language shift a bit. She leaned in closer to me. 

"Have you ever had a time in your life as an artist in which the feedback from an assessment has moved you forward in your skills and ability?" I wondered. Could a student's artwork truly be assessed objectively? I'm an English teacher; I honestly wasn't sure about assessing art. 

The teacher's body softened, her gaze drifted downward.  "My high school art teacher," she said gently.  "He pushed me to be a better artist." She looked up at me with the slightest of tears welling. It was then that my neurons connected: she didn't want to crush those young artists' creativity.  She was afraid that slapping a number on a child's piece of artwork, no matter how sloppy or small, would stifle their desire to create, to find themselves through the lines and shades and colors on the page. 

Isn't this the awful paradox of all teachers? Dreading the boiling of unique individuals down to a number and a standard, yet knowing the system is a beast? That twisting knot each time we must box students into the hierarchy of intelligence determined by all-things-external. 

Pings are funny.  They seem to come from nowhere, and yet be grounded in a deep truth somehow.  I emailed that cranky teacher today and thanked her for our conversation.  Maybe this year I will strive even more to honor the uniqueness and creativity of my readers and writers, each who have a beautiful gift to offer.