I'm Not Enough

The Lesson That Keeps Me Up at Night

It’s 3:00 am and the mattress is whispering to me, “You’re not enough”. I roll over and re-adjust my pillows. As the rustling settles, “You’re not enough” saturates the bedding and creeps into my bones. I would push back but I know it’s true - I’m not yet enough.

Truth is a merciless bedfellow; unbudging in its positions. I mount a repost: “But the students lack drive. They don’t push themselves. They don’t seem to care.” My mind rebuts, “That’s where they’re at. It’s up to you to create the change. That’s the job.” I can’t argue with the logic.

Sit Rep

I’ve been withering under the struggle of the past two and a half months; a rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Monday - my students inspire me with their creativity and engagement; they’re switched on and producing beautiful work - a new social media post, a great logo, a new brochure.

Tuesday - half don’t show up for class; the ones who do, don’t show up to work. They ask the same questions I’ve answered a hundred times before.

Wednesday - I reach a student who’s fallen between the cracks of school for the past two years - we find a project that he can’t wait to do.

Thursday - a student dives in and starts to organise other students across the school. He’s taken ownership and agency, and the ripple-effect is tangible. Amazing!

Friday - the students don’t care; they make a joke of their work. Only six of 16 students show up, and they can’t wait to leave for the weekend.

The inconsistency is jarring - equal parts inspiring and defeating. I estimate the classes left in the school year while I try to force myself to sleep - approx. 20 per cohort. ‘Shit! It can’t be! Not enough time.’ Something has to change; I need to change. I feel stuck.

I’m not a person who imposes myself on my classrooms. I’m subtle - understated. I approach education like gardening, not sculpting. I don’t think that learning should be forced - it should be chosen. And yet, we need to move faster to turn our daring project into a success. I’m torn between who I am, who I need to be, and who I want to be. The math doesn’t add up.

Our Mission

I’ve tried to provide my students with a ‘massive transformative purpose’. My students will interview students around the world to collect their views on school: What’s working and what’s not? How does school effect their mental health? Is school preparing them for the future? What about AI? Etc.

They collect the interviews and ingest them into a database, filtering and tagging the content so it’s searchable and there’s no private student data.

We’re creating an AI chat interface so people around the world can query the voices of students. Flexible filters - country, type of school, year group, etc. - allow for scoped responses - a planet of students speaking with one voice.

The AI chat interface will be presented on a LALTech Lab website, that also will showcase the work of the lab.

Reason: There’s a great deal of discussion about school reform, but the voices of students are largely absent. This is a way for student voices to be represented at this critical time in educational change.

The lab provides a working space where school work touches the ‘real world’. Students write emails to schools, interview students, communicate through social media and documents, connect with companies, code, work with technology, etc. These are professional skills they will need - entrepreneurial tools in their toolbox of competencies.

Assessing Myself

I like to work from a place of relationship. I want students to be internally motivated, rather than coerced. I am not authoritarian and I hate to police. Students should be motivated, given agency, and respected.

While this approach is my disposition, and it works for me, it’s limiting when it comes to rallying the troops to meet imposing deadlines. I need to recalibrate - increase the tension in the classroom - but I can’t find the right levers to adjust.

The lab is student-led. Clutching authority because things aren’t moving fast enough feels like violations of our first principles and the ethos of the programme. How do I increase the traction?

Self-Authoring

I am, and always will be, a student first. That means that I must learn to become what I am not yet. This is the lesson plan that’s been keeping me up at night. What do I need to become to succeed?

While tossing in bed, I considering the story of Diogenes of Sinope, a prominent Greek Cynic philosopher. The story is told that Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. When asked, “What can you do?”, he defiantly replied, “I know how to rule men”.​ A Corinthian named Xeniades admired this response so much that he purchased Diogenes, entrusting him with the education of his sons and management of his household.

I’ve always been haunted by this story because this persona feels foreign. In a world that celebrates the Alpha, brazen leadership, I’m most comfortable as an outlier - monastic, understated, away from the crowd. My wife is a gifted leader, and I deeply admire the grace with which she carries authority. She’s the yang to my yin.

While most aspire to be leaders, puffing themselves with pomp and gusto to convince the world to follow, I see leadership as a presence to be nurtured - a way of being that holds space in a particular way - an essence that emanates. I would like to lead by silently-lived example, rather than audacious attention-grabbing. In a world where everyone and everything is clawing for attention, perhaps its the one who lives differently who can wield the greatest influence. A black hole is a silent void, but it swallows up the stars and transforms galaxies.

The Vocation of Transformation

Being an educator has always been a way for me to learn - to transform myself into the thing I wish to become. I would contend that, if you’re an educator and aren’t being transformed into something better then you should move on. The entire institution is designed for self-improvement, and educators must embody this critical process if we expect our students to do the same. This growth should be hard - not because of tedious grinding, but because of the shedding of the familiar to become something yet unknown. If done well, it should be outright terrifying. It should keep you up at night chanting into your bones,

“You’re not enough. You’re not enough…”

“But you can be!”