“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world” –Archimedes
“Our power to maximize our potential is based on two important things: (1) the length of our lever-how much potential power and possibility we believe we have, and (2) the position of position of our fulcrum- the mindset with which we generate the power to change.” Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage.
Over the summer, one of the smartest people I know looked at me and said something like “I guess I am just stupid.” My mom had shown up with an iPhone a friend had given her when her ancient flip phone just couldn’t handle basic functions like texting anymore and she was convinced that a hunk of plastic and circuitry was beyond her considerable intellect. We were working on getting the phone set up and from my perspective, she was doing great, particularly for someone who was born 30 years before the first call was ever placed on a mobile phone!
It was a new frontier, and the load we needed to lift seemed to dwarf the lever we had available. In addition, with no frame of reference, we did not know where to place our fulcrum. We took a break from the phone and over the next few days, we used google maps to navigate, Spotify to play music, the apple store to download backgammon, and Facetimed a family friend.
As we had small successes, Mom’s mindset started to change, she asked to use her phone to look things up, navigated around town, and began to figure out the questions she needed to ask to understand the phone. As she found success, her lever grew; and as she realized all of the things the phone could do, she found the firm ground to place her fulcrum. I recently had a phone call with my mom and among other things, she shared that she had used her phone to find a geocache, and that she was thinking about upgrading when the new iPhone comes out so that she can have more battery life and functionality.
In the end, she just had to decide that this was something she COULD do, something she WANTED to do and then make a CHOICE to learn. Over the coming months, your child is going to struggle. It might be socially or academically, it might be long division, or a five-paragraph essay. It could be that math has always been hard or that they feel they are not good writers. As a team, we have to encourage them to believe that they have the power to learn, the potential to succeed and then help them approach the problem with a positive mindset. This does not mean it will not be hard, for us or for the student, but it will be possible. Together we cannot only help our students succeed; we can help them move the world!
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