2006-09-16

You Have to Lose to Win

"We can be very successful despite the fact we are destined to lose some games in life's season. The best professional football team will lose about three games before winning the Super Bowl. The best professional basketball team will taste defeat about twenty times. These teams are the best...even though they lose a few games. You can be like them. Be prepared, play hard, and play every game to win. Learn from the inevitable losses and go on to a successful life season."




A good friend of mine sent this to me this week. Thanks TJ. The timing was perfect. Yesterday I passed back tests and immediately some students who didn't do as well as they wanted started having stomach aches. "Eustress", the good kind that pushes you to do well, was replaced by distress. We all are familiar with this stress. It gives us stomach aches that turn into ulcers.

"If you guys don't stop yelling, you'll give me an ulcer!"

"There's been so much stress at work lately, I'm sure I'll get an ulcer."

"Don't worry so much. Do you want an ulcer?"

According to doctors, about one in ten people in the United States will get an ulcer at some time during their lives. And it's starting earlier and earlier in life. With the pressure to do well in school (and on the state assessment tests) it's easy to see how this happens. Some experts say Kindergarten is the only grade left where children are truly educated as they are allowed to learn by natural discovery and enjoyment. In first grade the countdown to state testing begins. "Look, if you don't learn this now you'll get behind in 2nd. If you're still behind in 3rd you won't do well on the state assessment (FCAT in Florida). If you don't do well on 'The Test' YOU'LL BE HELD BACK."

No wonder our kids are stressed! Is it true that we have stopped educating our children and started "schooling" them? Are we trying to pour the required state-assessed knowledge into their heads instead of pulling their knowledge out by letting them learn by inquiry, guiding them to discover concepts on their own? Are we not allowing true comprehension of the lessons being taught? Are we stressing our kids out? Do you feel stressed? I do.

So what can be done if we and our children are feeling stressed out? My main goal is that every one of my students walks out my door feeling unstoppable; not feel like they need to go to the clinic. I think one way is to pay attention to where our energy is going when we don't succeed. Is it going into worry? Is it going into beating ourselves up for not being perfect?

We know this doesn't do any good and we should stop. But how? Maybe it's by letting ourselves and our children know it's O.K. to mess up sometimes. If the best teams and the most successful people lose sometimes then we have to allow ourselves to do the same. Michael Jordan said he made more baskets than anyone else because he missed more than anyone else. The lesson is keep trying by attacking our weaknesses, and not ourselves.



This involves holding ourselves to a higher standard. In order to be successful, or BE BIG, we must DO BIG in not beating up ourselves up to the point where our stomachs hurt. When we do this we lose confidence in ourselves and begin to feel overwhelmed. This only leads to inaction at best and negative, destructive actions at worst. And we lose our ability to DREAM BIG and believe in our ability to do better.

But isn't it important to do well on tests, proving that we do know what we're supposed to know? And if it's not O.K. to not know what we should, how can this be accomplished without giving ourselves and others an ulcer in the process?

Answers to our problems are all around us when we look to see where others are doing better than we are. Someone who does this quite well is the coach of the number one ranked team in college football, The Ohio State Buckeyes. Jim Tressel has a winning percentage of .800.



This week he mentioned that the Buckeyes must be better in November than they are now in September. The way to do this without stressing out the players is to take it one game at a time, one step at a time.

Whether you like the team or not (and how could you not? :-), you have to admit Tressel is a great manager of people and players. He gets them to perform at their best under pressure. To paraphrase him again, he said it's inherent for people to deal with adversity. It's more difficult for people to handle success without succumbing to the pressure.

For the past three years I have been teaching in "Title 1" schools (economically disadvantaged). My battle cry to the students has been "Change your lives in 24 hrs!" One year I had a class made up of the poorest performing students in the entire 5th grade. They asked me to get the other kids in the school to stop calling them the "low class". I said "Why? You are the lowest performing class. I'm glad it bothers you. It means you have pride. So let's stop being the low class." (see the July archives for "The Winners of Washington Shores")

The only problem with this is that it produced stress. For many of them their test scores became important to them for the first time. The way to handle this was to get them to focus on taking one step at a time by working on one skill at a time. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." - Lao Tzu




As with my daughter Cristina, (see "Keeping a Promise") she knew how to do 2 out of 36 problems on her math test and didn't know how to do 34. She had many more losses than successes. But the most important thing to communicate is that she is not a failure, but her math skills are failing. By focusing on and attacking her weakness, and not her, she went on to earn "A's" (see "Mind Training - Part 2").

I now teach at my children's school. Since they live with their mother, I get to see them everyday. This is an "A" school where students are used to success. Not getting an "A" on a test produces the same distress.

So if we find ourselves stressing out over failures, look to see where we are failing and not look at ourselves as failures. It helps when we're surrounded by people who believe in us and see us as our best selves. Step by step, one skill at a time, one thousand miles can be travelled.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

(^>^) the story was good (^>^)

Anonymous said...

(^>^) the storywas good (^>^)

Anonymous said...

You need to be patting yourself on the back with this article. You have hit the nail on the head on where education is today. And what we are especting our children to do and how to perform.
tj

Anonymous said...

from this story I learned that I should improve my weaknesses step by step.

Anonymous said...

from this story I learned that I should improve my weaknesses step by step.






haseeb

Anonymous said...

From this story I learned that I should attack my weaknesses step by step.

Anonymous said...

When I was younger, I was never big into sports. Hated it when I had to read a book about anything related to sports. In fact, I never understood team sports until my children began playing them. Now I find them fascinating – not because of the actual sport – but because of the dynamics that go on in the team. I use them as a parental teaching tool. My son, who tends to be introverted and shy, recently played on a basketball team; however, half way through the season, he still had not connected with the other players. During one game, they were missing their best player. My son’s attention was on everything but the game. When they lost, he walked over to me, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well.” I knew that in his head they had already “lost” because their best player wasn’t there. This was the wrong attitude to take with me. I didn’t care if they won or lost the game. I did care that he understood the value of being on the team and giving it his best…and not relying on someone else to decide his fate. So I gave him a hard time... made him cry...which left me feeling terrible. He, however, went into the remainder of the season playing his heart out and I got tears in my eyes when his team would hi-fi him – a team member at last - as he came off the court. I can tell that he has taken this lesson into middle school because he now relies on himself – not others - to get his school work done. I admire your teaching style, Adam. I wish I had had a teacher like you. Maybe I would have understood the lessons that sports can teach at an earlier age. However, I’m still not sure I would have ever heard of the Buckeyes until now. J

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget that Michael Jordon didn't make the basketball team in school. Confidence is knowing who you are, knowing what you want, and learning to NOT listen to anything that starts with the words "you can't."

Anonymous said...

Skyler Good job on the story Mr.Stuart I thout it was good!! (^>^)!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Adam! Appreciate and agree with your thoughts. Thanks for capturing and posting ideas that really, really need to be said.
Anne

Anonymous said...

Well written-I can relate to this story. Even though my "kids" are adult age I still tell them it's okay if they do not do well in any area of their life. I tell them to get right back up and keep on trying because no one or nothing is perfect in this world and you will reach your goal! Joanna

Anonymous said...

What has happen to the nautural discovery and enjoyment? It has been replaced with testing and stress. Both on the students and the teachers. And if our children don't perform well on the test. Then the teacer's are to blame. Then the ulcers. Somewhere along the line we need to get back to where learning was fun and enjoyable. Enough is enough.
BG & M