Push

Several years ago my older daughter, an artist, drew an enormous series of portraits on the sides of a lawnmower box.  The result was poetic, because the subjects were her colleagues in a demanding senior art seminar, and the lawnmower box had the word "push" in big red letters on a couple of the sides.  She and her friends were all part of

 a big effort; they lost sleep, they endured criticism, they were often frustrated, and they came out the other side -- eventually victorious.


I often think about the "push" metaphor during a midterm.  This is when students are struggling.  Some of them have not been to college before, some are overwhelmed at the amount of information thrown at them.  They're losing sleep, enduring criticism, theyre often frustrated.  But it's my job to push them -- not so much that it injures them, but enough maybe, that they feel some discomfort.  There's growth in the discomfort.

Think back to the times when you felt most productive, when you felt like you were really learning something.  Was it an easy, comfortable slide into knowledge?  I doubt it.  It's a lot like builing muscle, because discomfort is involved.  

If you are not occasionally frustrated by your work you are probably not growing.  Teachers, if your students don't occasionally protest that you're working them too hard, maybe you're not asking them to work hard enouch. We don't always know how to push oursleves. We need someone who cares to apply some gentle pressure. To master anything: salsa dancing, a quadratic equation, writing an essay, there's a point in the process when you have to push. 

So push hard.  Know that frustration is part of the process, and have faith that you will emerge victorious.